Remarkable Women: Stephanie White transforms small Arkansas town as mayor
KEO, Ark. – Nestled among nearly 500 acres of pecan groves, farmed by families for generations, is the tiny town of Keo, Arkansas, population 207.
It’s a small town with a big heart, and a lot of that is thanks to Mayor Stephanie White.
“I have everyone’s number, and everyone has my number,” White said. “Yes, I’ll do anything it takes for this town.”
She may not look like your typical mayor, nor does her office.
“This is my unofficial second office,” White explained. “There’s a room in city hall. I don’t even have a chair at my desk.”
When she’s not holed up at a table in the back of Charlotte’s Eats and Sweets, one can usually find her on the road. In fact, she considers her car her office, too.
Her official title may be mayor, but to those in Keo, she’s is that and more.
“I’m also the water and wastewater license holder and sometimes operator. Monday I will be reading the water meters,” White laughed. “Last night I tagged the streetlights that were out.”
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Appointed as mayor in November of 2020, White got right to work “waking up” her sleepy little town, bringing businesses in, transforming the local park and main street area, cleaning up the city’s water issues and working to bring Keo up to speed with fiber optic internet.
“No one is coming to save these Delta towns, and so we’re left to our own devices to come up with something,” White explained.
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She even came up with an idea to put “The Pecan Capital of the World” on the map with the Arkansas Pecan Festival.
“2022 was our first year and we had about 500 people, and then year two we had about 2,500 people, so it exploded,” White said.
Her mission is to breathe life into Keo and those who call it home.
“I absolutely believe that our community now believes in ourselves and that we can do things and that we can grow and be a fun place to live,” White said. “It is a success story that I love to be able to tell. It’s an honor to be able to tell that.
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However, being mayor is just one chapter of her own story.
“I am a wife and a mother. I was in the United States Coast Guard for seven years as a corpsman, a nurse at Arkansas Children’s (and) I’m a breast cancer survivor,” White said.
Each day she is proving a remarkable woman can be anyone and do anything, for the good of everyone.
“I hope that I can be seen as a person who legitimately gives of myself for the greater good and that other people are inspired to do the same,” White said.
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