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MAY NAMED TO ARKANSAS BUSINESS HALL OF FAME

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 11:04 PM CDT

Pine Bluff banker J. Thomas “Tommy” May was one of four business leaders in the state named to the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame Tuesday.

Tommy May stands next to a sign at a Pine Bluff Country Club Tribute and ALS fundraiser in his name. Commercial file photo/Mike Adam

“I’m truly humbled by this honor and while I’m not really sure I deserve to be included, particularly when you look at the other business leaders selected, I most appreciate being included,” May said. “They’re a group of people that I know very well and I consider myself the rookie of the bunch.”

May, chairman and chief executive officer of Simmons First National Bank and Simmons First National Corp., was joined in the 2010 hall of fame class by the late William E. “Bill” Clark, chairman and chief executive officer of CDI Contractors at Little Rock; Jerral Wayne “Jerry” Jones, owner, president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys football team; and James E. “Jim” Lindsey, chief executive officer of Lindsey Management Inc., and owner and chairman of Lindsey and Associates at Fayetteville.

“Louis Ramsay, the former chairman here was one of the first inductees to the hall of fame and that makes this very special to me,” May said.

Ramsay was named to the hall of fame in 2003.

“I’ve been in banking 37 years and here at Simmons First for 22 years and my predecessors did a great job of keeping it between the lines and all I had to do was decide when to lead and when to get out of the way and let the great people here do what they do best,” May said.

May, Clark, Jones and Lindsey were selected by the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, and will be inducted during a ceremony Feb. 12, 2010, at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.

“We are excited that it is our 12th year to showcase the significant contributions of business leaders, who are Arkansans either by birth or choice,” said Dan L. Worrell, dean of the Walton College. “The Arkansas economy has been blessed with a tremendous base of business talent. We believe it is vital to the state and its future business leaders to honor and perpetuate these inductees’ names and accomplishments.”

May became president and CEO of Simmons First National Bank and Simmons First National Corp. in 1987, when the bank had assets of $600 million. Today the company owns eight Arkansas community banks which operate through 88 offices in 47 communities and has assets of approximately $3 billion.

He was a member of the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees for 10 years, serving as chairman in 2002 and 2003, and received the University of Arkansas Chancellor’s Medal and the Walton College Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

“In 37 years I’ve been blessed in so many different ways and one of them has been to be around friends like those on the list and to work with the associates of this company who have done so much to take it to the next level,” May said.

May has also been instrumental in funding research on ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and hosted a fundraiser at the Pine Bluff Country Club earlier this month which featured appearances by Jones, Lindsey, former Razorback football coach and athletic director Frank Broyles, former football player and coach Ken Hatfield, Harold Horton, president and executive director of the Razorback Foundation, and Norm DeBriyn who coached Razorback baseball for 33 years, among others. The benefit raised $250,000.

“I’ve known Jerry Jones for a long time and it was outstanding that he could come here and help to make the fundraiser the success it was,” May said.

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