FAYETTEVILLE -- Tommy Boyer, a retired businessman who starred for the Razorback basketball team in the 1960s, has been named to the 10-person board of trustees for the University of Arkansas System.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday announced the appointment of Boyer, 76, to the board overseeing six universities and seven two-year colleges. Board responsibilities include the approval of tuition rates at campuses within the UA System.
Boyer's appointment expires March 1, 2027. He replaces Reynie Rutledge, chairman and chief executive officer of First Security Bank, appointed in 2013 after the board resignation of John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods Inc.
Boyer, a salesman for 26 years with photo imaging company Eastman Kodak before launching his own business, said he will keep the best interests of students in mind while on the board.
"I'm always concerned about the number of students in a class. I'm always concerned about the cost of getting an education," said Boyer, a volunteer and donor supporting the UA-Fayetteville campus.
He said university leaders must "be very, very careful that the money is spent in the right places and the amounts are in the right proportion."
Hutchinson, a Republican, last year appointed to the board his policy director, Kelly Eichler, and a two-time GOP nominee for governor, Sheffield Nelson.
While a student at the Fayetteville campus, Boyer earned a bachelor's degree in business and athletic honors as a guard on the basketball team.
"My GPA was a 2.7, and I was proud of every little piece of it," he said.
His career flourished in Amarillo, Texas, first at Eastman Kodak then with the founding of his company, Micro Images.
He said he lives full time in Fayetteville after years of going back-and-forth between Amarillo and Arkansas.
Named to the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame in 2013, Boyer and his wife, Sylvia, also a UA-Fayetteville graduate, in 1999 established Boyer Fellowships, which provide $18,000 yearly to top UA-Fayetteville business students with financial need.
Boyer served as a co-chairman for a $1.046 billion UA-Fayetteville fundraising effort known as Campaign for the Twenty-First Century.
He joins David Pryor, a former governor and U.S. senator, as board representatives living in Northwest Arkansas.
State law requires that two members of the board come "from each of the four congressional districts" in the state, and last year only Pryor lived in the 3rd Congressional District, which includes the largest cities in Northwest Arkansas.
But Hutchinson's office has said the law has no residency requirement, so Little Rock attorney Morril Harriman, who served for 16 years as a state senator from Van Buren near Fort Smith, could represent the area.
Rutledge lives in Searcy, located in the 2nd Congressional District that includes Little Rock, where three board members -- Harriman, Eichler and Nelson -- reside, according to the UA System.
The board last year approved the addition of what are now called UA-Pulaski Tech, a campus in North Little Rock that's one of the state's largest two-year schools, and UA-Rich Mountain, a college in Mena. The schools officially became part of the UA System this year.
Metro on 04/12/2017