NRA thrusts Gravette man into spotlight

Asa Hutchinson leading process to find ways to make the nation's schools safer.

— Asa Hutchinson, the man named national director of the NRA Education and Training Emergency Response Program, has deep roots in Gravette.

Hutchinson was appointed to the position four days before Christmas by Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association. The action came as NRA’s response to the public outcry seeking to impose more stringent gun controls following the massacre of 26 children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Though Hutchinson’s birthplace in 1950 is listed as Bentonville, the new son of John and Coral Hutchinson came home from the Bentonville hospital to the Hutchinson home in Gravette. The family lived just southeast of Gravette near Bethel Cemetery and the south fork of Spavinaw Creek.

School At Gravette

After spending his early childhood here, where he attended Gravette elementary school, he graduated from high school in Springdale, where the family had relocated. His career in politics and law began after he graduated from Bob Jones University and the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Hutchinson’s connection with Gravette remains strong because his sister, Marylea, is the wife of former state Sen. Kim Hendren. His nephew, Jim Hendren, now fills that senatorial position.

President Ronald Reagan appointed Hutchinson as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, the youngest U.S. Attorney in the nation, a position he held for three years. Following an unsuccessful run for Arkansas Attorney General and the U.S. Senate, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for three terms, where he served from January 1997, to August 2001. During his Congressional service he was appointed by the House to conduct impeachment proceedings of President William Jefferson Clinton and served as a prosecutor during the Senate trial. He was a member of the Veteran’s Affairs Committee and served on the Speaker’s Task Force on Drugs.

He resigned from his Congressional position in August 2001, when President George W. Bush appointed him director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a position he filled until 2003, when he became undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He held that post-consulting firms and after an unsuccessful race for governor of Arkansas in 2006, he founded the Asa Hutchinson Law Group in Rogers.

A New Challenge

As director of the NRA program, which is called “The National School Shield,” Hutchinson is charged with leading a study on school security.

In his acceptance remarks, the former Congressman said, “I took this assignment on one condition: That my team of experts will be independent and will be guided solely by what are the best security solutions for the safety of our children while at school.”

The model security plan he proposes to formulate will “utilize security based on the latest, most up-to-date technical information from the foremost experts in their fields” and the “model security plan will

News, Pages 1 on 01/02/2013