WYNNE — The Cross County Republican Party will host a Mayoral Q&A event Thursday at the Bill Thomas Tech Center in Wynne. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. with the event starting at 6 p.m.
“Each candidate will get a minute to introduce themselves at the beginning. Then they will have three questions each with a three-minute response time to each of those questions,” said Madisyn Witcher, an organizer of the event. “We’ve put together a panel from across the county. They will determine a follow-up question based on the answers to the questions that the candidates will answer. They will also get three minutes for a closing statement. There will not be interaction from the audience while the program is taking place but candidates and constituents are welcome to interact before and after the program.”
Chase Calvert, another organizer of the event, also discussed how the event will work.
“No one knows the questions until that night. We’re going to be very fair with it, as much as possible,” he said. “Only the four people that are on the committee that is putting this together know the questions and came up with the questions.
“A mayor election is a very important election,” Calvert added. “Right now, Wynne has got a lot going on. A lot of good things going on, a lot of big things happening in Wynne right now. Someone needs to ask the hard questions. You can’t just throw your hat in the ring and just decide to run and not know what the positions entails. You need to do your research.
“That’s one of the biggest reasons we’re putting this on is we need to be able to see if these people can answer these questions. Some may be hard, some may be easy but the thing is we don’t need someone that’s just running because they think that they make a good mayor,” he continued. “We need someone that actually wants the job. That wants to continue to better Wynne and wants to have a strong relationship with the community as well as to continue to better Wynne.”
Wynne mayoral candidates Jennifer Hobbs, Juanita Crews and Jeremy Bradshaw will attend the event as will Parkin candidates Prongue Griffin and Sandra Lately. A fourth Wynne candidate, De’Andra Warren, did not register to speak but will be in attendance. None of the candidates in Hickory Ridge or Cherry Valley will participate.
Calvert explained why organizers set a deadline for candidates to participate in the forum.
“The reason we made it a deadline, we wanted to make it as fair as possible,” he said. “We publicized it as well as reached out to people personally, repeatedly, to give people a chance. It’s not fair that you just get to show up and speak. That’s not the way that we wanted to handle it.
“We wanted to handle it in a way that you had to sign up so that way we could prepare and know how many people we need, how it’s going to work. It’s going to be one of those things. It could get long,” Calvert added. “We need to know how many people are coming to know how long people can speak, how long this can go, how long that can go and that’s why. We reached out. They didn’t respond and that’s just the way it is.”
The Cross County Farm Bureau will also host a Meet the Candidates event Thursday, Oct. 8, at the Bill Thomas Tech Center.
