James Lee Sheets, known as Jim Sheets, was a businessman from Bella Vista, Arkansas who was a former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives in the Republican Party.
18 Facts About Jim Sheets
1.
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From 1967 to 1968, Sheets represented Benton County for a single term in the lower legislative chamber.
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Jim Sheets was the first member of the Republican Party in the 20th century sent to the legislature from Benton County in the far northwestern portion of the state.
4.
Jim Sheets did not seek reelection because of the time required away from his employment as public relations director of his alma mater, the Christian-affiliated John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.
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June Jim Sheets was employed in Arkansas City as an agent for the Frisco Railroad, but in 1943, he was transferred as a dispatcher to Enid in northern Oklahoma.
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Therefore, Jim Sheets graduated in 1949 from Enid High School.
7.
From 1955 to 1958, Jim Sheets served in the United States Army, partly under a secret clearance of the former Atomic Energy Commission at the Oakland Naval Supply Station in Oakland, California.
8.
The John Brown University enrollment in 1958 was only 250 students, but before Jim Sheets left the position, the number was nearing 800.
9.
Jim Sheets met Winthrop Rockefeller for the first time when both were seeking office in 1966, he for the state House and Rockefeller as the first of the post-Faubus era governors and the first Republican in the position since the Reconstruction era.
10.
In 1973, Jim Sheets was among the mourners at Winthrop Rockefeller's funeral on Petit Jean Mountain, where he met Nelson Rockefeller, who the next year would begin a short tenure as Vice President of the United States.
11.
Jim Sheets first defeated John Thompson of Morrilton in the Republican primary for secretary of state, 35,954 to 16,881.
12.
Jim Sheets lost by a single vote in Washington County, where many of the local Democrats were political reformers hostile to Bryant.
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Jim Sheets said that he had never expected to win the race though he finished in the balloting some twenty thousand votes ahead of Rockefeller.
14.
In waging a campaign against Kelly Bryant, Jim Sheets recalls that he was hoping to establish regional name identification for a possible 1972 congressional race.
15.
Jim Sheets was an alternate delegate to the 1976 Republican National Convention that met in Kansas City, Missouri, to nominate the Ford-Dole ticket, narrowly preferred by the delegates over the rival slate of Ronald W Reagan and Richard S Schweiker.
16.
In 1953, Jim Sheets joined Kiwanis International; in 1965, he served a year as governor of the Missouri-Arkansas District during the golden anniversary of the organization.
17.
In 1982, Jim Sheets left Siloam Springs to become executive director of the Kiwanis International Foundation, based in Indianapolis, a position that he retained until he retired in 1998.
18.
Jim Sheets spurred the raising of $100 million to finance, in conjunction with the UNICEF, a campaign to eradicate iodine deficiency in the Third World.