A well-earned retirement

Chris Claybaker said he isn’t retiring. “ fired me,” Claybaker said Friday during a retirement reception at Berryville City Hall, adding some levity to the proceedings. “He said I was getting too ugly in my old age and there wasn’t enough room for both of us.”

Chris Claybaker

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding his departure, Claybaker, 71, is stepping down as Berryville’s director of economic development after nearly eight years guiding the city’s through the tangled weeds of continued growth.

“I told Tim I’d come work for him for four years,” Claybaker said. “That was eight years ago.”

I got the chance to attend Claybaker’s retirement reception, and while the crowd was small, the respect and friendship shown by those in attendance couldn’t have been more genuine.

I first met Chris not long after moving to Berryville. He welcomed me to the area with a joke, a hearty handshake, and a beaming smile — tools he no doubt cultivated during his 20 years as mayor of Camden and former president of the Arkansas Municipal League. Nevertheless, he made me feel instantly welcome, a skill that has no doubt served him well over the years.

As a former newspaperman — he previously worked as a reporter for the Camden News and editor of the Magnolia Banner-News — Claybaker understands the challenges faced by community newspapers and recognizes their importance, both to the community at large and to the prospect of future development.

In addition to his time in the sometimes opposing fields of politics and journalism, Claybaker, a graduate of the University of Texas-Arlington, also spent time working in the oil and gas industry before embarking on his career in public service.

Claybaker is past president of the Ouachita River Valley Association, former chairman of the Camden Port Authority, former board member and vice chairman of the Arkansas Pension Review Board, and has also served on the boards of the Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development, the Camden Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Camden Area Industrial Development Corporation. He was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court to represent cities on the District Court Resource Assessment Board and appointed by the Speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives to the State Aid Street Committee on which he served until 2014.

“He’s done everything I asked for,” said McKinney, whose friendship with Claybaker dates back to Claybaker’s time as mayor of Camden. “He’s brought a lot of money into the city. We’re going to let him go, but we’ve got his phone number.”

Claybaker called his time in Berryville “a pretty good run.”

“I came up here eight years ago based on a 20-year friendship with Tim,” Claybaker said during his comments at the reception. “Now I’m leaving here with Tim not only as a friend, but as a brother. It’s not very often you get an opportunity to work with somebody that you’re that close to, not only through friendship, but also vision and how to conduct things ethically with unity, quickly.”

Claybaker contrasted his time in Berryville with his time in southern Arkansas.

“I didn’t experience that in Camden too often,” Claybaker said. “We had five cliques down there and they created what I call ‘crab-in-the-bucket syndrome.’ As one crab tries to pull itself up, the other crabs are pulling it back down. It was hard to get anything done because they’re both fighting each other.

“I came up here and found just the opposite.”

Claybaker said that despite the absence of many of the pillars of successful economic development — access to interstate highways, a navigable river, rail service or an airport with at least 5,500 feet of runway — Berryville had something Camden did not.

“I found something different up here,” Claybaker said. “I found unity. I found that the community actually was always working together. All the leadership had the same vision and the same direction and it makes it easy.”

Claybaker said he’s not ready to completely retire — plus his wife, Cindy, won’t let him.

“I’ve got a little office set up in Fairfield Bay,” Claybaker said. “I’m going to continue to do a little consulting. I’ve got a couple of projects.”

Claybaker, whose term officially ends on Aug. 31, called last Friday his official last day, but McKinney clarified that statement.

“He quit working about two years ago,” McKinney said, drawing a big laugh.

“Actually, it was about a year-and-a-half ago,” Claybaker said in response. “Don’t let him tell you any lies.”

That’s fair. Claybaker only promised four years — eight years ago.

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Robert Cox is associate editor for Carroll County News. His email address is RCox@cherryroad.com