Donna Hutchinson (1949–)

Donna Hutchinson was a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from 2007 until 2013. A member of an active political family, she also became involved in public affairs beyond her House service.

Donna Jean King was born on August 23, 1949, in New Bern, North Carolina, to E. D. King, who was a career member of the U.S. Navy, and Thelma Ruth Embody King, a teacher. With the family moving twenty-nine times before she had graduated from high school, King grew up around the world, living on both of the American coasts as well as in a number of foreign countries. Through her mother, she is a voting member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana. She earned a BS in education from Bob Jones University in 1971.

In 1970, while still in college, she married Tim Hutchinson, a fellow Bob Jones student. Following her graduation, Donna Hutchinson taught in both junior and senior high schools, first in Missouri and then Arkansas, where the couple moved in 1975. The Hutchinsons had three sons.

Hutchinson was a co-owner of radio station KBCV, a Christian format station in Bentonville (Benton County). She also became active in Republican politics in Benton County, first as a volunteer and later as the campaign manager for local candidates.

Politics soon evolved into a family enterprise, as her husband was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1984, serving there until he was elected to the U.S. House in 1992. In 1996, Tim Hutchinson was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first Republican senator from Arkansas since Reconstruction, and the first Republican ever to be popularly elected to the Senate. In addition, Tim’s brother Asa Hutchinson served in the U.S. House and as Arkansas’s forty-sixth governor. Two of Donna Hutchinson’s sons were later elected to the state legislature.

Donna Hutchinson served as the deputy chief of staff for Congressman John Boozman before returning to Arkansas for graduate school. Earning her MA in communications from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 2002, she wrote her thesis on New Deal–era Arkansas senator Hattie Caraway.

In 1999, Hutchinson and her husband divorced after almost twenty-nine years of marriage, despite the fact that a centerpiece of Tim Hutchinson’s 1996 Senate campaign had been traditional family values. He married a staff member barely a year after the divorce, urging his sons not to attend the wedding out of respect for their mother.

Donna Hutchinson returned to Bella Vista (Benton County) and became actively involved in the community. She volunteered at the library and at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. In addition, she developed a professional mediation practice, DJ Consulting, while also serving on the Arkansas Motor Vehicle Commission.

In 2006, being especially concerned that northwestern Arkansas was not receiving its fair share of highway funds, she decided to run for public office herself. Seeking an open seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives, she won the general election with almost sixty-five percent of the vote. She was reelected in 2008, running unopposed, and won reelection in 2010 with seventy-three percent of the vote.

In becoming a member of the Arkansas House, she joined her son Tim, thus becoming what was believed to be the first mother-son combination to serve concurrently in the state House chamber.

During her tenure in the House, Hutchinson’s major committee assignments included the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, the House Education Committee, the Joint Energy Committee (which at one point she chaired), and the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee.

She sponsored legislation aimed at providing legislators with more information related to highway funding, protecting children from registered sex offenders, and providing further protection against criminal voyeurism. She was also an advocate for education reform. In her final House campaign in 2010, she sought to ensure that the state’s high school students were adequately prepared for college-level work.

Unable to run again due to term limits, she left office in 2013. She then served on a number of boards and commissions, including the Governor’s Appointment Commission, the Arkansas State Student Loan Authority Board, and the board of visitors for the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts. She also remained active in the Benton County Republican Women, at one point holding office in the organization. Hutchinson also continued to contribute to the public discourse, giving speeches and writing letters to local newspapers on issues of interest.

In 2022, she ran for Bella Vista City Council; while she had a solid lead in the primary, she did not achieve the necessary fifty percent and was ultimately defeated in the run-off.

For additional information:
Smith, Lindsley Armstrong, and Stephen A. Smith. Stateswomen: A Centennial History of Arkansas Women Legislators 1922–2022. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022.

“Donna Hutchinson.” Ballotpedia.org. https://ballotpedia.org/Donna_Hutchinson (accessed November 20, 2024).

“Donna Hutchinson Interview.” Women in the Arkansas General Assembly project. David and Barbara Pryor Center for Oral and Visual History. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. https://pryorcenter.uark.edu/project.php?thisProject=18 (accessed November 20, 2024).

William H. Pruden III
Ravenscroft School