Mary Ann Ritter Arnold knows that sometimes, women just do things best.
“I think women in some situations get a lot more done than men,” Arnold said in a 2014 Telco Americana podcast. “I think women in a family situation may know that you can’t sit around all day and discuss what you’re going to do, you’ve got to get it done and get with it.”
At 88, Arnold is serving her second term as mayor of Marked Tree, Arkansas, and is the first woman to ever hold that office. The town, with a population of fewer than 3,000, has a long history with the Ritter family. From telecommunications to agriculture, Arnold has more than dipped her toes in the family businesses. Even as a child she was interested and would go watch the telephone operators work.
“One time … I had just gone to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread for mother or something and I thought I’ll run up and see the operators,” Arnold said. “Of course I went up and knocked on the door and they let me in and I was sitting there enjoying watching them work and mother and father were looking for me all over town. They were calling friends and everything and they finally asked Pearl [the operator] ‘Have you seen Mary Ann?’ ‘Oh yes ma’am she’s sitting here watching us work.’ ‘Tell her to come home immediately.’
“I don’t think I got a spanking but I’m sure I got a good talking to with that.”
Although she may have understood how the phone systems and operators worked then, Arnold is not as sure about today’s technology. For her, a phone is only for one simple thing: making phone calls.
“I have a smartphone, but what I have discovered is that if I go in to look at anything, I used to go in the Best Buy to look around, I get headache. I do, it’s too confusing,” Arnold said. “All I want is a phone that I can call out and somebody will call me. … The technology is really way past me.”
Although technology may be past Arnold, it does not slow her down in many other aspects of her life. Arnold has served as mayor of Marked Tree since September 2013, but held countless other leadership positions prior.
From 1976-92, she was president of E. Ritter & Co., a synergistic mix of businesses that evolved from a single grocery store opened by her grandfather in 1886. It included tens of thousands of acres of farmland, a telephone company, a retail lumber company, a farm equipment dealership, a seed company, a gin, a bulk oil distributorship and most of the commercial property in downtown Marked Tree.
“I think I have a lot of energy, I do,” Arnold said. “I like to be active; I don’t want to sit at home.”
Today, E. Ritter & Co. is the parent company to Ritter Agribusiness and Ritter Communications.
For Arnold, becoming president of the company was not a given. She had to prove herself to the Board of Directors, that she could handle the workload and responsibility. Arnold had never run a business and held a degree in home economics. But she impressed the Board.
According to an Arkansas Business article from 1989, she did not disappoint in those first 13 years as president and was described as “progressive” and successful at carrying out long range plans.
During that time, she spruced up the downtown area of Marked Tree and worked to drastically improve phone service. She also had a rice dryer and 500,000-bushel grain elevator constructed, a multi-million dollar project.
No matter what it was, Arnold was always working to better the city; one that she holds near and dear.
“I feel sorry for the people who don’t like living in a small town because everybody knows your business,” Arnold said. “There’s the friendship, the support group I have; I wouldn’t have [that] in a city.”
Arnold went beyond the company’s own improvements and also donated thousands to various initiatives such as providing a new computer lab at the school and purchasing a new fire truck for the city.
Arnold also became active in the Agriculture Council of Arkansas, National Cotton Council, Cotton Board, U.S. Rice Council, Arkansas Telephone Association, U.S. Telephone Association, Crittenden Hospital Board, State Chairman of Farm Services Agency Committee and Arkansas Children’s Hospital Foundation. At Arkansas State University, she was a member of the Museum Advisory Committee, Business School Advisory Committee and ASU Foundation. Arnold also is a part of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, Marked Tree Chamber of Commerce, Poinsett County Justice of the Peace, strongly supported the Marked Tree Museum-Library, the Marked Tree School system and Girl Scouts and a member of the Marked Tree First United Methodist Church serving on the PPR and Trustees committees.
Her success in these many organizations is likely in part because of her attitude.
“I feel that I’m a very positive person,” Arnold said to Arkansas Business in 1989. “I try to sit and listen to new ideas. … We try to treat all our customers like we want to be treated.”
Arnold did not become as involved with the running of the city as a whole until she became mayor. Marked Tree had fallen into financial trouble and Arnold’s predecessor, who had begun to put the city on the path to recovery, died suddenly in 2013 to leave the office open. Arnold had previously served on quorum court, a form of county government, and was interested in furthering her political involvement.
“I thought, well I might throw my hat in and see what happens,” Arnold said to Telco Americana. “I had no idea that I would win.”
Although Arnold is busy professionally, she makes her home life a priority as well.
“I made a promise to myself when I got married that my husband would never leave the house without breakfast and that when he became a physician he would always have a warm meal when he got home at night,” Arnold said.
Today’s technology may be past Arnold’s understanding, and she thinks “we’re too mobile now,” but there are some concepts she knows still apply.
“To this day, if I’m around where there’s a telephone ringing, there’s somebody on the other end of that line that wants to talk with you,” Arnold said. “I like the telephone answered on the second ring at least, especially in a business. And some places you go in they ring and ring. Why aren’t you answering that phone? Somebody needs to ask you a question.”
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