Gov. Asa Hutchinson has appointed Fort Smith attorney Sam Terry to fill a vacant judgeship in the Sebastian County District Court-Fort Smith District and attorney Kolby Harper as district judge for the 38th District (Hempstead and Nevada counties).
Terry’s term will begin July 18 and expire Dec. 31, 2024. He is replacing Judge Claire Borengasser, who retired on June 1.
Harper will replace Judge Tony Yocom, who will retire on July 31.
Terry serves as prosecuting attorney for the city of Fort Smith and is of counsel with Smith, Cohen & Horan.
Harper is a member of the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Criminal Practice and the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneys Association. She has served as a deputy prosecutor in the 22nd, Ninth-East, and Eighth-North judicial districts.
Terry is a member and past president of the Sebastian County Bar Association, a member of the Arkansas Bar Association, and a former member of the Arkansas Bar Association’s House of Delegates. He is also a member of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty under Forty Class of 2018.
Terry sits on the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Education Committee and has served as chairman of the Sebastian County Election Commission; president of the HOPE Humane Society; and president of the Children’s Emergency Shelter Foundation. He is treasurer of the Fort Smith Museum of History.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration and a Juris Doctor from the University of Arkansas.
Harper earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish from Ouachita Baptist University. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville.
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