J. Thomas May Awarded UA System President’s Medal For Service

J. Thomas May, chairman and CEO of Simmons First National Corp. of Pine Bluff.

The University of Arkansas System President’s Medal for Service has been awarded to J. Thomas May, former bank president and CEO of Simmons First National Corp. of Pine Bluff and current president of its foundation. 

He is also the past chairman of the board of trustees at the University of Arkansas.

The medal is a discretionary award given by the UA System president and his cabinet to honor people who have demonstrated a distinguished and sustained commitment to helping the UA System.

In addition to serving on the UA board from 1993-2003, including two years as chairman from 2000 to 2002, May is a UA graduate, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration.

May is also the only person to simultaneously serve as UA board chairman and acting president of the system, after filling in for former President Alan Sugg for a month during an illness in 2001. After his tenure on the UA board ended, he served a term on the UA Foundation board.

May has also served the UA as a member of its Campaign for the 21st Century Steering Committee and of its Dean’s Advisory Board at the Walton College of Business, which inducted him into the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame in 2010. The hall later awarded him a lifetime achievement award, and he previously received the UA Chancellor’s Medal.

In 2006, May, the late Bill Clark and Clark’s wife, Margaret, endowed the J. Thomas May Chair in Oncology, which became a “distinguished” endowed chair in 2016, at the University of Arkansas of Medical Sciences.

In 2008, the May Center for ALS Research — a disease that May has battled since 2005 — opened at UAMS. An endowed chair in clinical services and ALS, named for him and his wife, was also established in 2010. The two are members of the Society of the Double Helix as well, which recognizes their philanthropic support of UAMS.

A resident of Pine Bluff, May has also been involved with the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He contributed to a fundraising campaign for Golden Lions Stadium, where the J. Thomas May Field House was named in his honor. 

The UAPB Business Incubator and many other campus projects have also been supported by May and Simmons Bank.

The inaugural and only other recipient of this award is Charles E. Scharlau, former chairman and CEO of Southwestern Energy and past chairman of the UA Board of Trustees.