Texarkana, Arkansas A&P Commission reopens director search, renews marketing contract for 2027

TEXARKANA, Ark. – The Texarkana, Arkansas Advertising and Promotion Commission on Thursday reopened applications for its first executive director, saying it wants at least 10 candidates to choose from, and dropped one of its seven finalists after city staff said the applicant’s university had no record of the person ever enrolling.

New applications are due to the city by close of business Tuesday, Nov. 10. Interviews are set for the commission’s Nov. 12 meeting at 4:30 p.m.

Earlier in the meeting, commissioners voted 6-0 to renew their marketing contract with For All Brand Kind for all of 2027, after two commissioners questioned whether a full year made sense with a new director on the way.

All six commissioners were present: Chairman Ulysses Brewer, Vice Chairman Meredith Mills and Commissioners Dr. Ellen Holmes, Danny Jewell, George Dodson and Rachel Scott. The city posted the meeting on YouTube in three parts because commissioners went into executive session twice.

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Director search reopened

The commission voted in September to hire its first full-time director, a city employee who would take over A&P business from City Manager Tyler Richards. Applications closed Oct. 23, and Thursday’s meeting was set aside to pick candidates to interview.

Coming out of the first closed session, the commission announced it would put the director applications on hold because members wanted to expand the job description to focus more on advertising and promotion.

Mills said the position had been understood from the start as a marketing job, someone who would go out and recruit tournaments and groups to Texarkana, and that there was confusion over how much of it would be administrative work taken off the city’s plate.

Finance Director Shena Washington said the administrative side would be small. The director would not take over tax collection, she said, and would not build the budget from scratch.

“I would say 85% of the time, they’re going to be doing what’s in this job description,” Washington said.

Staff then put the posted job description on the screen. It calls for a bachelor’s degree in marketing or a related field, with a graduate degree desired, three to five years of marketing experience and demonstrated ability in marketing strategy, communications, public relations, budget management and stakeholder relations. The posted pay range is $75,836.80 to $85,924.80.

After reading it, several commissioners said what they wanted was already there. The problem, they said, was that few applicants met it. City staff had scored each applicant against the minimum requirements on a spreadsheet, and commissioners said most had been ruled out.

“I really don’t think that the pool is big enough to go fishing yet,” Jewell said.

Commissioners were told they did not have to discuss applicants in private, but that the closed session exists so the board can speak freely about candidates, most of whom do not work for the city. Several commissioners said some applicants are employed elsewhere and would not want their names made public, and the commission went back into executive session to review the applications.

Seven finalists, then six

When the commission came back, members said they had narrowed the field to seven but wanted at least 10. At least two more people had approached commissioners about applying, they said.

Commissioners considered having the city email new applications to them so they could pick more interviewees before Nov. 12. That would amount to commission business by email, they were told, which the open meetings rules don’t allow.

They settled on this: anyone may apply through close of business Nov. 10. City staff will screen the new applications against the same minimum requirements, and everyone who meets them will be told to come to the Nov. 12 meeting for an interview. Each candidate will be called into executive session one at a time.

Applicants whose files were missing a document will get the same window to turn it in.

One commissioner had wanted to give a finalist the chance to back up a degree that staff could not confirm. City staff told the board the university said the person had never been enrolled. Mills said the commission should not interview someone who had misrepresented themselves, and others agreed. That left six.

In September the commission set a Jan. 4 target start date for the new director, with second interviews possible in early December.

Commission seat

Commissioners also met in closed session on two applications to fill a vacant seat on the commission. No decision was made Thursday. Both applicants are being asked to come to the Nov. 12 meeting for a short question-and-answer session and to bring a brief outline of who they are, what they understand about the A&P Commission and how they would serve it over their term.

Marketing contract renewed

For All Brand Kind has run the commission’s Experience Texarkana marketing since summer 2024, including the website, social media, digital and print ads and the billboard on State Line Avenue. The renewal runs Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2027, on the same dollar terms as this year’s contract. No amount was stated at the meeting.

Scott said she was not ready to commit to a full year while the commission is hiring a director who she thinks should be able to handle content creation and social media, leaving the agency with search optimization and other technical work.

“I would almost think of a three to six month contract at this point or extension to re-evaluate once we get an employee on board,” Scott said. “I don’t want to pull it for sure.”

Jewell said he shared the concern about “going a full year with a new director possibly coming on board and what expertise they may have.”

Dani Hamblett of For All Brand Kind said a short contract would be hard to plan around. She pointed to the Bandit Run, the 50th-anniversary event set to start in Texarkana in June.

“Are we still working with you in June when the Bandit Run happens? But here we’ve designed a T-shirt and a sticker, and we’ve got an ad campaign,” she said.

She said a director could take over plenty of administrative work, such as answering emails about event spaces and hotel blocks, setting agendas and working on the budget, but that the agency is running “a full marketing destination campaign” that is “probably more than one person can do.”

Dodson said a new director would spend the first 90 days “just going to be getting their feet wet” and that anything shorter than a year would be “doing ourselves an injustice.” He asked that the agency give the commission updates on its work under the contract. Hamblett said the agency is already contracted to attend the commission’s quarterly meetings and gives updates there.

Brewer said the commission had been down the road of six-month renewals before.

“Just because we’ve kind of been through this and the continuity and the consistency, I think we want to do a year,” he said.

A&P Commission attorney Jacob Potter told commissioners the contract allows two one-year renewals and can be ended by either side with 60 days’ written notice. Mills said the commission has not sought proposals from any other agency, and that it would make no sense to let the contract lapse this late in the year without an alternative lined up.

The roll call vote to extend for a year was unanimous.

What the agency is running now

In her presentation, Hamblett said the agency:

• Placed a full-page ad in the November issue of AY Magazine, the Little Rock-based publication, following a chamber-funded influencer promotion in the October issue.
• Is running a Pinterest campaign with matching co-op money from the state of Arkansas, and has reserved other state co-op slots for next year.
• Is running streaming radio ads on Spotify, Pandora and other services for the first time this year, alongside Facebook, Instagram and Google ads.
• Helped host a family of influencers who run the All About Arkansas page and are in town this week on five hotel nights donated through the Texarkana Hospitality Network, with gift cards to Arkansas-side restaurants.
• Plans to attend the Governor’s Conference on Tourism in February, work more with the Texas side and the parks department on sports tournaments, and shoot new video and photography in 2027.

Dodson said residents often say they never heard about downtown events, such as a Mark Chestnutt show, and asked how promoters could reach more people than Facebook ads do. Hamblett said every event draws that complaint and part of the answer is people signing up for email lists. Brewer said groups that get A&P money for advertising are responsible for getting the word out.

“If I’m pushing an event and I just got 10, 15 or 20,000 from A&P, I want to do the max,” Brewer said.

Last month the commission awarded $1,178,000 in 2027 event funding. The commission collects the A&P tax on Texarkana, Arkansas, hotels and restaurants.

The next meeting is Nov. 12 at 4:30 p.m.