Before new Maumelle council member Wes Booker took the oath of office at city hall, he power walked into the Supreme Court in pink sneakers where his friend, Justice Webb, was 1st to swear him in.
Mr. Booker has friends in all the right places.
By Jay C. Grelen, Moniteur de l’Arkansas
Whatever else Maumellians may remember about the trails that Wes Booker blazes as a member of the City Council, they will remember the shoes he wore when he was a’blazing.
At the council’s swearing-in ceremony on Monday night (January 6, 2025), Mr. Booker’s feet were shod in pink as District Judge Rita Bailey swore him in.
Days earlier, when Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Barbara Webb swore him in at the Arkansas Supreme Court Building on January 2, 2025, he was wearing the same pink sneakers.
No person, place, or event is too highfalutin for Mr. Booker and his eye-grabbing shoes.
In August, Mr. Booker joined Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders for an Arkansas Minority Health Commission announcement in the Governor’s Conference Room next door to her office.
(Governor Sanders appointed him to the commission in 2024.)
For that occasion, Mr. Booker went with yellow, which matched the hanky in the pocket of his sports jacket.
Monday night’s city council meeting was Mr. Booker’s first. He is replacing R.J. Mazzoni, who was elected to the council in 2020 and decided one term was enough. No one else filed to run, so Mr. Booker walked into the job.
This was Mr. Booker’s second run for public office. In 2022, he ran for the Arkansas House, District 71 seat. He lost to Brandon Achor, a pharmacist who owns Achor Family Pharmacy in Maumelle.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s editorial board didn’t endorse either candidate because the writers liked both of them. The opponents were “two rising stars in the Republican (party), Brandon Achor and Wes Booker. Or, if you prefer, Wes Booker and Brandon Achor.”
On weekends in the fall, Mr. Booker travels the NCAA football circuit as a referee, a career that began in 1995 with 12 years at the high school level. In 2007, he moved into the NCAA. In 2017, he founded the Wes Booker Football Officials Camp, which attracts referees from all over the nation. He started the camp at J.T. Robinson, where he held it for five years This summer will be his fourth in Russellville.r
In addition to Mr. Booker’s swearing in, Judge Bailey administered the oath of office to council incumbents Doug Shinn and Terry Williams who kept their seats without opposition.
Newcomer L.J. Wesley, who won the seat for Ward 1, Position 1, in a runoff with Barry Brown, another political newcomer, was on a family vacation and missed her first meeting and the official swearing in. Mayor Caleb Norris administered the oath of office for her at City Hall on New Year’s Day.
During Mr. Booker’s 2022 interview with the Democrat-Gazette’s editorial board, he said he is “tired of Arkansas being at the bottom of every list. And I am ready to change that.’”
To which the editorialist replied: “We wouldn’t doubt it. Few people bring with them an air of optimism and cheer like Wes Booker. … Our considered editorial opinion is: Whoever doesn’t win this particular race goes back into the community to lead in other ways.”
Two years later, Mr. Booker is serving as expected. You’ll recognize him by his shoes.
