Mayor, City of North Little Rock, Arkansas

Mayor Hays, a native of North Little Rock, is an attorney educated in Political Science and Law at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.  He practiced law in North Little Rock from 1973 until 1988, when he was elected to his first four-year term as Mayor.  Mayor Hays is now serving his fifth term.

Prior to becoming Mayor, he was elected State Representative for District 66 and served in the 76th Arkansas General Assembly.  Hays was also elected as the City of North Little Rock's delegate to the Arkansas Constitutional Convention of 1979-1980.  He attained the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army Reserve.

He is Past President of the Arkansas Municipal League and is a member and Past President of Metroplan, the regional council of local governments for central Arkansas.  He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce and the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce.

Active in the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mayor Hays has served on the National Unfunded Mandates Task Force; served as Chairman of the Conference's Electric Utility Deregulation Task Force, served as Co-Chair of the Conference’s Rail System Restoration Team, served on the Homeland Security Task Force, and was elected to the Conference's Advisory Board in June of 1996.  In June of 1999, Mayor Hays was elected as a Trustee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.  As one of 13 Trustees, Mayor Hays shares in the executive and policy-making responsibility for the Conference.

An advocate of rail transportation, Mayor Hays was appointed Chairman of Amtrak’s Mayors’ Advisory Council in June, 2003.

While a practicing attorney, Hays was elected as Clerk of the Assembly and Speaker at the Assembly of the Young Lawyers Division of the American Bar Association, one of five national officers of the largest division of the ABA.  He was also elected President of the Law Student Division of the ABA in 1972-73.

Mayor Hays is a recognized leader in community economic development, neighborhood revitalization, community-oriented policing, historic preservation and recreation development.