Fans of Rex Nelson, senior editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, are likely familiar with his description of Arkansas as “a unique place in between.”
“We’re mostly Southern but not wholly Southern,” he said. “We’re a tad Southwestern. We’re a tad Midwestern. We just kind of sit in between.”
Nelson himself is a bit of an in-betweener — a consummate sports writer and proven political journalist who now writes about all things Arkansas and, for much of his career, did not write full time at all.
Growing up with a love of all things media, Nelson’s first foray into journalism was at age 13, when he and his friend hosted a radio program at Henderson State University in Nelson’s hometown of Arkadelphia. A feature story about their work made the news in Little Rock, then spread nationwide when it was picked up by the Associated Press.
“As a kid, it taught you the importance of preparation,” he said. “Anything that sounds easy is not easy in radio, [You learn to] prepare in advance and then to adjust on the fly because there are certainly things that can still go wrong. I still love to dabble in radio.”
The son of an athletic equipment salesman, sports was equally a part of Nelson’s makeup, and he worked as the sports editor of Arkadelphia’s Siftings Herald while studying communications at Ouachita Baptist University.
He also covered sports for the Democrat-Gazette and then moved into a political niche, working as the newspaper’s correspondent in Washington, D.C. From there, he took a more direct role in politics as director of policy and communications for former Gov. Mike Huckabee and being appointed to the Delta Regional Authority during the George W. Bush presidential administration.
He served as president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities for four years, then joined Simmons First National Corp. as director of corporate community relations, for which he built the bank’s communication’s department from the ground up.
“Any corporation is best served by very clear, direct, good communication not only to its customers but also, if you’re a public company like we were at Simmons, to your shareholders and, of course, to your employees,” he said. “and we had several thousand employees scattered across multiple states.”
In 2017, after 21 years out of the business, he returned to the Democrat-Gazette, where he now writes a column that publishes three times a week, as well as a monthly op-ed feature. In addition to his columns, he also publishes his blog, Rex Nelson’s Southern Fried, and hosts a podcast of the same name. During football season, he hosts a statewide high school scoreboard radio show.
“Journalists, you have to be interested about all things, I think, endlessly curious,” he said. “That was great preparation for the other things I have done throughout my career.”
From writing the Democrat-Gazette’s lead story after Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 to covering Super Bowls and PGA championships, Nelson’s career has led him to some interesting places.
“Those are the kinds of things a guy from small-town Arkansas wouldn’t have gotten to do unless he took a certain route in his career, which I was lucky enough to do and experience,” he said.
He added that he is happy to be a part of one of the few remaining statewide newspapers in the country, and with his 65th birthday on the horizon this year, he hopes to spend his later years doing what he loves: traveling the state and telling the stories of the place he calls home.
“As long as my health’s good, gosh, I’d like to keep writing as long as I could,” he said. “Sitting here at a keyboard’s not exactly physically demanding. We’ve got air conditioning that works, free water. I’m in pretty good shape. It’s pretty easy, so even though I’m about to turn 65, I certainly have no plans to retire anytime soon. This is what I’d be doing if I was retired, so again, I might as well keep getting paid for it.”
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