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Baxter County Coroner Sam Seamans spoke to the Mountain Home Rotary Club on Thursday, giving members a look at the work that goes on behind the scenes at the coroner’s office.
Seamans is a man of many hats. He has been associated with the Mountain Home Police Department for decades, joining the department after graduating from the police academy in 1987 and eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant before retiring in 2011. He returned to the department part time because, as he once put it, he loves serving people. His peers at MHPD named him part-time officer of the year. He also served 14 years as a governor’s appointee to the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission.
He is an ordained Orthodox priest, pastoring St. Thomas the Apostle Ukrainian Orthodox Church at 1343 E. 9th St. in Mountain Home, the only Eastern Orthodox congregation within a two-hour radius of Mountain Home. The church has recently moved to the new, larger location.
Seamans was born and raised Baptist, but his faith journey took him through several traditions as he studied church history and liturgy. He was ordained as an Anglican minister in 2001 and eventually led his congregation into the Orthodox Church in 2015. He was ordained an Orthodox priest in February 2017 under the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA.
A native of Louisiana who holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Seamans went on to earn a Master of Ministry, a Master of Theology and a Master of Divinity from Holy Resurrection Orthodox Seminary. He is also a licensed pilot, a certified emergency medical technician and is conversant in Czech. His wife is a native of the Czech Republic.
Seamans is a long-distance cyclist who has said he does most of his praying while riding, calling it a contemplative exercise that lends itself naturally to prayer and meditation.
“You know, you asked me, you’ve been a police officer 40 years, you retired 2011, why’d you go back? Because I love it. I just love it. I love serving people,” Seamans told the Quorum Court during his appointment hearing in November. “I serve part time as a pastor. It’s just who I am.”
Since November, Seamans has served as Baxter County coroner after being appointed by the Quorum Court to fill the remainder of outgoing coroner Bradley Hayes’ term. His talk Thursday focused on that part of his life.
Seamans was appointed on a 9-2 vote by the Quorum Court in November 2025 after Hayes resigned to pursue a new opportunity. Seamans previously served as chief deputy coroner and helped build the office alongside Hayes from what he once described as a bare-bones operation into a modern department with a budget of approximately $350,000.
The Observer previously profiled Father Seamans and his church in a 2022 feature, “The church in the green field,” available at mhobserver.com.
