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The Vada Sheid Community Development Center is asking the Twin Lakes Area to tune in Thursday, when the woman it is named for joins the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame.
Vada Webb Sheid will be inducted during the hall’s 10th annual ceremony at the North Little Rock Event Center. A reception begins at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 27, followed by dinner and the program from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The center said in an announcement Tuesday that anyone can watch the ceremony live on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/live/meXGL5Vf2Ns.
Sheid, who died in 2008, was the first woman to serve in both the Arkansas House of Representatives and the Arkansas Senate. Her public career stretched across roughly five decades.
She started out as Izard County welfare director and later won election as Baxter County treasurer before heading to the Legislature. In office, she focused on education and infrastructure. She helped establish Arkansas State University-Mountain Home and North Arkansas College in Harrison, and she pushed for highway work and for bridges across Norfork Lake.
The center said Sheid spent decades trying to improve education, infrastructure and opportunity for the people she represented. It described her as a trailblazer and a tireless advocate for the Ozarks.
The building that carries her name sits on the ASUMH campus and draws crowds for concerts, plays, graduations, conferences and community meetings. The center called it “a lasting reminder of her vision, leadership and commitment.”
Six other women join Sheid in the 2026 class. The other historical inductees are Sharon Allen, who rose from claims clerk to become the first woman president of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Phyllis Dillaha Brandon, an Arkansas Democrat reporter who covered the 1957 Central High integration crisis and later founded the paper’s High Profile section; and Dorothy Reddell Caldwell, who reshaped school nutrition programs at the state and national level.
The contemporary honorees are Cynthia East, founder of Cynthia East Fabrics in Little Rock; Marsha Martin, the Northwest Arkansas entrepreneur behind Onyx Brands Inc.; and Cynthia Nance, dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law.
The hall of fame recognizes women whose work has shaped the state through public service, education, business, the arts, advocacy and community leadership. Board Chair Stacy Hurst said the organization exists to honor women whose contributions left a lasting mark on Arkansas.
Tickets to Thursday’s ceremony are available through the hall of fame’s website. Anyone who cannot make the drive to central Arkansas can watch the livestream from home.
