By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
Elections for judgeships are theoretically non-partisan, but the race for Division One Lonoke County circuit judge pits the former head of the Lonoke County Republican Party against a woman who ran twice for county prosecutor as a Democrat. A spokesman for the Lonoke County Republican Committee said that group has endorsed deputy Lonoke Prosecutor Chuck Graham.
Barbara Elmore, 54, was appointed judge in Lonoke’s new Third Division by Gov. Mike Beebe, beginning her appointment in July 2007. Before that, Elmore had been the Lonoke District Court judge since 2005 and before that a lawyer in private practice.
“Being a judge is my calling,” says Elmore. “I enjoy helping people.”
Toward that end, her degree is in sociology. “I became an attorney to help others. As a judge I enjoy hearing the attorneys be the voices of the client, giving them the opportunity to show the client’s side in a courtroom.” Then she applies the procedural laws and rules, she said.
“I started out working at Remington Arms out of high school,” she said. “I was a factory worker. Then I did secretarial and payroll work.”
She has volunteered at Open Arms Shelter, and at her church she is on the Family Life Committee and teaches junior high Sunday school and also vacation Bible school.
She said she’s always been service-oriented. After she married Danny Elmore, she went to UALR, where she got her degree and later a law degree.
“I went to work with Larry Cook in the Lonoke County prosecutor’s office until January 1999.”
She lost two close races to Prosecutor Lona McCastlain, and then went to work in private practice.
“I’ve done property law, divorces, class-action cases, contract law—about any kind of case that could come before the court, I’ve either practiced it or been the judge,” she said.
Elmore says she’s always been trying to help the youth in whatever form or fashion she can be of service. “I’ve been attorney ad litem for children taken out of the home for neglect or abuse,” she said. “I went to law school so I could help children.”
She said the county needs more room in the jail. “I see the need as a judge.”
She said she hears child-support cases, and when delinquent spouses are let out of jail to make room for violent criminals, they think they don’t have to pay. “There has to be some teeth in the law,” she said.
Graham, 51, has worked in the prosecutor’s office for the past six years. “I handle the drug cases. That’s the area I specialize in now,” he said.
Before that, he was in private practice in Cabot and was a public defender in Little Rock.
Originally from Kentucky, Graham retired from the Air Force.
He said he’s been everything in the courtroom over the past 30 years except a defendant and a judge.
He’s worked as a military cop, a bailiff, he’s testified, worked as a special agent, represented some defendants and prosecuted others.
He said it would be a conflict of interest to be involved as a judge in any case he’s been involved with as a prosecutor.
Graham says he doesn’t have a natural bias. “I can sit and listen to both lawyers, witnesses and make appropriate rulings,” he explained.
He said he thought anyone who had dealt with him over the years would say he was fair and had treated everyone respectfully.
