Jane Brockmann Gearhart : A motherly approach
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008
SELF PORTRAIT Date and place of birth: March 13, 1952, Cincinnati What’s always by my bed: a bottle of water What’s always with me: cell phone The household chore I care least about is changing the sheets on the bed. When I drink, it’s Miller Lite. My favorite junk food is potato chips. My ideal meal is anything with seafood. My favorite TV show is The Office. I’ve never been able to whistle. My best asset is my memory. I wish I knew more about computers. My favorite color is yellow. My favorite books are the Mitford series by Jan Karon. My favorite historical character is John F. Kennedy. When I’m nervous, I bite my nails. I’d like to visit Hawaii. I want my tombstone to read: She was in it for the laughs. One word to sum me up: happy FAYETTEVILLE — Jane Gearhart grabs another plastic grocery bag and fills it with powdered milk and other items from the food pantry at Cooperative Emergency Outreach. She’s dressed in a blue sweatsuit as she and friend Laura Duke fulfill their monthly volunteer duty, chatting and having fun along the way. Gearhart, 56, served on the nonprofit organization’s board for six years, two of those as president. She lives her life in motion, and she gets so much accomplished largely because she’s highly organized. It’s a trait that began in childhood, partly because she moved so often.
She has been married for 33 years to G. David Gearhart, who will take over the prestigious role as chancellor of the University of Arkansas on July 1. The couple started dating in 1970 during their senior year at Fayetteville High School.
After they returned to Fayetteville from Pennsylvania in 1998, he went on to lead the UA’s Campaign for the 21 st Century, a landmark effort that raised more than $ 1 billion. That was his job as vice chancellor for university advancement. But, as through all the stages of his career, Jane was there by his side, the two of them working as a team. They are both highly motivated, driven people who like to accomplish things.
Jane has lived in Fayetteville off and on since childhood. When she and her husband move into the new chancellor’s residence, Fowler House, in July, it’ll be the 13 th place she has lived in the city.
They’ll move from the house next door, the two-story, white brick home at 533 N. Razorback Road, known as Hotz House, which the Gearharts own and remodeled before moving there in 1999. It was built in 1938 by the late Henry Hotz, former dean of the UA’s College of Education.
Jane is energetic and laid-back. She’s funny and quick-witted. She makes friends and keeps them for life.
“I’m happy. I’m never down. I’m always up,” she says. “I’m happy, and I’ve always been that way. I can find joy in the absolute smallest of things.” She has worn some variation of her distinctive short hairstyle for 30 years — and treats herself to a haircut every two weeks. It’s the one time she’s sitting still and not on the cell phone.
Nancy Bittle, a friend for about 25 years, says Jane is the most loyal person she knows. She invests herself in her relationships, Bittle says. They talk nearly every day, sometimes in just a few key words. Jane is mother to all, she says.
“She is so caring and nurturing of the relationship,” Bittle adds.
Jane is no different whether she’s at an opulent gala or a casual tailgate party.
“She just wants to be Jane wherever she is,” Bittle says.
Dave Gearhart says his wife is the same now as when they met. She enjoys people from all backgrounds and is genuinely interested in them.
“She is extraordinary,” he says. “She doesn’t let the stuffiness of my job and the problems of my job weigh her down.” Jane feels that she and her husband have hit their goal with his latest appointment. She’s already getting a feel for her role as first lady to his chancellorship. It’ll mean more work and more fun for them both.
“This is his dream, and to get to do it here at the University of Arkansas — home, where his family is so entrenched in this town — I’m thrilled to death for him,” she says.
TWO OF A KIND Though Jane was born in Cincinnati, she considers herself an Arkansan. Her parents, Bob and Katsy Brockmann, met at the University of Arkansas but moved to Ohio after they married. Her dad started law school at the UA when she was in third grade. She spent sixth through 10 th grades in Harrison, where her dad practiced law. The family moved back to Fayetteville when he joined the faculty of the UA law school. Her parents are now retired and live in Maumelle.
She spent eight years as a camper and counselor at Kanakomo Kamp (now Kanakuk ) in Branson and stays in touch with friends made there. Jodi Melhorn, her friend since sixth grade, wrote her daily letters about summertime happenings in Harrison.
She and Melhorn, who still lives in Harrison, stay in touch with daily e-mail and frequent phone calls. When Melhorn’s father died in 2001, Jane was there before Melhorn and her mother returned from the funeral home, answering the phone and cleaning out the refrigerator for the food that would arrive.
“She’d dropped everything to be over here to do that,” Melhorn says.
Jane adjusted again when her family moved back to Fayetteville, the summer before her junior year. At Fayetteville High, she worked on the newspaper staff and was yearbook editor her senior year.
When she met Dave, he was student council president. Jane says she thought he was funny and “just had it all together.” He was dating someone else at the time, but they eventually broke up. Out of respect for the girl, he waited a month before going out in public with Jane.
“Dave’s integrity is second to none,” she says. “I wish I’d met him sooner.” An editorial in the school paper dubbed them “King David” and “Queen Jane” because they seemed destined for the leadership roles that fell upon them.
“I think that’s when we started training for the roles we’re in now,” she says. “We were just partners. It was fun, really fun.” The couple continued dating after he went to Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., and she pursued a degree in journalism and English at the UA.
He came home some, but she visited him more often, making the 5 1 / 2-hour trip some 35 to 40 times.
On one of her trips to Westminster, Dave got her an eighttrack player for her birthday, and one of his fraternity brothers installed it in her car. He also bought her several tapes of her favorite music from the 1960 s and 1970 s.
“I thought, ‘That’s the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.’ And I listened to those tapes all the way home.” Dave returned to Fayetteville to attend law school, and they wed in December 1974 at Central United Methodist Church, where they still attend. Her younger brother, Mark Brockmann, who died in 1985, played organ there and at First United Presbyterian Church for several years in high school and college. While her husband was in law school, she taught journalism for two years at Springdale High School, serving as newspaper and yearbook adviser. She loves to write and created newsletters for her children’s booster clubs. She found that people like seeing their names in print, and she thinks journalism serves a worthy function. “I’m highly organized, and I think journalism chronicles life, and that is a way of organizing life,” she says.
SHE RAISED, HE PAID The summer before his third year of law school, her husband returned to his alma mater in Missouri to serve as assistant to the interim president. “That’s when he got bitten by the higher education bug,” she says. During their two years in Fulton, she spent one year as a reporter for the Fulton Sun-Gazette. The second year, she was director of Ecumenical Ministries, a consortium of churches of several denominations that combined to do mission outreach (similar to what the Fayettevillebased Cooperative Emergency Outreach does now ).
After that, they moved to Conway, where he worked for Hendrix College. There, daughter Katy was born in 1978, and son Brock in 1982.
When Brock was 3 months old, they returned to Fayetteville, where Dave worked as director of development for the university for three years. Jane worked part time at Central United Methodist Church, as education director and then program director.
In 1985, the family moved to State College, Pa., where Dave worked at Pennsylvania State University. She didn’t work outside the home then, focusing her attention on rearing the children and supporting Dave and his schedule.
The children grew up at State College, and Jane was very involved with their activities. Katy was into dance and cheerleading, and Brock played whatever sport was in season: hockey, football, basketball and baseball.
“What [Dave ] loves to tell people is that ‘Jane raised them; I paid for it, ’” Jane says.
She was the disciplinarian, and Dave was “Disney dad,” around for the fun times.
“Mom always took the blame for being the disciplinarian, and she always gave Dad the credit for the nice things,” Brock says.
But Dave was hard at work at Penn State.
“Up until this time, that’s the hardest he’s ever worked. Right now, this reminds me of our time at Penn State. He’s putting in such long hours and weekends,” Jane says.
Early on, she also got the children involved in their church, emphasizing the importance of faith and doing what’s right. Katy remembers getting a ride home from a sleepover and her mother asking if she’d thanked the friend’s parents. She had forgotten, and her mom made her call right then. The pattern was repeated until the kids remembered on their own.
Because Dave often worked long hours, it wasn’t unusual to eat at 8 p.m. or so, Brock recalls, especially once the kids were older. Brock says they teased their mother that they knew dinner was ready when the microwave bell went off. Some of Jane’s favorite dishes include Mexican chicken, shrimp creole and her mom’s spaghetti sauce.
Dave was hired to lead the first big fundraising campaign at Penn State, with $ 352 million raised in six years. Over 10 years, the total philanthropic support to Penn State exceeded $ 910 million. That meant a lot of entertaining. Jane put her Southern upbringing to the test.
“That’s when it really got serious [with ] our entertaining,” she says. “Being from the South, we could take it to another level, and I feel like we did. We’re still hearing how they miss the way we did things at Penn State.” They often had cocktail buffets in their home. They also had sit-down dinner parties for 12, often for a specific donor; they continued that at UA.
“I think it shows when you enjoy doing it, and we really do enjoy entertaining. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun,” she says. “We’ve got it down to a science.” That science these days includes the technology of the Internet. They make many plans via e-mail — even e-mailing each other from their individual upstairs studies, which are just feet apart. They share duties — he’ll grill the meat, she’ll set the table. And he does the thing she can’t stand: clearing off the table after the meal and putting it back to normal. He’ll also vacuum, just to restore order.
Jane numbers her menus, to make sure she doesn’t serve the same thing twice to the same guests. Menu 1 is typically a grilled meat, Dave’s mother’s rice casserole, a salad, a vegetable, an appetizer and a dessert. She doesn’t like dessert, so she doesn’t make them, instead opting for ice cream and cookies.
On Razorback game days, their house, just up the hill from the football stadium, becomes the center of activity. And people bring food with them.
“We don’t technically have a party, we just end up with a party,” she says. “It’s like a church potluck. Whatever comes just fits together, is great and is gone.” MANIC ORGANIZER Jane loves trash day. She relishes putting out bags of garbage and seeing them disappear. And she keeps a sense of humor about her obsession with organization. She serves on the Washington Regional Foundation board, with her friend Hannah Lee, and is also vice-chairman of the United Way Foundation board. She’s chairman of the Central United Methodist Church board of trustees and also serves on committees there. She was cochairman of sales tax campaigns for the new Fayetteville Public Library and the new Fayetteville sewer system. She has the time and considers giving of herself important. “If an opportunity presents itself and it seems worthwhile I just say, ‘ Yes, I will happily help,’” she says.
Since she was in State College, she has been interested in issues of hunger. Lee says it was easy to follow Jane as Cooperative Emergency Outreach president because she’d organized things so well.
“She’s highly intelligent but has a lot of common sense, too,” Lee says.
The Gearharts just got through a very busy April, sometimes attending multiple events in a night, but they love it. She’s got wardrobe selection down to a science, too. Her closet is meticulously organized. And she tracks the outfits she wears on a notecard. When contemplating an outfit, she considers when she wore it last and if she’ll run into the same people as at the previous event.
“I think that makes my wardrobe go farther,” she says.
She’s organized in many other ways, as well. She keeps greeting cards on hand. She balances her checkbook as soon as the bank statement arrives. And she collects items at the top and bottom of the banister, so she can take them upstairs or downstairs with each trip. She also keeps every newspaper that has mentioned her husband. She organizes photo albums chronologically.
Brock says she used to arrange his closet by color and sort T-shirts — which were on hangers — by themes of colleges, bands, etc. He has employed those same skills in the tiny New York apartment he shares with his wife, Lindsey.
Sandy Edwards, a friend for about 20 years, says Jane’s sense of humor is one of her most endearing qualities.
“Her humor is so refreshing and rare,” she says.
So is her compassion. When Edwards’ husband, Clay, died in January 2007, Jane immediately came to the Edwards home and took things over — organizing, cleaning and taking down Christmas decorations. Edwards didn’t want to associate the holiday with her husband’s death.
“When I looked over and saw what she was doing, I could let go of a concern,” Edwards says.
HOMECOMING, AGAIN The Gearharts are very close to their two children, Katy Hunt and Brock. She’s a speech pathologist in Ann Arbor, Mich.; he’s a vice president with Merrill Lynch in New York. Jane talks to each of them at least once a day, often when her children are on their way home from work. She keeps her cell phone with her at all times, to stay connected. When the parents returned to Fayetteville in 1998, Brock was about to enter his junior year of high school. Jane knew what it was like to change schools at that age (but she wouldn’t have met her husband if she hadn’t ). They agreed that she’d stay in State College with him for a year, and then he’d live with a friend during his senior year, while Dave moved to Fayetteville to start work.
The weekend they moved Dave’s belongings to Fayetteville, Brock was in a “horrifi c” car wreck in State College that totaled the car but only left a piece of glass in his fi nger.
“It’s just a miracle he wasn’t killed, and that was our sign from God,” Jane says.
The family talked and Brock decided he was going to come to Arkansas. But it took a long time for him to make friends.
“It was really rough on me. That was the hardest time of my life, I would say, was watching Brock be so unhappy,” Jane says. “There’s nothing you can do.” After several months, he made friends. Even though he was accepted as a student at Penn State, he attended UA — where he met his wife, Lindsey — and now considers Arkansas home. He was president of his fraternity, Sigma Chi.
Hunt says her mom was supportive of their ambitions, and she’s now always accessible to them.
“She never thinks about herself. She’s always thinking about everybody else,” Hunt says.
For 28 years, Jane’s side of the family has taken a summer vacation to Gulf Shores, Ala. Even there, Jane does laundry, keeps a shopping list and runs to the grocery store.
“She just can’t sit still,” says Beth Wilkins, Jane’s younger sister, of Springdale.
Earlier this year, Jane mentioned to Dave’s mother that Easter would be the last big dinner in their current house. That comment was passed on to another family member, and “the next thing I know, everybody who could had descended.” Eighteen people showed up, bringing side dishes. (Dave’s brother’s family will be moving into the house, so it will stay in the family, with many more gatherings. )
“I’ve entertained a ton in this house, and I hope I’ll do the same over there,” she says of the red brick house under construction next door. “Those are some of our best memories. It’s just so fun and so loud, with so many laughs.”
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