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19 MARCH HER
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to the community eventually led her to be named “Woman of the Year” by The Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce in 2014.
“That brought tears to my eyes. To actually win it and be recog- nized for all of your volunteerism among all of the other ladies to be selected was unbelievable. Yeah, that was pretty special,” she said.
As a child, Baswell said she recalls many memories of days on the lake with her family. As a student, she took on several different leadership roles in high school. While attending UALR, Baswell commuted to and from Little Rock. Upon graduating, she began her career under her men- tor David Bartlett. Around the same time, she started to get in- volved in the community.
She immersed herself in sev- eral different organizations in- cluding United Way, Relay For Life, The American Cancer Soci- ety, Fifty for the Future, and the Spa Running Festival. She served in leadership positions in nearly every organization she became involved in, all while working full- time in yet another leadership role at work.
“During my banking career, I’ve been involved in lots of dif- ferent organizations and caus- es and, you know, I love helping people,” she said. “In my job, over the last two or three years sort of restricted me. I just sort of had to back away from the involvement and volunteering just because of my job.
“I’ve been a leader and a helper and an organizer. Like I said, I did the administrator work for Fifty for the Future for 20 years. So I got to connect with a lot of great businesses and professional peo- ple in the community. ... Through that, I met a lot of people and a lot of people met me because even though I’m a helper and a leader, I’m sort of a behind the scenes person. That’s why being the queen is so different because I don’t like being the face, I like being behind the scenes.”
Many nights, she would leave work only to find more waiting for her when she arrived home. Eating dinner before 8 p.m. was almost unheard of in her house- hold. Between the day-to-day re- quirements of her career and the commitments she had made to so many different organizations, Baswell felt the need to refocus her energy. So finally, she decided to step back. However, she could not entirely step away from one
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