Congressman Mike Ross
Congressman Mike Ross formally announced in December 2012 that Ouachita Baptist University
would be the repository for his official papers and memorabilia. Today, the congressman’s
papers are housed in OBU’s Riley-Hickingbotham Library.
Hundreds of cubic feet of files serve as the centerpiece of the collection, including
items from Ross’ time in the Arkansas General Assembly through the time of his departure
from Congress. A sizable collection of photographs, newsclippings, audio/video recordings,
and artifacts supplement the files.
Mike Ross is a fifth-generation and lifelong Arkansan, a former small business owner,
state senator, and U.S. Congressman.
Michael Avery Ross was born August 2, 1961, in Texarkana, Arkansas, and lived in southwest
Arkansas until recently relocating to Little Rock. He is the grandson of farmers and
a nurse, and the son of public school educators. After graduating from Hope High School,
he earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, working
his way through college as a radio announcer. By age twenty, he was serving on the
staff of then former Governor Bill Clinton as Clinton successfully waged his “come
back” campaign for a second term as Governor of Arkansas. During the 1980s, he was
vice-president for colleges for the Young Democrats of Arkansas and served for many
years on the Democratic Party of Arkansas’s state committee and its executive committee.
In 1990, at age twenty-nine, Ross was elected as the youngest member at the time of
the Arkansas State Senate, where he served for ten years. He served as chair of the
Senate’s Children and Youth Committee, and helped create the Arkansas Academic Challenge
Scholarship Program. He is also a former member of the Nevada County Quorum Court.
In 2000, the people of Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District elected Mike Ross
to represent them in Congress. That year, he was the only Democrat outside of California
to unseat a Republican incumbent. Throughout his twelve years in Congress, Ross was
consistently rated as one of the most independent members of Congress, known for hard
work and for listening to his constituents. In fact, one publication called Mike Ross
one of the most “prolific townhallers in Congress.
Congressman Ross served as a co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally
conservative Democratic House members that advocated the principles of fiscal responsibility,
government accountability, and national security. In this role, he fought for a balanced
budget amendment and worked to rid waste and fraud from the federal government.
Ross also co-chaired the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (one of the largest bi-partisan
caucuses in Congress), the Congressional Delta Caucus, the I-49 Congressional Caucus,
and the I-69 Congressional Caucus. He also served as President of the Mississippi
Valley Flood Control Association and as a member and vice-president of the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly, where he represented the United States at meetings of the twenty-eight NATO
member countries on issues such as defense, global terrorism, trade, the environment,
and renewable energy.
Mike Ross left Congress in January 2013 after choosing not to seek a seventh term.
After a brief stint in the private sector as an officer and senior vice president
at the Little Rock based non-profit Southwest Power Pool, he announced his candidacy
for Governor of Arkansas on April 17, 2013. He was defeated in the 2014 Arkansas
gubernatorial election by current Governor Asa Hutchinson.
Mike and Holly Ross have been married for thirty years, and they have two grown children.
They are members of the Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church in Little Rock. For
fourteen years, Mike and Holly, a pharmacist, owned and operated a family pharmacy
in Prescott, where they raised their family.
Mike Ross Collection Container List
Some materials in the Mike Ross papers, like photographs and media, are not yet fully
processed. Please call or email Special Collections with questions inquiries about
these formats.
