Jim Sheets

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James Lee "Jim" Sheets (March 29, 1931 – March 1, 2020) was a businessman and educator from Bella Vista, Arkansas. He served as a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives for Benton County from 1967 to 1968, the first Republican from Benton County in the 20th century. He did not seek reelection, choosing to focus on his job as public relations director at John Brown University in Siloam Springs.

Sheets was born in Arkansas City, Kansas, and grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, graduating from Enid High School in 1949. He earned a BA in Bible and English from John Brown University in 1953. He married Martha Hamlin in 1954, and they adopted four children: Kimberly, Mark, Kevin, and Aaron.

After serving in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1958, Sheets returned to John Brown University as director of public relations and student recruitment, a position he held until 1969. He became the executive director of the Siloam Springs Chamber of Commerce in 1969. In 1970, he ran as the Republican nominee for Arkansas Secretary of State but lost to Democrat Kelly Bryant.

Sheets remained active in politics and business, serving as an alternate delegate to the 1976 Republican National Convention and helping manage the Arkansas Ford-Dole campaign. He was a longtime Kiwanian, joining Kiwanis in 1953, serving as governor of the Missouri-Arkansas District in 1965, and becoming executive director of the Kiwanis International Foundation in 1982, a post he held until his retirement in 1998. In that role, he helped raise funds and worked with UNICEF to fight iodine deficiency worldwide.

After his Kiwanis work, Sheets returned to Benton County and settled in Bella Vista, where he and Martha attended Village Baptist Church. He died on March 1, 2020, at age 88.