The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts lost one of its earliest Hot Springs advocates on Friday with the passing of Helen Selig.
Selig died Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. She was 84. A memorial mass will be held at St. Mary of the Springs Catholic Church in Hot Springs at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24, followed by a reception.
Selig served as mayor of Hot Springs from 1994-2000 during the early years of the school. She was a prominent leader of a community group that lobbied for the state to choose Hot Springs as the school’s home in 1992.
The Arkansas General Assembly established the school in 1991 without a home site picked for the program. A site selection committee received more than 50 applications from cities and towns across Arkansas hoping to serve as the host for the new school. Hot Springs was eventually one of seven finalists considered for the site.
Hot Springs supporters adopted the slogan “Clear As A Bell,” signifying that the city was the obvious choice to host ASMSA. In cooperation with the City of Hot Springs and the Garland County community, a plan to house the school in the recently vacated St. Joseph Hospital was proposed. The building became vacant when a new hospital, the current CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs, was built. Among those leading the charge was Selig.
Selig and other volunteers convinced the city to make a big commitment to the project to win the selection committee over. The city agreed to buy the building from the hospital and committed to perform maintenance on it. She also began pursuing civic support for the project.
“She was knocking on doors and organizing groups. It had endorsements from everyone in the area, including some statewide organizations,” said her husband, John Selig, in a 2017 Tangents article.
The city’s location in Central Arkansas as well as its proximity to Hot Springs National Park were another advantage, Helen Selig said. “It helped draw people here that may not have come to the town otherwise,” she said.
When the committee announced its selection of Hot Springs, Selig was overjoyed. “It lifted everybody’s spirits. We knew then that we had the support of the entire state of Arkansas. It was wonderful,” Selig said in the Tangents article.
Hot Springs has Helen and John Selig to thank for ASMSA being in the town, said Eric Jackson, the former general manager of Oaklawn Gaming and Racing and another early advocate for the school.
“Quite frankly if not for Helen Selig, the school would not be here,” Jackson said in the 2017 Tangents article. “It was Helen who discovered that the state was thinking about developing a school for mathematics and sciences and that a number of communities would be competing to be home for that school.“It was Helen who singlehandedly rallied this community to get in the race and compete for the school. We were almost a late entrant into the competition. If it had not been for Helen, we would have been asleep at the switch, and we wouldn’t have tried to get the school.”
Jackson said Helen Selig was the first to connect the dots to use the former hospital as the site for the proposed school. It would put the building to good use and accomplish two things at once, he said. Once she had the idea to bring the school to Hot Springs, she was determined to be successful, Jackson said.
“To know Helen, she’ll just wear you out. When she was determined to go after something she would just go after it. She was a community resident who said ‘Hey, we ought to be doing this.’ And she said it loud enough and often enough to the right people that to that she got everyone’s attention — the banks, Weyerhauser, Oaklawn, everybody. And we all went to work actually falling in line behind Helen.”
In September 1994, a year after the school opened and during Selig’s first term as mayor, a dedication ceremony was held on campus to recognize the efforts of the city and citizens to ensure promises made during the site selection search were kept. Selig presented a bronze school bell to ASMSA as a symbol of the community’s efforts to keep the promises made to get the school placed in Hot Springs. The bell now stands in front of the Student Center.
“Hot Springs is proud to have been selected for the honor of being the home of this fine school,” Selig said that day. “Hot Springs is proud that we have kept our promise to you and the people of Arkansas that we would give you the best possible facility for the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences.
“Hot Springs is proud of what this school will do for the students who attend and for the communities from which they come. We are proud, on this day, to present to you and the people of Arkansas this outstanding facility to be used for our children, for our state, for the future.”
Among those students who would attend the school was the Seligs’ granddaughter Lacy, who graduated from ASMSA in 2008, and later their grandson Jack, who graduated in 2019.
Selig along with her family continued their support for ASMSA throughout the decades. In January 2017, the eponymous Helen Selig Promise Kept Endowment was named established. John Selig and other members of the Selig family made a $20,000 gift to ASMSA to create the endowment in her honor. It was the single largest gift to establish an endowment in the school’s history. The gift was matched by one of the family members’ employer to initially establish the endowment with $40,000 total.
The endowment provides an annual grant to an ASMSA faculty member. The grant must be used to have an impact on the classroom, research project or department.
“The Selig family is pleased to establish a permanent endowment in recognition of Helen’s efforts to bring ASMSA to Hot Springs,” said John Selig at the time. “This gift will allow her vision and enthusiasm for the school to be memorialized over time and provide financial support to help fund special projects.”
ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice said that Selig’s passion for education and ASMSA will be felt long after her passing.
"We share our deepest sympathies to the Selig family in this season of grief,” Alderdice said. "Even still, ASMSA's community of learning celebrates the legacy of one of the school's most fierce advocates. Few Arkansans have left a greater impact on our school than Helen. Without her extraordinary leadership and persistence, the school would not be what it is today. Generations of students to come will continue to benefit from her example."
To view Selig’s full obituary, visit https://asmsa.me/seligobit.