Tara Shephard

Tara Shephard is a dedicated Arkansas State Representative currently serving her second term and running for the Arkansas State Senate, District 15. She presently represents House District 79, which includes Southwest Little Rock, Otter Creek, Mablevale, and parts of Alexander.

In her first term, Representative Shephard made history as a freshman legislator by championing child-focused policies and successfully passing a landmark opioid bill Act 811 which was signed into law by the Governor and is now being modeled at the federal level in Congress. The legislation mandates the placement of life-saving overdose reversal kits on every state-supported high school and college campus, making it one of the most effective measures to address
preventable overdose deaths in Arkansas.

Before joining the legislature, Representative Shephard served as a board director for the Little Rock School District, representing more than 50,000 residents and seven schools. Her longstanding commitment to education and equity has taken her to national platforms, including the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans in Oakland, California, and the STANDUp for Public Education Conference in Washington, D.C.

In 2019, she partnered with the Arkansas Minority Health Commission and the UA Little Rock Institute on Race and Ethnicity to author In Their Voices, an ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) report highlighting the lived experiences of Black girls in Arkansas. The report was informed by data collected from participants in her annual At-Promise Girls Empowerment Conference. For this pioneering work, she was honored at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia with the Voice of the Voiceless Award, alongside the 142nd Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Representative Shephard's leadership and advocacy have been recognized with numerous awards and features in outlets including STAND News, Miss Lady Magazine, Pam Brown Courtney Magazine, P.E.A.S. Magazine, and the Arkansas Minority Health Commission. She is also featured in the Netflix documentary Teach Us All.

Her accolades include honors from the Arkansas Democratic Black Caucus, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Sister Friends United, Hello Inc., the Lorenzo Lewis Foundation, Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, Cornell Companies, G4S Youth Services, Rite of Passage, Inc., Child USA, the Arkansas Education Association, and the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care, among many others. She has also been recognized as one of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff s 50 Under 50 Outstanding Alumni.

She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the Arkansas Democratic Black Caucus, the Pulaski County and National UAPB Alumni Chapters, the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, and the American Association of University Women.

Representative Shephard often shares her favorite quote by the late Chadwick Boseman "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me."