Jerry E. Hinshaw

Jerrold Eldon Hinshaw (January 15, 1917 - December 31, 2003), known as Jerry E. Hinshaw, was a farmer and businessman from Tontitown in Washington County in northwestern Arkansas, who was a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1981 to 1996 from now District 93. Hinshaw represented the principal city of Springdale in Washington and Benton counties for eight consecutive two-year terms in the lower legislative chamber.

Hinshaw was a first lieutenant in the United States Army during World War II. After the war, he worked in poultry production with the Ralston Purina Company in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1949, the industrial giant made Hinshaw the manager of southeastern sales in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1951, he joined Western Hatcheries in Dallas, Texas, having become vice president of that firm. In 1956, he became affiliated with Arbor Acres, a worldwide poultry concern. However, Hinshaw subsequently left poultry farming to concentrate on cattle production and operated five ranches in Arkansas and Missouri.

In 1964, Hinshaw was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for Arkansas's 3rd congressional district seat, having been defeated by the incumbent Democrat James William Trimble of Berryville. Two years later in 1966, Trimble was unseated by the Republican nominee John Paul Hammerschmidt of Harrison, Arkansas.

In 1981, Hinshaw filled the House seat vacated after twelve years by Preston Bynum, then of Siloam Springs in Benton County. Hinshaw was only the third Republican to hold this House seat since Reconstruction. Prior to his election to the legislature, Hinshaw served as a justice of the peace and for a single four-year term was a member of the Washington County Quorum Court. He was a commissioner and former president from 1967 to 1989 of the Springdale Housing Authority. He was a vice president of the Springdale Savings and Loan Association and one of the founders of the Tontitown Area Volunteer Fire Department. Forty years later, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville honored Hinshaw for his contributions and service to the Department Of Animal Science. Hinshaw died at the age of eighty-six.