{"id":3776,"date":"2014-05-28T15:59:31","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T20:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/?p=3776"},"modified":"2014-05-28T15:59:31","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T20:59:31","slug":"james-freeman-appointed-to-sau-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/2014\/james-freeman-appointed-to-sau-board\/","title":{"rendered":"James Freeman appointed to SAU Board"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"James<\/a>Southern Arkansas University alum and Dillard\u2019s CFO James I. Freeman of Texarkana has been appointed to the SAU Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n

Freeman will replace Ken Sibley on the SAU Board, with an appointment to expire January 14, 2015. This was one of 18 appointments made by Governor Mike Beebe on Tuesday, May 27, 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very pleased that the Governor has appointed James Freeman to the Southern Arkansas University Board of Trustees,\u201d said SAU President Dr. David Rankin. \u201cMr. Freeman has achieved outstanding success in both accounting and finance and has been very supportive of the University.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freeman is executive vice president and CFO Dillard\u2019s Inc. He received the bachelor of business administration degree from SAU (then Southern State College) in 1971.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am excited about the opportunity to serve the University,\u201d said Freeman.<\/p>\n

He received a Certificate of Distinction for earning the highest grade in the state on the CPA exam in 1971. He credits SAU in preparing him for the CPA exam and his successful career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe accounting curriculum was very strong. Dr. Rankin taught us corporate finance and Louis Blanchard was head of accounting and had quite a track record as several of us scored top scores on the exam,\u201d said Freeman.<\/p>\n

Freeman has certainly demonstrated his appreciation of his alma mater over the years. He is a member of the Mulerider Society, which means he has cumulative contributions to SAU surpassing $500,000. He has endowed two professorships in the SAU College of Business, and has served on the SAU Foundation Board of Governors since 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing his busy schedule, we are grateful for his willingness to devote time to the Foundation\u2019s mission of raising and managing funds on behalf of the University,\u201d said Jeanie Bismark, director of the SAU Foundation.<\/p>\n

In 1978, he joined BKD LLP \u2013 one of the nation\u2019s largest accounting firms \u2013 as the youngest partner in the firm\u2019s history. He became the partner in charge of the firm\u2019s Little Rock office in 1982. He joined Dillard\u2019s in 1988 as chief financial officer and was elected to the Dillard\u2019s Board of Directors in 1990. He joined the Board\u2019s Executive Committee in 1995. He is the second longest serving CFO of a Fortune 500 company.<\/p>\n

Freeman has served on the Dean\u2019s Advisory Board for the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. He is also a former chairman of the Financial Executive Council of the National Retail Foundation as well as a board member for several charity organizations in central Arkansas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southern Arkansas University alum and Dillard\u2019s CFO James I. Freeman of Texarkana has been appointed to the SAU Board of Trustees. Freeman will replace Ken Sibley on the SAU Board, with an appointment to expire January 14, 2015. This was one of 18 appointments made by Governor Mike Beebe on Tuesday, May 27, 2014. \u201cI… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":3777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[578,7753],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-board-of-trustees","8":"category-homepage","9":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}