It’s an unfortunate novelty. When people learn that 27-year-old Shannon Heard is a recreational kickboxer, eyebrows go up. Some of her friends or colleagues, should they share the same interest, would not be met with the same surprise. It is noteworthy, unfortunately, because she is a woman.
With Ronda Rousey’s impressive 34-second knockout in early August, successfully defending her UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship title, the conversation of female athletes — particularly fighters — has once again taken the national stage. Those conversations, however, often center around opinions on Rousey’s physique, not her championship belts.
But Heard doesn’t listen. She’s too busy fighting the status quo.
Each day, she goes to her job at UAMS as the residency coordinator for the Family and Preventative Medicine Department, making sure bright-eyed, young doctors are on the right track to enter their respective fields when their schooling is over. She also recently decided to extend her own schooling, now in her second semester in the masters of business administration program at UALR.
The full-time job, the homework, the kickboxing; it all adds up. Anyone who knows the Little Rock native, however, wouldn’t be surprised. The list of extracurricular activities and organizations in her wake is long and robust, including everything from volunteering with nonprofits to a double major in economics and music to a black belt in taekwondo.
Regardless, if there’s one thing you can’t tell an on-the-go person, it’s to slow down. So despite an already full plate, Heard’s latest endeavor is to chair the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas’ annual Power of the Purse event.
When the WFA was born in 1998, it became the state’s sole organization focused purely on females, a title it retains today. It exists to encourage and strengthen women’s economic skills, philanthropy efforts and achievements, all to change the lives of Arkansas women for the better.
One way the WFA does this is through Power of the Purse, the annual fundraiser that supports the foundation’s numerous grant programs, which have directly affected thousands of women and girls across the state. Now in it’s 17th year, the signature luncheon creates a unique environment of community and business leaders who, despite any real-world rivalry, seem to leave it at the door.
“It’s funny,” Heard laughs, “but Power of the Purse is such a community that even competitors are sisters for an hour and a half.”
How she came to chair the event is a funny story all its own. Flash back to 2013, when Heard had no idea the WFA even existed. Nicky Hamilton was co-chairing the 2014 Power of the Purse and asked Heard, an old college friend, to head up the volunteer committee. Heard shrugged, agreed and then went full force into her duties, helping out wherever she was needed. It wasn’t until the actual event that she understood the extent of the organization’s reach.
Over the course of one lunch, Heard was hooked. She was amazed not only by the speakers and honorees, but by the entire group of women who filled the ballroom and the work they supported. She quickly went to then-WFA Executive Director Lynnette Watts, offering up her volunteer services for the next year, should they be needed.
And then, right before she began the first of her MBA courses, she received an email from Watts, asking her to chair the 2015 event. Heard was shocked. “I had been one of the more quiet committee members, but I wanted to do a good job, so I worked hard. I knew I had to be a part of it again somehow, ” Heard says, “but I never thought I’d be considered for chair. I was both honored and scared, but an opportunity like that? I just couldn’t let it pass by.”
The fact that she took the reins of such a giant undertaking reinforces exactly what Watts must have seen in Heard: that she is a strong and purposeful leader. Unfortunately, that was news to Heard. As a self-professed Type B personality with a fear of public speaking who “lands a bit more on the quirky side,” she thought she was anything but.
“It’s crazy that I’m just now seeing this, but everybody has the potential to be a leader, they just have different styles,” she says. “I’ve learned to be comfortable with who I am and the qualities that I have. Even the weaknesses that I have I’m more at peace with. It’s taken something like Power of the Purse to show me that I’ve been a leader all along, I just didn’t see it.”
It’s a combination of skills she’s picked up in the workplace, practices she’s learning in the MBA program and an innate sense of support-based management that makes it all work. The passion and spirit behind it all? That’s entirely Heard’s, and it isn’t hard to find the source.
Heard comes from a line of tenacious women. One grandmother served as an LPN, volunteering in her spare time, another grandmother worked in a factory for years, eventually leaving to become a businesswoman, and Heard’s older sister is an assistant district attorney.
But her mother is the first name that comes to mind. “Her name is Ruby,” Heard says. “She’s my heart.”
These days, the mother and daughter team both work at UAMS, mom in the human resources department, but it wasn’t always so smooth. When Heard was in the midst of her teen years, her mother got sick. Ruby was on dialysis for years, held fast through a few kidney failures and transplants and still managed to be Heard’s number one cheerleader at every school performance, remaining today as one of Heard’s biggest influences and best friends.
It was also in those formative years that a girl begins to notice more about the world around her, and Heard was no different.
“Sixth grade,” she remembers. “That’s the age you start to realize how women are portrayed in the media, specifically women who look like me. Even though maybe they were indirect, I noticed pretty strong messages telling me that not only was I the wrong gender, but the wrong skin color.
“I learned that what you want out of life is what matters. You may have hinderances and fears, maybe as a woman or as a black woman, but we all face very different and complex challenges. It doesn’t matter what the media may think of you or what people may think of you. It’s all about how you see yourself.”
It’s when the conversation turns to strong women that something in Heard shifts. Naturally a little reserved, but unendingly cheerful, she shakes her head. “I don’t understand,” she says as her brow furrows.
The thing she can’t make sense of is our culture’s perception of strength. To her, getting in front of a punching bag is just another way to release stress, promoting a confidence in self defense. To others, she’s delivering the bafflingly paradoxical one-two punch of strength and femininity.
Whether it’s in the boxing ring, boardroom or biology class, she stands behind the notion that all women must work to build their mental toughness. As for the squeaky wheels demanding that a certain level of toughness takes away from being a woman, Heard won’t listen. She’s too busy fighting the status quo.
“Being strong and being feminine are the same thing,” she says. “It’s very feminine to know you can be tough in the ring, but you have to be tough outside of it.
“Tougher.”
Power of the Purse Luncheon
When 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Wednesday, September 30
Where Grand ballroom of the Little Rock Marriott
Guest speaker Carla Harris, vice chairman of Global Wealth Management and senior client advisor at Morgan Stanley
Tickets $100 each; $1,000 per table of 10
Info WomensFoundationArkansas.org