Dedicated to Helping People & Changing Lives
Jim and Andrea Romine have enjoyed 62 years of marriage, residing in Fayetteville for more than 50 of those years. They became engrained in the community, and each dedicated four decades to their careers at The New School and Parkhill The Clinic for Women.
They’ve traveled together extensively, and did so even more once their sons were grown. They’ve been to Japan, the Galapagos Islands, and East Africa, where they saw lions and giraffes. They’ve explored Europe through several river cruises and have twice visited Alaksa, where Andrea once accidently caught — and released — a beaver while fishing.
They’ve also done fishing trips in Canada, and have traveled to Mexico and 48 U.S. states. Jim trekked to a lookout point at Everest Base Camp in Nepal, and he and their youngest son, Matt, hiked to a 12,000- foot elevation at Mont Blanc in France. Andrea secretly took fly fishing lessons and surprised Jim with her newfound skills on a trip to the White River.
“I just love experiencing new places, and being able to see and experience other cultures,” Andrea said.
Photographs and other memorabilia from their travels and life together decorate their double office, with two desks and computers. The furniture in their apartment includes family heirlooms – such as Andrea’s grandfather’s chair and her grandmother’s tea cart.
Navigating mobility issues as they’ve aged, their travel days are behind them. But they stay plenty busy and engaged by connecting with fellow Butterfield Trail Village residents and joining in the range of activities and programs offered. Among their favorites are monthly jam session sing-alongs and the recent 1950s-themed sock hop, where they mostly talked with friends and reminisced about that era.
Beginning a Lifetime Together
Jim and Andrea both love to dance, and it’s what would bring them together. Growing up in Little Rock, Andrea started taking dance lessons at age 3 and continued those through college, including tap, ballet, pointe, modern and acrobatics classes. Jim played touch football with the neighborhood kids, rode his bike to school, and enjoyed taking a 10-cent trolley ride to see a 15-cent movie at the theater on Hillcrest.
In 1946, Andrea’s parents founded the Anthony School in their home, and her mother ran the private school, which began as one kindergarten class. In their wood-paneled station wagon, her dad drove students to and from school for a small fee. The school grew over the years, with preschool, kindergarten and elementary classrooms built adjacent to their home.
Andrea got interested in children’s theater around age 12, when her mother rented a local auditorium for students to put on a play. Andrea hung out backstage while her mother directed the play that her grandfather wrote, and her grandmother played the music she’d written for piano.
Jim and Andrea met in seventh grade when he arrived at the school with friends to learn ballroom dancing from her mother. The pair went through junior high and high school together and eventually started dating. Jim remembers seeing her in the halls, her hair in a long ponytail, wearing poodle skirts and saddle oxfords. She thought he was handsome, smart, kind and an excellent dancer.
Andrea loved high school, where she was a varsity cheerleader and took all the dance and theater classes she could. Jim played on the basketball team and was most interested in math and sciences. They both graduated as Cume Laude Society members from Little Rock Central High in 1958. A few years later, Jim would set his sights on practicing medicine, and he studied fervently to ensure he’d get into medical school. His desire to focus his practice on women’s health has roots in the strong women who raised him, and he considered it a bit of payback for his upbringing.
Careers Spent Pursuing Their Passions
Jim first got a full scholarship to Duke University to study biology, and his mother and Andrea put him on a Greyhound bus bound for North Carolina. The sweethearts exchanged letters to stay in touch. He abandoned pursuit of that degree after his junior year, when he was accepted into medical school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock.
Andrea went to Baylor University in Texas for a year and a half before transferring to the University of Arkansas in 1960 to pursue her passions of dance, theater and education. She pledged Pi Beta Phi, took dance classes and education classes, and earned a bachelor’s degree in education.
The couple married in June 1963 and, following medical school, moved to Atlanta, Georgia, for him to complete his internship at Grady Memorial Hospital. Jim recalls delivering 24 babies in 24 hours there. He then got a military deferment to do his obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) residency over four years at UAMS. Andrea taught at her parents’ school, and their first son, Jay, was born in 1967.
Next, they moved to northern California, where he served in the Air Force medical corps at David Grant Hospital and Travis Air Force Base. While many of his physician friends were serving in hospitals in Vietnam, he was delivering babies, doing surgical procedures and instructing medical students.
With a desire to return to Arkansas, the growing family left California in 1972 bound for Fayetteville, where they would welcome their second son, Matt, in 1973. When they arrived, the Northwest Arkansas Mall had just opened, and the landscape north toward Springdale was cow-filled pastures.
Planting Deep Roots in Fayetteville
As the Romines quickly set down roots in Fayetteville, Jim joined Parkhill The Clinic for Women, practicing alongside doctors George Cole and Harmon Lushbaugh. Thus began a 40-year career in obstetrics and gynecology, during which Jim served as chief of staff at Washington Regional Medical Center and was also instrumental in the establishment of North Hills Medical Park and Willow Creek Women’s Hospital. From medical school until his retirement, Jim delivered about 8,000 babies.
With only three doctors at Parkhill at the time, one was always on call at the hospital to handle any patient need, since there were no emergency room doctors in the 1970s. Early on, the medical equipment wasn’t yet sophisticated, and they didn’t have ultrasound for fetal monitoring. For one pregnancy, he recalls the diagnosis was twins. Once he’d delivered those two babies, he saw another foot pop out. “I was really surprised!”
When Jim came to Fayetteville, he brought laparoscopic surgery and epidural anesthesia. The Parkhill doctors saw that the medical profession didn’t prioritize women’s needs back then, and they were determined to change attitudes and practices. They promoted women’s health care and advocated that women become a greater priority.
Soon after they arrived in 1972, Andrea joined the staff at The New School, then a private preschool and kindergarten in its infancy. She taught music and creative movement classes and began to write and produce theater productions for the children. She served 18 years as the Assistant Director and was also on the Board of Directors. In 1972, she began writing short plays and presenting them in rearranged classrooms using sheets for curtains.
By 1980, the school had built a new building with a dedicated stage and auditorium. Andrea assembled a talented production staff for music, costumes and theater sets.
Like the school her parents operated, The New School evolved and expanded over the years. They began producing four plays a year with the younger grades and eventually did Broadway Junior plays of Annie and Fiddler on the Roof with older students. “I loved interacting with the children of all ages while directing the plays. Watching them discover the magic of theater was a fulfilling experience for me,” she said.
As members of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Andrea taught some Sunday school classes and directed the annual Christmas pageant for 14 years. She recalls one year when the actors took the stage, and unbeknownst to her, the baby brother of the girl portraying Mary made his stage debut as the baby Jesus. The congregation gasped when he raised his tiny hand from the manger.
Andrea was involved in the community over the years, serving as president of Junior Civic League, a Cub Scout leader and a Pi Beta Phi advisor, and continues to be active in the organization of PEO. In 1999, she received the Encouragement Award through the Arkansas Arts Council’s Governor’s Arts Awards program. And when she retired in 2016 after 44 years, The New School surprised her by naming the new performance stage The Andrea Romine Stage – giving her a plaque she proudly displays at home.
Before moving to BTV in July 2023, they’d lived 43 years in the home they built on Boston Mountain View Drive. Downsizing from a large home to an apartment was daunting, but their granddaughter helped tremendously.
Right at Home at BTV
Familiar with BTV from their time in Fayetteville, Jim and Andrea got on the Carriage Club list several years ago. They’re very happy with their Second Floor South apartment and living in the main building because everything is so handy – from the dining room and performance hall to the mail stop and library.
They enjoy reconnecting with old friends and developing new friendships at BTV. Former neighbors now live two doors down the hall, and one of Andrea’s best friends is across the hall. They especially delight in running into residents whose children were in Andrea’s plays or were delivered by Jim.
They had a home gym before moving to BTV, and Jim played tennis and pickleball and participated in marathons and triathlons. Now, Jim maintains his exercise regimen with resistance training three times a week, workouts in the pool and frequent walks on the nearby Razorback Greenway. Andrea attends a chair yoga class and does water jogging with friends in the pool on Sundays. She also takes an acrylic art class twice a month and likes to pop into the bistro and run into friends.
Their four granddaughters and two greatgrandchildren all live in the region, and the greatgrands regularly have sleepovers, camping out in sleeping bags on pallets in the living room. They also host birthday parties for their family in their apartment.
Jim doesn’t know how to use the stove and doesn’t plan to learn. But he does prep their coffee maker each evening, so they can quickly enjoy drinking it together in the mornings. He regularly reads The New York Times, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Atlantic and other magazines, and is a frequent BTV library customer. Andrea has been in a monthly book club for about 20 years. They recently read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, and are next reading his Table for Two, a collection of short fiction.
They’re approaching the future as they’ve always done. “We plan to live in the present, continue to learn and participate, and live life to the fullest,” Andrea said.
Words by Michelle Parks | Photos by Stephen Ironside
