FARMINGTON -- Billie Yates, in telling you "how to bake bread," makes it seem all so easy.
And bread-baking may be an easy task for this long-time retired school official and community volunteer and activist.
She will soon close in on a milestone of having probably made 10,000 loaves of homemade bread to freely share with others.
She has not, it needs to be pointed out, kept an actual count of the loaves of homemade bread she has made for others since 2000.
But if one were to do the math, after listening to where she tells you of those often receiving these "loaves of love," well, the numbers keep adding up and up and up.
Yates makes it clear: "I'm not looking for any goal (as in numbers), I am just making bread - donating and giving it to others."
She does not, she says firmly, "bake bread for money."
That is what she knows makes a gift of her homemade bread such a pleasure to so many people.
Her sister-in-law, Virginia Hunter of Ozark, gave her a "starter" in March of 2000 and the bread baking soon began. She then was widowed and the bread baking was a way to stay busy.
Labor Of Love
First, it was a labor of love, that was (and still is) given to the visitors at Prairie Grove United Methodist Church, where Billie is a long-time member.
"I always tried to give one to the pastor every Sunday and any visitor that showed up in the congregation," she said. The church, when in session prior to the covid-19 pandemic, often received six loaves per week.
And there were always more visitors during the Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday services as "out of town" guests came back home to visit relatives, she said. That made the loaf count exceed six and sometimes double the usual fare.
"If no visitors come on a Sunday, they (the congregation) get to fight over who gets the bread," she said.
It is not just her church that sees the bread coming around.
"There is also bread for the neighbors in my neighborhood in Farmington," Yates said.
Since the advent of the covid-19 outbreak, the neighborhood has been seeing loaves of her bread left on the front porches and door steps, she said.
After the church and the neighborhood as recipients, there are members of the many clubs and organizations where Yates is a member.
Other Bread Recipients
One club is the Junior Civic League of Prairie Grove, where Yates has logged more than 53 years as a member. At the meetings, Yates and her bread are present.
Then there is the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) where she has been a stalwart member and has served as the County and Regional Director of the AARP.
Other meetings where members are recipients of her bread are Delta Kappa Gamma, the PEO Sisterhood, the Senior Democrats of Northwest Arkansas and Washington County Retired Teachers. The list of civic clubs and professional associations goes on and on.
At Senior Democrats of Northwest Arkansas, a group of 50-75 that meets monthly, with Democratic political leaders from Washington, Carroll, Madison and Benton Counties in attendance, Yates has somewhat developed a cult following for her bread among area politicians.
"I guess my biggest fan of my bread is our sheriff (Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder of West Fork)," she said. "He is such a sweetheart and always so gracious when I slip him a loaf of bread."
Others who have come to admire Yate's homemade bread include frequent speakers from Little Rock like Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist John Brummett; Max Brantley of the Arkansas Tines; Roby Brock of Arkansas Politics and Business; former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, former Arkansas Attorney General and U.S. Senator Mark Pryor and former U.S. Senator and Governor David Pryor.
But these politicians are just the few among thousands of people who have been recipients of her bread since 2000.
"I like to bake bread," she said going through the almost two-day long process to "start" and make the bread dough, let it rise (often overnight) and then bake the second day.
It seems like a long and labor intensive process, yet Yates accomplishes a regime of six loaves at a time.
She has learned that the weather plays a major role on how long the bread must bake in the over. It is shorter in the hot weather of summer and a little longer when the weather is colder in winter.
History Hall Of Fame Inductee
Yates, for her school, civic and activism in Washington County, was inducted into the Washington County Women in History Hall of Fame in 2016. At that ceremony she reflected back, expressing her "eternal thankfulness" for the opportunities to live, work and volunteer helping others in western Washington County and Northwest Arkansas.
"It has been a pleasure to be involved in many things making life and living in our part of the world, a better place," she said.
Yates, who has lived in Farmington since 2000, is a former 43-year public school educator in both the Greenland and Prairie Grove schools. She was the first public school guidance counselor for the Prairie Grove schools over 40 years ago and one of the first elementary school counselors in the region years later.
A native of the St. Paul area, Yates detailed her upbringing in Madison County, the only child of a widowed one-room school teacher who taught at Red Star, Accident and other tiny hamlets of Madison County prior to school consolidations in the 1930s and 1940s.
Her entry into the Women In History Hall of Fame for Washington County was for her decades of public and civic leadership and it also showcased her bread.
The Hall, active since 1999, requires each member of every class to put together a small booth of their school and civic works.
Yates, when asked by the sponsoring group, was urged to include loaves of her bread and she told how she used the homemade baked bread to promote the goals of each of the groups she is a member in good standing.
She and her late husband raised three sons, John, Jeff and Gregory and for a short while were taking in another young man who needed a stable home. Yates said, "Raising three boys in a house is a full-time job – take in another young man and that takes your household to an all-new level."
The sons all love her bread and so do the many grandchildren, so when Yates goes to visit she is packing several loaves of bread for her family.
Yates will keep making bread, eschewing loaf totals and such frivolous statistics, as long as she is able, she said.
Seeing people enjoy being given a fresh loaf of homemade bread always makes them smile.
The smiles surely surpassed that 10,000 marker a long time ago.
