Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday appointed Steve Kueter of Paragould to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, giving the aquaculture industry a second seat on the seven-member panel that regulates hunting and fishing in the state.
Kueter, a third-generation catfish and baitfish farmer, will serve a seven-year term running through June 30, 2033. He replaces Anne Marie Doramus of Little Rock, whose term expired June 30. Doramus, appointed by former Gov. Asa Hutchinson in 2019, was the first woman named to a full seven-year term in commission history.
“Steve has spent his life helping steward our natural resources while preserving our state’s rich outdoor heritage for future generations,” Sanders said in a statement.
Kueter owns and operates Kueter’s Fish Company Inc., a family farm founded by his grandfather in the 1950s. The operation has grown to hundreds of acres of ponds producing catfish and millions of baitfish fingerlings annually, along with a retail processing operation. Kueter was twice named Arkansas Catfish Farmer of the Year, in 2005 and 2014.
He holds a wildlife management degree from Arkansas State University and serves on the boards of Craighead Electric Cooperative Corporation, the Greene County Farm Bureau and the Arkansas Bait and Ornamental Fish Growers Association. He is president of the Eight Mile Drainage District and previously chaired the Arkansas Farm Bureau Aquaculture Committee.
Second fish farmer in two years
Kueter is Sanders’ fourth appointment to the commission and her second consecutive pick from the aquaculture industry. Last July she appointed Jamie Anderson of Lonoke, a fourth-generation fish farmer whose family operation, I.F. Anderson Farms, is described as the world’s largest minnow producer.
With Kueter’s appointment, commercial fish producers hold two of the commission’s seven seats. Both men have served on the board of the Arkansas Bait and Ornamental Fish Growers Association.
Sanders’ earlier appointments were Brandon Adams, a Conway nursing home executive, in 2023, and Chris Caldwell, her former campaign manager who runs a Little Rock lobbying firm, in 2024.
The commission elected Rob Finley of Mountain Home as chairman at Doramus’ final meeting June 18. Philip Tappan of Little Rock will serve as vice chairman.
Farm uses federal guest worker program
Kueter’s Fish Company hires seasonal labor through the federal H-2A agricultural guest worker program, according to U.S. Department of Labor records. A current job order seeks eight workers at $13.40 per hour from January through November 2026 to seine, grade and haul fish at the Paragould farm.
The program allows farms to hire temporary foreign workers, most from Mexico, for agricultural jobs employers say they cannot fill domestically. It has grown sharply in recent years even as the Trump administration pursues what it calls the largest deportation operation in American history.
Last fall, the administration issued a rule cutting minimum wages for most H-2A workers by as much as a third and allowing employers to deduct housing costs from paychecks for the first time. The Economic Policy Institute estimated the change drops the minimum wage for most guest farmworkers to about $13.70 per hour nationally, down from an average of $17.43 in 2025. The United Farm Workers union has sued to block the rule.
A U.S. Department of Labor attorney defending the wage cut in federal court in March acknowledged “there aren’t enough Americans to take these jobs.”
Historical footnote
Kueter’s appointment returns Greene County to a commission it helped launch. D.G. Beauchamp of Paragould served as the commission’s first chairman when it was created in 1915.
Kueter’s father, the late Tommy Kueter, served on the Greene County Quorum Court from 1983 to 2010.
“It is humbling to be appointed by Governor Sanders and entrusted to continue the good work of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and the commissioners who have come before me,” Steve Kueter said in a statement.
