Dynamic Duos: Linda and Rush Harding

In 2018, Rush Harding shared with Dwain Hebda, writing for Arkansas Money & Politics, how he met his wife of 40 years, Linda.

It was at a function at the University of Central Arkansas, where Rush was a recent graduate and the featured speaker that night and Linda a student.

“Smitten, Rush followed her to her car, and they started talking,” Hebda wrote. “When she declined a goodnight kiss, he declared on the spot that he was going to marry her. She said not without a date first. The rest is history…”

Rush Harding, of course, was on his way up the finance ladder in Little Rock when he met his future wife. A founding partner of the Crews & Associates investment finance firm, now a part of the First Security family, Harding ascended to eventually lead the firm.

Linda, meanwhile, has emerged as a nationally recognized photographic artist. Her work currently is on exhibit at the Agora Gallery in New York. The gallery describes her work as “using desaturated values and softened painterly tonalities, making the photographs she captures look more like hand-drawn works of art. In this way, her subjects take on a dream-like quality that makes viewers feel as though they’re peering into a mythological world.”

The Hardings, indeed, are one of Little Rock’s true power couples. They also own the real estate that houses the upscale Cache Restaurant — where their son, Payne, is the executive chef and owner — in the heart of Little Rock’s River Market District. And they are proud supporters of their alma mater. The Hardings recently made an estate gift of $3 million to UCA as part of its ongoing $100 million fundraising campaign.