Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson paid a visit to Texarkana, AR Thursday to get a first-hand look of a national recognized computer science program.

The computer science students at North Heights Junior High School are learning to write computer programs or coding.

Arkansas was the first state in the nation to pass legislation requiring computer science courses be taught in every public school. 

North Heights is the first Junior High School the governor has visited to further promote computer coding, a field the governor says is good for the state.

"If we can stay on the cutting edge of computer coding, we will attract more businesses to this state in technology," said Governor Hutchinson. "But it gives these students the opportunity to have high paying jobs that is really unique to the computer science field."

The governor said the starting salary for a computer coder is around $60,000 and he believes the nature of this business can keep students from leaving the state to pursue a career.

"That is what beautiful about computer coding is you can be on your front porch in Fouke, Arkansas and run the world," Hutchinson said. 

Last year North Heights computer science class finished first in a competition with 1700 schools across the nation in computer coding.

"It has some pretty good pay so I think I'll be a coder one day I code all the time in this class and its a whole lot of fun to code," said student William Massey.

Another student agreed.

"You can do it for fun or you can do it for a career and you make a lot of money for it," said student Christian Conway.

Arkansas Computer Science Bill (HB 1183) has garnered national recognition for the state and Governor Hutchinson says he hope to see the coding education to continue growing.

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