Wednesday, June 01, 2005

NEIGHBORS>> Dakota returns from Jerusalem

IN SHORT: Cancer patient is hailed along homecoming route to Cabot

By SARA GREENE
Leader staff writer

Being back home in Cabot is sweeter than ever for the Hawkins family.

They returned Thursday, May 26, from living in Jerusalem for three months for their oldest son Dakota, 14, to undergo leukemia treatment at Hadassah Medical Center. After receiving a cell transplant from his mother, Sharon, and brother, Riley, 12, Dakota is now leukemia-free.

An enthusiastic crowd of friends and relatives gathered at the Little Rock National Airport to welcome the family home. Gasps of surprise erupted from the Hawkins family as they saw the crowd awaiting them in the terminal. Other passengers walking through the terminal glanced at the large group as they hugged and wept.

“We go to church with the Hawkinses at Mt. Carmel and it’s nice to have them back,” said Maghan Slater, holding a “Welcome Home Dakota” sign.

A large group of faculty from Cabot Junior High School North was on hand as well with “CJHS loves the Hawkins family” signs. Dakota’s father, Henry, is an assistant principal at the school.

“It’s so wonderful just to see them again, they all look so good,” said Penny Hawkins, Dakota’s aunt.

When they drove into Cabot, the Hawkins family was given a police escort to their home, and crowds lined up along Hwy. 321 to welcome the motorcade.

“Thanks to all of you who greeted us at the airport and those who made signs and lined up on Hwy. 321 and our road as we came home,” wrote Sharon in the family’s online journal http://www2.caringbridge.org/ar/keepthefaith. “Dakota was so overjoyed at your support. Thank you, Cabot, for all the welcome home signs around town.”

She said the entire family was overwhelmed at the displays of love and support.

“Most of all, thanks to each of you for the prayers of faith, restored health and praying us home,” she wrote.

Dakota is recovering from his treatment and a lung infection. His improvement will be closely monitored during twice weekly clinic visits.

Mindful of Dakota’s recovery, the family is resting and enjoying their return to Cabot.

They spent the weekend visiting with family and friends and eating plenty of American food.

EDITORIAL>> Will Bond for speaker

Call us boosters and homers, but it seems important to us that Rep. Will Bond is elected speaker of the House of Representatives in 2007, a choice that the current House members probably will make tentatively this winter. It means very little of a parochial nature to the community unless Bond turned out to be as grabby with state improvement funds as state Sen. Bob Johnson of Bigelow, but it can mean much to the state of Arkansas.

A profile of the candidates and their fund-raising and political gifts in the Tuesday Arkansas Democrat Gazette provides fresh argument for Bond’s election, if any were needed. Bond’s chief competitor, Rep. Benny Petrus of Stuttgart, raised a whopping $70,000 for his re-election campaign last year, although he ran without opposition.

He explained that he kept raising funds until near the end out of fear that a write-in candidate would run against him. He took much of the cash and passed it around among other House members with races, acquiring chits for his race for speaker. It is an open question whether that is legal under the state ethics law.

Both Petrus and Bond gave money to help another House member pay the medical bills of his son; Petrus gave from his campaign fund, but Bond gave his personal money.

The newspaper article did not raise a more serious ethical problem. Petrus allowed lobbyists for the timber and gambling interests to use his Little Rock apartment during the legislative session as a hospitality suite to wine and dine lawmakers. Perhaps as speaker, Petrus would observe better decorum.

But really the ethical standards of speaker and member should be no different.

Neither should sell his public office or any manifestation of it to private interests.

Who the lawmakers elect speaker will say a lot about the primacy of the public interest in Arkansas. Let us hope that it is Will Bond.

SPORTS>> Young making it a hobby

IN SHORT: McRae native building points lead

Beebe’s Jason Young is the man to beat in the Hobby Stock class at Beebe Speedway in 2005. Young holds a very comfortable 40 point lead over closet rival Dennis Fisk in the championship point standings. Young has also won five of the nine feature races held at Beebe so far this year, and has led in all but one feature this season.

This is Young’s fifth season in the Hobby class, and his years of learning the ropes are starting to pay off. Young scored his very first career feature win just last season in 2004.

Much of his ’04 campaign was marred with mechanical failures and less experience than a lot of his competitors. This year is a completely different story altogether. A brand new car for 2005, and a much talked about maturity as a driver has propelled Young into the position of being one of the most feared drivers on the track.

Young belongs to one of the most recognized teams in local racing, the Fox Racing team. Led by Steve Fox and his mother, Carol, the Fox team holds an incredible stable of talent including Young, modified guru Randy Weaver, and hobby class rookie contender Blake Jones. Though Weaver has been the headline grabber for the Fox team in recent years, this season appears to be Young’s time to shine.

“The car has felt really good all season,” Young said. “It really helps when you have a car that runs this well.”

Although some competitors like to hint that the success is all due to the car, anyone who has followed local racing for a number of years remembers a sloppy Jason Young whose inexperience led to collisions and torn up race cars.

That Jason Young is gone, and in his place is an aggressive, precise, and clean driver who can make his car work in any groove on the track, regardless of conditions. Though he now has one of the strongest cars in the field, he also has the talent to match. Young carries more than love of racing to the track every weekend, he also carries the legacy of a fallen friend. Young was best friends with local racing legend Scrapp Fox.

The two discovered racing together in the early nineties, as Young helped his friend turn wrenches on his race car.

“I moved here from Memphis in 1993,” Young recalls, “ Scrapp was the first person I made friends with, so anything that one of us got into, the other was right along with him.” After Scrapp’s death in 2001, Young decided that his friend would want nothing more than for Jason to carry on. “I didn’t know much about cars at first.” Young said. “The more I helped work on the cars, the more I started to learn about handling and setups. When Steve asked me if I wanted to drive the car, I figured it would be a good way to help keep Scrapp’s memory alive.”

Young is more than just a driver to the Fox family, he is almost like family. Aside from his childhood friendship with Scrapp and driving Scrapp’s first race car, Jason also works in the family business at Fox Quality Pools in Beebe.

“I do a little bit of everything there. From running machines to running errands or what have you, just wherever I’m needed.” Young also lives close by, just outside of Beebe with his wife of three years, Kristen.

Though Young’s sights are set on his first track championship in the hobby division this year, he also has his plans for the future figured out as well.

“I really want to try in run in the E-mod class next year.” Young said. “I really hope that class makes it. Maybe they can get their car counts up. It just looks like a lot of fun to run one of those things.”

Jason takes his racing seriously, but also realizes what is truly important when it comes to local racing.

“We’re all like a big family out here. We may get out on the track and beat and bang on each other, but if anyone needs help or ever has any trouble, everyone is always there to help out. This is a big hobby for all of us, so we all want to see each other do well.”

Young has gone from underdog to favorite in less than one year’s time at Beebe Speedway.

Anyone with as much determination and positive outlook on life deserves to be where Jason is now, at the top.

SPORTS>> Young making it a hobby

IN SHORT: McRae native building points lead

Beebe’s Jason Young is the man to beat in the Hobby Stock class at Beebe Speedway in 2005. Young holds a very comfortable 40 point lead over closet rival Dennis Fisk in the championship point standings. Young has also won five of the nine feature races held at Beebe so far this year, and has led in all but one feature this season.

This is Young’s fifth season in the Hobby class, and his years of learning the ropes are starting to pay off. Young scored his very first career feature win just last season in 2004.

Much of his ’04 campaign was marred with mechanical failures and less experience than a lot of his competitors. This year is a completely different story altogether. A brand new car for 2005, and a much talked about maturity as a driver has propelled Young into the position of being one of the most feared drivers on the track.

Young belongs to one of the most recognized teams in local racing, the Fox Racing team. Led by Steve Fox and his mother, Carol, the Fox team holds an incredible stable of talent including Young, modified guru Randy Weaver, and hobby class rookie contender Blake Jones. Though Weaver has been the headline grabber for the Fox team in recent years, this season appears to be Young’s time to shine.

“The car has felt really good all season,” Young said. “It really helps when you have a car that runs this well.”

Although some competitors like to hint that the success is all due to the car, anyone who has followed local racing for a number of years remembers a sloppy Jason Young whose inexperience led to collisions and torn up race cars.

That Jason Young is gone, and in his place is an aggressive, precise, and clean driver who can make his car work in any groove on the track, regardless of conditions. Though he now has one of the strongest cars in the field, he also has the talent to match. Young carries more than love of racing to the track every weekend, he also carries the legacy of a fallen friend. Young was best friends with local racing legend Scrapp Fox.

The two discovered racing together in the early nineties, as Young helped his friend turn wrenches on his race car.

“I moved here from Memphis in 1993,” Young recalls, “ Scrapp was the first person I made friends with, so anything that one of us got into, the other was right along with him.” After Scrapp’s death in 2001, Young decided that his friend would want nothing more than for Jason to carry on. “I didn’t know much about cars at first.” Young said. “The more I helped work on the cars, the more I started to learn about handling and setups. When Steve asked me if I wanted to drive the car, I figured it would be a good way to help keep Scrapp’s memory alive.”

Young is more than just a driver to the Fox family, he is almost like family. Aside from his childhood friendship with Scrapp and driving Scrapp’s first race car, Jason also works in the family business at Fox Quality Pools in Beebe.

“I do a little bit of everything there. From running machines to running errands or what have you, just wherever I’m needed.” Young also lives close by, just outside of Beebe with his wife of three years, Kristen.

Though Young’s sights are set on his first track championship in the hobby division this year, he also has his plans for the future figured out as well.

“I really want to try in run in the E-mod class next year.” Young said. “I really hope that class makes it. Maybe they can get their car counts up. It just looks like a lot of fun to run one of those things.”

Jason takes his racing seriously, but also realizes what is truly important when it comes to local racing.

“We’re all like a big family out here. We may get out on the track and beat and bang on each other, but if anyone needs help or ever has any trouble, everyone is always there to help out. This is a big hobby for all of us, so we all want to see each other do well.”

Young has gone from underdog to favorite in less than one year’s time at Beebe Speedway.

Anyone with as much determination and positive outlook on life deserves to be where Jason is now, at the top.

SPORTS>> Gwatney secures rematch for title

IN SHORT: Jacksonville class A team beats Benton and Conway Monday

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

The Jacksonville class A American Legion team earned a trip to the championship game of the North Little Rock Memorial weekend tournament. The young Gwatney team lost its opening game, but won its next two to advance to Tuesday night’s title game against Maumelle.

Maumelle was the team that beat Jacksonville in the tournament opener, but wins Monday against Benton and Conway got Jacksonville a rematch.

Two teams backed out of the tournament when rain canceled play on Sunday, helping pave the way for Jacksonville’s comeback. But winning twice, once against a team it had lost to the week before, still impressed Gwatney coach Travis Lyda.

“We lost 12-1 to Conway last week, and these kids played like that game never happened,” Lyda said. “They were focused and they had some confidence from beating Benton earlier in the day.”

Jordan Payer, the same pitcher that took the loss to Conway last week, got the 6-1 win on the mound Monday. He worked out of trouble in the very first inning, then worked with a lead the rest of the way after Jacksonville put up three runs in the bottom of the first.

Conway opened with a leadoff double, but Payer got a strikeout, a fielder’s choice grounder and another K to close the door on the rally.

“They got some hits off of him, but he worked out of trouble every time,” Lyda said. “He’d get a strikeout or we’d turn a double play every time they’d make a threat. He threw a great game.”

Jacksonville responded with two walks to open up the bottom half of the inning. Jake and Adam Ussery each got free passes. Tyler Uptergrove hit into a fielder’s choice that left runners on first and third. Zach James then got an RBI double to centerfield. Scott Bolen followed with an RBI single and Zach Thomas hit a sacrifice fly to score James for a 3-0 Jacksonville lead.

Both teams added a run in the second, and James closed out the scoring with a two-RBI single in the bottom of the fourth that scored Adam Ussery and Uptergrove to set the final margin.

James went 2 for 3 with three RBIs to lead the offensive attack.

Earlier in the day, Jacksonville beat Benton 3-1, scoring one run in the first and two in the second inning. That was all the runs pitcher Brian Thurman needed. Thurman gave up one earned run while holding Benton Sports Shop to just two base hits in seven innings.

The win ran Gwatney’s record to 3-2 on the season. They lost 5-0 to Maumelle on Saturday. They will be back in action this weekend, hosting their own A tournament at Dupree Park.

Look for information on that tournament, as well as Tuesday’s championship matchup with Maumelle in Saturday’s edition of the Leader.

TOP STORY>> Schools may see benefits from base growth

IN SHORT: Despite privatization of base housing and the expected influx of nearly 4,000 more people at LRAFB, districts find financial gains uncertain.

By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader staff writer

It’s too early to predict the effect 4,000 new Little Rock Air Force Base jobs could have on the Pulaski County Special School District or neighboring districts over the next six years, but not too early to recognize the givens and the unknowns in the equation, according to John Archetko, acting chief financial officer for the district.

Complicating any early forecasting is the unknown effect the privatization, renovation and new construction of airbase housing will have upon county and school district coffers, Archetko said last week. Privatization, begun last August, is also slated for completion over the next six years.

Pulaski County Special School District receives a certain amount of federal impact aid for children who live on the base, a lesser amount for students or whose parents work—but don’t live—on base, according to Archetko.

For the 2004 school year, the district received $483,000 in federal impact aid for about 1,000 students.

For 2005, the district projects aid of $290,800 for about 780 students.

About 230 fewer students resided on base.

“At this point all I can say is obviously the change in status there and any expansion will have some impact on our impact aid,” he said.

Lonoke Superintendent Sharron Havens said Tuesday that she didn’t know off hand how many children of Air Force Base employees currently attend her district. “We have quite a few students who live between Furlow and Jacksonville on Hwy. 89.

“I have no idea what the impact will be on our district,” she said.

Officials from the Beebe and Cabot school districts did not return calls Tuesday.

Here are some considerations, according to Archetko:

- No one is certain how many school-aged children will accompany parents if the new jobs materialize.

- Of those children, there is no way to estimate how many will attend Pulaski County Special School District schools, or how many will attend Little Rock, North Little Rock, Cabot, Beebe or other schools, public or private.

- The number of airmen living on base is unlikely to increase much, with the number of on-base housing units limited to about 1,200, so federal impact aid for most new students attending the Pulaski district schools will be figured at the reduced rate—one-fifth the compensation for students whose parents live on base.

Other districts schooling children of the expected new jobs presumably also would be compensated at the reduced rate, since none of them would be living on base.

So the amount of new impact revenue to any particular district is unknowable right now.

Another problem in predicting and preparing: “We don’t know the (age and grade) distribution,” said Archetko. “Will it require new classrooms or new teachers?

“There are a lot of interrelationships that take place,” he said. “New students could be spread across 12 grade levels. Or we may get a whole slew of 5-year-olds and need an-other kindergarten class.”

If the new jobs result in construction of new houses, the district’s property-tax base—and thus revenue—would increase.

Independent of all this, says Archetko, is the $5,400 per student minimum state aid that follows the student from district to district.

If 4,000 new employees brought say 1,000 new students, it would mean $5.4 million a year in minimum foundation aid, divided by the districts according to the number of students living in their district.

Because base housing has been sold to American Eagle Com-munities, federal impact fees should diminish, while the company will be paying county property taxes. American Eagle bought the houses last August but so far, Pulaski County Assessor Janet Troutman Ward’s office has not appraised or accessed any of them—and property taxes in Arkansas are paid a year in arrears.

Adding to the uncertainty, Ward has declined to speculate on the value of the remodeled and new houses to be built on the base, saying that would be voodoo economics.

If the properties were appraised now, the district would receive no new revenues until 2006 or 2007, Archetko calculates.

TOP STORY>> Upscale apartments planned at Greystone

IN SHORT: Cabot is set to annex an area across from the expensive subdivision, which would also see new commercial development, including possibly a new grocery store.

By JOAN MCCOY
Leader staff writer

Cabot could soon be getting a housing development like none it has seen before.

A Little Rock company, Orion Capital Partners, has bought 50 acres across from Greystone, the city’s upscale golf course subdivision, and will build apartments that will not detract from the exclusive neighborhood.

Brock Martin, with Orion Capital Partners, said this week that some of his tenants will likely be connected in some way to Little Rock Air Force Base, but many will likely be permanent Cabot residents who simply need a temporary home.

“I predict that we will have a number of people who’ll rent from us while they build their houses at Greystone,” he said.

Martin said the apartments will have nine-foot ceilings with crown molding and covered parking. The complex also will include a fitness center and a common area with computers that Martin said he likes to call a homework center.

Some of the property will be set aside for commercial use. Brock said he had spoken with Bill Minton and Jack King, Greystone developers, about what the residents in the area need, and the consensus is that a grocery store is what is needed most.

It has not been decided how many apartments will be built in the first phase of development of the property.

“We’re doing our market research now,” he said.

The company has apartments like the ones it intends to build in Cabot in Little Rock and northwest Arkansas.

Cabot Mayor Stubby Stumbaugh confirmed Tuesday that he talked with Martin a month ago about the subdivision. He said his only concern is that the spot on Hwy. 5 where the entrance will likely be located already is one of the most dangerous in the area. And more traffic will make it even more dangerous, he said.

Stumbaugh says a traffic light is needed there, and the developers will likely have to pay at least part of the cost of installing one.

The property is not currently inside Cabot city limits, but it is on the agenda for the planning commission meeting next Tuesday to start the annexation process.

TOP STORY>> Upscale apartments planned at Greystone

IN SHORT: Cabot is set to annex an area across from the expensive subdivision, which would also see new commercial development, including possibly a new grocery store.

By JOAN MCCOY
Leader staff writer

Cabot could soon be getting a housing development like none it has seen before.

A Little Rock company, Orion Capital Partners, has bought 50 acres across from Greystone, the city’s upscale golf course subdivision, and will build apartments that will not detract from the exclusive neighborhood.

Brock Martin, with Orion Capital Partners, said this week that some of his tenants will likely be connected in some way to Little Rock Air Force Base, but many will likely be permanent Cabot residents who simply need a temporary home.

“I predict that we will have a number of people who’ll rent from us while they build their houses at Greystone,” he said.

Martin said the apartments will have nine-foot ceilings with crown molding and covered parking. The complex also will include a fitness center and a common area with computers that Martin said he likes to call a homework center.

Some of the property will be set aside for commercial use. Brock said he had spoken with Bill Minton and Jack King, Greystone developers, about what the residents in the area need, and the consensus is that a grocery store is what is needed most.

It has not been decided how many apartments will be built in the first phase of development of the property.

“We’re doing our market re-search now,” he said.

The company has apartments like the ones it intends to build in Cabot in Little Rock and northwest Arkansas.

Cabot Mayor Stubby Stumbaugh confirmed Tuesday that he talked with Martin a month ago about the subdivision. He said his only concern is that the spot on Hwy. 5 where the entrance will likely be located already is one of the most dangerous in the area. And more traffic will make it even more dangerous, he said.

Stumbaugh says a traffic light is needed there, and the developers will likely have to pay at least part of the cost of installing one.

The property is not currently inside Cabot city limits, but it is on the agenda for the planning commission meeting next Tuesday to start the annexation process.

TOP STORY>> Hawkins taken to hospital

IN SHORT: Cabot youngster is admitted to Arkansas Children’s soon after his return from Jerusalem.

By SARA GREENE
Leader staff writer

Dakota Hawkins, 14, of Cabot, is recovering in Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, after being taken to the emergency room on Monday. He woke up vomiting and complaining of abdominal pain. He is being treated for high liver enzymes.

On Tuesday, Dakota’s mother, Sharon Hawkins, wrote in the family’s online journal

http://www2.caringbridge.org/ar/keep-thefaith

that he seems to be feeling better. He woke up hungry Tuesday morning after a day of not eating.

“We need your continued prayers and appreciate your praises of giving the deserved glory to God for our many answered prayers,” wrote Sharon.

The Hawkins family returned to Little Rock National Airport last Thursday after living in Jerusalem for three months for Dakota to undergo leukemia treatment at Hadassah Medical Center.

After receiving a cell transplant from his mother, Sharon, and brother, Riley, 12, Dakota is now leukemia-free, but is still recovering from the transplants and fungal lung infection. The family is calling Dakota’s battle with leukemia a “Journey of Faith.”

The journey began when the youth was diagnosed with leukemia in December 2002. Dakota underwent five months of intense chemotherapy at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock and went into remission, but relapsed in October 2003.

He received a bone-marrow-transplant from his younger brother Riley in February 2004, but his leukemia returned in late November.

In February 2005, while at the M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston for additional treatments and therapy, the Hawkins family learned of Dr. Shimon Slavin, who offered the family innovative new approaches in cell therapy and leukemia treatment not available in America.

Community fundraising efforts helped the family raise $127,000 within two weeks to cover treatment costs and the family flew to Israel.

Dakota will continue post-transplant cell therapy to prevent the leukemia from coming back.

The family plans to take Dakota back to Israel for a second treatment. His physician plans to infuse Dakota with natural killer cells from both parents.

These cells are often called the human body’s first line of defense against mutant and virus cells such as cancer.

TOP STORY>> Soldiers who fell in Iraq praised

IN SHORT: Two service members from Jacksonville are killed within a week, along with another soldier from Van Buren.

By BRIAN RODRIGUEZ
Leader staff writer

A Jacksonville soldier, remembered as a quiet man who just did his job, was killed Saturday in Mosul, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his security position.

Army Spec. Phillip Nick Sayles, 26, of Jacksonville was killed when a roadside bomb was detonated near where he was helping check for weapons in three cars that American troops had stopped. The explosion killed Sayles and wounded 13 other soldiers and eight Iraqi civilians. Three of the civilians were children under 10 years of age.

Sayles attended North Pulaski High School and was active in the Jacksonville High School ROTC program through a PCSSD agreement that allowed students to participate in programs on other campuses that were not available at their own schools.
“I got some really good students through the agreement, and of course Nick was one of those,” said retired Maj. Bob Jones, who taught at JHS. “Nick was a quiet young man. He simply got the job done that he was tasked to do. He was a good kid. He knew what he wanted to do and he did it.”

Jones said Sayles was a very effective member of the cadet program, a scholastic simulation of military life.

“It’s a hands-on program where you don’t sit in the class and spout theory,” Jones said.

Sayles was responsible for teaching younger cadets under the guidance of ROTC instructors before his senior year, when he transferred to Cabot High School.

“It was a good program, and Nick was definitely a good asset to that program,” Jones said.

Sayles graduated from Cabot High School in 1997 and joined the Army. He was assigned to the Army’s 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash., before he was sent overseas to support Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“He was a credit, not only to my program, but to his family,” Jones said. “I’m very grateful to Nick’s family for letting me borrow him for that time. My heart absolutely grieves with his family, and my prayers are with his family.”

Jones said Sayles gave his life for freedom, a concept so intangible that most people don’t appreciate it, and he hopes that his family realizes what his contribution means.

“Hopefully one day,” he said, “when the grief is not so heavy on them, they’ll understand that too.”

Sayles is the 35th serviceman with Arkansas ties to die in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the second soldier killed with Jacksonville ties within a week.

Army Spec. Tyler Loren Creamean, 21, of Jacksonville, died May 22 in Mosul after an improvised explosive device went off near his Humvee.

According to reports, he and 1st Lt. Aaron N. Seesan, 25, of Massillon, Ohio, who also died in the explosion, kept telling medical personnel to see to each other and to a third soldier in the Humvee who survived.

“That didn’t surprise me at all. That does not surprise me,” said Mary Coop, an oral communications teacher at Jacksonville High School. “He turned into a great young man, a wonderful young man.”

People who knew him did not see his role searching for roadside bombs as a surprise either.

“I could see him being out there and doing that,” said Jessica Jensen, who knew Creamean since he was about 14. “Tyler likes to be where the action is and where the excitement is.”

“I know he was responsible and whatever he signed up for he would do that job responsibly,” Coop said, “whatever it took.”
Jensen said she met Creamean one summer when she was working as a lifeguard at the recreation center in Jacksonville.

He spent half the summer in “time out” under her chair for causing mischief, she said.

“He would do something and you’d want to get mad at him, but you’d just want to laugh,” she said. “He ended up being one of my dearest and closest friends.”

Creamean joined her the next summer as a lifeguard. Jensen said it was odd to see the size difference between him and the people he dove in to save, but said she had full confidence in him.

“He was so skinny, so little…Whenever he would make a save it was just comical,” she said. “He did it right. He was a great lifeguard and a great person.”

Coop said he was also a mischievous student, but never got into any trouble.

“He was the type of student who each teacher would wish it was legal to tie him to his chair and tape his mouth shut,” Coop said jokingly.

“He did not have a mean bone in his body, he was just the type of student who drove you crazy.”

She would get frustrated with his antics, she said, but she couldn’t stay mad at him because he would do something funny.

“He just knew how to make people feel at ease, and if something needed to have a laugh, he would provide it,” she said. “I’m really gonna miss him.”

“He just always wanted to make light of every situation,” Jensen said, “and sometimes school wasn’t that way.”

Creamean left Jacksonville High School after his sophomore year and joined the Youth Challenge, a 22-week program sponsored by the Arkansas National Guard.

He graduated from the program and earned the spirit award before joining the Army in April 2003.

He was stationed at Fort Lewis in August, was sent to Mosul on Nov. 1, and earned his first purple heart in mid-December.

He returned to the United States on leave for his birthday on Feb. 24 and married his girlfriend, KaMisha Hickman, that day.

He earned his second purple heart for a head injury on March 3, the day he returned to active duty. Creamean, who had conducted more than 600 patrols, will receive a third purple heart posthumously for the explosion that took his life.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

EDITORIAL>> Missing Mr. Smith

Pining for the good old days of vigilant government is not always misplaced nostalgia.

For a half-century, you could count on the state of Arkansas to protect people, particularly the unwary, from loan sharks.
Arkansas had the toughest usury law in the land — even a mite over 10 percent interest was unlawful — and every time a lender would concoct a way to skirt the constitutional limit, the Arkansas Supreme Court would strike it down and order the lender to double the borrower’s money back.

That happened for the nearly 50 years that Justice George Rose Smith was on the court. He usually delivered the court’s stern opinion, which was that whatever clever name you called a lending fee, it was interest.

Justice Smith has been gone for more than a decade, and the state is a haven for predatory lenders. Payday lenders now fleece the desperate at interest rates of 300 percent or more.

Millions of dollars are sucked from the pockets of the working poor and out of the state.

The legislature authorized check cashers, gave them pretty much carte blanche and refuses to correct its mistake. The governor and attorneys general have for several years looked the other way. The Supreme Court, sans Justice Smith, temporizes. The state agency that is supposed to regulate the lenders shrugs and asks, what can we do?

It was at work again this week. Representatives of 20 groups appealed to the state Board of Collection Agencies to enforce the law and an admittedly fuzzy court mandate and require the surety company of a payday lender to pay a $191,000 judgment against the lender to customers whom it had fleeced. The executive director of the board did not think it had the authority under the law to do that.

The case is complicated — purposely and needlessly complicated, we think.

The circuit court in Pope County ordered the surety company for the lender, Russellville Check Express, to release its $50,000 surety to the people who sued the check company, which loaned people money at stratospheric rates in exchange for which people would turn over their next paycheck. The Supreme Court overturned the judgment because the plaintiffs had not first gone through the board of collection agencies to get relief.

So they were back before the board this week to do that. It was clear after a short hearing that it would be futile.

An attorney for the surety company, standing in for the absent check casher, said that the company did not have to pay because the court had not said flatly that the lender had violated the law. The board ruled unanimously against the customers two years ago and it seemed unimpressed by their argument this time. It will hold another hearing sometime.

Paul Kelly of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families urged the board to rule for the customers and make the company and its insurer pay a price for violating the usury law.

Afterward, he said he expected the board to rule for the lenders. “We just want them to sweat and know that people are watching them,” he said.

George Rose Smith is dead, the Supreme Court is changed, and the law has been weakened. But society seems to have changed, too. Government is no longer the tribune of the poor and of working people, as we see almost weekly in the decisions on workers’ compensation and the shrinking power of people to sue over corporate neglect and abuse.

Jesus was only having a bad day when he threw the moneychangers from the temple. What he surely meant to say was caveat emptor.

FROM THE PUBLISHER>> Group to buy 200,000 acres to save woodpecker

There’s an abandoned railroad trestle bridge on a dirt road at the Dagmar Wildlife Management Area off Hwy. 70 just past Biscoe, where you can watch for birds before the weather gets hot and the mosquitoes want to eat you alive.

The dirt road is on the right, and to the left, there’s a display about the recently discovered ivory-billed woodpecker. If you go past that display on the left about five miles down a nearby dirt road along Bayou DeView, you’ll get close to where Gene Sparling of Hot Springs spotted an ivory-billed woodpecker on February 2004.

The ivory-billed was believed extinct until Sparling alerted the outside world that the elusive bird was alive in the Cache River Wildlife Refuge.

It is in this area and beyond that the Arkansas chapter of the Nature Conservancy hopes to buy 200,000 acres as part of a preservation plan for the ivory-bill, which was considered extinct until Sparling made his credible sighting. Volunteers with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have made several more sightings since Sparling’s discovery.

For three decades, the Nature Conservancy has helped preserve thousands of acres along the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge that probably saved the ivory-bill. The area could be the home to several other ivory-bills.

At the Big Woods Birding Festival in Clarendon last Saturday, Sparling was holding an ivory-billed woodpecker, just like the one he had spotted more than a year ago in the Bayou DeView near Brinkley.

But the coal-black creature in his hand was a stuffed bird that a collector had mounted back in the 1930s.

He was also holding a mounted pileated woodpecker, a more common bird that is sometimes mistaken for an ivory-bill. The pileated is smaller and its wing is all black on top, while the ivory bill has white on top of its wing. Both species have red crests, except for the female ivory-bill, whose head is black.

The man who spotted the elusive woodpecker is a shy outdoorsman who made an appearance at the Big Woods Birding Festival in Clarendon last Saturday and talked about how he spotted the bird on a February afternoon while he was taking it easy in his canoe.
"I sat my paddle down," he recalled. "It was a moment of contentment. I felt like one of the luckiest people in the world."

"At the end of the channel," he continued, "a long woodpecker headed toward me. I thought it was the biggest pileated I’ve ever seen. It became aware of me and dodged left toward a tree."

Sparling saw the bird’s white wings in flight, and as it perched near the base of the tree, he remembered that "the feathers on the lower portion of the wing were white-yellow on the tail."

"The bird made a jerky, odd motion," he continued. "It seemed animated. It made a quick jerk of the head. It bounced to the other side of the tree in typical woodpecker fashion. It continued its flight straight and direct, more so than a pileated."

"As the bird was sitting on the base of the tree, I thought of the ivory-bill," he said.

But then, sitting there in the bayou, he thought it couldn’t have been an ivory-bill. It supposed to be extinct, and when it was still around, it lived farther south in Louisiana, Texas and Florida.

"I didn’t know they ranged this far north," Sparling said.

But seeing the woodpecker’s white wings, he suddenly realized he had witnessed what was until then considered impossible: A dead species had made an appearance in the swamps of east Arkansas.

" If it wasn’t a pileated, it had to be an ivory-bill," he concluded.

He posted his discovery on a Web site, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology folks were soon in touch with him, and they hung out in the swamps for more than a year before they told the world about their amazing discovery.

Jay Harrod, a spokesman for the Arkansas Nature Conservancy, says preserving more land will ensure a spacious habitat for the bird, which thrives in southern swamp forests that have all been destroyed, except for the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas.

The real threat to the bird are not hunters but "the loss of habitat and the health and the health of the Cache and White Rivers," Harrod said.

But Scott Simon, who directs the state Nature Conservancy, warns against planned dredging of the White River, which could threaten the bird.

"The real threat to the ivory-billed woodpecker is hydraulic changes to the rivers, which serve as the lifeblood to this region," Simon says. "Higher water tables and periodic flooding made it possible for birds to survive."

What can the average person do to help preserve the ivory-billed woodpecker?

Act responsibly in the refuge and join the Nature Conservancy.