By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader staff writer
A Cabot man is being held without bond in the Faulkner County Jail on charges of murder, aggravated robbery, theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to Maj. Andy Shock of the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office.
Ronald Dean Charles, 31, of 45 Oak Meadows Drive in Cabot, was arrested at his residence Monday by Faulkner County sheriff’s deputies, assisted by the Cabot Police Department, according to Shock.
Charles and Roy Allen Crook, 29, of 2716 Moro Lane, Jacksonville, were charged in connection with the April 9 murder of cousins Bobby Don Brock, 45, and Lonnie Franklin Brock, 62, according to documents on file atthe Faulkner County Courthouse.
Shock didn’t want to discuss the cause of death, but one published report says the bodies were found with blunt trauma wounds. One man was found in the house and one in the yard at their residence near Vilonia.
Crook was arrested April 10, Charles on June 2. The arrests were the result of evidence and witness statements, Shock said.
No further arrests are expected, according to Shock.
Each man is charged with two counts of capital murder, two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of theft of property and two counts of being felons in possession of a firearm.
Firearms were among items allegedly stolen by the pair during commission of the crimes, according to the felony information on file with the Faulkner County circuit clerk.
Both men have prior records, Charles’ record stretching back to a 1995 Pulaski County conviction for two counts of commercial burglary and two counts of theft of property.
He was 18 at the time, and was sentenced to two years in prison. In 1999, he was sentenced to six years for residential burglary and theft of property.
Crook was convicted in Pulaski County for residential burglary in 2000, probation revocation in 2001, and was convicted in 2006 of fraudulent use of a credit card.
In addition to the charges related to the Brock killings, Crook also faces charges of parole violation, failure to comply and has a hold placed on him from another county, according to information provided by Shock.
Pretrial motions for Charles are slated to be heard in circuit court in Vilonia Aug. 28.
He was declared indigent at Tuesday’s arraignment.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
TOP STORY >>Double murder puts men in jail
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader staff writer
A Cabot man is being held without bond in the Faulkner County Jail on charges of murder, aggravated robbery, theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to Maj. Andy Shock of the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office.
Ronald Dean Charles, 31, of 45 Oak Meadows Drive in Cabot, was arrested at his residence Monday by Faulkner County sheriff’s deputies, assisted by the Cabot Police Department, according to Shock.
Charles and Roy Allen Crook, 29, of 2716 Moro Lane, Jacksonville, were charged in connection with the April 9 murder of cousins Bobby Don Brock, 45, and Lonnie Franklin Brock, 62, according to documents on file atthe Faulkner County Courthouse.
Shock didn’t want to discuss the cause of death, but one published report says the bodies were found with blunt trauma wounds. One man was found in the house and one in the yard at their residence near Vilonia.
Crook was arrested April 10, Charles on June 2. The arrests were the result of evidence and witness statements, Shock said.
No further arrests are expected, according to Shock.
Each man is charged with two counts of capital murder, two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of theft of property and two counts of being felons in possession of a firearm.
Firearms were among items allegedly stolen by the pair during commission of the crimes, according to the felony information on file with the Faulkner County circuit clerk.
Both men have prior records, Charles’ record stretching back to a 1995 Pulaski County conviction for two counts of commercial burglary and two counts of theft of property.
He was 18 at the time, and was sentenced to two years in prison. In 1999, he was sentenced to six years for residential burglary and theft of property.
Crook was convicted in Pulaski County for residential burglary in 2000, probation revocation in 2001, and was convicted in 2006 of fraudulent use of a credit card.
In addition to the charges related to the Brock killings, Crook also faces charges of parole violation, failure to comply and has a hold placed on him from another county, according to information provided by Shock.
Pretrial motions for Charles are slated to be heard in circuit court in Vilonia Aug. 28.
He was declared indigent at Tuesday’s arraignment.
Leader staff writer
A Cabot man is being held without bond in the Faulkner County Jail on charges of murder, aggravated robbery, theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to Maj. Andy Shock of the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office.
Ronald Dean Charles, 31, of 45 Oak Meadows Drive in Cabot, was arrested at his residence Monday by Faulkner County sheriff’s deputies, assisted by the Cabot Police Department, according to Shock.
Charles and Roy Allen Crook, 29, of 2716 Moro Lane, Jacksonville, were charged in connection with the April 9 murder of cousins Bobby Don Brock, 45, and Lonnie Franklin Brock, 62, according to documents on file atthe Faulkner County Courthouse.
Shock didn’t want to discuss the cause of death, but one published report says the bodies were found with blunt trauma wounds. One man was found in the house and one in the yard at their residence near Vilonia.
Crook was arrested April 10, Charles on June 2. The arrests were the result of evidence and witness statements, Shock said.
No further arrests are expected, according to Shock.
Each man is charged with two counts of capital murder, two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of theft of property and two counts of being felons in possession of a firearm.
Firearms were among items allegedly stolen by the pair during commission of the crimes, according to the felony information on file with the Faulkner County circuit clerk.
Both men have prior records, Charles’ record stretching back to a 1995 Pulaski County conviction for two counts of commercial burglary and two counts of theft of property.
He was 18 at the time, and was sentenced to two years in prison. In 1999, he was sentenced to six years for residential burglary and theft of property.
Crook was convicted in Pulaski County for residential burglary in 2000, probation revocation in 2001, and was convicted in 2006 of fraudulent use of a credit card.
In addition to the charges related to the Brock killings, Crook also faces charges of parole violation, failure to comply and has a hold placed on him from another county, according to information provided by Shock.
Pretrial motions for Charles are slated to be heard in circuit court in Vilonia Aug. 28.
He was declared indigent at Tuesday’s arraignment.
Friday, June 06, 2008
TOP STORY > >County gives away mulch from storms
By JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer
For gardeners and landscapers in Pulaski County, there’s a silver lining to the tornadoes that struck the area this spring. The storms provided 300 truck loads of free mulch for anyone who wants it, and there is more to come.
“We had a choice to either burn it, bury it or sell it,” said Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines. “The public paid for the debris to be picked up and ground up, so we are giving it back.”
On Wednesday, officials from Pulaski County and the city of Sherwood were on hand at Sherwood Forest to let the public know about the free material.
Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman said the mulching of the debris is a creative way for Sherwood and Pulaski County to work together.
At the mulching area at Sherwood Forest, 1111 W. Maryland Ave., more than 520 dump truck loads of organic storm debris has been taken to the site. Tree limbs and stumps have been hauled in from Cammack Village, Hensley and Gravel Ridge. The storm debris was brought to the location as a faster way to clear the brush piles from yards and trees from the streets.
After the Sherwood site has turned the piles of tree branches into mulch, the grinder will be moved to southern Pulaski County where another storage area of tree debris is located.
Sherman Smith, Pulaski County public works director, said mulching is a way to keep the debris out of the landfill.
“The county bought the grinder for $166,000 to process large stumps and treetrunks. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse the county for the hours the machine is used for storm cleanup based on an hourly rate,” said Smith.
“The grinder can take stumps and tree trunks five feet in diameter and reduce them eight to one,” added Smith.
The machine operators accidentally discovered the power of the mulch grinder’s 540-horsepower engine when a discarded engine block hidden in a brush pile was chipped to bits.
Billy Ellis, equipment operator, said, “I love running the grinder. It gets the job done.”
Mulch will be available for residents from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays until all the mulch is given away. The site will have workers on hand to load mulch into the beds of pickup trucks or onto trailers.
For additional information, contact the Pulaski County Road and Bridge Department at 340-6800.
Leader staff writer
For gardeners and landscapers in Pulaski County, there’s a silver lining to the tornadoes that struck the area this spring. The storms provided 300 truck loads of free mulch for anyone who wants it, and there is more to come.
“We had a choice to either burn it, bury it or sell it,” said Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines. “The public paid for the debris to be picked up and ground up, so we are giving it back.”
On Wednesday, officials from Pulaski County and the city of Sherwood were on hand at Sherwood Forest to let the public know about the free material.
Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman said the mulching of the debris is a creative way for Sherwood and Pulaski County to work together.
At the mulching area at Sherwood Forest, 1111 W. Maryland Ave., more than 520 dump truck loads of organic storm debris has been taken to the site. Tree limbs and stumps have been hauled in from Cammack Village, Hensley and Gravel Ridge. The storm debris was brought to the location as a faster way to clear the brush piles from yards and trees from the streets.
After the Sherwood site has turned the piles of tree branches into mulch, the grinder will be moved to southern Pulaski County where another storage area of tree debris is located.
Sherman Smith, Pulaski County public works director, said mulching is a way to keep the debris out of the landfill.
“The county bought the grinder for $166,000 to process large stumps and treetrunks. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse the county for the hours the machine is used for storm cleanup based on an hourly rate,” said Smith.
“The grinder can take stumps and tree trunks five feet in diameter and reduce them eight to one,” added Smith.
The machine operators accidentally discovered the power of the mulch grinder’s 540-horsepower engine when a discarded engine block hidden in a brush pile was chipped to bits.
Billy Ellis, equipment operator, said, “I love running the grinder. It gets the job done.”
Mulch will be available for residents from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays until all the mulch is given away. The site will have workers on hand to load mulch into the beds of pickup trucks or onto trailers.
For additional information, contact the Pulaski County Road and Bridge Department at 340-6800.
TOP STORY > >County gives away mulch from storms
By JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer
For gardeners and landscapers in Pulaski County, there’s a silver lining to the tornadoes that struck the area this spring. The storms provided 300 truck loads of free mulch for anyone who wants it, and there is more to come.
“We had a choice to either burn it, bury it or sell it,” said Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines. “The public paid for the debris to be picked up and ground up, so we are giving it back.”
On Wednesday, officials from Pulaski County and the city of Sherwood were on hand at Sherwood Forest to let the public know about the free material.
Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman said the mulching of the debris is a creative way for Sherwood and Pulaski County to work together.
At the mulching area at Sherwood Forest, 1111 W. Maryland Ave., more than 520 dump truck loads of organic storm debris has been taken to the site. Tree limbs and stumps have been hauled in from Cammack Village, Hensley and Gravel Ridge. The storm debris was brought to the location as a faster way to clear the brush piles from yards and trees from the streets.
After the Sherwood site has turned the piles of tree branches into mulch, the grinder will be moved to southern Pulaski County where another storage area of tree debris is located.
Sherman Smith, Pulaski County public works director, said mulching is a way to keep the debris out of the landfill.
“The county bought the grinder for $166,000 to process large stumps and treetrunks. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse the county for the hours the machine is used for storm cleanup based on an hourly rate,” said Smith.
“The grinder can take stumps and tree trunks five feet in diameter and reduce them eight to one,” added Smith.
The machine operators accidentally discovered the power of the mulch grinder’s 540-horsepower engine when a discarded engine block hidden in a brush pile was chipped to bits.
Billy Ellis, equipment operator, said, “I love running the grinder. It gets the job done.”
Mulch will be available for residents from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays until all the mulch is given away. The site will have workers on hand to load mulch into the beds of pickup trucks or onto trailers.
For additional information, contact the Pulaski County Road and Bridge Department at 340-6800.
Leader staff writer
For gardeners and landscapers in Pulaski County, there’s a silver lining to the tornadoes that struck the area this spring. The storms provided 300 truck loads of free mulch for anyone who wants it, and there is more to come.
“We had a choice to either burn it, bury it or sell it,” said Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines. “The public paid for the debris to be picked up and ground up, so we are giving it back.”
On Wednesday, officials from Pulaski County and the city of Sherwood were on hand at Sherwood Forest to let the public know about the free material.
Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman said the mulching of the debris is a creative way for Sherwood and Pulaski County to work together.
At the mulching area at Sherwood Forest, 1111 W. Maryland Ave., more than 520 dump truck loads of organic storm debris has been taken to the site. Tree limbs and stumps have been hauled in from Cammack Village, Hensley and Gravel Ridge. The storm debris was brought to the location as a faster way to clear the brush piles from yards and trees from the streets.
After the Sherwood site has turned the piles of tree branches into mulch, the grinder will be moved to southern Pulaski County where another storage area of tree debris is located.
Sherman Smith, Pulaski County public works director, said mulching is a way to keep the debris out of the landfill.
“The county bought the grinder for $166,000 to process large stumps and treetrunks. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse the county for the hours the machine is used for storm cleanup based on an hourly rate,” said Smith.
“The grinder can take stumps and tree trunks five feet in diameter and reduce them eight to one,” added Smith.
The machine operators accidentally discovered the power of the mulch grinder’s 540-horsepower engine when a discarded engine block hidden in a brush pile was chipped to bits.
Billy Ellis, equipment operator, said, “I love running the grinder. It gets the job done.”
Mulch will be available for residents from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays until all the mulch is given away. The site will have workers on hand to load mulch into the beds of pickup trucks or onto trailers.
For additional information, contact the Pulaski County Road and Bridge Department at 340-6800.
TOP STORY > >Jacksonville to buy Tasers for its police
By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
The use of Taser weapons by Jack-sonville police will prevent officer injuries and save the city insurance money, explained Police Chief Gary Sipes Thursday evening as he asked the city council permission to buy 20 of the weapons for the department.
“Our worker’s comp carrier has been trying to get us to use Tasers for the past five years,” Mayor Tommy Swaim said. Both he and the chief agreed that Tasers would prevent injuries by allowing officers to not get too close to combative suspects.
Tasers are electroshock weapons that use electro-muscular disruption technology to cause strong muscle contractions or disruption in a suspect.
A Taser, which looks like a futuristic pistol and is smaller than the radios police carry, fires two small dart-like electrodes connected to the main unit by a conducive wire and propelled by small nitrogen charges. The Tasers the department will use will have at least a 15-foot range.
Alderman Gary Fletcher voiced concern, “There has been a lot of controversy the past few years over the use of Tasers. Are we going to be comfortable using them?”
Sipes said he’s very comfortable with them. “They come with audio and video recorders and the weapon is more effective than pepper spray,” he said. “If youare hit with a Taser in about five seconds it’s over, but pepper spray is long lasting and many times if you try to wash it out, you re-infect yourself.”
The chief said the department has an officer who is a certified trainer. “He will get recertified and then teach the rest of the force,” Sipes said.
As part of the training, each officer will be tased. “This cuts done on improper use or someone using the weapon excessively because the officer will know what it feels like,” Sipes explained.
In the two months he has been chief, Sipes said there have been three incidents of use of force by police.
Fletcher wanted assurances, and received them from the chief, that the department wouldn’t “get Taser happy.”
Alderman Reedie Ray agreed with Sipes that the Taser was an effective weapon since he had been on the receiving end of one.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, chuckling. “I was at a convention where the weapon was being demonstrated and was volunteered to be the Guinea pig.”
The council approved the chief’s request to buy 20 of the weapons and related equipment from a Louisiana company for $29,400.
In other council business:
In his monthly report, Public Works Director Jim Oakley said the animal shelter took in 164 dogs and 98 cats during May. The shelter was able to return 38 dogs and two cats to their owners and adopted out 52 dogs and 41 cats, but 67 dogs and 66 cats had to be euthanized during the month.
Oakley also reported that there were five animal bites or attacks on humans including a military canine, a terrier, a Yorkie, a chow mix and a pit mix. None of the animals were declared vicious because of the attacks, but the pit mix and the Yorkie were euthanized.
Alderman Bob Stroud commended the excellent work of the animal control department, saying, “I believe this is the first pit bite of the year. Our ordinance (banning pit bulls) is working,” he said.
City Planner Chip McCulley, in his monthly report to the council, said his department issued 13 building permits and 11 business licenses in May. The engineering department also conducted more than 200 inspections and wrote 253 warning letters to residents or business owners because of excessive grass or trash on the property.
The council also approved a resolution allowing the mayor and city clerk to work out a lease agreement with Arkansas Midland Railroad to operate and maintain the city’s railroad lines and spurs in the city’s industrial park.
“There’ll be no financial transaction involved,” the mayor said, adding that the city had acquired the railroad lines in a long-term lease from Union Pacific, but that lease ended in October.
The mayor said the advantage of having Midland operate the lines is that an engine would be available every day of the week to move train cars. “Right now we have access to one just three days a week,” Swaim said.
Because of Fourth of July holiday commitments, the council voted to move its June 19 meeting to June 26 and to cancel its July 3 meeting.
Leader staff writer
The use of Taser weapons by Jack-sonville police will prevent officer injuries and save the city insurance money, explained Police Chief Gary Sipes Thursday evening as he asked the city council permission to buy 20 of the weapons for the department.
“Our worker’s comp carrier has been trying to get us to use Tasers for the past five years,” Mayor Tommy Swaim said. Both he and the chief agreed that Tasers would prevent injuries by allowing officers to not get too close to combative suspects.
Tasers are electroshock weapons that use electro-muscular disruption technology to cause strong muscle contractions or disruption in a suspect.
A Taser, which looks like a futuristic pistol and is smaller than the radios police carry, fires two small dart-like electrodes connected to the main unit by a conducive wire and propelled by small nitrogen charges. The Tasers the department will use will have at least a 15-foot range.
Alderman Gary Fletcher voiced concern, “There has been a lot of controversy the past few years over the use of Tasers. Are we going to be comfortable using them?”
Sipes said he’s very comfortable with them. “They come with audio and video recorders and the weapon is more effective than pepper spray,” he said. “If youare hit with a Taser in about five seconds it’s over, but pepper spray is long lasting and many times if you try to wash it out, you re-infect yourself.”
The chief said the department has an officer who is a certified trainer. “He will get recertified and then teach the rest of the force,” Sipes said.
As part of the training, each officer will be tased. “This cuts done on improper use or someone using the weapon excessively because the officer will know what it feels like,” Sipes explained.
In the two months he has been chief, Sipes said there have been three incidents of use of force by police.
Fletcher wanted assurances, and received them from the chief, that the department wouldn’t “get Taser happy.”
Alderman Reedie Ray agreed with Sipes that the Taser was an effective weapon since he had been on the receiving end of one.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, chuckling. “I was at a convention where the weapon was being demonstrated and was volunteered to be the Guinea pig.”
The council approved the chief’s request to buy 20 of the weapons and related equipment from a Louisiana company for $29,400.
In other council business:
In his monthly report, Public Works Director Jim Oakley said the animal shelter took in 164 dogs and 98 cats during May. The shelter was able to return 38 dogs and two cats to their owners and adopted out 52 dogs and 41 cats, but 67 dogs and 66 cats had to be euthanized during the month.
Oakley also reported that there were five animal bites or attacks on humans including a military canine, a terrier, a Yorkie, a chow mix and a pit mix. None of the animals were declared vicious because of the attacks, but the pit mix and the Yorkie were euthanized.
Alderman Bob Stroud commended the excellent work of the animal control department, saying, “I believe this is the first pit bite of the year. Our ordinance (banning pit bulls) is working,” he said.
City Planner Chip McCulley, in his monthly report to the council, said his department issued 13 building permits and 11 business licenses in May. The engineering department also conducted more than 200 inspections and wrote 253 warning letters to residents or business owners because of excessive grass or trash on the property.
The council also approved a resolution allowing the mayor and city clerk to work out a lease agreement with Arkansas Midland Railroad to operate and maintain the city’s railroad lines and spurs in the city’s industrial park.
“There’ll be no financial transaction involved,” the mayor said, adding that the city had acquired the railroad lines in a long-term lease from Union Pacific, but that lease ended in October.
The mayor said the advantage of having Midland operate the lines is that an engine would be available every day of the week to move train cars. “Right now we have access to one just three days a week,” Swaim said.
Because of Fourth of July holiday commitments, the council voted to move its June 19 meeting to June 26 and to cancel its July 3 meeting.
TOP STORY > >Jacksonville to buy Tasers for its police
By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
The use of Taser weapons by Jack-sonville police will prevent officer injuries and save the city insurance money, explained Police Chief Gary Sipes Thursday evening as he asked the city council permission to buy 20 of the weapons for the department.
“Our worker’s comp carrier has been trying to get us to use Tasers for the past five years,” Mayor Tommy Swaim said. Both he and the chief agreed that Tasers would prevent injuries by allowing officers to not get too close to combative suspects.
Tasers are electroshock weapons that use electro-muscular disruption technology to cause strong muscle contractions or disruption in a suspect.
A Taser, which looks like a futuristic pistol and is smaller than the radios police carry, fires two small dart-like electrodes connected to the main unit by a conducive wire and propelled by small nitrogen charges. The Tasers the department will use will have at least a 15-foot range.
Alderman Gary Fletcher voiced concern, “There has been a lot of controversy the past few years over the use of Tasers. Are we going to be comfortable using them?”
Sipes said he’s very comfortable with them. “They come with audio and video recorders and the weapon is more effective than pepper spray,” he said. “If youare hit with a Taser in about five seconds it’s over, but pepper spray is long lasting and many times if you try to wash it out, you re-infect yourself.”
The chief said the department has an officer who is a certified trainer. “He will get recertified and then teach the rest of the force,” Sipes said.
As part of the training, each officer will be tased. “This cuts done on improper use or someone using the weapon excessively because the officer will know what it feels like,” Sipes explained.
In the two months he has been chief, Sipes said there have been three incidents of use of force by police.
Fletcher wanted assurances, and received them from the chief, that the department wouldn’t “get Taser happy.”
Alderman Reedie Ray agreed with Sipes that the Taser was an effective weapon since he had been on the receiving end of one.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, chuckling. “I was at a convention where the weapon was being demonstrated and was volunteered to be the Guinea pig.”
The council approved the chief’s request to buy 20 of the weapons and related equipment from a Louisiana company for $29,400.
In other council business:
In his monthly report, Public Works Director Jim Oakley said the animal shelter took in 164 dogs and 98 cats during May. The shelter was able to return 38 dogs and two cats to their owners and adopted out 52 dogs and 41 cats, but 67 dogs and 66 cats had to be euthanized during the month.
Oakley also reported that there were five animal bites or attacks on humans including a military canine, a terrier, a Yorkie, a chow mix and a pit mix. None of the animals were declared vicious because of the attacks, but the pit mix and the Yorkie were euthanized.
Alderman Bob Stroud commended the excellent work of the animal control department, saying, “I believe this is the first pit bite of the year. Our ordinance (banning pit bulls) is working,” he said.
City Planner Chip McCulley, in his monthly report to the council, said his department issued 13 building permits and 11 business licenses in May. The engineering department also conducted more than 200 inspections and wrote 253 warning letters to residents or business owners because of excessive grass or trash on the property.
The council also approved a resolution allowing the mayor and city clerk to work out a lease agreement with Arkansas Midland Railroad to operate and maintain the city’s railroad lines and spurs in the city’s industrial park.
“There’ll be no financial transaction involved,” the mayor said, adding that the city had acquired the railroad lines in a long-term lease from Union Pacific, but that lease ended in October.
The mayor said the advantage of having Midland operate the lines is that an engine would be available every day of the week to move train cars. “Right now we have access to one just three days a week,” Swaim said.
Because of Fourth of July holiday commitments, the council voted to move its June 19 meeting to June 26 and to cancel its July 3 meeting.
Leader staff writer
The use of Taser weapons by Jack-sonville police will prevent officer injuries and save the city insurance money, explained Police Chief Gary Sipes Thursday evening as he asked the city council permission to buy 20 of the weapons for the department.
“Our worker’s comp carrier has been trying to get us to use Tasers for the past five years,” Mayor Tommy Swaim said. Both he and the chief agreed that Tasers would prevent injuries by allowing officers to not get too close to combative suspects.
Tasers are electroshock weapons that use electro-muscular disruption technology to cause strong muscle contractions or disruption in a suspect.
A Taser, which looks like a futuristic pistol and is smaller than the radios police carry, fires two small dart-like electrodes connected to the main unit by a conducive wire and propelled by small nitrogen charges. The Tasers the department will use will have at least a 15-foot range.
Alderman Gary Fletcher voiced concern, “There has been a lot of controversy the past few years over the use of Tasers. Are we going to be comfortable using them?”
Sipes said he’s very comfortable with them. “They come with audio and video recorders and the weapon is more effective than pepper spray,” he said. “If youare hit with a Taser in about five seconds it’s over, but pepper spray is long lasting and many times if you try to wash it out, you re-infect yourself.”
The chief said the department has an officer who is a certified trainer. “He will get recertified and then teach the rest of the force,” Sipes said.
As part of the training, each officer will be tased. “This cuts done on improper use or someone using the weapon excessively because the officer will know what it feels like,” Sipes explained.
In the two months he has been chief, Sipes said there have been three incidents of use of force by police.
Fletcher wanted assurances, and received them from the chief, that the department wouldn’t “get Taser happy.”
Alderman Reedie Ray agreed with Sipes that the Taser was an effective weapon since he had been on the receiving end of one.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, chuckling. “I was at a convention where the weapon was being demonstrated and was volunteered to be the Guinea pig.”
The council approved the chief’s request to buy 20 of the weapons and related equipment from a Louisiana company for $29,400.
In other council business:
In his monthly report, Public Works Director Jim Oakley said the animal shelter took in 164 dogs and 98 cats during May. The shelter was able to return 38 dogs and two cats to their owners and adopted out 52 dogs and 41 cats, but 67 dogs and 66 cats had to be euthanized during the month.
Oakley also reported that there were five animal bites or attacks on humans including a military canine, a terrier, a Yorkie, a chow mix and a pit mix. None of the animals were declared vicious because of the attacks, but the pit mix and the Yorkie were euthanized.
Alderman Bob Stroud commended the excellent work of the animal control department, saying, “I believe this is the first pit bite of the year. Our ordinance (banning pit bulls) is working,” he said.
City Planner Chip McCulley, in his monthly report to the council, said his department issued 13 building permits and 11 business licenses in May. The engineering department also conducted more than 200 inspections and wrote 253 warning letters to residents or business owners because of excessive grass or trash on the property.
The council also approved a resolution allowing the mayor and city clerk to work out a lease agreement with Arkansas Midland Railroad to operate and maintain the city’s railroad lines and spurs in the city’s industrial park.
“There’ll be no financial transaction involved,” the mayor said, adding that the city had acquired the railroad lines in a long-term lease from Union Pacific, but that lease ended in October.
The mayor said the advantage of having Midland operate the lines is that an engine would be available every day of the week to move train cars. “Right now we have access to one just three days a week,” Swaim said.
Because of Fourth of July holiday commitments, the council voted to move its June 19 meeting to June 26 and to cancel its July 3 meeting.
TOP STORY > >Ideas sought on easing traffic jams
By GARRICK FELDMAN
Leader editor-in-chief
Are you tired of getting stuck in traffic jams that no one is working to eliminate?
Or driving down Main Street, where the traffic lights are uncoordinated, and you have to wait at red lights when there’s no traffic around you?
Metroplan, which helps central Ar-kansas communities with their long-range transportation needs, wants to find answers to the area’s traffic woes.
“We don’t want to rely just on the experts,” Jim McKenzie, Metroplan’s executive director in Little Rock, said Thursday. “The people who use the system know where the problems are.”
In hopes of alleviating congestion problems and poor commutes, Metroplan will soon launch Operation Bottleneck, inviting area residents to voice their opinions on how to improve traffic in their communities.
Public hearings will be held in every central Arkansas county in September, he said.
Suggestions from the public could include supporting major traffic projects, such as widening Hwy. 67/167 from Little Rock to Cabot or completing the North Belt Freeway (a project that has awaited funding since 1947), although funds, estimated to be $200 million, won’t be available for many years, McKenzie said.
But in the meantime, McKenzie wants to hear from the public about small projects that won’t cost much, whether it’s getting out of a driveway to shave a few minutes off a trip, or having enough sidewalks to encourage people to walk and ride bikes.
The aim is to reduce congestion and help people get around better, which will save energy and reduce pollution, he said.
McKenzie said drivers should also consider using public transportation.
Toward that end, Metroplan will run surveys in area newspapers in addition to the public meetings.
Metroplan will hold “a walkable community” seminar in Cabot to en-courage more sidewalks. In addition, Metroplan is also promoting a regional bicycle plan.
These projects will cost money, but federal funds are drying up, he said. The federal highway trust fund, which is supported by gasoline taxes, is also falling. People are driving less— there’s been an 8 percent drop from a year ago, McKenzie said — which means less revenue since taxes are not collected as a percentage of the cost of gasoline but at a flat rate. Arkansas levies 40.2 cents on each gallon sold, regardless of the price of gasoline.
The state will also charge a higher tax on natural gas, which could make up the loss from gasoline usage if motorists cut back on their driving, which they will keep doing if the cost of gasoline goes to $4 a gallon or more
Leader editor-in-chief
Are you tired of getting stuck in traffic jams that no one is working to eliminate?
Or driving down Main Street, where the traffic lights are uncoordinated, and you have to wait at red lights when there’s no traffic around you?
Metroplan, which helps central Ar-kansas communities with their long-range transportation needs, wants to find answers to the area’s traffic woes.
“We don’t want to rely just on the experts,” Jim McKenzie, Metroplan’s executive director in Little Rock, said Thursday. “The people who use the system know where the problems are.”
In hopes of alleviating congestion problems and poor commutes, Metroplan will soon launch Operation Bottleneck, inviting area residents to voice their opinions on how to improve traffic in their communities.
Public hearings will be held in every central Arkansas county in September, he said.
Suggestions from the public could include supporting major traffic projects, such as widening Hwy. 67/167 from Little Rock to Cabot or completing the North Belt Freeway (a project that has awaited funding since 1947), although funds, estimated to be $200 million, won’t be available for many years, McKenzie said.
But in the meantime, McKenzie wants to hear from the public about small projects that won’t cost much, whether it’s getting out of a driveway to shave a few minutes off a trip, or having enough sidewalks to encourage people to walk and ride bikes.
The aim is to reduce congestion and help people get around better, which will save energy and reduce pollution, he said.
McKenzie said drivers should also consider using public transportation.
Toward that end, Metroplan will run surveys in area newspapers in addition to the public meetings.
Metroplan will hold “a walkable community” seminar in Cabot to en-courage more sidewalks. In addition, Metroplan is also promoting a regional bicycle plan.
These projects will cost money, but federal funds are drying up, he said. The federal highway trust fund, which is supported by gasoline taxes, is also falling. People are driving less— there’s been an 8 percent drop from a year ago, McKenzie said — which means less revenue since taxes are not collected as a percentage of the cost of gasoline but at a flat rate. Arkansas levies 40.2 cents on each gallon sold, regardless of the price of gasoline.
The state will also charge a higher tax on natural gas, which could make up the loss from gasoline usage if motorists cut back on their driving, which they will keep doing if the cost of gasoline goes to $4 a gallon or more
TOP STORY > >Ideas sought on easing traffic jams
By GARRICK FELDMAN
Leader editor-in-chief
Are you tired of getting stuck in traffic jams that no one is working to eliminate?
Or driving down Main Street, where the traffic lights are uncoordinated, and you have to wait at red lights when there’s no traffic around you?
Metroplan, which helps central Ar-kansas communities with their long-range transportation needs, wants to find answers to the area’s traffic woes.
“We don’t want to rely just on the experts,” Jim McKenzie, Metroplan’s executive director in Little Rock, said Thursday. “The people who use the system know where the problems are.”
In hopes of alleviating congestion problems and poor commutes, Metroplan will soon launch Operation Bottleneck, inviting area residents to voice their opinions on how to improve traffic in their communities.
Public hearings will be held in every central Arkansas county in September, he said.
Suggestions from the public could include supporting major traffic projects, such as widening Hwy. 67/167 from Little Rock to Cabot or completing the North Belt Freeway (a project that has awaited funding since 1947), although funds, estimated to be $200 million, won’t be available for many years, McKenzie said.
But in the meantime, McKenzie wants to hear from the public about small projects that won’t cost much, whether it’s getting out of a driveway to shave a few minutes off a trip, or having enough sidewalks to encourage people to walk and ride bikes.
The aim is to reduce congestion and help people get around better, which will save energy and reduce pollution, he said.
McKenzie said drivers should also consider using public transportation.
Toward that end, Metroplan will run surveys in area newspapers in addition to the public meetings.
Metroplan will hold “a walkable community” seminar in Cabot to en-courage more sidewalks. In addition, Metroplan is also promoting a regional bicycle plan.
These projects will cost money, but federal funds are drying up, he said. The federal highway trust fund, which is supported by gasoline taxes, is also falling. People are driving less— there’s been an 8 percent drop from a year ago, McKenzie said — which means less revenue since taxes are not collected as a percentage of the cost of gasoline but at a flat rate. Arkansas levies 40.2 cents on each gallon sold, regardless of the price of gasoline.
The state will also charge a higher tax on natural gas, which could make up the loss from gasoline usage if motorists cut back on their driving, which they will keep doing if the cost of gasoline goes to $4 a gallon or more
Leader editor-in-chief
Are you tired of getting stuck in traffic jams that no one is working to eliminate?
Or driving down Main Street, where the traffic lights are uncoordinated, and you have to wait at red lights when there’s no traffic around you?
Metroplan, which helps central Ar-kansas communities with their long-range transportation needs, wants to find answers to the area’s traffic woes.
“We don’t want to rely just on the experts,” Jim McKenzie, Metroplan’s executive director in Little Rock, said Thursday. “The people who use the system know where the problems are.”
In hopes of alleviating congestion problems and poor commutes, Metroplan will soon launch Operation Bottleneck, inviting area residents to voice their opinions on how to improve traffic in their communities.
Public hearings will be held in every central Arkansas county in September, he said.
Suggestions from the public could include supporting major traffic projects, such as widening Hwy. 67/167 from Little Rock to Cabot or completing the North Belt Freeway (a project that has awaited funding since 1947), although funds, estimated to be $200 million, won’t be available for many years, McKenzie said.
But in the meantime, McKenzie wants to hear from the public about small projects that won’t cost much, whether it’s getting out of a driveway to shave a few minutes off a trip, or having enough sidewalks to encourage people to walk and ride bikes.
The aim is to reduce congestion and help people get around better, which will save energy and reduce pollution, he said.
McKenzie said drivers should also consider using public transportation.
Toward that end, Metroplan will run surveys in area newspapers in addition to the public meetings.
Metroplan will hold “a walkable community” seminar in Cabot to en-courage more sidewalks. In addition, Metroplan is also promoting a regional bicycle plan.
These projects will cost money, but federal funds are drying up, he said. The federal highway trust fund, which is supported by gasoline taxes, is also falling. People are driving less— there’s been an 8 percent drop from a year ago, McKenzie said — which means less revenue since taxes are not collected as a percentage of the cost of gasoline but at a flat rate. Arkansas levies 40.2 cents on each gallon sold, regardless of the price of gasoline.
The state will also charge a higher tax on natural gas, which could make up the loss from gasoline usage if motorists cut back on their driving, which they will keep doing if the cost of gasoline goes to $4 a gallon or more
TOP STORY > >Election should go better next time
By JOAM McCOY
Leader staff writer
The White County Election Commission, those unpaid volunteers responsible for making sure elections are conducted in accordance with state law, fell short of making sure the primary came off without a hitch and had to spend more than 24 hours hand counting the ballots for the May primary, only to report Wednesday night that the recount changed nothing.
All the winners are still winners and there still will be a runoff for Searcy District Court during the November general election.
There also will be a runoff among Democratic candidates for House District 58, which covers part of Jackson County and part of White County on June 10.
“The secretary of state told us it would be a long and tedious process, but we didn’t know it would be that long,” said Cindy Barker, a member of the election commission, after the counting was completed. “We didn’t know it would take that long.
There was nothing wrong, no problems, we were just taking our time and doing it right.”
But Barker said the problems are behindthem. Not only have they learned from the procedural errors that skewed the first count, but Leslie Bellamy, the certified election coordinator who usually works with them, has come back early from maternity leave to make sure the runoff election as well as the general election run smoothly.
In Bellamy’s absence, the commission hired other election coordinators who were responsible for some of the problems with the election.
“Leslie started programming sometime last week,” Barker said. “As a matter of fact, she programmed the machine for early election.”
In the Democratic primary for JP District 1, Horace Taylor won over Cathy Foster 146 to 145. In the Republican primary for JP District 2, Bobby Burns won over Larry Fisher 81 to 67.
Mark Derrick, who lost his race for circuit court to Tom Hughes, withdrew his request for a recount.
In Searcy District Court, there will be a November runoff election between Mark Pate and Phyllis Worley. In that race, Pate received 2,911 votes to Worley’s 1,356. Greg Niblock, another candidate for that office, requested the recount when he nearly tied with Worley for the runoff, but the recount showed him still in third place with 1,317 votes while Robert Hudgins came in last with 1,078.
In the Democratic primary for House District 58, both White and Jackson counties will hold runoff elections to determine the winner.
The runoff is between Jody Dickinson who received a two-county total of 1,095 votes while Jody Bryant came in second with 897; Jamie Darling came in third with 857 and Jerry Calew finished last with 495.
Candidates asked for the recount after problems with the election including procedural errors in the counting and bad programming of the voting machines forced the commission to count the ballots a second time. The hand count, which is required by the state when candidates ask for a recount, was the third time the ballots were counted.
Leader staff writer
The White County Election Commission, those unpaid volunteers responsible for making sure elections are conducted in accordance with state law, fell short of making sure the primary came off without a hitch and had to spend more than 24 hours hand counting the ballots for the May primary, only to report Wednesday night that the recount changed nothing.
All the winners are still winners and there still will be a runoff for Searcy District Court during the November general election.
There also will be a runoff among Democratic candidates for House District 58, which covers part of Jackson County and part of White County on June 10.
“The secretary of state told us it would be a long and tedious process, but we didn’t know it would be that long,” said Cindy Barker, a member of the election commission, after the counting was completed. “We didn’t know it would take that long.
There was nothing wrong, no problems, we were just taking our time and doing it right.”
But Barker said the problems are behindthem. Not only have they learned from the procedural errors that skewed the first count, but Leslie Bellamy, the certified election coordinator who usually works with them, has come back early from maternity leave to make sure the runoff election as well as the general election run smoothly.
In Bellamy’s absence, the commission hired other election coordinators who were responsible for some of the problems with the election.
“Leslie started programming sometime last week,” Barker said. “As a matter of fact, she programmed the machine for early election.”
In the Democratic primary for JP District 1, Horace Taylor won over Cathy Foster 146 to 145. In the Republican primary for JP District 2, Bobby Burns won over Larry Fisher 81 to 67.
Mark Derrick, who lost his race for circuit court to Tom Hughes, withdrew his request for a recount.
In Searcy District Court, there will be a November runoff election between Mark Pate and Phyllis Worley. In that race, Pate received 2,911 votes to Worley’s 1,356. Greg Niblock, another candidate for that office, requested the recount when he nearly tied with Worley for the runoff, but the recount showed him still in third place with 1,317 votes while Robert Hudgins came in last with 1,078.
In the Democratic primary for House District 58, both White and Jackson counties will hold runoff elections to determine the winner.
The runoff is between Jody Dickinson who received a two-county total of 1,095 votes while Jody Bryant came in second with 897; Jamie Darling came in third with 857 and Jerry Calew finished last with 495.
Candidates asked for the recount after problems with the election including procedural errors in the counting and bad programming of the voting machines forced the commission to count the ballots a second time. The hand count, which is required by the state when candidates ask for a recount, was the third time the ballots were counted.
TOP STORY > >Election should go better next time
By JOAM McCOY
Leader staff writer
The White County Election Commission, those unpaid volunteers responsible for making sure elections are conducted in accordance with state law, fell short of making sure the primary came off without a hitch and had to spend more than 24 hours hand counting the ballots for the May primary, only to report Wednesday night that the recount changed nothing.
All the winners are still winners and there still will be a runoff for Searcy District Court during the November general election.
There also will be a runoff among Democratic candidates for House District 58, which covers part of Jackson County and part of White County on June 10.
“The secretary of state told us it would be a long and tedious process, but we didn’t know it would be that long,” said Cindy Barker, a member of the election commission, after the counting was completed. “We didn’t know it would take that long.
There was nothing wrong, no problems, we were just taking our time and doing it right.”
But Barker said the problems are behindthem. Not only have they learned from the procedural errors that skewed the first count, but Leslie Bellamy, the certified election coordinator who usually works with them, has come back early from maternity leave to make sure the runoff election as well as the general election run smoothly.
In Bellamy’s absence, the commission hired other election coordinators who were responsible for some of the problems with the election.
“Leslie started programming sometime last week,” Barker said. “As a matter of fact, she programmed the machine for early election.”
In the Democratic primary for JP District 1, Horace Taylor won over Cathy Foster 146 to 145. In the Republican primary for JP District 2, Bobby Burns won over Larry Fisher 81 to 67.
Mark Derrick, who lost his race for circuit court to Tom Hughes, withdrew his request for a recount.
In Searcy District Court, there will be a November runoff election between Mark Pate and Phyllis Worley. In that race, Pate received 2,911 votes to Worley’s 1,356. Greg Niblock, another candidate for that office, requested the recount when he nearly tied with Worley for the runoff, but the recount showed him still in third place with 1,317 votes while Robert Hudgins came in last with 1,078.
In the Democratic primary for House District 58, both White and Jackson counties will hold runoff elections to determine the winner.
The runoff is between Jody Dickinson who received a two-county total of 1,095 votes while Jody Bryant came in second with 897; Jamie Darling came in third with 857 and Jerry Calew finished last with 495.
Candidates asked for the recount after problems with the election including procedural errors in the counting and bad programming of the voting machines forced the commission to count the ballots a second time. The hand count, which is required by the state when candidates ask for a recount, was the third time the ballots were counted.
Leader staff writer
The White County Election Commission, those unpaid volunteers responsible for making sure elections are conducted in accordance with state law, fell short of making sure the primary came off without a hitch and had to spend more than 24 hours hand counting the ballots for the May primary, only to report Wednesday night that the recount changed nothing.
All the winners are still winners and there still will be a runoff for Searcy District Court during the November general election.
There also will be a runoff among Democratic candidates for House District 58, which covers part of Jackson County and part of White County on June 10.
“The secretary of state told us it would be a long and tedious process, but we didn’t know it would be that long,” said Cindy Barker, a member of the election commission, after the counting was completed. “We didn’t know it would take that long.
There was nothing wrong, no problems, we were just taking our time and doing it right.”
But Barker said the problems are behindthem. Not only have they learned from the procedural errors that skewed the first count, but Leslie Bellamy, the certified election coordinator who usually works with them, has come back early from maternity leave to make sure the runoff election as well as the general election run smoothly.
In Bellamy’s absence, the commission hired other election coordinators who were responsible for some of the problems with the election.
“Leslie started programming sometime last week,” Barker said. “As a matter of fact, she programmed the machine for early election.”
In the Democratic primary for JP District 1, Horace Taylor won over Cathy Foster 146 to 145. In the Republican primary for JP District 2, Bobby Burns won over Larry Fisher 81 to 67.
Mark Derrick, who lost his race for circuit court to Tom Hughes, withdrew his request for a recount.
In Searcy District Court, there will be a November runoff election between Mark Pate and Phyllis Worley. In that race, Pate received 2,911 votes to Worley’s 1,356. Greg Niblock, another candidate for that office, requested the recount when he nearly tied with Worley for the runoff, but the recount showed him still in third place with 1,317 votes while Robert Hudgins came in last with 1,078.
In the Democratic primary for House District 58, both White and Jackson counties will hold runoff elections to determine the winner.
The runoff is between Jody Dickinson who received a two-county total of 1,095 votes while Jody Bryant came in second with 897; Jamie Darling came in third with 857 and Jerry Calew finished last with 495.
Candidates asked for the recount after problems with the election including procedural errors in the counting and bad programming of the voting machines forced the commission to count the ballots a second time. The hand count, which is required by the state when candidates ask for a recount, was the third time the ballots were counted.
EDITORIAL >>Alltel’s roots spread here
Alltel, or as it was once known more or less fondly in these parts, Allied Telephone Co., will soon be no more. By year’s end, the big company that got its impetus from Jacksonville at the end of World War II will have been gobbled up by Verizon, the New Jersey-based communications giant, and the familiar logo will disappear, apparently even from the face of the big arena in North Little Rock to which the company bought naming rights.
Verizon’s acquisition of the 60-year-old company for a reported $28.1 billion is the business news of the year in Arkansas and it was treated, as these things ordinarily are, as a bonanza for the state, or at least a mixed blessing. Gov. Beebe welcomed Verizon to the state and hoped it would make use of all the fine Arkansas employees. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission and the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce applauded the sale.
Scott Ford, the young Alltel president who will be leaving as soon as the sale is final, put a sunny face on it — it’s a transition, not a funeral, he said. He speculated that Verizon could decide to make this a regional headquarters. Ford expected the vast majority of the 3,000 workers in the county to be affected hardly at all, at least right away. The corporate executives, he suggested, will be the ones sharply affected. But we need not mourn their fate too much. Ford and the other top executives worked out contracts last year that will pay their salaries for three years (Ford’s is $1.23 million a year) plus bonuses in the event the company is sold. We won’t be seeing them at the soup kitchens.
For everyone else, the future is bleak to uncertain. Here’s a clue. A Verizon statement said the company expects to “realize synergies with a net present value, after integration costs, of more than $9 billion driven by reduced capital and operating expenses.” Incremental cost savings of $1 billion will be generated the second year after closing. How do you save operating and capital expenses? One way is to eliminate jobs, somewhere. Our guess would be central Arkansas. This is the second sale of Alltel in a year. The company’s sale to the private equity firms TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners was final in November, but the banks that financed the transaction could not sell the notes to investors in the collapsing credit markets. Verizon sort of came to the rescue and bought the debt at a discount. The equity that it acquired was only $5.9 billion of the deal. We have a hunch that might be a factor in Verizon’s decision about where to effect the synergies that it talks about.
This will no longer be the world headquarters of one of the leading innovation companies in the land, and we will all be a little poorer for that. Arkansas has more than its share of corporate titans that grew from one man’s vision and grit and incubated in poor towns. Wal-Mart is the archetype, but the story of Alltel is just as inspiring as Sam Walton’s rags-to-riches legend.
Brothers-in-law Hugh R. Wilbourn Jr. and Charles B. Miller quit their jobs with Bell Telephone in 1943 and contracted to help the tiny independent telephone companies around the state repair and modernize their lines and exchanges. Then they bought a little company at Sheridan that strung its wires along fence posts and hardwood saplings. Witt Stephens, the utility and financial baron, sold it to them on credit on condition they keep his mother in telephone service at Prattsville free of charge.
Their big break came a year or so later when Sen. John L. McClellan telephoned the Department of Defense and arranged for the transfer of tons of surplus communications equipment at the government’s Jacksonville ordnance plant along with the little telephone exchange for the community around the Army’s World War II training base, all at a discounted bargain. Miles of copper cable and communications gear at the Jacksonville and Maumelle ordnance depots that had been gathered for the war effort enabled the two men to cheaply modernize the service in Grant and northern Pulaski County and a growing number of tiny rural telephone companies that the two men were acquiring around the state. Wilbourn’s son-in-law, Joe Ford (father of the current CEO), took over in the 1970s and spread its network across the country, including pioneering in wireless communications.
An economist at the University of Arkansas, Kathy Deck, explained what the sale really means, regardless of what happens ultimately to the thousands of good employees of the company and to the gleaming Alltel campus on the south bank of the Arkansas River:
“When you have a nationally recognized company’s headquarters in your area, that is very important for the overall branding of your area. It’s really hard to replace them in the public consciousness and in terms of the leadership that they bring to community organizations, even to further economic development in the state.”
So Hugh Wilbourn’s great creation vanishes into the corporate ether, but he is not around to mourn it. He died seven years ago.
Verizon’s acquisition of the 60-year-old company for a reported $28.1 billion is the business news of the year in Arkansas and it was treated, as these things ordinarily are, as a bonanza for the state, or at least a mixed blessing. Gov. Beebe welcomed Verizon to the state and hoped it would make use of all the fine Arkansas employees. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission and the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce applauded the sale.
Scott Ford, the young Alltel president who will be leaving as soon as the sale is final, put a sunny face on it — it’s a transition, not a funeral, he said. He speculated that Verizon could decide to make this a regional headquarters. Ford expected the vast majority of the 3,000 workers in the county to be affected hardly at all, at least right away. The corporate executives, he suggested, will be the ones sharply affected. But we need not mourn their fate too much. Ford and the other top executives worked out contracts last year that will pay their salaries for three years (Ford’s is $1.23 million a year) plus bonuses in the event the company is sold. We won’t be seeing them at the soup kitchens.
For everyone else, the future is bleak to uncertain. Here’s a clue. A Verizon statement said the company expects to “realize synergies with a net present value, after integration costs, of more than $9 billion driven by reduced capital and operating expenses.” Incremental cost savings of $1 billion will be generated the second year after closing. How do you save operating and capital expenses? One way is to eliminate jobs, somewhere. Our guess would be central Arkansas. This is the second sale of Alltel in a year. The company’s sale to the private equity firms TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners was final in November, but the banks that financed the transaction could not sell the notes to investors in the collapsing credit markets. Verizon sort of came to the rescue and bought the debt at a discount. The equity that it acquired was only $5.9 billion of the deal. We have a hunch that might be a factor in Verizon’s decision about where to effect the synergies that it talks about.
This will no longer be the world headquarters of one of the leading innovation companies in the land, and we will all be a little poorer for that. Arkansas has more than its share of corporate titans that grew from one man’s vision and grit and incubated in poor towns. Wal-Mart is the archetype, but the story of Alltel is just as inspiring as Sam Walton’s rags-to-riches legend.
Brothers-in-law Hugh R. Wilbourn Jr. and Charles B. Miller quit their jobs with Bell Telephone in 1943 and contracted to help the tiny independent telephone companies around the state repair and modernize their lines and exchanges. Then they bought a little company at Sheridan that strung its wires along fence posts and hardwood saplings. Witt Stephens, the utility and financial baron, sold it to them on credit on condition they keep his mother in telephone service at Prattsville free of charge.
Their big break came a year or so later when Sen. John L. McClellan telephoned the Department of Defense and arranged for the transfer of tons of surplus communications equipment at the government’s Jacksonville ordnance plant along with the little telephone exchange for the community around the Army’s World War II training base, all at a discounted bargain. Miles of copper cable and communications gear at the Jacksonville and Maumelle ordnance depots that had been gathered for the war effort enabled the two men to cheaply modernize the service in Grant and northern Pulaski County and a growing number of tiny rural telephone companies that the two men were acquiring around the state. Wilbourn’s son-in-law, Joe Ford (father of the current CEO), took over in the 1970s and spread its network across the country, including pioneering in wireless communications.
An economist at the University of Arkansas, Kathy Deck, explained what the sale really means, regardless of what happens ultimately to the thousands of good employees of the company and to the gleaming Alltel campus on the south bank of the Arkansas River:
“When you have a nationally recognized company’s headquarters in your area, that is very important for the overall branding of your area. It’s really hard to replace them in the public consciousness and in terms of the leadership that they bring to community organizations, even to further economic development in the state.”
So Hugh Wilbourn’s great creation vanishes into the corporate ether, but he is not around to mourn it. He died seven years ago.
EDITORIAL >>Alltel’s roots spread here
Alltel, or as it was once known more or less fondly in these parts, Allied Telephone Co., will soon be no more. By year’s end, the big company that got its impetus from Jacksonville at the end of World War II will have been gobbled up by Verizon, the New Jersey-based communications giant, and the familiar logo will disappear, apparently even from the face of the big arena in North Little Rock to which the company bought naming rights.
Verizon’s acquisition of the 60-year-old company for a reported $28.1 billion is the business news of the year in Arkansas and it was treated, as these things ordinarily are, as a bonanza for the state, or at least a mixed blessing. Gov. Beebe welcomed Verizon to the state and hoped it would make use of all the fine Arkansas employees. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission and the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce applauded the sale.
Scott Ford, the young Alltel president who will be leaving as soon as the sale is final, put a sunny face on it — it’s a transition, not a funeral, he said. He speculated that Verizon could decide to make this a regional headquarters. Ford expected the vast majority of the 3,000 workers in the county to be affected hardly at all, at least right away. The corporate executives, he suggested, will be the ones sharply affected. But we need not mourn their fate too much. Ford and the other top executives worked out contracts last year that will pay their salaries for three years (Ford’s is $1.23 million a year) plus bonuses in the event the company is sold. We won’t be seeing them at the soup kitchens.
For everyone else, the future is bleak to uncertain. Here’s a clue. A Verizon statement said the company expects to “realize synergies with a net present value, after integration costs, of more than $9 billion driven by reduced capital and operating expenses.” Incremental cost savings of $1 billion will be generated the second year after closing. How do you save operating and capital expenses? One way is to eliminate jobs, somewhere. Our guess would be central Arkansas. This is the second sale of Alltel in a year. The company’s sale to the private equity firms TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners was final in November, but the banks that financed the transaction could not sell the notes to investors in the collapsing credit markets. Verizon sort of came to the rescue and bought the debt at a discount. The equity that it acquired was only $5.9 billion of the deal. We have a hunch that might be a factor in Verizon’s decision about where to effect the synergies that it talks about.
This will no longer be the world headquarters of one of the leading innovation companies in the land, and we will all be a little poorer for that. Arkansas has more than its share of corporate titans that grew from one man’s vision and grit and incubated in poor towns. Wal-Mart is the archetype, but the story of Alltel is just as inspiring as Sam Walton’s rags-to-riches legend.
Brothers-in-law Hugh R. Wilbourn Jr. and Charles B. Miller quit their jobs with Bell Telephone in 1943 and contracted to help the tiny independent telephone companies around the state repair and modernize their lines and exchanges. Then they bought a little company at Sheridan that strung its wires along fence posts and hardwood saplings. Witt Stephens, the utility and financial baron, sold it to them on credit on condition they keep his mother in telephone service at Prattsville free of charge.
Their big break came a year or so later when Sen. John L. McClellan telephoned the Department of Defense and arranged for the transfer of tons of surplus communications equipment at the government’s Jacksonville ordnance plant along with the little telephone exchange for the community around the Army’s World War II training base, all at a discounted bargain. Miles of copper cable and communications gear at the Jacksonville and Maumelle ordnance depots that had been gathered for the war effort enabled the two men to cheaply modernize the service in Grant and northern Pulaski County and a growing number of tiny rural telephone companies that the two men were acquiring around the state. Wilbourn’s son-in-law, Joe Ford (father of the current CEO), took over in the 1970s and spread its network across the country, including pioneering in wireless communications.
An economist at the University of Arkansas, Kathy Deck, explained what the sale really means, regardless of what happens ultimately to the thousands of good employees of the company and to the gleaming Alltel campus on the south bank of the Arkansas River:
“When you have a nationally recognized company’s headquarters in your area, that is very important for the overall branding of your area. It’s really hard to replace them in the public consciousness and in terms of the leadership that they bring to community organizations, even to further economic development in the state.”
So Hugh Wilbourn’s great creation vanishes into the corporate ether, but he is not around to mourn it. He died seven years ago.
Verizon’s acquisition of the 60-year-old company for a reported $28.1 billion is the business news of the year in Arkansas and it was treated, as these things ordinarily are, as a bonanza for the state, or at least a mixed blessing. Gov. Beebe welcomed Verizon to the state and hoped it would make use of all the fine Arkansas employees. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission and the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce applauded the sale.
Scott Ford, the young Alltel president who will be leaving as soon as the sale is final, put a sunny face on it — it’s a transition, not a funeral, he said. He speculated that Verizon could decide to make this a regional headquarters. Ford expected the vast majority of the 3,000 workers in the county to be affected hardly at all, at least right away. The corporate executives, he suggested, will be the ones sharply affected. But we need not mourn their fate too much. Ford and the other top executives worked out contracts last year that will pay their salaries for three years (Ford’s is $1.23 million a year) plus bonuses in the event the company is sold. We won’t be seeing them at the soup kitchens.
For everyone else, the future is bleak to uncertain. Here’s a clue. A Verizon statement said the company expects to “realize synergies with a net present value, after integration costs, of more than $9 billion driven by reduced capital and operating expenses.” Incremental cost savings of $1 billion will be generated the second year after closing. How do you save operating and capital expenses? One way is to eliminate jobs, somewhere. Our guess would be central Arkansas. This is the second sale of Alltel in a year. The company’s sale to the private equity firms TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners was final in November, but the banks that financed the transaction could not sell the notes to investors in the collapsing credit markets. Verizon sort of came to the rescue and bought the debt at a discount. The equity that it acquired was only $5.9 billion of the deal. We have a hunch that might be a factor in Verizon’s decision about where to effect the synergies that it talks about.
This will no longer be the world headquarters of one of the leading innovation companies in the land, and we will all be a little poorer for that. Arkansas has more than its share of corporate titans that grew from one man’s vision and grit and incubated in poor towns. Wal-Mart is the archetype, but the story of Alltel is just as inspiring as Sam Walton’s rags-to-riches legend.
Brothers-in-law Hugh R. Wilbourn Jr. and Charles B. Miller quit their jobs with Bell Telephone in 1943 and contracted to help the tiny independent telephone companies around the state repair and modernize their lines and exchanges. Then they bought a little company at Sheridan that strung its wires along fence posts and hardwood saplings. Witt Stephens, the utility and financial baron, sold it to them on credit on condition they keep his mother in telephone service at Prattsville free of charge.
Their big break came a year or so later when Sen. John L. McClellan telephoned the Department of Defense and arranged for the transfer of tons of surplus communications equipment at the government’s Jacksonville ordnance plant along with the little telephone exchange for the community around the Army’s World War II training base, all at a discounted bargain. Miles of copper cable and communications gear at the Jacksonville and Maumelle ordnance depots that had been gathered for the war effort enabled the two men to cheaply modernize the service in Grant and northern Pulaski County and a growing number of tiny rural telephone companies that the two men were acquiring around the state. Wilbourn’s son-in-law, Joe Ford (father of the current CEO), took over in the 1970s and spread its network across the country, including pioneering in wireless communications.
An economist at the University of Arkansas, Kathy Deck, explained what the sale really means, regardless of what happens ultimately to the thousands of good employees of the company and to the gleaming Alltel campus on the south bank of the Arkansas River:
“When you have a nationally recognized company’s headquarters in your area, that is very important for the overall branding of your area. It’s really hard to replace them in the public consciousness and in terms of the leadership that they bring to community organizations, even to further economic development in the state.”
So Hugh Wilbourn’s great creation vanishes into the corporate ether, but he is not around to mourn it. He died seven years ago.
SPORTS>>Junior Cabot Legion routs Sylvan Hills
By KELLY FENTON
Leader sports editor
Sylvan Hills woke up loudly, but woke up too late.
The junior Cabot American Legion team carried a 10-0 lead into the final inning on Thursday evening, then withstood a suddenly wide-awake Bruins club to post a 10-5 win at Burns Park. Sylvan Hills entered the fifth and final inning withjust two hits against Cabot starter and winner Cole Nicholson, but erupted for three singles, two triples and two doubles before shortstop Chase Thompson started a 6-4-3 double play to end it.
The victory followed a disappointing 4-2 loss to Bryant on Wednesday night — one that had Cabot head coach Andy Runyan less than pleased.
“We played pretty poorly (Wednesday),” said Runyan, whose team improved to 8-2-2. “We finished up at 9:30 and had a little practice session afterwards. After that, I think they had a better idea of what Cabot baseball is supposed to be like.”
The way Nicholson was mowing them down – four strikeouts, just two hits through four innings – Cabot’s early 2-0 lead seemed safe.
Nicholson’s single and a throwing error put Cabot up 1-0 in the first, and Joe Bryant’s single and Powell Bryant’s hard-hit ground out to second made it 2-0 in the third. Joe Bryant went 3 of 4 with two runs and two RBI.
But Cabot would turn out to need its big fourth inning, when it sent 11 to the plate, scoring seven on just three hits. The big blows were Andrew Reynolds’ stinging 3-run double to the fence in left-center and Joe Bryant’s 2-run single. Three walks, a hit batsman and two Sylvan Hills’ errors helped Cabot’s cause in the inning.
“Both (Joe Bryant and Reynolds) have been a little frustrated with themselves lately,” Runyan said. “Joe hit the ball well today.
And it was a big game for Andrew because he went to the opposite field gap. He’s been hitting it well but he’s been pulling it.
He really kept that front shoulder closed and got a good swing.
“Hopefully, that will be a big step toward getting him started.”
Tyler Carter’s pinch single in the fifth made it 10-0.
But just like that, the Bruins’ bats came fully to life in the final inning. While everyone on hand had turned their attention to the upcoming senior game, the junior Bruins had other ideas. Michael Lock started it with a pinch single, followed by Cain Cormier’s triple. Casey Cerrato’s triple and Ryan Dillon’s double chased Nicholson in favor of Tyler Cole.
“Credit Sylvan Hills. They started swinging the bats,” Runyan said. “We tell our guys, when you get a big lead, just throw strikes. Our pitchers did that. Cole got a little tired because he had just thrown an excellent game at the Fat City Tournament on Sunday.”
Tyler Cole came in and got a strikeout, but a double and two singles followed to make it 10-5, with two on and still just one out. But Cole got a grounder to Thompson, who began the game-ending double play.
Each team had nine hits.
Cabot hosted Morrilton last night and will host Vilonia in a doubleheader today at 2 p.m.
Leader sports editor
Sylvan Hills woke up loudly, but woke up too late.
The junior Cabot American Legion team carried a 10-0 lead into the final inning on Thursday evening, then withstood a suddenly wide-awake Bruins club to post a 10-5 win at Burns Park. Sylvan Hills entered the fifth and final inning withjust two hits against Cabot starter and winner Cole Nicholson, but erupted for three singles, two triples and two doubles before shortstop Chase Thompson started a 6-4-3 double play to end it.
The victory followed a disappointing 4-2 loss to Bryant on Wednesday night — one that had Cabot head coach Andy Runyan less than pleased.
“We played pretty poorly (Wednesday),” said Runyan, whose team improved to 8-2-2. “We finished up at 9:30 and had a little practice session afterwards. After that, I think they had a better idea of what Cabot baseball is supposed to be like.”
The way Nicholson was mowing them down – four strikeouts, just two hits through four innings – Cabot’s early 2-0 lead seemed safe.
Nicholson’s single and a throwing error put Cabot up 1-0 in the first, and Joe Bryant’s single and Powell Bryant’s hard-hit ground out to second made it 2-0 in the third. Joe Bryant went 3 of 4 with two runs and two RBI.
But Cabot would turn out to need its big fourth inning, when it sent 11 to the plate, scoring seven on just three hits. The big blows were Andrew Reynolds’ stinging 3-run double to the fence in left-center and Joe Bryant’s 2-run single. Three walks, a hit batsman and two Sylvan Hills’ errors helped Cabot’s cause in the inning.
“Both (Joe Bryant and Reynolds) have been a little frustrated with themselves lately,” Runyan said. “Joe hit the ball well today.
And it was a big game for Andrew because he went to the opposite field gap. He’s been hitting it well but he’s been pulling it.
He really kept that front shoulder closed and got a good swing.
“Hopefully, that will be a big step toward getting him started.”
Tyler Carter’s pinch single in the fifth made it 10-0.
But just like that, the Bruins’ bats came fully to life in the final inning. While everyone on hand had turned their attention to the upcoming senior game, the junior Bruins had other ideas. Michael Lock started it with a pinch single, followed by Cain Cormier’s triple. Casey Cerrato’s triple and Ryan Dillon’s double chased Nicholson in favor of Tyler Cole.
“Credit Sylvan Hills. They started swinging the bats,” Runyan said. “We tell our guys, when you get a big lead, just throw strikes. Our pitchers did that. Cole got a little tired because he had just thrown an excellent game at the Fat City Tournament on Sunday.”
Tyler Cole came in and got a strikeout, but a double and two singles followed to make it 10-5, with two on and still just one out. But Cole got a grounder to Thompson, who began the game-ending double play.
Each team had nine hits.
Cabot hosted Morrilton last night and will host Vilonia in a doubleheader today at 2 p.m.
SPORTS>>Junior Legion tournament this weekend
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Gwatney Chevrolet will host the 6th annual Jr. Legion Tournament at Hickingbotham Field in Dupree Park this weekend. The six teams on hand for the tourney include hosts Gwatney Chevrolet, North Little Rock, Sylvan Hills, Benton, Maumelle and Sheridan, which were divided into two pools of three. Each team will play two pool games between last night and today.
Benton, Sylvan Hills and Gwatney make up Pool A, with Maumelle, North Little Rock and Sheridan in Pool B.
Pool play got underway last night with a pair of games, with four more games starting at noon today. The teams will then be arranged from best record to worse for championship day on Sunday.
The tournament will go under American Legion rules, with an hour and 50-minute time limit for each game, and a 10-run rule after five innings.
The Colts kicked things off last night with a 6 p.m. game against Maumelle, with the Chevy boys taking on Benton in Game 2.
Gwatney will turn around and open play today at noon against Sylvan Hills, followed by Maumelle against Sheridan at 2 p.m.
The Bruins will play their second pool game at 5:30 p.m. today against Benton, and North Little Rock and Sheridan will close out pool play tonight at 7:30 p.m.
The third-place consolation game will take place tomorrow at 1:30 p.m., followed by the second-place game at 3:30. The first-place teams from each pool will battle for the tournament crown in the final game at 5:30 p.m.
Leader sportswriter
Gwatney Chevrolet will host the 6th annual Jr. Legion Tournament at Hickingbotham Field in Dupree Park this weekend. The six teams on hand for the tourney include hosts Gwatney Chevrolet, North Little Rock, Sylvan Hills, Benton, Maumelle and Sheridan, which were divided into two pools of three. Each team will play two pool games between last night and today.
Benton, Sylvan Hills and Gwatney make up Pool A, with Maumelle, North Little Rock and Sheridan in Pool B.
Pool play got underway last night with a pair of games, with four more games starting at noon today. The teams will then be arranged from best record to worse for championship day on Sunday.
The tournament will go under American Legion rules, with an hour and 50-minute time limit for each game, and a 10-run rule after five innings.
The Colts kicked things off last night with a 6 p.m. game against Maumelle, with the Chevy boys taking on Benton in Game 2.
Gwatney will turn around and open play today at noon against Sylvan Hills, followed by Maumelle against Sheridan at 2 p.m.
The Bruins will play their second pool game at 5:30 p.m. today against Benton, and North Little Rock and Sheridan will close out pool play tonight at 7:30 p.m.
The third-place consolation game will take place tomorrow at 1:30 p.m., followed by the second-place game at 3:30. The first-place teams from each pool will battle for the tournament crown in the final game at 5:30 p.m.
SPORTS>>Junior Legion tournament this weekend
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Gwatney Chevrolet will host the 6th annual Jr. Legion Tournament at Hickingbotham Field in Dupree Park this weekend. The six teams on hand for the tourney include hosts Gwatney Chevrolet, North Little Rock, Sylvan Hills, Benton, Maumelle and Sheridan, which were divided into two pools of three. Each team will play two pool games between last night and today.
Benton, Sylvan Hills and Gwatney make up Pool A, with Maumelle, North Little Rock and Sheridan in Pool B.
Pool play got underway last night with a pair of games, with four more games starting at noon today. The teams will then be arranged from best record to worse for championship day on Sunday.
The tournament will go under American Legion rules, with an hour and 50-minute time limit for each game, and a 10-run rule after five innings.
The Colts kicked things off last night with a 6 p.m. game against Maumelle, with the Chevy boys taking on Benton in Game 2.
Gwatney will turn around and open play today at noon against Sylvan Hills, followed by Maumelle against Sheridan at 2 p.m.
The Bruins will play their second pool game at 5:30 p.m. today against Benton, and North Little Rock and Sheridan will close out pool play tonight at 7:30 p.m.
The third-place consolation game will take place tomorrow at 1:30 p.m., followed by the second-place game at 3:30. The first-place teams from each pool will battle for the tournament crown in the final game at 5:30 p.m.
Leader sportswriter
Gwatney Chevrolet will host the 6th annual Jr. Legion Tournament at Hickingbotham Field in Dupree Park this weekend. The six teams on hand for the tourney include hosts Gwatney Chevrolet, North Little Rock, Sylvan Hills, Benton, Maumelle and Sheridan, which were divided into two pools of three. Each team will play two pool games between last night and today.
Benton, Sylvan Hills and Gwatney make up Pool A, with Maumelle, North Little Rock and Sheridan in Pool B.
Pool play got underway last night with a pair of games, with four more games starting at noon today. The teams will then be arranged from best record to worse for championship day on Sunday.
The tournament will go under American Legion rules, with an hour and 50-minute time limit for each game, and a 10-run rule after five innings.
The Colts kicked things off last night with a 6 p.m. game against Maumelle, with the Chevy boys taking on Benton in Game 2.
Gwatney will turn around and open play today at noon against Sylvan Hills, followed by Maumelle against Sheridan at 2 p.m.
The Bruins will play their second pool game at 5:30 p.m. today against Benton, and North Little Rock and Sheridan will close out pool play tonight at 7:30 p.m.
The third-place consolation game will take place tomorrow at 1:30 p.m., followed by the second-place game at 3:30. The first-place teams from each pool will battle for the tournament crown in the final game at 5:30 p.m.
SPORTS>>Fuller, Bates lead Cabot
By KELLY FENTON
Leader sports editor
The senior Cabot American Legion team scored early, then scored late and ran off with an 11-3 win over Sylvan Hills Optimist at Burns Park on Thursday evening.
Colin Fuller struck out nine over five innings to pick up the win, pitching out of a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the second.
The Cabot bats were potent enough on Thursday to overcome a series of baserunning errors. Cabot lost four runners on the base paths, though one resulted in a steal of home.
Sam Bates led the way in Cabot’s 13-hit attack, belting a pair of doubles, driving in two runs and going 3 of 3. Shayne Burgan drove in two runs and went 2 of 4, and Jeremy Wilson added two RBI with a pair of singles.
Cabot jumped on Sylvan Hills early, getting RBI singles from Burgan and Matthew Turner and an RBI groundout from Ben Wainright to take a 4-0 lead.
Sylvan Hills posted two in the second and narrowed the gap to 5-3 on Nathan Eller’s single in the third.
Fuller was the beneficiary of some good defense early. When Ross Bogart tried to score on a wild pitch in the third, catcher Ben Wainright grabbed the ball off the carom and dove to make the tag at the plate. Wainright threw out Justin Treece trying to steal in the fourth, and second baseman Jeffrey Cooper and first baseman Matthew Turner both made nice plays to retire Cody Cormier in the inning.
Bogart, on in relief in the first inning, pitched solidly through the fourth to keep the Bruins close. But Cabot re-awakened in the fifth on a double by Bates and singles by Turner, Cooper and Wilson to make it 8-3.
Treece came on in relief, and was greeted with Matt Evans’ home run to left-center into a stiff wind. Burgan, Drew Burks and Bates followed with doubles to extend the lead to 11-3.
The Bruins finished with eight hits — two each by Matt Rugger, Eller and Blain Sims.
Fuller allowed six hits and three earned runs over five innings, walking three and hitting two. C.J. Jacoby came on in the sixth to close it out.
Cabot hosted Morrilton last night.
Leader sports editor
The senior Cabot American Legion team scored early, then scored late and ran off with an 11-3 win over Sylvan Hills Optimist at Burns Park on Thursday evening.
Colin Fuller struck out nine over five innings to pick up the win, pitching out of a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the second.
The Cabot bats were potent enough on Thursday to overcome a series of baserunning errors. Cabot lost four runners on the base paths, though one resulted in a steal of home.
Sam Bates led the way in Cabot’s 13-hit attack, belting a pair of doubles, driving in two runs and going 3 of 3. Shayne Burgan drove in two runs and went 2 of 4, and Jeremy Wilson added two RBI with a pair of singles.
Cabot jumped on Sylvan Hills early, getting RBI singles from Burgan and Matthew Turner and an RBI groundout from Ben Wainright to take a 4-0 lead.
Sylvan Hills posted two in the second and narrowed the gap to 5-3 on Nathan Eller’s single in the third.
Fuller was the beneficiary of some good defense early. When Ross Bogart tried to score on a wild pitch in the third, catcher Ben Wainright grabbed the ball off the carom and dove to make the tag at the plate. Wainright threw out Justin Treece trying to steal in the fourth, and second baseman Jeffrey Cooper and first baseman Matthew Turner both made nice plays to retire Cody Cormier in the inning.
Bogart, on in relief in the first inning, pitched solidly through the fourth to keep the Bruins close. But Cabot re-awakened in the fifth on a double by Bates and singles by Turner, Cooper and Wilson to make it 8-3.
Treece came on in relief, and was greeted with Matt Evans’ home run to left-center into a stiff wind. Burgan, Drew Burks and Bates followed with doubles to extend the lead to 11-3.
The Bruins finished with eight hits — two each by Matt Rugger, Eller and Blain Sims.
Fuller allowed six hits and three earned runs over five innings, walking three and hitting two. C.J. Jacoby came on in the sixth to close it out.
Cabot hosted Morrilton last night.
SPORTS>>Tireless efforts net trainer high honor
By KELLY FENTON
Leader sports editor
It was a simple reverse play to Terrell L’Herise, with wide receiver Demetrius Harris providing the interference on the edge.
But a Mountain Home defender slipped underneath Harris and dove on top of L’Herise’s foot just as he planted it.
It was one of the two worst injuries Jacksonville head coach Mark Whatley has ever witnessed. L’Herise, an outstanding athlete with a promising future, had suffered a complete dislocation of his knee. He is still in rehabilitation and likely has a year more of it ahead.
“That ranked right up there,” said Whatley, who will be starting his fourth season at the Red Devil helm this fall. “When I was at Southern Arkansas University, I had a kid sever an artery. But Terrell’s was as bad as I’ve seen.”
And yet, thanks to Jacksonville athletic trainer Jason Cates, L’Herise, who graduated last month, hasn’t abandoned dreams of playing again. Cates has been working with L’Herise ever since, but has gone beyond what anyone might have expected of a man who, after all, isn’t even an employee of Jacksonville High School. Cates works for Ortho Arkansas, which donates Cates’ time to the school.
Cates had heard about a similar injury to Philadelphia Eagles free safety J.R. Reed. Reed began wearing a new type of brace — one which has just recently been patented — and is now back playing.
“I had never dealt with an injury of this type before,” Cates said. “I called all the other trainers I knew to see if they knew of anything. A friend from NFL Europe told me about J.R.’s injury.”
Cates got in contact with Reed, then put Reed and L’Herise in contact with one another. The result: A similar brace is on its way to L’Herise.
“He’s not hanging up his cleats yet,” Cates said. “There’s a chance he’ll get to play football again. J.R. told Terrell, ‘Just because medically they tell you your career is over doesn’t mean it’s so. Look at me. I’m playing at the highest level.’”
That is just one of the many things that has Whatley in awe of Cates, and grateful beyond words for his services.
“There’s no way I could ever say enough,” Whatley said. “The thing with Terrell — that stuff never ceases to amaze me, what (Cates) gets done. Not just football, but baseball, softball, basketball; he covers all of it. And he does it with a genuine caring. I don’t even know if he looks at it like a job.”
HIGHEST HONOR
And yet, the L’Herise case probably had little, if anything, to do with the recent high honor Cates received. The Jacksonville native and Arkansas State alum was named Arkansas Athletic Trainer of the Year last month.
According to Eric Linson, assistant trainer at the University of Arkansas, and President of the Arkansas Athletic Trainers Association (AATA), it has been Cates’ tireless work in helping to launch a legislative task force for better health care for athletes at the secondary school level that was pivotal in his earning the award this year.
“The award is geared for the person who has distinguished himself or brought recognition to the profession during the course of the year,” Linson said. “This recognition is for Jason’s bulldog attitude to make the public aware of the issue of health care (for secondary school athletes) and to communicate that to the state senators and representatives.”
The state received another dramatic reminder of the issue of inadequate health care for athletes when Parkview basketball player Anthony Hobbs died suddenly on the court earlier this year.
Yet Linson bristles when asked if Hobbs’ death was the impetus for the latest efforts to improve health care, citing the disturbing slate of Arkansas youngsters who have died during athletic activity over the past 13 years.
“That wouldn’t be fair to Kendrick Fincher of Rogers (who died of dehydration in 1995),” Linson said. “That wouldn’t be fair to Rodrick Morris of Camden or Gary Richardson Jr.”
Linson ticked off a long list of accidents and injuries to athletes at the secondary level. Morris died of heat stroke in 1997; Richardson collapsed and died during football at McGehee High; North Little Rock’s Kenyana Tolbert, already signed and heading to Oklahoma State the following year, was paralyzed in 1998 and died last year; eighth grader Jeremy Spinnett died after suffering head injuries in 1999; Anthony Brown of Malvern suffered a cervical fracture and died in 2001; Samuel Urton collapse and died at a North Little Rock basketball practice in 2003.
It was Brown’s death in 2001 that really got the attention of the AATA.
“We have known for a long time,” Cates said. “To say they could have all been prevented, it’s hard to say. But a lot of it could have.”
If the high number of tragedies is disturbing, so too is the low number of schools that have a trainer available. Of the 344 high schools around the state that field a varsity team of some sort, only about 50 have athletic trainers at their disposal, Cates said. Of those, only about 10 high schools actually employ a trainer. The rest of the schools, including Jacksonville, have trainers only through the donations of hospitals or sports medicine clinics.
Cates works for Ortho Arkansas, but devotes much of his time each week to being a trainer to Jacksonville athletes. He is passionate about his work.
“Just because a kid’s in high school doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the same level of care as the kids in college or the NBA or the NFL,” he said. “Everyone knows those athletes are taken care of. Unfortunately, at the high school level, too much goes unattended to.
“Some high schools don’t even have paramedic services available on Friday nights in football season.”
Adds Linson: “We have 17 certified athletic trainers for 400 athletes at the University of Arkansas. That much expenditure at a college, but we can’t afford to have someone there when Kendrick Fincher has a heat stroke? And there’s no ambulance when Anthony Brown broke his neck? We’re really trying not to be reactionary. We’re being proactive.”
GETTING THE GOVERNMENT INVOLVED
After several years of pushing for it, the AATA finally got some action. In April of 2007, Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe signed a resolution providing for a legislative task force to look into the issue of sports medicine for athletes and health care in general at the secondary school level.
Cates, who serves as an at-large delegate on the AATA’s executive committee and as the secondary schools chairman, became the point man in the battle to get the state to make changes. The task force finally convened last fall and had its first hearing earlier this year. Cates was there to provide guidance, as he will be when the task force meets again this Wednesday.
“Jason has been very instrumental in educating everyone along the way, from the coaches to the Department of Education to school nurses to the legislators to the Arkansas Paramedics Association. He’s been a bulldog trying to address minimum athletic health care in the state.”
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that things could well get worse before they get better. That’s because budget cuts and cuts in Medicaid are forcing clinics and hospitals to cut back on their largesse to the schools. That means even fewer trainers available.
“Fort Smith is a great example,” Linson said. “The two high schools each had a trainer provided by a hospital. The hospital finally said, ‘Sorry, because of costs, we can’t do it anymore.’”
That means schools more than ever will be on their own to provide their own athletic trainers. But that costs money. In the meantime, as hospitals and clinics begin cutting back, trainers are leaving the state, Cates said.
“That’s why I’m so passionate about this,” he insists. “We only have 175 certified athletic trainers in the state of Arkansas who actually have jobs in their field. That means we have to be careful what we wish for. We want to make sure the kids are taken care of, but if the task force recommends legislation that every school has to have a certified athletic trainer, we don’t have the bodies.”
To that end, Cates, who has traveled to other states to try to learn how they are handling the matter of sports medicine in schools, is hoping the Department of Education will add sports medicine to high school curriculum, to get kids interested at an early age.
“The hope is that, once they graduate and get certification, they’ll stay in the state.”
MINIMUM STANDARDS OF HEALTH CARE
In the meantime, there are things the state can do to ensure at least minimum standards for athletic health care, Cates said. And it goes beyond the issue of automatic external defibrillators (AEDs), which became such a major controversy after Hobbs’ death.
“Everyone thinks if every high school has an AED, that’s it,” Linson said. “I’m not saying that’s not an important issue. But if you have an AED, who’s trained to use it?”
Cates agrees.
“Just having one on the wall is not going to save anyone’s life,” he said. “They’re nice to have if you can afford it. But, more than likely, an AED is going to be used on a non-athlete — a parent or a fan.
“The big thing is having people CPR-certified. There was legislation in 1975 to have one CPR-certified person on campus. But what’s wrong with having students CPR-certified? They’re going to probably be closest to an individual in distress.”
Cates boils down the primary goals of the AATA vis a vis the legislative task force to (not necessarily in order of importance): 1) creating a sports medicine advisory to the Arkansas Activities Association, 2) emergency action plans and drills at each school, 3) minimum requirements for preparticipation physicals, 4) staph infection education, 5) CPR certification, 6) Concussion guidelines, among others.
Regarding the advisory committee, Cates said he has run into some resistance from the AAA.
“The National Federation of State High School Association (NFSHA) encourages advisory committees to the athletics association at each state,” Cates said. “The guys at the AAA are all smart people, they’re all ex-coaches or ex-principles, ex-superintendents, but no one is policing all the medical jargon from the NFSHA. We don’t have anybody helping them decipher it or determining how best to implement it. The executive board at the AAA keeps denying us.”
Lance Taylor, executive director at the AAA, maintains an advisory board is not necessary, given the sports medicine meetings he and Dr. Joey Walters, one of the AAA’s associate executive directors, attend each year at the NFSHA.
“The National Sports Medicine Committee (at the NFSHA) keeps us current with everything, and they revise their books every year,” Taylor said. “They have four trainers on the committee, and we just haven’t seen a need to have an advisory committee here.”
Emergency action plans are also vital, Cates said, so that medical professionals can know precisely where they need to go if, say, an accident occurs on campus. An AED drill, assuming a school has an AED on hand, is as important as a fire drill in keeping people prepared, Cates said.
Cates also said there is a real problem with preparticipation physicals verification.
“There’s no enforcement,” he insists. “Most coaches are real conscientious, but there are bad apples in every group and you might have a coach checking off that a kid got his physical whether he did or not.
“Or I’ll get a note from a doctor saying the student got a physical but with no information like allergies or blood pressure or anything.”
One of the big issues these days, Cates said, is staph infection, an illness that has been in the news the past several years. Untrained individuals, Cates said, can’t identify it. The result can mean loss of a limb, or even death.
And Cates said there should be guidelines for identifying and treating concussions.
“Who’s making sure coaches are handling these cases properly?” he said. “Right now, it’s up to the coach’s discretion.”
TAKING CARE OF ATHLETES
Cates said it’s too early to determine what effect his efforts and the efforts of the legislative task force will have on athletic health care at secondary schools. In the meantime, when he’s not educating the task force or looking at other models from other states or doing his marketing job at Ortho Arkansas, Cates is tending to Jacksonville athletes, something for which Whatley remains thoroughly grateful.
“We are just very fortunate to have him, and the parents are very fortunate to have him watching out for their kids. He’s phenomenal and very deserving of his award.
“And another thing, the hours that guy puts in, his wife must be one heck of a woman. She probably deserved wife of the year award.
“It says a lot about them not only as people, but as family people.”
Cates returns the high praise for the entire coaching staff at Jacksonville.
“Our coaches are awesome about doing special things, managing situations, working with me with the kids that have injuries,” he said. “They get the kids down time when they need it. That makes it a lot easier for me.”
As for his award, Cates admits it’s flattering.
“It’s a pretty big deal, coming from your peers and being voted on by your peers,” he said. “Athletic trainers as a whole and as a profession are always behind the scene, never looking for glory. We’re just there to take care of athletes.
“For someone to notice what you’re doing is a pretty big deal.”
Leader sports editor
It was a simple reverse play to Terrell L’Herise, with wide receiver Demetrius Harris providing the interference on the edge.
But a Mountain Home defender slipped underneath Harris and dove on top of L’Herise’s foot just as he planted it.
It was one of the two worst injuries Jacksonville head coach Mark Whatley has ever witnessed. L’Herise, an outstanding athlete with a promising future, had suffered a complete dislocation of his knee. He is still in rehabilitation and likely has a year more of it ahead.
“That ranked right up there,” said Whatley, who will be starting his fourth season at the Red Devil helm this fall. “When I was at Southern Arkansas University, I had a kid sever an artery. But Terrell’s was as bad as I’ve seen.”
And yet, thanks to Jacksonville athletic trainer Jason Cates, L’Herise, who graduated last month, hasn’t abandoned dreams of playing again. Cates has been working with L’Herise ever since, but has gone beyond what anyone might have expected of a man who, after all, isn’t even an employee of Jacksonville High School. Cates works for Ortho Arkansas, which donates Cates’ time to the school.
Cates had heard about a similar injury to Philadelphia Eagles free safety J.R. Reed. Reed began wearing a new type of brace — one which has just recently been patented — and is now back playing.
“I had never dealt with an injury of this type before,” Cates said. “I called all the other trainers I knew to see if they knew of anything. A friend from NFL Europe told me about J.R.’s injury.”
Cates got in contact with Reed, then put Reed and L’Herise in contact with one another. The result: A similar brace is on its way to L’Herise.
“He’s not hanging up his cleats yet,” Cates said. “There’s a chance he’ll get to play football again. J.R. told Terrell, ‘Just because medically they tell you your career is over doesn’t mean it’s so. Look at me. I’m playing at the highest level.’”
That is just one of the many things that has Whatley in awe of Cates, and grateful beyond words for his services.
“There’s no way I could ever say enough,” Whatley said. “The thing with Terrell — that stuff never ceases to amaze me, what (Cates) gets done. Not just football, but baseball, softball, basketball; he covers all of it. And he does it with a genuine caring. I don’t even know if he looks at it like a job.”
HIGHEST HONOR
And yet, the L’Herise case probably had little, if anything, to do with the recent high honor Cates received. The Jacksonville native and Arkansas State alum was named Arkansas Athletic Trainer of the Year last month.
According to Eric Linson, assistant trainer at the University of Arkansas, and President of the Arkansas Athletic Trainers Association (AATA), it has been Cates’ tireless work in helping to launch a legislative task force for better health care for athletes at the secondary school level that was pivotal in his earning the award this year.
“The award is geared for the person who has distinguished himself or brought recognition to the profession during the course of the year,” Linson said. “This recognition is for Jason’s bulldog attitude to make the public aware of the issue of health care (for secondary school athletes) and to communicate that to the state senators and representatives.”
The state received another dramatic reminder of the issue of inadequate health care for athletes when Parkview basketball player Anthony Hobbs died suddenly on the court earlier this year.
Yet Linson bristles when asked if Hobbs’ death was the impetus for the latest efforts to improve health care, citing the disturbing slate of Arkansas youngsters who have died during athletic activity over the past 13 years.
“That wouldn’t be fair to Kendrick Fincher of Rogers (who died of dehydration in 1995),” Linson said. “That wouldn’t be fair to Rodrick Morris of Camden or Gary Richardson Jr.”
Linson ticked off a long list of accidents and injuries to athletes at the secondary level. Morris died of heat stroke in 1997; Richardson collapsed and died during football at McGehee High; North Little Rock’s Kenyana Tolbert, already signed and heading to Oklahoma State the following year, was paralyzed in 1998 and died last year; eighth grader Jeremy Spinnett died after suffering head injuries in 1999; Anthony Brown of Malvern suffered a cervical fracture and died in 2001; Samuel Urton collapse and died at a North Little Rock basketball practice in 2003.
It was Brown’s death in 2001 that really got the attention of the AATA.
“We have known for a long time,” Cates said. “To say they could have all been prevented, it’s hard to say. But a lot of it could have.”
If the high number of tragedies is disturbing, so too is the low number of schools that have a trainer available. Of the 344 high schools around the state that field a varsity team of some sort, only about 50 have athletic trainers at their disposal, Cates said. Of those, only about 10 high schools actually employ a trainer. The rest of the schools, including Jacksonville, have trainers only through the donations of hospitals or sports medicine clinics.
Cates works for Ortho Arkansas, but devotes much of his time each week to being a trainer to Jacksonville athletes. He is passionate about his work.
“Just because a kid’s in high school doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the same level of care as the kids in college or the NBA or the NFL,” he said. “Everyone knows those athletes are taken care of. Unfortunately, at the high school level, too much goes unattended to.
“Some high schools don’t even have paramedic services available on Friday nights in football season.”
Adds Linson: “We have 17 certified athletic trainers for 400 athletes at the University of Arkansas. That much expenditure at a college, but we can’t afford to have someone there when Kendrick Fincher has a heat stroke? And there’s no ambulance when Anthony Brown broke his neck? We’re really trying not to be reactionary. We’re being proactive.”
GETTING THE GOVERNMENT INVOLVED
After several years of pushing for it, the AATA finally got some action. In April of 2007, Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe signed a resolution providing for a legislative task force to look into the issue of sports medicine for athletes and health care in general at the secondary school level.
Cates, who serves as an at-large delegate on the AATA’s executive committee and as the secondary schools chairman, became the point man in the battle to get the state to make changes. The task force finally convened last fall and had its first hearing earlier this year. Cates was there to provide guidance, as he will be when the task force meets again this Wednesday.
“Jason has been very instrumental in educating everyone along the way, from the coaches to the Department of Education to school nurses to the legislators to the Arkansas Paramedics Association. He’s been a bulldog trying to address minimum athletic health care in the state.”
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that things could well get worse before they get better. That’s because budget cuts and cuts in Medicaid are forcing clinics and hospitals to cut back on their largesse to the schools. That means even fewer trainers available.
“Fort Smith is a great example,” Linson said. “The two high schools each had a trainer provided by a hospital. The hospital finally said, ‘Sorry, because of costs, we can’t do it anymore.’”
That means schools more than ever will be on their own to provide their own athletic trainers. But that costs money. In the meantime, as hospitals and clinics begin cutting back, trainers are leaving the state, Cates said.
“That’s why I’m so passionate about this,” he insists. “We only have 175 certified athletic trainers in the state of Arkansas who actually have jobs in their field. That means we have to be careful what we wish for. We want to make sure the kids are taken care of, but if the task force recommends legislation that every school has to have a certified athletic trainer, we don’t have the bodies.”
To that end, Cates, who has traveled to other states to try to learn how they are handling the matter of sports medicine in schools, is hoping the Department of Education will add sports medicine to high school curriculum, to get kids interested at an early age.
“The hope is that, once they graduate and get certification, they’ll stay in the state.”
MINIMUM STANDARDS OF HEALTH CARE
In the meantime, there are things the state can do to ensure at least minimum standards for athletic health care, Cates said. And it goes beyond the issue of automatic external defibrillators (AEDs), which became such a major controversy after Hobbs’ death.
“Everyone thinks if every high school has an AED, that’s it,” Linson said. “I’m not saying that’s not an important issue. But if you have an AED, who’s trained to use it?”
Cates agrees.
“Just having one on the wall is not going to save anyone’s life,” he said. “They’re nice to have if you can afford it. But, more than likely, an AED is going to be used on a non-athlete — a parent or a fan.
“The big thing is having people CPR-certified. There was legislation in 1975 to have one CPR-certified person on campus. But what’s wrong with having students CPR-certified? They’re going to probably be closest to an individual in distress.”
Cates boils down the primary goals of the AATA vis a vis the legislative task force to (not necessarily in order of importance): 1) creating a sports medicine advisory to the Arkansas Activities Association, 2) emergency action plans and drills at each school, 3) minimum requirements for preparticipation physicals, 4) staph infection education, 5) CPR certification, 6) Concussion guidelines, among others.
Regarding the advisory committee, Cates said he has run into some resistance from the AAA.
“The National Federation of State High School Association (NFSHA) encourages advisory committees to the athletics association at each state,” Cates said. “The guys at the AAA are all smart people, they’re all ex-coaches or ex-principles, ex-superintendents, but no one is policing all the medical jargon from the NFSHA. We don’t have anybody helping them decipher it or determining how best to implement it. The executive board at the AAA keeps denying us.”
Lance Taylor, executive director at the AAA, maintains an advisory board is not necessary, given the sports medicine meetings he and Dr. Joey Walters, one of the AAA’s associate executive directors, attend each year at the NFSHA.
“The National Sports Medicine Committee (at the NFSHA) keeps us current with everything, and they revise their books every year,” Taylor said. “They have four trainers on the committee, and we just haven’t seen a need to have an advisory committee here.”
Emergency action plans are also vital, Cates said, so that medical professionals can know precisely where they need to go if, say, an accident occurs on campus. An AED drill, assuming a school has an AED on hand, is as important as a fire drill in keeping people prepared, Cates said.
Cates also said there is a real problem with preparticipation physicals verification.
“There’s no enforcement,” he insists. “Most coaches are real conscientious, but there are bad apples in every group and you might have a coach checking off that a kid got his physical whether he did or not.
“Or I’ll get a note from a doctor saying the student got a physical but with no information like allergies or blood pressure or anything.”
One of the big issues these days, Cates said, is staph infection, an illness that has been in the news the past several years. Untrained individuals, Cates said, can’t identify it. The result can mean loss of a limb, or even death.
And Cates said there should be guidelines for identifying and treating concussions.
“Who’s making sure coaches are handling these cases properly?” he said. “Right now, it’s up to the coach’s discretion.”
TAKING CARE OF ATHLETES
Cates said it’s too early to determine what effect his efforts and the efforts of the legislative task force will have on athletic health care at secondary schools. In the meantime, when he’s not educating the task force or looking at other models from other states or doing his marketing job at Ortho Arkansas, Cates is tending to Jacksonville athletes, something for which Whatley remains thoroughly grateful.
“We are just very fortunate to have him, and the parents are very fortunate to have him watching out for their kids. He’s phenomenal and very deserving of his award.
“And another thing, the hours that guy puts in, his wife must be one heck of a woman. She probably deserved wife of the year award.
“It says a lot about them not only as people, but as family people.”
Cates returns the high praise for the entire coaching staff at Jacksonville.
“Our coaches are awesome about doing special things, managing situations, working with me with the kids that have injuries,” he said. “They get the kids down time when they need it. That makes it a lot easier for me.”
As for his award, Cates admits it’s flattering.
“It’s a pretty big deal, coming from your peers and being voted on by your peers,” he said. “Athletic trainers as a whole and as a profession are always behind the scene, never looking for glory. We’re just there to take care of athletes.
“For someone to notice what you’re doing is a pretty big deal.”
SPORTS>>Jacksonville junior team beats Bruins
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
It wasn’t quite as easy as the first time, but Gwatney Chevrolet got its second win over Sylvan Hills in Jr. Legion play at Dupree Park on Tuesday. The Chevy boys once again relied on a big third inning to get the advantage over the Optimist Bruins, but had to sweat out a late SH rally to take a close 5-4 win.
Gwatney had cruised to a big 10-5 win over the Bruins one week earlier at Burns Park.
Relief pitcher Matt McAnally pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth to preserve the win.
Gwatney plated its first two batters to start out the game. A.J. Allen led things off with a double to left field, and Terrell Brown was hit by a pitch. Allen came inon a fielder’s choice, and Brown scored on a double by McAnally for an early 2-0 lead.
The Bruins were able to make up one of those runs in the top of the second inning. Eric McKinney was hit with a pitch, moved to second on a passed ball, stole third and scored on a throwing error.
Brown started off Gwatney’s big third inning with a single, and Mitchell walked. Thurman followed with a 2-run triple to deep left.
Thurman then scored the final Chevy run of the night when he came in on a grounder by Jared Toney. That gave Gwatney a 5-1 lead, but the Bruins came alive in the following frame.
Seven-hole hitter Matt Russell singled, and Justin Jones was hit by a pitch. McAnally came on in relief of Gwatney starter and winner Stephen Swaggerty.
Leadoff batter Justin Cook greeted McAnally with a double into left center that scored both Russell and Jones to make it 5-3.
Ryan Dillon singled to right to score Cook and draw the Bruins to within one at 5-4.
The Bruins threatened to take the lead in the fifth when they loaded the bases on singles by McKinney, Nathan Eller and Russell. But McAnally was able to pitch out of the jam.
McAnally was 2 of 3 with a double and an RBI; Thurman was 1 of 3 with a triple and two RBI. Allen was 1 of 3 with a double and one run scored, while Brown was 2 of 2 with a run scored.
For Sylvan Hills, Russell was 2 of 2 with a run scored, and Cook was 1 of 3 with a double and 2 RBI.
Gwatney and Sylvan Hills will both take part in the 6th annual Jr. Legion tournament at Dupree Park this weekend. The Bruins will play Gwatney today at noon in their first pool game. The Chevy Boys started tourney play last night against Benton.
Leader sportswriter
It wasn’t quite as easy as the first time, but Gwatney Chevrolet got its second win over Sylvan Hills in Jr. Legion play at Dupree Park on Tuesday. The Chevy boys once again relied on a big third inning to get the advantage over the Optimist Bruins, but had to sweat out a late SH rally to take a close 5-4 win.
Gwatney had cruised to a big 10-5 win over the Bruins one week earlier at Burns Park.
Relief pitcher Matt McAnally pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth to preserve the win.
Gwatney plated its first two batters to start out the game. A.J. Allen led things off with a double to left field, and Terrell Brown was hit by a pitch. Allen came inon a fielder’s choice, and Brown scored on a double by McAnally for an early 2-0 lead.
The Bruins were able to make up one of those runs in the top of the second inning. Eric McKinney was hit with a pitch, moved to second on a passed ball, stole third and scored on a throwing error.
Brown started off Gwatney’s big third inning with a single, and Mitchell walked. Thurman followed with a 2-run triple to deep left.
Thurman then scored the final Chevy run of the night when he came in on a grounder by Jared Toney. That gave Gwatney a 5-1 lead, but the Bruins came alive in the following frame.
Seven-hole hitter Matt Russell singled, and Justin Jones was hit by a pitch. McAnally came on in relief of Gwatney starter and winner Stephen Swaggerty.
Leadoff batter Justin Cook greeted McAnally with a double into left center that scored both Russell and Jones to make it 5-3.
Ryan Dillon singled to right to score Cook and draw the Bruins to within one at 5-4.
The Bruins threatened to take the lead in the fifth when they loaded the bases on singles by McKinney, Nathan Eller and Russell. But McAnally was able to pitch out of the jam.
McAnally was 2 of 3 with a double and an RBI; Thurman was 1 of 3 with a triple and two RBI. Allen was 1 of 3 with a double and one run scored, while Brown was 2 of 2 with a run scored.
For Sylvan Hills, Russell was 2 of 2 with a run scored, and Cook was 1 of 3 with a double and 2 RBI.
Gwatney and Sylvan Hills will both take part in the 6th annual Jr. Legion tournament at Dupree Park this weekend. The Bruins will play Gwatney today at noon in their first pool game. The Chevy Boys started tourney play last night against Benton.
SPORTS>>Jacksonville junior team beats Bruins
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
It wasn’t quite as easy as the first time, but Gwatney Chevrolet got its second win over Sylvan Hills in Jr. Legion play at Dupree Park on Tuesday. The Chevy boys once again relied on a big third inning to get the advantage over the Optimist Bruins, but had to sweat out a late SH rally to take a close 5-4 win.
Gwatney had cruised to a big 10-5 win over the Bruins one week earlier at Burns Park.
Relief pitcher Matt McAnally pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth to preserve the win.
Gwatney plated its first two batters to start out the game. A.J. Allen led things off with a double to left field, and Terrell Brown was hit by a pitch. Allen came inon a fielder’s choice, and Brown scored on a double by McAnally for an early 2-0 lead.
The Bruins were able to make up one of those runs in the top of the second inning. Eric McKinney was hit with a pitch, moved to second on a passed ball, stole third and scored on a throwing error.
Brown started off Gwatney’s big third inning with a single, and Mitchell walked. Thurman followed with a 2-run triple to deep left.
Thurman then scored the final Chevy run of the night when he came in on a grounder by Jared Toney. That gave Gwatney a 5-1 lead, but the Bruins came alive in the following frame.
Seven-hole hitter Matt Russell singled, and Justin Jones was hit by a pitch. McAnally came on in relief of Gwatney starter and winner Stephen Swaggerty.
Leadoff batter Justin Cook greeted McAnally with a double into left center that scored both Russell and Jones to make it 5-3.
Ryan Dillon singled to right to score Cook and draw the Bruins to within one at 5-4.
The Bruins threatened to take the lead in the fifth when they loaded the bases on singles by McKinney, Nathan Eller and Russell. But McAnally was able to pitch out of the jam.
McAnally was 2 of 3 with a double and an RBI; Thurman was 1 of 3 with a triple and two RBI. Allen was 1 of 3 with a double and one run scored, while Brown was 2 of 2 with a run scored.
For Sylvan Hills, Russell was 2 of 2 with a run scored, and Cook was 1 of 3 with a double and 2 RBI.
Gwatney and Sylvan Hills will both take part in the 6th annual Jr. Legion tournament at Dupree Park this weekend. The Bruins will play Gwatney today at noon in their first pool game. The Chevy Boys started tourney play last night against Benton.
Leader sportswriter
It wasn’t quite as easy as the first time, but Gwatney Chevrolet got its second win over Sylvan Hills in Jr. Legion play at Dupree Park on Tuesday. The Chevy boys once again relied on a big third inning to get the advantage over the Optimist Bruins, but had to sweat out a late SH rally to take a close 5-4 win.
Gwatney had cruised to a big 10-5 win over the Bruins one week earlier at Burns Park.
Relief pitcher Matt McAnally pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth to preserve the win.
Gwatney plated its first two batters to start out the game. A.J. Allen led things off with a double to left field, and Terrell Brown was hit by a pitch. Allen came inon a fielder’s choice, and Brown scored on a double by McAnally for an early 2-0 lead.
The Bruins were able to make up one of those runs in the top of the second inning. Eric McKinney was hit with a pitch, moved to second on a passed ball, stole third and scored on a throwing error.
Brown started off Gwatney’s big third inning with a single, and Mitchell walked. Thurman followed with a 2-run triple to deep left.
Thurman then scored the final Chevy run of the night when he came in on a grounder by Jared Toney. That gave Gwatney a 5-1 lead, but the Bruins came alive in the following frame.
Seven-hole hitter Matt Russell singled, and Justin Jones was hit by a pitch. McAnally came on in relief of Gwatney starter and winner Stephen Swaggerty.
Leadoff batter Justin Cook greeted McAnally with a double into left center that scored both Russell and Jones to make it 5-3.
Ryan Dillon singled to right to score Cook and draw the Bruins to within one at 5-4.
The Bruins threatened to take the lead in the fifth when they loaded the bases on singles by McKinney, Nathan Eller and Russell. But McAnally was able to pitch out of the jam.
McAnally was 2 of 3 with a double and an RBI; Thurman was 1 of 3 with a triple and two RBI. Allen was 1 of 3 with a double and one run scored, while Brown was 2 of 2 with a run scored.
For Sylvan Hills, Russell was 2 of 2 with a run scored, and Cook was 1 of 3 with a double and 2 RBI.
Gwatney and Sylvan Hills will both take part in the 6th annual Jr. Legion tournament at Dupree Park this weekend. The Bruins will play Gwatney today at noon in their first pool game. The Chevy Boys started tourney play last night against Benton.
SPORTS>> Chevy boys rally for win
By KELLY FENTON
Leader sports editor
With a season spanning more than 30 games in a little more than two months, you just never know what to expect from one night to the next.
A prime example is senior American Legion Gwatney Chevrolet’s dramatic win on Tuesday night followed by a disappointing loss on Wednesday.
The Chevy boys ran their record to 4-0 by rallying for a 7-4 victory over Sylvan Hills Optimist Club Bruins on Tuesday night, but came out flat in a 12-3 loss to North Little Rock on Wednesday.
Sylvan Hills pounced on the Chevy boys for a pair of first-inning runs and led 2-1 heading into the fourth inning. Patrick Castleberry singled and, after Caleb Mitchell was plunked with a pitch, Jared Toney put Gwatney ahead with a 2-run single.
The Bruins tied it 3-3 in the top of the fifth, but Gwatney blew the game open with a 4-spot in the bottom half. Terrell Brown singled and Cameron Hood walked. Castleberry delivered both runners with a single, and Mitchell followed with a run-scoring double.
Dustin Pelky’s RBI single added some insurance as Gwatney went up 7-3.
Gwatney starter Clayton Fenton allowed a run in the sixth, but held on to go the distance for the win.
Things got off to an equally slow start for Gwatney on Wednesday night, but this time there was no turnaround. After the Colts went down 1-2-3 in the first inning, they lit up Gwatney starter Brian Thurman for eight runs in the second inning on six consecutive singles. The Colts were aided by three Chevy boy errors.
Gwatney, which left two on in each of the first three innings, got a run in the second on a pair of walks, a ground out and a balk.
The Colts, though, got to Thurman for three more runs in the third, and he was liftedfor Pelky. Caleb Mitchell’s RBI single in the third brought home Cameron Hood to make it 11-2. The lone highlight for the Gwatney Boys on Wednesday came in the fourth inning, when pinch hitter Matt McAnally belted a home run over the fence in left-center.
The Chevy Boys’ first four outs of the game came on grounders to Colt third baseman Hunter Benton, who turned in an outstanding defensive performance. His best of the game came on Castleberry’s bid for a double down the third base line in the third. Benton dove to his right, backhanded it, and threw out Castleberry. Of Gwatney’s 15 outs in the 5-inning affair, six were grounders to Benton.
Ironically, North Little Rock pitchers didn’t record a strikeout until two outs in the fourth, then fanned the final four Chevy boys of the game.
Leader sports editor
With a season spanning more than 30 games in a little more than two months, you just never know what to expect from one night to the next.
A prime example is senior American Legion Gwatney Chevrolet’s dramatic win on Tuesday night followed by a disappointing loss on Wednesday.
The Chevy boys ran their record to 4-0 by rallying for a 7-4 victory over Sylvan Hills Optimist Club Bruins on Tuesday night, but came out flat in a 12-3 loss to North Little Rock on Wednesday.
Sylvan Hills pounced on the Chevy boys for a pair of first-inning runs and led 2-1 heading into the fourth inning. Patrick Castleberry singled and, after Caleb Mitchell was plunked with a pitch, Jared Toney put Gwatney ahead with a 2-run single.
The Bruins tied it 3-3 in the top of the fifth, but Gwatney blew the game open with a 4-spot in the bottom half. Terrell Brown singled and Cameron Hood walked. Castleberry delivered both runners with a single, and Mitchell followed with a run-scoring double.
Dustin Pelky’s RBI single added some insurance as Gwatney went up 7-3.
Gwatney starter Clayton Fenton allowed a run in the sixth, but held on to go the distance for the win.
Things got off to an equally slow start for Gwatney on Wednesday night, but this time there was no turnaround. After the Colts went down 1-2-3 in the first inning, they lit up Gwatney starter Brian Thurman for eight runs in the second inning on six consecutive singles. The Colts were aided by three Chevy boy errors.
Gwatney, which left two on in each of the first three innings, got a run in the second on a pair of walks, a ground out and a balk.
The Colts, though, got to Thurman for three more runs in the third, and he was liftedfor Pelky. Caleb Mitchell’s RBI single in the third brought home Cameron Hood to make it 11-2. The lone highlight for the Gwatney Boys on Wednesday came in the fourth inning, when pinch hitter Matt McAnally belted a home run over the fence in left-center.
The Chevy Boys’ first four outs of the game came on grounders to Colt third baseman Hunter Benton, who turned in an outstanding defensive performance. His best of the game came on Castleberry’s bid for a double down the third base line in the third. Benton dove to his right, backhanded it, and threw out Castleberry. Of Gwatney’s 15 outs in the 5-inning affair, six were grounders to Benton.
Ironically, North Little Rock pitchers didn’t record a strikeout until two outs in the fourth, then fanned the final four Chevy boys of the game.
SPORTS>> Chevy boys rally for win
By KELLY FENTON
Leader sports editor
With a season spanning more than 30 games in a little more than two months, you just never know what to expect from one night to the next.
A prime example is senior American Legion Gwatney Chevrolet’s dramatic win on Tuesday night followed by a disappointing loss on Wednesday.
The Chevy boys ran their record to 4-0 by rallying for a 7-4 victory over Sylvan Hills Optimist Club Bruins on Tuesday night, but came out flat in a 12-3 loss to North Little Rock on Wednesday.
Sylvan Hills pounced on the Chevy boys for a pair of first-inning runs and led 2-1 heading into the fourth inning. Patrick Castleberry singled and, after Caleb Mitchell was plunked with a pitch, Jared Toney put Gwatney ahead with a 2-run single.
The Bruins tied it 3-3 in the top of the fifth, but Gwatney blew the game open with a 4-spot in the bottom half. Terrell Brown singled and Cameron Hood walked. Castleberry delivered both runners with a single, and Mitchell followed with a run-scoring double.
Dustin Pelky’s RBI single added some insurance as Gwatney went up 7-3.
Gwatney starter Clayton Fenton allowed a run in the sixth, but held on to go the distance for the win.
Things got off to an equally slow start for Gwatney on Wednesday night, but this time there was no turnaround. After the Colts went down 1-2-3 in the first inning, they lit up Gwatney starter Brian Thurman for eight runs in the second inning on six consecutive singles. The Colts were aided by three Chevy boy errors.
Gwatney, which left two on in each of the first three innings, got a run in the second on a pair of walks, a ground out and a balk.
The Colts, though, got to Thurman for three more runs in the third, and he was liftedfor Pelky. Caleb Mitchell’s RBI single in the third brought home Cameron Hood to make it 11-2. The lone highlight for the Gwatney Boys on Wednesday came in the fourth inning, when pinch hitter Matt McAnally belted a home run over the fence in left-center.
The Chevy Boys’ first four outs of the game came on grounders to Colt third baseman Hunter Benton, who turned in an outstanding defensive performance. His best of the game came on Castleberry’s bid for a double down the third base line in the third. Benton dove to his right, backhanded it, and threw out Castleberry. Of Gwatney’s 15 outs in the 5-inning affair, six were grounders to Benton.
Ironically, North Little Rock pitchers didn’t record a strikeout until two outs in the fourth, then fanned the final four Chevy boys of the game.
Leader sports editor
With a season spanning more than 30 games in a little more than two months, you just never know what to expect from one night to the next.
A prime example is senior American Legion Gwatney Chevrolet’s dramatic win on Tuesday night followed by a disappointing loss on Wednesday.
The Chevy boys ran their record to 4-0 by rallying for a 7-4 victory over Sylvan Hills Optimist Club Bruins on Tuesday night, but came out flat in a 12-3 loss to North Little Rock on Wednesday.
Sylvan Hills pounced on the Chevy boys for a pair of first-inning runs and led 2-1 heading into the fourth inning. Patrick Castleberry singled and, after Caleb Mitchell was plunked with a pitch, Jared Toney put Gwatney ahead with a 2-run single.
The Bruins tied it 3-3 in the top of the fifth, but Gwatney blew the game open with a 4-spot in the bottom half. Terrell Brown singled and Cameron Hood walked. Castleberry delivered both runners with a single, and Mitchell followed with a run-scoring double.
Dustin Pelky’s RBI single added some insurance as Gwatney went up 7-3.
Gwatney starter Clayton Fenton allowed a run in the sixth, but held on to go the distance for the win.
Things got off to an equally slow start for Gwatney on Wednesday night, but this time there was no turnaround. After the Colts went down 1-2-3 in the first inning, they lit up Gwatney starter Brian Thurman for eight runs in the second inning on six consecutive singles. The Colts were aided by three Chevy boy errors.
Gwatney, which left two on in each of the first three innings, got a run in the second on a pair of walks, a ground out and a balk.
The Colts, though, got to Thurman for three more runs in the third, and he was liftedfor Pelky. Caleb Mitchell’s RBI single in the third brought home Cameron Hood to make it 11-2. The lone highlight for the Gwatney Boys on Wednesday came in the fourth inning, when pinch hitter Matt McAnally belted a home run over the fence in left-center.
The Chevy Boys’ first four outs of the game came on grounders to Colt third baseman Hunter Benton, who turned in an outstanding defensive performance. His best of the game came on Castleberry’s bid for a double down the third base line in the third. Benton dove to his right, backhanded it, and threw out Castleberry. Of Gwatney’s 15 outs in the 5-inning affair, six were grounders to Benton.
Ironically, North Little Rock pitchers didn’t record a strikeout until two outs in the fourth, then fanned the final four Chevy boys of the game.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
FROM THE PUBLISHER > >Hillary’s loss reminiscent of stumble by Bill in ’80
Hillary Clinton is giving up her dream of becoming president anytime soon, but she said on Tuesday she’d consider the second spot on the ticket.
Why shouldn’t she? Although she fell short in the delegate count, before yesterday’s primaries, she outpolled Barack Obama in the popular vote, 17,428,986 to 17,266,433.
Even if Obama won’t consider her as his running mate, delegates to the Democratic convention will demand he pick her for vice president.
For the Clintons, this sorry primary season is 1980 all over again.
Gov. Bill Clinton was in his first term and was supposed to win easily against an unknown named Frank White, who beat Clinton easily that fall.
Bill didn’t think he had to campaign against an inexperienced upstart, but by the time he realized White was a serious challenger, the game was over.
The Clintons completely underestimated Barack Obama’s political skills and let him out-hustle them in the Democratic caucuses. Obama is far more gifted than the late Frank White — who lasted only one term before Bill defeated him in a second go round — and it turns out Obama was a smoother operator than the Clintons, who now can only hope that Hillary will be asked to join the ticket as a vice presidential candidate.
Obama and Hillary would make a formidable team against John McCain and whoever his VP choice turns out to be. Whether the Democrats win or lose, she will still be in her 60s when she gets another shot at the presidency.
Still, you can’t make too many predictions in politics. When the smart money was still betting on Hillary Clinton win ning the Democratic presidential nomination, Pulaski County Circuit-County Clerk Pat O’Brien threw his support behind Barack Obama and opened his Arkansas headquarters in Little Rock back in January.
All the prominent Democrats were for Hillary, and many of them thought O’Brien had lost his political touch. But he is a canny operator — after all, he brought his office into the 21st Century in a matter of weeks after succeeding a longtime incumbent who was still stuck in the 19th Century.
We’re not the best handicappers, which is why, even a few weeks ago, we thought Hillary still had a chance of winning the nomination. But she couldn’t convince Democratic Party officials to let her have the disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida, which doomed her chances of closing the gap with Obama.
The race is over for now, but O’Brien likes the idea of an Obama-Clinton ticket.
“I know I won’t be consulted,” O’Brien said Tuesday, “but it would be a great idea. Sen. Clinton ran a strong race. Once the dust settles, I hope we can come together. I don’t want another four years of a third Bush term.”
Why shouldn’t she? Although she fell short in the delegate count, before yesterday’s primaries, she outpolled Barack Obama in the popular vote, 17,428,986 to 17,266,433.
Even if Obama won’t consider her as his running mate, delegates to the Democratic convention will demand he pick her for vice president.
For the Clintons, this sorry primary season is 1980 all over again.
Gov. Bill Clinton was in his first term and was supposed to win easily against an unknown named Frank White, who beat Clinton easily that fall.
Bill didn’t think he had to campaign against an inexperienced upstart, but by the time he realized White was a serious challenger, the game was over.
The Clintons completely underestimated Barack Obama’s political skills and let him out-hustle them in the Democratic caucuses. Obama is far more gifted than the late Frank White — who lasted only one term before Bill defeated him in a second go round — and it turns out Obama was a smoother operator than the Clintons, who now can only hope that Hillary will be asked to join the ticket as a vice presidential candidate.
Obama and Hillary would make a formidable team against John McCain and whoever his VP choice turns out to be. Whether the Democrats win or lose, she will still be in her 60s when she gets another shot at the presidency.
Still, you can’t make too many predictions in politics. When the smart money was still betting on Hillary Clinton win ning the Democratic presidential nomination, Pulaski County Circuit-County Clerk Pat O’Brien threw his support behind Barack Obama and opened his Arkansas headquarters in Little Rock back in January.
All the prominent Democrats were for Hillary, and many of them thought O’Brien had lost his political touch. But he is a canny operator — after all, he brought his office into the 21st Century in a matter of weeks after succeeding a longtime incumbent who was still stuck in the 19th Century.
We’re not the best handicappers, which is why, even a few weeks ago, we thought Hillary still had a chance of winning the nomination. But she couldn’t convince Democratic Party officials to let her have the disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida, which doomed her chances of closing the gap with Obama.
The race is over for now, but O’Brien likes the idea of an Obama-Clinton ticket.
“I know I won’t be consulted,” O’Brien said Tuesday, “but it would be a great idea. Sen. Clinton ran a strong race. Once the dust settles, I hope we can come together. I don’t want another four years of a third Bush term.”
TOP STORY > >Bus driver upset with sentence
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
“This is bull—,” Robin Clark told her friends in court Monday moments after she copped a no-jail plea to drunken school bus driving and three related charges.
Little Rock Traffic Judge Vic Fleming sentenced the former Cabot school bus driver to pay a $1,300 fine, to report weekends to the Pulaski County Detention Center to perform 90 days of community service, to attend an alcohol treatment program and to surrender forever her commercial driver’s license.
Little Rock Patrolman Ron Matney, Prosecutor David Howkey and Theresa Belew, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, all confirmed Clark’s aside to three friends who accompanied her to court. She could have been sentenced to serve a jail term of as long as one year.
Cabot students had been attending a debate tournament at Little Rock Central High School on Oct. 27, 2007, and Clark was preparing to drive them back to Cabot around 9:30 p.m. when teachers and other drivers noticed her erratic behavior.
A teacher refused to let Clark take the wheel and the bus remained parked at LRCH, according to the Cabot School District.
“Students were on the bus, but the teacher had already made the decision to not allow the driver to leave the scene. She (the teacher) contacted the police before the bus left Central High School,” according to Cabot Superintendent Tony Thurman said.
A Little Rock police officer was called and performed a field sobriety test on Clark.
A district administrator transported the students back to Cabot.
Clark was taken into custody.
Once at the jail, Clark became increasingly angry and threatened to sue and “have jobs” of everyone involved, the report reads.
At the jail, her blood alcohol level was .073. She grabbed her ticket and attempted to destroy it, according to the prosecutor.
Her field Breathalyzer test result was .088—twice the allowable limit for a commercial driver.
Clark, wearing a teal dress, pearls and high heels, refused comment to the press and her entourage ran interference with limited success in an attempt to foil photographers.
Existence of an onboard video and electronic record of bus speed and breaking information may have played a part in Clark’s last- minute decision to negotiate a plea.
Thurman said he had seen the onboard videotape in question and “I did feel like there was some evidence on the tape that probably had a lot to do with (her accepting) the plea.”
Merged with her driving-under-the-influence charge were a charges of harassment, tampering with evidence and child endangerment.
Before imposing sentence, Fleming attempted in vain to get her to apologize, to admit her mistake and to say what she was doing to turn her life around, but she either failed to understand or refused to take responsibility for her actions.
“In a mitigation or allocution statement, I’m looking for something to hang my hat on (a rationalization for accepting a plea),” said Fleming.
“I’m not hearing ‘I’m sorry I screwed up,’” Fleming told her. “I’m hearing you blame everyone else.”
She told Fleming that she had one six-ounce cup of wine and two tablespoons of cough medicine four hours before she was tested and she stood by that account even though Fleming told her the math and chemistry were wrong.
He asked Clark, who had two prior DUI convictions, what she had drunk leading to her second conviction.
“A beer,” she said.
“How much?” Fleming asked.
“Three or four,” she said.
“Are you addicted to alcohol?” Fleming asked. She said she wasn’t.
According to Fleming’s sentence, Clark will not be required to stay overnight in jail, but must report Saturdays and Sundays, more often if she wants, until her 90 days of community service is completed.
Belew said she was disappointed that Clark didn’t take responsibility for her actions, but she thought the sentence was appropriate. “Our big concern is always to look for these to be teachable moments,” she said.
“We learned a lot from this incident,” said Cabot Superintendent Tony Thurman. “I’m glad no one was hurt and the teacher handled it well.”
“She’ll never be an employee of the district again,” he said.
Thurman said the district had worked with the state legislature to try to close loopholes that could allow drivers with DUI convictions to get or keep commercial drivers’ licenses.
His district now does background checks not only through the state Education Department, but also through a private consulting firm. That’s true not only for bus drivers but for volunteers in the schools.
Clark, who had had previous DUIs under other names, worked without a background check as a substitute driver for the Cabot District, and then was hired full time. Since the incident, Cabot has changed the way it checks backgrounds before hiring drivers, Belew said.
“She’s an alcoholic in denial,” said prosecutor Howkey.
“There’s nothing more pitiful than an old drunk,” he said. “They’ve learned to believe their lies.”
He said he hoped that the humiliation of reporting to the jail to perform community service would get Clark’s attention.
Leader senior staff writer
“This is bull—,” Robin Clark told her friends in court Monday moments after she copped a no-jail plea to drunken school bus driving and three related charges.
Little Rock Traffic Judge Vic Fleming sentenced the former Cabot school bus driver to pay a $1,300 fine, to report weekends to the Pulaski County Detention Center to perform 90 days of community service, to attend an alcohol treatment program and to surrender forever her commercial driver’s license.
Little Rock Patrolman Ron Matney, Prosecutor David Howkey and Theresa Belew, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, all confirmed Clark’s aside to three friends who accompanied her to court. She could have been sentenced to serve a jail term of as long as one year.
Cabot students had been attending a debate tournament at Little Rock Central High School on Oct. 27, 2007, and Clark was preparing to drive them back to Cabot around 9:30 p.m. when teachers and other drivers noticed her erratic behavior.
A teacher refused to let Clark take the wheel and the bus remained parked at LRCH, according to the Cabot School District.
“Students were on the bus, but the teacher had already made the decision to not allow the driver to leave the scene. She (the teacher) contacted the police before the bus left Central High School,” according to Cabot Superintendent Tony Thurman said.
A Little Rock police officer was called and performed a field sobriety test on Clark.
A district administrator transported the students back to Cabot.
Clark was taken into custody.
Once at the jail, Clark became increasingly angry and threatened to sue and “have jobs” of everyone involved, the report reads.
At the jail, her blood alcohol level was .073. She grabbed her ticket and attempted to destroy it, according to the prosecutor.
Her field Breathalyzer test result was .088—twice the allowable limit for a commercial driver.
Clark, wearing a teal dress, pearls and high heels, refused comment to the press and her entourage ran interference with limited success in an attempt to foil photographers.
Existence of an onboard video and electronic record of bus speed and breaking information may have played a part in Clark’s last- minute decision to negotiate a plea.
Thurman said he had seen the onboard videotape in question and “I did feel like there was some evidence on the tape that probably had a lot to do with (her accepting) the plea.”
Merged with her driving-under-the-influence charge were a charges of harassment, tampering with evidence and child endangerment.
Before imposing sentence, Fleming attempted in vain to get her to apologize, to admit her mistake and to say what she was doing to turn her life around, but she either failed to understand or refused to take responsibility for her actions.
“In a mitigation or allocution statement, I’m looking for something to hang my hat on (a rationalization for accepting a plea),” said Fleming.
“I’m not hearing ‘I’m sorry I screwed up,’” Fleming told her. “I’m hearing you blame everyone else.”
She told Fleming that she had one six-ounce cup of wine and two tablespoons of cough medicine four hours before she was tested and she stood by that account even though Fleming told her the math and chemistry were wrong.
He asked Clark, who had two prior DUI convictions, what she had drunk leading to her second conviction.
“A beer,” she said.
“How much?” Fleming asked.
“Three or four,” she said.
“Are you addicted to alcohol?” Fleming asked. She said she wasn’t.
According to Fleming’s sentence, Clark will not be required to stay overnight in jail, but must report Saturdays and Sundays, more often if she wants, until her 90 days of community service is completed.
Belew said she was disappointed that Clark didn’t take responsibility for her actions, but she thought the sentence was appropriate. “Our big concern is always to look for these to be teachable moments,” she said.
“We learned a lot from this incident,” said Cabot Superintendent Tony Thurman. “I’m glad no one was hurt and the teacher handled it well.”
“She’ll never be an employee of the district again,” he said.
Thurman said the district had worked with the state legislature to try to close loopholes that could allow drivers with DUI convictions to get or keep commercial drivers’ licenses.
His district now does background checks not only through the state Education Department, but also through a private consulting firm. That’s true not only for bus drivers but for volunteers in the schools.
Clark, who had had previous DUIs under other names, worked without a background check as a substitute driver for the Cabot District, and then was hired full time. Since the incident, Cabot has changed the way it checks backgrounds before hiring drivers, Belew said.
“She’s an alcoholic in denial,” said prosecutor Howkey.
“There’s nothing more pitiful than an old drunk,” he said. “They’ve learned to believe their lies.”
He said he hoped that the humiliation of reporting to the jail to perform community service would get Clark’s attention.
TOP STORY > >Cabot military lawyer recognized for service
By GARRICK FELDMAN
Leader editor
A Cabot attorney who serves as a judge advocate in the Army Reserves has received one of the military’s highest honors for his service in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Capt. David J. Green, who is with the 81st Regional Readiness Command based at Ft. Bragg, N.C., recently received the 2008 General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award at a ceremony at the Pentagon.
Twenty-eight commissioned and warrant officers from the active Army, Army Reserve and the National Guard were honored at the awards ceremony.
Green, 37, was praised for his legal work in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly for his efforts establishing a military judicial system in Afghanistan.
He’s been awarded the Bronze Star for his legal work in the war zones at great personal risk to himself and his comrades, as well as for his humanitarian work providing school supplies to children who could not get an education under the Taliban.
“We set up the first-ever court martials in Afghanistan,” Green said in an interview on Monday.
“I served in Iraq in 2004 for six months. Then I was mobilized in 2006 to serve as the acting command judge advocate for the Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg and then in 2007-2008 to serve in Afghanistan,” the captain said.
“Military court martials did not exist when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. It was Green’s job to show the Afghan military how to bring prisoners to trial and assure them of their rights.
“We didn’t want them to capture the Taliban and kill them,” said Green, who has just returned from Afghanistan after a year-long tour.
“We told them they should not carry out illegal orders. They couldn’t kill prisoners or steal food. They were taught what they were fighting for, which is as important as pulling the trigger.”
“We helped set up court martials in Afghanistan and advised judges how to interrogate witnesses and advise defense counsel how to defend their clients,” Green said.
The U.S. military has divided the country into several judicial sections to help administer justice throughout the country.
“I traveled quite a bit. It was dangerous. I traveled in convoys, helicopters or C-130s. I traveled to every corps to make sure there would be no tribal warfare or ethnic cleansing,” Green said.
He recalled one dramatic incident when the military confiscated $10 million worth of unprocessed heroin from the Taliban.
“We showed the Afghans how to interrogate prisoners,” Green said. “We taught them about proper legal procedures. We taught them the rule of law.”
In addition to his legal work, Green volunteered 100 hours passing out school supplies to Afghan children.
“We would write home and ask people to send us school supplies,” he recalled. “We then passed them out, especially to young Afghan girls who could not attend school under the Taliban.”
“It’s a great honor,” he said after accepting his MacArthur award. “I’m humbled to receive it.”
A former military police officer and infantryman, Green worked his way through law school in North Carolina.
In civilian life, he is in corporate supply management with Alltel. He previously worked for Entergy, which had recruited him from his native Michigan. After working in New Orleans, he was reassigned to Arkansas and settled in Cabot.
“I fell in love with Cabot and central Arkansas,” he said.
He and his wife Kristin have four children, Connor, 11, Tessa, 10, Gavin, 6, and Caleb, 4.
Green said his his wife’s “support has been beyond compare and words cannot describe my awe and appreciation of her many sacrifices as a mother and wife during my two deployments.
“Additionally, Alltel has been a model employer and completely supportive of any needs my family and I have had. They truly walk the talk regarding employer support of our nation’s citizen-soldiers,” Green said.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. presented the awards at the Pentagon and praised the soldiers for their accomplishments.
“The common thread that binds soldiers together, that causes men and women to do extraordinary things, is the kind of leadership we celebrate here today,” Casey said.
The soldiers being honored commanded several companies in combat, and trained Afghans and Iraqis in war, law, governance and economics.
“Their units were the best,” he said. “Because of leaders like this, our Army is the best at what it does.”
The award was created in 1987 by the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Foundation to recognize company-grade officers who demonstrate MacArthur’s ideals of “duty, honor, country.” The award promotes effective junior leadership in the Army.
Commanders of various recipients were present to congratulate their nominees. Family members and friends filled nearly every available seat.
Each year, Army major commands nominate a limited number of eligible soldiers for the award and forward the selectee’s information to the Pentagon for review.
Soldiers are chosen for the award based on leadership, influence, proficiency, values, team-building and personal skills.
“These soldiers have without a doubt demonstrated Gen. MacArthur’s ideals of duty, honor and country,” Casey added.
Leader editor
A Cabot attorney who serves as a judge advocate in the Army Reserves has received one of the military’s highest honors for his service in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Capt. David J. Green, who is with the 81st Regional Readiness Command based at Ft. Bragg, N.C., recently received the 2008 General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award at a ceremony at the Pentagon.
Twenty-eight commissioned and warrant officers from the active Army, Army Reserve and the National Guard were honored at the awards ceremony.
Green, 37, was praised for his legal work in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly for his efforts establishing a military judicial system in Afghanistan.
He’s been awarded the Bronze Star for his legal work in the war zones at great personal risk to himself and his comrades, as well as for his humanitarian work providing school supplies to children who could not get an education under the Taliban.
“We set up the first-ever court martials in Afghanistan,” Green said in an interview on Monday.
“I served in Iraq in 2004 for six months. Then I was mobilized in 2006 to serve as the acting command judge advocate for the Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg and then in 2007-2008 to serve in Afghanistan,” the captain said.
“Military court martials did not exist when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. It was Green’s job to show the Afghan military how to bring prisoners to trial and assure them of their rights.
“We didn’t want them to capture the Taliban and kill them,” said Green, who has just returned from Afghanistan after a year-long tour.
“We told them they should not carry out illegal orders. They couldn’t kill prisoners or steal food. They were taught what they were fighting for, which is as important as pulling the trigger.”
“We helped set up court martials in Afghanistan and advised judges how to interrogate witnesses and advise defense counsel how to defend their clients,” Green said.
The U.S. military has divided the country into several judicial sections to help administer justice throughout the country.
“I traveled quite a bit. It was dangerous. I traveled in convoys, helicopters or C-130s. I traveled to every corps to make sure there would be no tribal warfare or ethnic cleansing,” Green said.
He recalled one dramatic incident when the military confiscated $10 million worth of unprocessed heroin from the Taliban.
“We showed the Afghans how to interrogate prisoners,” Green said. “We taught them about proper legal procedures. We taught them the rule of law.”
In addition to his legal work, Green volunteered 100 hours passing out school supplies to Afghan children.
“We would write home and ask people to send us school supplies,” he recalled. “We then passed them out, especially to young Afghan girls who could not attend school under the Taliban.”
“It’s a great honor,” he said after accepting his MacArthur award. “I’m humbled to receive it.”
A former military police officer and infantryman, Green worked his way through law school in North Carolina.
In civilian life, he is in corporate supply management with Alltel. He previously worked for Entergy, which had recruited him from his native Michigan. After working in New Orleans, he was reassigned to Arkansas and settled in Cabot.
“I fell in love with Cabot and central Arkansas,” he said.
He and his wife Kristin have four children, Connor, 11, Tessa, 10, Gavin, 6, and Caleb, 4.
Green said his his wife’s “support has been beyond compare and words cannot describe my awe and appreciation of her many sacrifices as a mother and wife during my two deployments.
“Additionally, Alltel has been a model employer and completely supportive of any needs my family and I have had. They truly walk the talk regarding employer support of our nation’s citizen-soldiers,” Green said.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. presented the awards at the Pentagon and praised the soldiers for their accomplishments.
“The common thread that binds soldiers together, that causes men and women to do extraordinary things, is the kind of leadership we celebrate here today,” Casey said.
The soldiers being honored commanded several companies in combat, and trained Afghans and Iraqis in war, law, governance and economics.
“Their units were the best,” he said. “Because of leaders like this, our Army is the best at what it does.”
The award was created in 1987 by the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Foundation to recognize company-grade officers who demonstrate MacArthur’s ideals of “duty, honor, country.” The award promotes effective junior leadership in the Army.
Commanders of various recipients were present to congratulate their nominees. Family members and friends filled nearly every available seat.
Each year, Army major commands nominate a limited number of eligible soldiers for the award and forward the selectee’s information to the Pentagon for review.
Soldiers are chosen for the award based on leadership, influence, proficiency, values, team-building and personal skills.
“These soldiers have without a doubt demonstrated Gen. MacArthur’s ideals of duty, honor and country,” Casey added.
TOP STORY > >Metroplan is turning green
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior writer
The new Jacksonville library will reduce energy use and cost by using the natural heating and cooling properties of the earth itself, according to Mayor Tommy Swaim.
Although Jacksonville, Sher-wood and Cabot have yet to join the ranks of the Metroplan member organizations submitting a list of their environmental efforts for the regional green-activities inventory, at least two have made efforts toward reducing waste, recycling and saving energy costs.
“The board has asked us to start looking at what’s being done and what can be done in terms of environmental practices,” according to Richard Magee, Metroplan director of planning.
“We’re trying to see what everyone is doing,” said Magee, “and what we might do collectively to expand that.”
He said North Little Rock Mayor Pat Hays, former Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey, Conway Mayor Tab Townsell and Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines had pushed for the survey.
The Jacksonville Library will use the constant 56 degree F temperature of the earth in some 20 wells drilled for that purpose, Swaim said. That means air conditioners will run less in the summer and furnaces less in the winter, saving both energy and money.
“We’re also doing something no other city in the state has done,” Swaim said. “We’ve worked with Waste Management Inc.,” he said, to burn the methane gas vented from the Two Pines landfill to turn six turbines, generating electricity to power a significant number of homes in the North Little Rock area. While North Little Rock residents get the benefit, it was the city of Jacksonville that worked with the state and with Waste Management Inc. during the permitting and construction process.
“We don’t own it, but we encouraged and participated in it,” the mayor said.
The city’s recycling center also accepts old televisions and computers, recycling them and keeping heavy metals and chemicals out of the landfill waste stream, he said.
The city has a curbside recycling program.
The city bundles and sells plastic, aluminum, paper and cardboard. “We’ve not yet found a good market for glass and metal cans,” Swaim said.
The city picks up yard waste, grinds it up and gives it back to citizens as mulch, he said.
Jacksonville also has changed over most of its traffic signals from power-intensive lights to the more efficient and economical LED’s according to Jay Whisker, the city administrator.
It has replaced some incandescent light bulbs—including the ones in the mayor’s office—with compact fluorescent bulbs, which although more expensive, last much longer and use a fraction of the power of ordinary incandescent bulbs.
Cabot’s attempts have been less ambitious, according to Mayor Eddie Joe Williams. “We don’t have a new building (to construct in an energy efficient manner)” he said.
“We have a no-idling policy (for vehicles) and each department head has until Friday to submit a list of ways to reduce the consumption of gasoline and creation of exhaust emissions,” he said.
“We don’t buy regular light bulbs,” he said. “We are replacing them with the compact fluorescent bulbs as they burn out.”
Williams said the maintenance guy, who used to replace a lot of 24-hour-a-day light bulbs with great frequency reports that in eight months, no compact fluorescent bulbs have burned out.
He said the city would move its construction equipment around less, leaving it at job sites instead or returning it to the city shop at night.
“We’re watching thermostats.”
“I’d love to see us put some solar (water heaters) on the community center to heat the pool water,” he said. “There’s probably grants available for that and a pretty quick payback.”
Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman did not return phone calls by press time.
Among the activities reported by other Metroplan cities and counties were:
Pulaski County—constructed two LEED (Leadership in energy and Environmental Design) certified buildings, purchased hybrid vehicles, worked on the river trail system and allowed some employees to switch to a four-day, 10-hour work week, saving gasoline and emissions on their commute.
Little Rock—printer cartridge recycling, metal recycling, HVAC system upgrades including programmable thermostats, reflective membranes on some roofs, solar panels in some applications, bio-diesel fuel when feasible.
Mayflower—Installed Green energy surge protection and energy reducer at city hall, resulting in 25 percent reduction in electricity consumption.
Vilonia—reduced lighting where practical.
North Little Rock—professional sustainable energy staffing and training, turning off computers and printers each night, raise nightly cooling temperature to at least 80 degrees, bought three hybrid vehicles.
State Highway and Transportation Department—recycling aluminum signs, asphalt and concrete, four-day workweek during daylight savings time.
Leader senior writer
The new Jacksonville library will reduce energy use and cost by using the natural heating and cooling properties of the earth itself, according to Mayor Tommy Swaim.
Although Jacksonville, Sher-wood and Cabot have yet to join the ranks of the Metroplan member organizations submitting a list of their environmental efforts for the regional green-activities inventory, at least two have made efforts toward reducing waste, recycling and saving energy costs.
“The board has asked us to start looking at what’s being done and what can be done in terms of environmental practices,” according to Richard Magee, Metroplan director of planning.
“We’re trying to see what everyone is doing,” said Magee, “and what we might do collectively to expand that.”
He said North Little Rock Mayor Pat Hays, former Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey, Conway Mayor Tab Townsell and Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines had pushed for the survey.
The Jacksonville Library will use the constant 56 degree F temperature of the earth in some 20 wells drilled for that purpose, Swaim said. That means air conditioners will run less in the summer and furnaces less in the winter, saving both energy and money.
“We’re also doing something no other city in the state has done,” Swaim said. “We’ve worked with Waste Management Inc.,” he said, to burn the methane gas vented from the Two Pines landfill to turn six turbines, generating electricity to power a significant number of homes in the North Little Rock area. While North Little Rock residents get the benefit, it was the city of Jacksonville that worked with the state and with Waste Management Inc. during the permitting and construction process.
“We don’t own it, but we encouraged and participated in it,” the mayor said.
The city’s recycling center also accepts old televisions and computers, recycling them and keeping heavy metals and chemicals out of the landfill waste stream, he said.
The city has a curbside recycling program.
The city bundles and sells plastic, aluminum, paper and cardboard. “We’ve not yet found a good market for glass and metal cans,” Swaim said.
The city picks up yard waste, grinds it up and gives it back to citizens as mulch, he said.
Jacksonville also has changed over most of its traffic signals from power-intensive lights to the more efficient and economical LED’s according to Jay Whisker, the city administrator.
It has replaced some incandescent light bulbs—including the ones in the mayor’s office—with compact fluorescent bulbs, which although more expensive, last much longer and use a fraction of the power of ordinary incandescent bulbs.
Cabot’s attempts have been less ambitious, according to Mayor Eddie Joe Williams. “We don’t have a new building (to construct in an energy efficient manner)” he said.
“We have a no-idling policy (for vehicles) and each department head has until Friday to submit a list of ways to reduce the consumption of gasoline and creation of exhaust emissions,” he said.
“We don’t buy regular light bulbs,” he said. “We are replacing them with the compact fluorescent bulbs as they burn out.”
Williams said the maintenance guy, who used to replace a lot of 24-hour-a-day light bulbs with great frequency reports that in eight months, no compact fluorescent bulbs have burned out.
He said the city would move its construction equipment around less, leaving it at job sites instead or returning it to the city shop at night.
“We’re watching thermostats.”
“I’d love to see us put some solar (water heaters) on the community center to heat the pool water,” he said. “There’s probably grants available for that and a pretty quick payback.”
Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman did not return phone calls by press time.
Among the activities reported by other Metroplan cities and counties were:
Pulaski County—constructed two LEED (Leadership in energy and Environmental Design) certified buildings, purchased hybrid vehicles, worked on the river trail system and allowed some employees to switch to a four-day, 10-hour work week, saving gasoline and emissions on their commute.
Little Rock—printer cartridge recycling, metal recycling, HVAC system upgrades including programmable thermostats, reflective membranes on some roofs, solar panels in some applications, bio-diesel fuel when feasible.
Mayflower—Installed Green energy surge protection and energy reducer at city hall, resulting in 25 percent reduction in electricity consumption.
Vilonia—reduced lighting where practical.
North Little Rock—professional sustainable energy staffing and training, turning off computers and printers each night, raise nightly cooling temperature to at least 80 degrees, bought three hybrid vehicles.
State Highway and Transportation Department—recycling aluminum signs, asphalt and concrete, four-day workweek during daylight savings time.
TOP STORY > >Landfill to grow across freeway
By RICK KRON AND ALIYA FELDMAN
Leader staff writers
The landfill mound on the east side of Highway 67/167, just south of I-440, will stop growing in August as Waste Management switches its Two Pine operation to the north side of I-440 to build another dump.
David Conrad, director of landfill operations at Two Pine, said construction started about two weeks ago on 10 acres of land and should be completed by Labor Day.
“We’ve started construction on the first landfill cell and the liner system,” Conrad said.
The new dump will eventually cover most of 144 acres to the north of I-440 and rise to a height of 462 feet. The total will eventually create 239.5 acres of trash.
The waste company’s plans to expand were approved April 21 despite objection from Jacksonville residents.
“We’re pleased to have it behind us. We’ve been working on it since 1999, and it’s time to move forward and focus on construction and operations,” Conrad said.
“We’ll be bringing our current landfill to its final elevations by August and capping it right after that,” Conrad said.
“Next year, we’ll open cell two and possibly cell three,” he said. Each cell is about 10 acres.
Alderman Terry Sansing said, “I figured that it was a rubber stamp and a done deal a long time ago. Holding public hearings is nothing but a formality.”
He said he was not a member of the city council when it approved the expansion in 1999.
“It became a done deal when the city did not fight it 10 years ago,” he said. “The city council unfortunately cannot do anything today because their hands were tied 10 years ago.
“We have a big push going on to try to clean up Jacksonville and try to beautify Jacksonville. It doesn’t make sense (to say),
‘Let’s make everybody mow their yards,’ but not make everyone worry about a trash dump in our city limits.”
Doug Szehner, of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, said there was no technical or legal reason to deny the permit.
“With any permit application we receive,” Szehner said, “we are essentially limited in how we can deal with that. If an application meets the technical and legal criteria that apply, case law developed over the years says we have no option but to approve the permit.”
Szehner said it takes a long time for permits to be approved. “It’s not unusual for landfill permits to take several years,” he said. “Issues that come into play include engineering, soils, topography and hydrology and even under good circumstances, it will take a long time to process these applications.”
Leader staff writers
The landfill mound on the east side of Highway 67/167, just south of I-440, will stop growing in August as Waste Management switches its Two Pine operation to the north side of I-440 to build another dump.
David Conrad, director of landfill operations at Two Pine, said construction started about two weeks ago on 10 acres of land and should be completed by Labor Day.
“We’ve started construction on the first landfill cell and the liner system,” Conrad said.
The new dump will eventually cover most of 144 acres to the north of I-440 and rise to a height of 462 feet. The total will eventually create 239.5 acres of trash.
The waste company’s plans to expand were approved April 21 despite objection from Jacksonville residents.
“We’re pleased to have it behind us. We’ve been working on it since 1999, and it’s time to move forward and focus on construction and operations,” Conrad said.
“We’ll be bringing our current landfill to its final elevations by August and capping it right after that,” Conrad said.
“Next year, we’ll open cell two and possibly cell three,” he said. Each cell is about 10 acres.
Alderman Terry Sansing said, “I figured that it was a rubber stamp and a done deal a long time ago. Holding public hearings is nothing but a formality.”
He said he was not a member of the city council when it approved the expansion in 1999.
“It became a done deal when the city did not fight it 10 years ago,” he said. “The city council unfortunately cannot do anything today because their hands were tied 10 years ago.
“We have a big push going on to try to clean up Jacksonville and try to beautify Jacksonville. It doesn’t make sense (to say),
‘Let’s make everybody mow their yards,’ but not make everyone worry about a trash dump in our city limits.”
Doug Szehner, of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, said there was no technical or legal reason to deny the permit.
“With any permit application we receive,” Szehner said, “we are essentially limited in how we can deal with that. If an application meets the technical and legal criteria that apply, case law developed over the years says we have no option but to approve the permit.”
Szehner said it takes a long time for permits to be approved. “It’s not unusual for landfill permits to take several years,” he said. “Issues that come into play include engineering, soils, topography and hydrology and even under good circumstances, it will take a long time to process these applications.”
TOP STORY > >Cabot hopes to get county jail
By JOAN McCOY
Leader staff writer
Despite the assertion by Lonoke County Judge Charlie Troutman that the new jail should be built in Lonoke near the courts, Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams still would like to see it built closer to the Cabot area where half the county’s population lives.
Williams has asked to be on the agenda for the June quorum court meeting to talk about the new jail. Since at least part of the estimated $5.5 to $6 million in revenue from the newly passed one-cent sales tax will have to be collected before the jail can be built, there is time to decide on a location. And since the tax will sunset after one year, it might be advantageous for the county and cities alike to pool their resources to run the new jail and close all the city lockups that are used for misdemeanor offenders.
“I don’t know if it will work,” Williams said, “But I do know that in 10 years from now, if everything continues like it has been, this city will be 35,000 and we will have the same eight-bed jail.
In addition to Cabot, Lonoke, England and Carlisle also have city jails where misdemeanor offenders are held.
Williams said he doesn’t know exactly how much it costs to operate the Cabot jail, but he does know that prisoners eat food from McDonald’s three times a day at a cost to the city of about $25,000 a year.
As for the problem of transporting prisoners to the court for hearings, Williams said camera connections between the jail and courtroom, like the one the city now uses, would make it possible to conduct some hearings without moving the prisoners from the security of the jail.
Lonoke County Sheriff Jim Roberson, who runs the jail, says he is not necessarily opposed to building the jail closer to Cabot, but he says it would be inconvenient for trials and it would cost more to transport prisoners.
“You can have first appearance in the jail, but you’ve got to have the trial in the courthouse,” the sheriff said, adding that his deputies take about 15 prisoners a week to the courthouse.
And although the Cabot mayor would like the jail built closer to his city, the sheriff said, “I’m sure the mayors of Carlisle and England think otherwise.”
Lonoke is in the middle of the county and therefore more convenient for everyone, he said.
As for the concept of building a regional jail and closing the city jails, Roberson was non-committal, saying he hadn’t given it too much thought but he would need to be convinced that it would work.
“I know Pulaski County is a regional jail and they haven’t had anything but trouble down there,” he said.
Where to build the jail is up to Lonoke County Judge Charlie Troutman, who says he knows the question is a controversial one that is sure to cost friendships whatever he decides.
The new jail is expected to hold 140 inmates to replace the existing 70-inmate jail, which is generally considered overcrowded, dark, dank and dangerous for both prisoners and jailers alike.
The judge said he hopes to build the jail next year possibly with the help of inmate labor provided by the Arkansas Department of Correction.
The sheriff said any extra money needed to run the new jail would come from the general fund where revenue is expected to be up because of increased property tax assessments.
But where the jail is built and where the money comes from to pay for running it is not his concern, he said.
The sheriff said his job is to make sure the people who need to be locked up are locked up and that they are treated in such a way that they can’t sue the county because of their accommodations.
Leader staff writer
Despite the assertion by Lonoke County Judge Charlie Troutman that the new jail should be built in Lonoke near the courts, Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams still would like to see it built closer to the Cabot area where half the county’s population lives.
Williams has asked to be on the agenda for the June quorum court meeting to talk about the new jail. Since at least part of the estimated $5.5 to $6 million in revenue from the newly passed one-cent sales tax will have to be collected before the jail can be built, there is time to decide on a location. And since the tax will sunset after one year, it might be advantageous for the county and cities alike to pool their resources to run the new jail and close all the city lockups that are used for misdemeanor offenders.
“I don’t know if it will work,” Williams said, “But I do know that in 10 years from now, if everything continues like it has been, this city will be 35,000 and we will have the same eight-bed jail.
In addition to Cabot, Lonoke, England and Carlisle also have city jails where misdemeanor offenders are held.
Williams said he doesn’t know exactly how much it costs to operate the Cabot jail, but he does know that prisoners eat food from McDonald’s three times a day at a cost to the city of about $25,000 a year.
As for the problem of transporting prisoners to the court for hearings, Williams said camera connections between the jail and courtroom, like the one the city now uses, would make it possible to conduct some hearings without moving the prisoners from the security of the jail.
Lonoke County Sheriff Jim Roberson, who runs the jail, says he is not necessarily opposed to building the jail closer to Cabot, but he says it would be inconvenient for trials and it would cost more to transport prisoners.
“You can have first appearance in the jail, but you’ve got to have the trial in the courthouse,” the sheriff said, adding that his deputies take about 15 prisoners a week to the courthouse.
And although the Cabot mayor would like the jail built closer to his city, the sheriff said, “I’m sure the mayors of Carlisle and England think otherwise.”
Lonoke is in the middle of the county and therefore more convenient for everyone, he said.
As for the concept of building a regional jail and closing the city jails, Roberson was non-committal, saying he hadn’t given it too much thought but he would need to be convinced that it would work.
“I know Pulaski County is a regional jail and they haven’t had anything but trouble down there,” he said.
Where to build the jail is up to Lonoke County Judge Charlie Troutman, who says he knows the question is a controversial one that is sure to cost friendships whatever he decides.
The new jail is expected to hold 140 inmates to replace the existing 70-inmate jail, which is generally considered overcrowded, dark, dank and dangerous for both prisoners and jailers alike.
The judge said he hopes to build the jail next year possibly with the help of inmate labor provided by the Arkansas Department of Correction.
The sheriff said any extra money needed to run the new jail would come from the general fund where revenue is expected to be up because of increased property tax assessments.
But where the jail is built and where the money comes from to pay for running it is not his concern, he said.
The sheriff said his job is to make sure the people who need to be locked up are locked up and that they are treated in such a way that they can’t sue the county because of their accommodations.
EDITORIAL >>Regime change in Sherwood?
Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman has tried twice in the past three weeks to get a plan approved to open Maryland Avenue and twice it has been shut down by Harmonites—those city officials loyal to former mayor Bill Harmon.
Hillman’s plan still has a chance of succeeding, but it means having a number of the Harmonites slacking off on their allegiance for the good of the city—and that’s a slim chance.
The better deal for Hillman would be to wait.
One alderman has already decided not to run and the other three all face challenges. Who wins will send a message to Hillman and Harmon.
If the challengers win, Hillman will get Maryland Avenue opened—the new blood will see to it, and the good-old-boy system will fade fast.
But if the status quo stays, then gridlock will only increase as the Harmonites keep the brakes on Hillman’s power.
This all makes for a long summer, but an exciting fall. So stand by, or stand still in traffic on Brockington Road until this issue is resolved.
Hillman’s plan still has a chance of succeeding, but it means having a number of the Harmonites slacking off on their allegiance for the good of the city—and that’s a slim chance.
The better deal for Hillman would be to wait.
One alderman has already decided not to run and the other three all face challenges. Who wins will send a message to Hillman and Harmon.
If the challengers win, Hillman will get Maryland Avenue opened—the new blood will see to it, and the good-old-boy system will fade fast.
But if the status quo stays, then gridlock will only increase as the Harmonites keep the brakes on Hillman’s power.
This all makes for a long summer, but an exciting fall. So stand by, or stand still in traffic on Brockington Road until this issue is resolved.
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