By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
“No one is going to come to Jacksonville because they saw a commercial about it on television, and I’m certainly not going to Brinkley because they have a commercial,” said Alderman Gary Fletcher at a joint meeting Monday of the Jacksonville Advertising and Promotion Commission and the city council.
The joint gathering was called for when a proposed two-cent tax on prepared foods, also known as a hamburger tax, came up for discussion at a July 5 council meeting.
The tax, which can be approved just by a council vote, will generate an extra $550,000 a year for the advertising and promotion commission to use to promote and market Jacksonville. The commission currently has a budget of about $80,000 garnered from a two-cent hotel room tax.
“We need to spend money to make money,” said Alderman Bob Stroud, a proponent of the tax. “I can’t make it any simpler. Jacksonville is a great place to live and we have to let people know.”
“But, I don’t want us advertising Rock Hudson and giving the people Mickey Rooney,” Fletcher responded. “Let’s put money into our facilities and let them speak for themselves. We were ahead of the curve with the community center and/ or ball fields. Let’s get back on the cutting edge,” he said.
Every alderman except Reedie Ray and all commission members except Ray Patel and Andy Patel were at the meeting, along with a number of concerned residents.
After listening to discussions for, against and in the middle about the tax, the commission decided to have the city attorney prepare an ordinance for the council to vote on at its Aug. 2 meeting. Advertising and promotion commissioners have been working on the tax idea for about nine months.
The commission has suggested that half of the $550,000 projected income, or $275,000, be used for professional promotion and marketing campaigns to bring people to Jacksonville and its attractions. That idea bothered Fletcher and some other aldermen.
“I don’t like the idea of us shooting with buckshot when we need to make a direct hit,” Fletcher said. Aldermen Terry Sansing repeatedly said the council needed to sell the tax idea to the people here before approving it and spending the money to try to bring in visitors, tourists and new residents.
“Sell it to us, let us vote on it. That’s what I’m hearing from the people,” Sansing said.
“People come to a town for entertainment. What do we have to offer?” he added. “And if parks are our draw, then let’s put our money there. Word of mouth about those improvements will travel a lot faster than any $250,000 spent with an ad agency.”
The proposed budget has about 30 percent of the tax, or $163,000, going to the city’s parks and recreation department.
The money is vaguely earmarked for park improvements and operations, but no specifics have been outlined. Alderman Linda Rinker asked for the commission to come up with a long-term vision and to go beyond the one-year proposed budget.
“We’ve got to have an extended plan and clear direction,” she said.
Alderman Kenny Elliot suggested a five-year sunset on the tax, and then look to see what it accomplished.
Of the $550,000 generated by the proposed two-cent tax, the commission has also slated $20,000 for the patriotic spectacular show to increase promotion of the activity and allow for a bigger fireworks show on the Fourth of July. The Reed’s Bridge Battlefield group will get $12,000 to buy Civil War displays and make other improvements to the site to bring in tourists.
The Jacksonville Museum of Military History will get $22,000 of the new money to help get the necessary permission to display a C-130 aircraft and to help toward transportation and maintenance of that aircraft. The commission plans to set aside $30,000 of the tax for projects, requests and ideas that come up during the year that are not already budgeted.
Another $18,000 will be used to help pay for the staff to coordinate and collect the tax data, staff training and educating businesses and the public on what types of items are taxable.
Alderman Marshall Smith, who chairs the advertising and promotion commission, said the commission plans to go heavy with marketing at the beginning.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
FROM THE PUBLISHER >>Kids, dope don't mix with driver
He’s been driving a bus for the Pulaski County Special School District for 22 years, and this summer he drives a van for special-education students who attend a summer program at the Jacksonville Middle School for Boys.
The driver doesn’t want his name in the paper, but he’s worried about some of the kids on his van who are into the drugs, especially the 15-year-old who was arrested a couple of weeks ago at the school for marijuana possession, although the driver thinks the kid was a dealer.
“He had two large bags of marijuana in his backpack, plus another small one,” the driver says.
“He turned 15 the day he got busted,” the driver continues. “I don’t like this stuff.”
He wishes he could talk to the boy’s parents, but the driver says they’re in prison for selling crack cocaine.
“He lives with his grandmother,” the driver explains.
You have to give her credit for that — what with his disability, it’s not easy raising a teenager who gets into trouble.
The driver complains about how kids are caught using and dealing drugs, and he still has to drive them around as if nothing happened.
He says the 15-year-old was arrested at school, and the driver didn’t see the boy for three days, and then he was told to pick up the kid again at his home and take him to school.
During his three-day suspension, the student missed a couple of field trips, but other than that, he gets to finish the summer-school program since his court date isn’t until July 30, which is a few days after summer school ends.
The driver says he heard the student and a friend talk about the upcoming court date while they were riding home on the bus last week, but the 15-year-old wasn’t too worried.
Since he’s just a kid, he’ll likely get a lecture from a juvenile judge, but what worries the bus driver is that he’s driving kids around with marijuana and other contraban in their backpacks.
“I know the boy needs help, but this isn’t right. All the kids know he was arrested. The supervisor knows about it. She told me not to worry about it, just take the kids home and pick them up,” he says.
“I don’t know where they grow this stuff. Maybe they grow it out on the farm. This makes me sick to my stomach.”
It’s not as if he doesn’t want to give the kid another chance, but why should he be riding the bus with other students and maybe get them into trouble, too?
“We need to get him out of circulation,” the driver continues. “There’s a sign in front of the school that says, ‘This is a Drug- Free, Gun-Free Institution.’”
The school says the summer program is run by a private organization, so the school won’t accept blame for the incident.
During the school year, the middle school is doing all it can to keep kids in line, but if you visit the school, you get the eerie feeling that it looks like a juvenile lockup, where that 15-year-old kid could wind up someday.
The driver doesn’t want his name in the paper, but he’s worried about some of the kids on his van who are into the drugs, especially the 15-year-old who was arrested a couple of weeks ago at the school for marijuana possession, although the driver thinks the kid was a dealer.
“He had two large bags of marijuana in his backpack, plus another small one,” the driver says.
“He turned 15 the day he got busted,” the driver continues. “I don’t like this stuff.”
He wishes he could talk to the boy’s parents, but the driver says they’re in prison for selling crack cocaine.
“He lives with his grandmother,” the driver explains.
You have to give her credit for that — what with his disability, it’s not easy raising a teenager who gets into trouble.
The driver complains about how kids are caught using and dealing drugs, and he still has to drive them around as if nothing happened.
He says the 15-year-old was arrested at school, and the driver didn’t see the boy for three days, and then he was told to pick up the kid again at his home and take him to school.
During his three-day suspension, the student missed a couple of field trips, but other than that, he gets to finish the summer-school program since his court date isn’t until July 30, which is a few days after summer school ends.
The driver says he heard the student and a friend talk about the upcoming court date while they were riding home on the bus last week, but the 15-year-old wasn’t too worried.
Since he’s just a kid, he’ll likely get a lecture from a juvenile judge, but what worries the bus driver is that he’s driving kids around with marijuana and other contraban in their backpacks.
“I know the boy needs help, but this isn’t right. All the kids know he was arrested. The supervisor knows about it. She told me not to worry about it, just take the kids home and pick them up,” he says.
“I don’t know where they grow this stuff. Maybe they grow it out on the farm. This makes me sick to my stomach.”
It’s not as if he doesn’t want to give the kid another chance, but why should he be riding the bus with other students and maybe get them into trouble, too?
“We need to get him out of circulation,” the driver continues. “There’s a sign in front of the school that says, ‘This is a Drug- Free, Gun-Free Institution.’”
The school says the summer program is run by a private organization, so the school won’t accept blame for the incident.
During the school year, the middle school is doing all it can to keep kids in line, but if you visit the school, you get the eerie feeling that it looks like a juvenile lockup, where that 15-year-old kid could wind up someday.
TOP STORY >>District is seen hurting in deal
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
Former Pulaski County Special School District Board member—and current Pulaski County treasurer—Pat O’Brien Monday suggested that the Little Rock School Board had caved in to civil-rights attorney John Walker and that the result could make it more difficult for PCSSD to achieve unitary status and escape court supervision.
That’s particularly important to Jacksonville-area residents, who can’t get their own school district as long as PCSSD is under the thumb of the courts.
“I think (the PCSSD board and administration) are looking for a signal from Little Rock,” O’Brien said. “When (John) Walker applies pressure, the board members faint.”
Attorney Ben Rice suggested that some Jacksonville area patrons might need to sue the school board to make it follow through on achieving unitary status, or release from court supervision.
“We may need to get into court to get out of court,” said Rice. He added that he’d been told the district didn’t really want unitary status for fear of losing about $18 million a year in desegregation money.
Reedie Ray, another former school board member, said he’d been told many years ago that the only way to get the district out of court was to go to court.
“Maybe we should sue the district for not giving our students a good education,” said Rotary president Bob Johnson.
The venue was the Jacksonville Rotary Club meeting Monday, where PCSSD board member James Bolden was the guest speaker. Bolden told Rotarians that the district’s lawyer, Sam Jones, had said the district is headed toward unitary status and that the district didn’t intend to oppose unitary status or a stand-alone Jacksonville district.
Bolden started his discussion by explaining his successful motion to reinstate the Pulaski Association of Support Staff as bargaining agent for bus drivers, janitors and other non-certified personnel. PASS was decertified after a Jan. 4, 2004 strike—Bolden seconded the motion at that time to decertify the union as the bargaining agent.
By a 4-3 vote, the board ap-proved a 5 percent across-the-board raise, plus a 3.29 experience step raise and a 3.5 percent longevity raise. But, said Bolden, the administration lobbied the three dissenting board members, saying the district could not afford that raise, and a special meeting was called where the four members present rescinded the raises.
Bolden said he was tired of seeing teachers and principals get raises while the people at the bottom got very little. He said they hadn’t had a decent raise since 2002.
Bolden, who announced he would run for a third and final term for the school board, said, “You have my support (for a stand-alone Jacksonville district). I will not waiver. I don’t want them to shortchange Jacksonville,” said Bolden. “And they do. The school buildings are shot.”
He said, “The wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease.”
Bolden suggested that Jacksonville make enough noise that the PCSSD “wants to get rid of us.”
Jacksonville’s schools are at least 30 years old. Jacksonville High School was built in 1959.
“People are leaving in leaps and bounds,” he said.
A representative of Little Rock Air Force Base said Brig. Gen. (Select) Rowayne Schatz, 314th Airlift Wing commander, has chosen to send his children to a private school rather than PCSSD.
Leader senior staff writer
Former Pulaski County Special School District Board member—and current Pulaski County treasurer—Pat O’Brien Monday suggested that the Little Rock School Board had caved in to civil-rights attorney John Walker and that the result could make it more difficult for PCSSD to achieve unitary status and escape court supervision.
That’s particularly important to Jacksonville-area residents, who can’t get their own school district as long as PCSSD is under the thumb of the courts.
“I think (the PCSSD board and administration) are looking for a signal from Little Rock,” O’Brien said. “When (John) Walker applies pressure, the board members faint.”
Attorney Ben Rice suggested that some Jacksonville area patrons might need to sue the school board to make it follow through on achieving unitary status, or release from court supervision.
“We may need to get into court to get out of court,” said Rice. He added that he’d been told the district didn’t really want unitary status for fear of losing about $18 million a year in desegregation money.
Reedie Ray, another former school board member, said he’d been told many years ago that the only way to get the district out of court was to go to court.
“Maybe we should sue the district for not giving our students a good education,” said Rotary president Bob Johnson.
The venue was the Jacksonville Rotary Club meeting Monday, where PCSSD board member James Bolden was the guest speaker. Bolden told Rotarians that the district’s lawyer, Sam Jones, had said the district is headed toward unitary status and that the district didn’t intend to oppose unitary status or a stand-alone Jacksonville district.
Bolden started his discussion by explaining his successful motion to reinstate the Pulaski Association of Support Staff as bargaining agent for bus drivers, janitors and other non-certified personnel. PASS was decertified after a Jan. 4, 2004 strike—Bolden seconded the motion at that time to decertify the union as the bargaining agent.
By a 4-3 vote, the board ap-proved a 5 percent across-the-board raise, plus a 3.29 experience step raise and a 3.5 percent longevity raise. But, said Bolden, the administration lobbied the three dissenting board members, saying the district could not afford that raise, and a special meeting was called where the four members present rescinded the raises.
Bolden said he was tired of seeing teachers and principals get raises while the people at the bottom got very little. He said they hadn’t had a decent raise since 2002.
Bolden, who announced he would run for a third and final term for the school board, said, “You have my support (for a stand-alone Jacksonville district). I will not waiver. I don’t want them to shortchange Jacksonville,” said Bolden. “And they do. The school buildings are shot.”
He said, “The wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease.”
Bolden suggested that Jacksonville make enough noise that the PCSSD “wants to get rid of us.”
Jacksonville’s schools are at least 30 years old. Jacksonville High School was built in 1959.
“People are leaving in leaps and bounds,” he said.
A representative of Little Rock Air Force Base said Brig. Gen. (Select) Rowayne Schatz, 314th Airlift Wing commander, has chosen to send his children to a private school rather than PCSSD.
TOP STORY >>Cabot buys land for armory
By JOAN MCCOY
Leader staff writer
The Cabot City Council Monday night approved paying $399,000 for 15.5 acres in the industrial park on Highway 367 to build a National Guard armory. Plans call for the state to pay $350,000 of the cost.
Becky Lemaster and Teri Miessner, two council members who are becoming known for their close examination of the mayor’s proposals, had some pointed questions.
Both Lemaster and Miessner said they supported buying the land and voted for the purchase, but Miessner told Mayor Eddie Joe Williams that she wanted to make sure all parts of the purchase agreement were legal. The land purchase did not go through the council committees, so council members had little time to review the purchase agreement.
“I want to make sure you did your homework,” Miessner said.
The city is buying the land from North Cabot Development Group, Inc., a group of about a dozen local developers. Williams said because the group was so large, negotiations took about three months and at times he was not sure the sale would go through.
When questioned about whether he could have found land any cheaper than the $26,000 an acre the city will pay, Williams reminded Lemaster and Miessner that the city had paid $175,000 for a half acre for a temporary fire station on Highway 5.
Charles Ward, who signed the purchase agreement for North Cabot Development Group, said he has property nearby in Austin that appraised for $3.50 a square foot, which comes to $150,000 an acre.
Specifically, Miessner and Lemaster were concerned about the parts of the purchase agreement that would help the sellers develop their remaining lots in the industrial park: free water meters, free building permits and no impact fees.
“I wonder if we’re not giving away the store on some of these things,” Miessner asked the mayor.
“Bill, can we give away water meters?” she asked Bill Cypert, secretary of Cabot Water and Wastewater Commission.
Cypert responded that the commission couldn’t give them away, but the city could buy them at a cost of $25,000 to $30,000.
Lemaster said she understood that the city would “comp” the fees it usually charges, but she said she learned at a recent Municipal League seminar that impact fees are almost certain to be challenged in court and she didn’t want Cabot’s impact fees to be made more vulnerable.
The sale is contingent on the state paying $350,000 of the $399,000. Sen. Bobby Glover, D-Carlisle, attended the meeting to explain the state’s part in financing the land purchase. He said $150,000 would come from the almost $1 billion state surplus and $100,000 would come from the governor’s discretionary fund. Although he said the governor was a supporter of the project, he urged the mayor to send an official request for the money.
Also attending were several of the sellers and several area residents who first tried while former Mayor Joe Allman was in office to get an armory in Cabot.
David Hipp, who was Allman’s operations director, thanked the men who helped convince the National Guard that Cabot needed an armory.
In addition to Hipp and Allman, the men who started the process of bringing an armory to the city are Fred Campbell, Don Elliott, Wayne “Moose” Cunnis, Bill DeVoss, Gary McMillan and Charles George.
Once the property is purchased, the deed will be signed over to Arkansas National Guard, which will have the construction of the $8 million armory placed in line for federal funding within the next five years. Williams says building the armory is “the single biggest thing for Cabot in recent history” which will have an economic impact on the city of $1 million or more a year.
If it is built in the industrial park, it will be visible from the new railroad overpass, which should be under construction within the next two months. Since the overpass will be used by school buses, Williams said the location will be good for recruiting. He said he also hopes it will have a positive impact on his efforts to get federal money to build a north interchange that is part of his three-phase plan to connect Highway 5 to U.S. 67-167.
After the 7-0 vote with one council member absent, Miesser apologized to any of the sellers she might have offended with her questions, saying that as a council member, she had to look after the city’s interests.
Alderman Virgil Teague, who was hospitalized last month with blood-clotting problems, is now out of intensive care and undergoing rehabilitation. Williams read a letter from Teague to the council that said he hoped to be back on the job soon.
In other business: The council reappointed Bill Johnson to Position 4 of the Cabot Advertising and Promotion Commission; passed an ordinance providing spousal death benefits for the city clerk-treasurer; and passed an ordinance repealing the $1 permit fee for yard sales, which the clerk-treasurer said caused too much work for the revenue it produced.
Leader staff writer
The Cabot City Council Monday night approved paying $399,000 for 15.5 acres in the industrial park on Highway 367 to build a National Guard armory. Plans call for the state to pay $350,000 of the cost.
Becky Lemaster and Teri Miessner, two council members who are becoming known for their close examination of the mayor’s proposals, had some pointed questions.
Both Lemaster and Miessner said they supported buying the land and voted for the purchase, but Miessner told Mayor Eddie Joe Williams that she wanted to make sure all parts of the purchase agreement were legal. The land purchase did not go through the council committees, so council members had little time to review the purchase agreement.
“I want to make sure you did your homework,” Miessner said.
The city is buying the land from North Cabot Development Group, Inc., a group of about a dozen local developers. Williams said because the group was so large, negotiations took about three months and at times he was not sure the sale would go through.
When questioned about whether he could have found land any cheaper than the $26,000 an acre the city will pay, Williams reminded Lemaster and Miessner that the city had paid $175,000 for a half acre for a temporary fire station on Highway 5.
Charles Ward, who signed the purchase agreement for North Cabot Development Group, said he has property nearby in Austin that appraised for $3.50 a square foot, which comes to $150,000 an acre.
Specifically, Miessner and Lemaster were concerned about the parts of the purchase agreement that would help the sellers develop their remaining lots in the industrial park: free water meters, free building permits and no impact fees.
“I wonder if we’re not giving away the store on some of these things,” Miessner asked the mayor.
“Bill, can we give away water meters?” she asked Bill Cypert, secretary of Cabot Water and Wastewater Commission.
Cypert responded that the commission couldn’t give them away, but the city could buy them at a cost of $25,000 to $30,000.
Lemaster said she understood that the city would “comp” the fees it usually charges, but she said she learned at a recent Municipal League seminar that impact fees are almost certain to be challenged in court and she didn’t want Cabot’s impact fees to be made more vulnerable.
The sale is contingent on the state paying $350,000 of the $399,000. Sen. Bobby Glover, D-Carlisle, attended the meeting to explain the state’s part in financing the land purchase. He said $150,000 would come from the almost $1 billion state surplus and $100,000 would come from the governor’s discretionary fund. Although he said the governor was a supporter of the project, he urged the mayor to send an official request for the money.
Also attending were several of the sellers and several area residents who first tried while former Mayor Joe Allman was in office to get an armory in Cabot.
David Hipp, who was Allman’s operations director, thanked the men who helped convince the National Guard that Cabot needed an armory.
In addition to Hipp and Allman, the men who started the process of bringing an armory to the city are Fred Campbell, Don Elliott, Wayne “Moose” Cunnis, Bill DeVoss, Gary McMillan and Charles George.
Once the property is purchased, the deed will be signed over to Arkansas National Guard, which will have the construction of the $8 million armory placed in line for federal funding within the next five years. Williams says building the armory is “the single biggest thing for Cabot in recent history” which will have an economic impact on the city of $1 million or more a year.
If it is built in the industrial park, it will be visible from the new railroad overpass, which should be under construction within the next two months. Since the overpass will be used by school buses, Williams said the location will be good for recruiting. He said he also hopes it will have a positive impact on his efforts to get federal money to build a north interchange that is part of his three-phase plan to connect Highway 5 to U.S. 67-167.
After the 7-0 vote with one council member absent, Miesser apologized to any of the sellers she might have offended with her questions, saying that as a council member, she had to look after the city’s interests.
Alderman Virgil Teague, who was hospitalized last month with blood-clotting problems, is now out of intensive care and undergoing rehabilitation. Williams read a letter from Teague to the council that said he hoped to be back on the job soon.
In other business: The council reappointed Bill Johnson to Position 4 of the Cabot Advertising and Promotion Commission; passed an ordinance providing spousal death benefits for the city clerk-treasurer; and passed an ordinance repealing the $1 permit fee for yard sales, which the clerk-treasurer said caused too much work for the revenue it produced.
Monday, July 16, 2007
TOP STORY >>Jacksonville A gets back to Legion state
IN SHORT: Gwatney Chevrolet went through the American Legion Zone 3 tournament undefeated.
By JASON KING
Leader sportwriter
Gwatney Chevrolet dodged every bullet imaginable to advance to the state tournament for the first time in 17 years with a 3-2 win over Conway Wednesday afternoon in the finals of the American Legion Class A Zone 3 tournament finals at the Diamond Center in Maumelle. The Chevy boys overcame a 2-1 deficit in the top of the sixth inning with two scores that would prove to be just enough to prevent a third meeting between the two teams in the tourney.
Jacksonville sent Conway into the consolation bracket earlier in the tournament with a decisive 12-6 win, but the Wampus Cats were determined to shut down Gwatney this time, holding the normally lethal Gwatney bats silent through much of the contest.
Gwatney took to the plate trailing 2-1 in the top of the sixth inning. Five-hole hitter Hayden Simpson led off for Jacksonville in the sixth, and reached on an error in left field to put the tying run on base. Daniel Thurman advanced Simpson to third with a single up the middle, and Simpson scored by tagging up on a pop up by A.J. Allen.
That would tie the score at 2-2 with a runner on with one out. Thurman made it to second when a pick attempt at first went sour, but Gwatney got its second out when Jeff Tillman sliced one up to Conway pitcher Ryan Valovich.
That would send Jacksonville back to the top of the order with Tyler Wisdom. Wisdom came through with a single to left field that advanced Thurman to third. Terrell Brown then came to the plate for Gwatney and sent in the winner with a blooper into left field. Brown’s hit may not have been altogether pretty, but it was undoubtedly the most important hit of the day, as Thurman crossed the plate to put Jacksonville back out front for the first time since a brief 1-0 lead held in the third inning.
Jacksonville pitcher Seth Tomboli didn’t do his team any favors by walking Conway lead-off Jordan Cates in the bottom of the seventh inning, but struck out the next two Wampus Cats batters, leaving it all in the hands of Conway first baseman Anthony Nail. Nail hammered Tomboli’s second offering, but Wisdom robbed him in shallow center with a diving catch to send the Wampus Cats home for the season.
The Zone 3 final was postponed for two days due to ongoing rain in the area, but the Diamond Center dried out quite nicely for Wednesday’s finals. The field appeared to be in decent shape for the game despite the downpours, and the fast pace of the game meant it was not subjected to extended wear and tear in the brief hour and 40 minute contest.
Starting Gwatney pitcher Tomboli had a shutout on his mind at the start of the game, sending the first two Conway batters back to their dugout with strikeouts before forcing a groundout from three-hole hitter Valovich. He would do more of the same in the second inning with another strikeout and two more infield smacks that were easily turned by the Jacksonville defense.
Gwatney landed three runners on in the top of the first, but they were not able to convert. A single for Allen in the top of the second inning could not be advanced, and the game remained scoreless through two innings.
Brown broke the silence for Jacksonville in the top of the third inning when he led off with a single, and advanced to third when Conway first baseman Nail allowed a pick attempt by. This put Brown at third with no outs.
Caleb Mitchell sent Brown in for the score with a sacrifice fly to centerfield. The final two batters of the inning grounded out to third, leaving one runner on.
The lead would be short lived. An error would allow the only two Conway runs of the evening in during the bottom of the third inning. Gwatney got the first two outs rather quickly, but a routine throw to first on a grounder to shortstop by Jay Magee got by first baseman Jason Regnas, and allowed Nail and Dominique Teague in to give Conway a 2-1 lead. Tomboli recovered to retire the next batter to end the frame.
The bottom of the fourth would be a close call for Jacksonville when two fielding errors and a walk allowed Conway runners at first and second. Gwatney had an infield meeting at the mound at that point, and Tomboli answered with two of his total eight strikeouts on the evening to retire Conway without a run.
By JASON KING
Leader sportwriter
Gwatney Chevrolet dodged every bullet imaginable to advance to the state tournament for the first time in 17 years with a 3-2 win over Conway Wednesday afternoon in the finals of the American Legion Class A Zone 3 tournament finals at the Diamond Center in Maumelle. The Chevy boys overcame a 2-1 deficit in the top of the sixth inning with two scores that would prove to be just enough to prevent a third meeting between the two teams in the tourney.
Jacksonville sent Conway into the consolation bracket earlier in the tournament with a decisive 12-6 win, but the Wampus Cats were determined to shut down Gwatney this time, holding the normally lethal Gwatney bats silent through much of the contest.
Gwatney took to the plate trailing 2-1 in the top of the sixth inning. Five-hole hitter Hayden Simpson led off for Jacksonville in the sixth, and reached on an error in left field to put the tying run on base. Daniel Thurman advanced Simpson to third with a single up the middle, and Simpson scored by tagging up on a pop up by A.J. Allen.
That would tie the score at 2-2 with a runner on with one out. Thurman made it to second when a pick attempt at first went sour, but Gwatney got its second out when Jeff Tillman sliced one up to Conway pitcher Ryan Valovich.
That would send Jacksonville back to the top of the order with Tyler Wisdom. Wisdom came through with a single to left field that advanced Thurman to third. Terrell Brown then came to the plate for Gwatney and sent in the winner with a blooper into left field. Brown’s hit may not have been altogether pretty, but it was undoubtedly the most important hit of the day, as Thurman crossed the plate to put Jacksonville back out front for the first time since a brief 1-0 lead held in the third inning.
Jacksonville pitcher Seth Tomboli didn’t do his team any favors by walking Conway lead-off Jordan Cates in the bottom of the seventh inning, but struck out the next two Wampus Cats batters, leaving it all in the hands of Conway first baseman Anthony Nail. Nail hammered Tomboli’s second offering, but Wisdom robbed him in shallow center with a diving catch to send the Wampus Cats home for the season.
The Zone 3 final was postponed for two days due to ongoing rain in the area, but the Diamond Center dried out quite nicely for Wednesday’s finals. The field appeared to be in decent shape for the game despite the downpours, and the fast pace of the game meant it was not subjected to extended wear and tear in the brief hour and 40 minute contest.
Starting Gwatney pitcher Tomboli had a shutout on his mind at the start of the game, sending the first two Conway batters back to their dugout with strikeouts before forcing a groundout from three-hole hitter Valovich. He would do more of the same in the second inning with another strikeout and two more infield smacks that were easily turned by the Jacksonville defense.
Gwatney landed three runners on in the top of the first, but they were not able to convert. A single for Allen in the top of the second inning could not be advanced, and the game remained scoreless through two innings.
Brown broke the silence for Jacksonville in the top of the third inning when he led off with a single, and advanced to third when Conway first baseman Nail allowed a pick attempt by. This put Brown at third with no outs.
Caleb Mitchell sent Brown in for the score with a sacrifice fly to centerfield. The final two batters of the inning grounded out to third, leaving one runner on.
The lead would be short lived. An error would allow the only two Conway runs of the evening in during the bottom of the third inning. Gwatney got the first two outs rather quickly, but a routine throw to first on a grounder to shortstop by Jay Magee got by first baseman Jason Regnas, and allowed Nail and Dominique Teague in to give Conway a 2-1 lead. Tomboli recovered to retire the next batter to end the frame.
The bottom of the fourth would be a close call for Jacksonville when two fielding errors and a walk allowed Conway runners at first and second. Gwatney had an infield meeting at the mound at that point, and Tomboli answered with two of his total eight strikeouts on the evening to retire Conway without a run.
SPORTS >>Gwatney mercy rules Rogers
IN SHORT: Jacksonville advanced to the second round of the American Legion Class A state tournament for the first time in program history Thursday.
By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The 2007 version of Gwatney’s Class A team accomplished a program first Thursday afternoon at Burns Park. The Chevy boys won a game in the American Legion state tournament. It had been 17 years since a Jacksonville A team had participated in state, and it had never won a game while there. That changed Thursday when Gwatney easily disposed of Rogers 11-1 in six innings of play.
“We started a little tight, but we finally decided to play baseball and we did,” Jacksonville coach Travis Lyda said. “It wasn’t a beautiful work of art, but on the same token it was a win in the state tournament. That’s something this program has never done on the Class A level.”
It took a couple of innings, but once Jacksonville touched Rogers starting pitcher Cody Hawthorne, it was all over. After two scoreless innings that hinted at an impending big inning for the Gwatney squad, it finally came in the third.
Nine-hole hitter Jeff Tillman battled back from an 0-2 count to hit a single to centerfield to start the rally with no hits. Tyler Wisdom and Terrell Brown then laid down perfect bunts for infield singles. Rogers fumbled the ball on Brown’s bunt down the first base line just enough to allow Tillman to score. Mitchell Regnas then hit a grounder back to the pitcher, who threw to home in an unsuccessful attempt to get Wisdom who was charging for the score.
Caleb Mitchell and Seth Tomboli made the first two outs of the inning, but right fielder Hayden Simpson capped the rally with a two-RBI double to centerfield to give Jacksonville a 4-1 lead.
Starting pitcher Clayton Fenton shut Rogers down in the top of the fourth, and the Chevy boys added three more in the bottom of the frame.
Wisdom started with a single against relief pitcher Britt McKenzie, who struggled with his control during his brief stint on the mound. The next four batters reached without having to swing. Brown was hit, Regnas walked, Mitchell was hit and Tomboli walked before McKenzie was pulled for Matt Phillips. Phillips gave up another RBI base hit to Simpson, this time a single just over second baseman Spanky Purdee’s head scored the third and final run of the inning and gave Gwatney a 7-1 lead.
Jacksonville continued to hit the ball hard in the fifth, but couldn’t find the gaps.
Fenton got the first two batters of the sixth inning to groundout to third, but then loaded the bases on a single, a walk and an error at shortstop.
Fenton quickly got two strikes on Rogers two hitter Spanky Purdee, but the second baseman battled back to a full count by fouling off several pitches. Fenton finally won the battle by getting Purdee to swing and miss at a rising fastball, keeping Jacksonville’s six-run lead intact.
“That pitch was called up in the zone because he was making contact with everything down,” Lyda said. “Clayton was doing a good job keeping it down like you’re supposed to, but the kid was hitting everything. It wasn’t supposed to be up at his nose hairs, but the point is Clayton put it where the kid couldn’t hit it. He was in a mindset of swinging to stay alive, and Clayton put the ball where he couldn’t hit it.”
It all ended in the bottom of the sixth when another pitching change failed to change any results. Rogers’ final pitcher also struggled with control, and when he wasn’t walking or hitting Gwatney batters, they were getting base hits.
Mitchell led off with a single and Tomboli walked. Simpson then singled to load the bases and Daniel Thurman took a pitch to the middle of his back for an RBI. AJ Allen smacked a line drive, but it was right to shortstop for the first out of the inning. Tomboli scored on a wild pitch on the next at bat. Tillman then walked to reload the bases and Wisdom walked to drive in another run and make it 10-1.
Terrell Brown then hit a fly ball to left field that was just deep enough to score Thurman from third base and end the game on the run rule.
The win lifts Jacksonville to 15-8 on the season and puts its winning streak at six games. Rain halted the first round of play Thursday in game two. Mountain Home led Texarkana 2-1 when the downpour came before the start of the fifth inning.
It rained so much, the field couldn’t be prepared by yesterday, so the first round will resume Saturday, and the second round will start Sunday.
That helps Jacksonville, who was forced to pitch its No. 1 starter on Wednesday in the rain-delayed Zone 3 championship. As it stood, Tomboli wouldn’t be able to pitch until the fourth round if the team made it that far. Now, the entire Jacksonville staff will be back on rotation by the time it takes the field for the second round on Sunday.
They will play the winner of today’s matchup between Jonesboro and Sheridan at 5 p.m. tomorrow.
By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The 2007 version of Gwatney’s Class A team accomplished a program first Thursday afternoon at Burns Park. The Chevy boys won a game in the American Legion state tournament. It had been 17 years since a Jacksonville A team had participated in state, and it had never won a game while there. That changed Thursday when Gwatney easily disposed of Rogers 11-1 in six innings of play.
“We started a little tight, but we finally decided to play baseball and we did,” Jacksonville coach Travis Lyda said. “It wasn’t a beautiful work of art, but on the same token it was a win in the state tournament. That’s something this program has never done on the Class A level.”
It took a couple of innings, but once Jacksonville touched Rogers starting pitcher Cody Hawthorne, it was all over. After two scoreless innings that hinted at an impending big inning for the Gwatney squad, it finally came in the third.
Nine-hole hitter Jeff Tillman battled back from an 0-2 count to hit a single to centerfield to start the rally with no hits. Tyler Wisdom and Terrell Brown then laid down perfect bunts for infield singles. Rogers fumbled the ball on Brown’s bunt down the first base line just enough to allow Tillman to score. Mitchell Regnas then hit a grounder back to the pitcher, who threw to home in an unsuccessful attempt to get Wisdom who was charging for the score.
Caleb Mitchell and Seth Tomboli made the first two outs of the inning, but right fielder Hayden Simpson capped the rally with a two-RBI double to centerfield to give Jacksonville a 4-1 lead.
Starting pitcher Clayton Fenton shut Rogers down in the top of the fourth, and the Chevy boys added three more in the bottom of the frame.
Wisdom started with a single against relief pitcher Britt McKenzie, who struggled with his control during his brief stint on the mound. The next four batters reached without having to swing. Brown was hit, Regnas walked, Mitchell was hit and Tomboli walked before McKenzie was pulled for Matt Phillips. Phillips gave up another RBI base hit to Simpson, this time a single just over second baseman Spanky Purdee’s head scored the third and final run of the inning and gave Gwatney a 7-1 lead.
Jacksonville continued to hit the ball hard in the fifth, but couldn’t find the gaps.
Fenton got the first two batters of the sixth inning to groundout to third, but then loaded the bases on a single, a walk and an error at shortstop.
Fenton quickly got two strikes on Rogers two hitter Spanky Purdee, but the second baseman battled back to a full count by fouling off several pitches. Fenton finally won the battle by getting Purdee to swing and miss at a rising fastball, keeping Jacksonville’s six-run lead intact.
“That pitch was called up in the zone because he was making contact with everything down,” Lyda said. “Clayton was doing a good job keeping it down like you’re supposed to, but the kid was hitting everything. It wasn’t supposed to be up at his nose hairs, but the point is Clayton put it where the kid couldn’t hit it. He was in a mindset of swinging to stay alive, and Clayton put the ball where he couldn’t hit it.”
It all ended in the bottom of the sixth when another pitching change failed to change any results. Rogers’ final pitcher also struggled with control, and when he wasn’t walking or hitting Gwatney batters, they were getting base hits.
Mitchell led off with a single and Tomboli walked. Simpson then singled to load the bases and Daniel Thurman took a pitch to the middle of his back for an RBI. AJ Allen smacked a line drive, but it was right to shortstop for the first out of the inning. Tomboli scored on a wild pitch on the next at bat. Tillman then walked to reload the bases and Wisdom walked to drive in another run and make it 10-1.
Terrell Brown then hit a fly ball to left field that was just deep enough to score Thurman from third base and end the game on the run rule.
The win lifts Jacksonville to 15-8 on the season and puts its winning streak at six games. Rain halted the first round of play Thursday in game two. Mountain Home led Texarkana 2-1 when the downpour came before the start of the fifth inning.
It rained so much, the field couldn’t be prepared by yesterday, so the first round will resume Saturday, and the second round will start Sunday.
That helps Jacksonville, who was forced to pitch its No. 1 starter on Wednesday in the rain-delayed Zone 3 championship. As it stood, Tomboli wouldn’t be able to pitch until the fourth round if the team made it that far. Now, the entire Jacksonville staff will be back on rotation by the time it takes the field for the second round on Sunday.
They will play the winner of today’s matchup between Jonesboro and Sheridan at 5 p.m. tomorrow.
SPORTS >>Wings win title game with local hoop stars
IN SHORT: DeShone McClure of Jacksonville High School, and North Pulaski players Aaron Cooper and DaQuan Bryant were all a vital part of the national championship winning Arkansas Wings basketball team.
By JASON KING AND RAY BENTON
Leader sports staff
Three local athletes were part of the Arkansas Wings 16-under AAU team, which won the Division 2 national championship last night at Pulaski Academy High School.
Jacksonville High’s DeShone McClure, and North Pulaski’s Aaron Cooper and DaQuan Bryant played pivotal roles on the national championship winning team.
The Wings beat Virginia C-Pep 63-42 Friday to secure the title. North Pulaski coach Raymond Cooper helped manage the team, and said all three local athletes played big roles in the team’s national tournament success.
“They’ve all had their moments in the tournament when they’ve led the team in scoring,” Raymond Cooper said. “DaQuan has had some double double games. McClure has come off the bench for us and played some great defense. Aaron is our point guard, and he’s been solid the whole tournament. This whole team has played pretty well and everybody’s gotten a lot of playing time. Everybody on the team has started at least one game.”
The Wings advanced to bracket play by breezing through their pool, winning all three pool games by more than 20 points.
The team started the tournament by routing the New Jersey Panthers 67-42 on Monday. Two wins on Tuesday advanced the team to bracket play as one of the favorites. The Georgia Grasshoppers were no match, and the Wings got their biggest margin of victory in game two of pool play 71-43. The Louisiana Things got tougher in bracket play as the Memphis Wildcats made a late surge, only to fall 63-56. Next up was Team Louisiana, which beat the Arkansas Timber Wolves 63-58 in round one. The Wings disposed of their second Louisiana team by a score of 50-37 to earn a spot in the semifinals against their third Louisiana team, Dream Team Louisiana.
In their toughest game of the tournament, the Wings battled back and forth with DTL throughout the contest, and ultimately came away with a 59-54 victory to earn the right to play for the championship against the Virginia team.
Virginia C-Pep gave the Wings problems in the first quarter, but inspired play from McClure in the second quarter gave his team a boost, and a double-digit lead in the process.
While Cooper was the only starter of the three Jacksonville players, McClure subbed for him at the 3:19 mark of the first half and wasted little time making his presence known.
C-Pep led much of the first quarter, but Arkansas took a 10-9 lead at the end of the first quarter. By the end of the second quarter, however, McClure had helped lift the Wings to a 31-20 halftime lead, and the advantage would only increase in the final two periods. McClure started out the second quarter with a steal that he converted into a lay-in, making up two of his 11 first-half points.
Arkansas led 46-30 at the end of the third quarter after a brief C-Pep rally in which the Virginia team scored two three pointers in the final minute and erased a 22-point Wings’ lead, but McClure and company gathered it back in the final eight minutes of play.
McClure went on to score 18 points in the game, including a pair of three-point baskets and steals that he converted into transition lay-ups.
The only other player to score as many points as McClure in the title game was post player Daniel Broughton who also finished with 18 points on the afternoon.
“I didn’t know I was going to have the game I had,” McClure said afterward. “I knew I was capable of it. I had an advantage on my coverage with my first step, and used it to my advantage to take it to the hole.” While Cooper may not have had the numbers that McClure did, he was happy to help out his friend and soon to be cross-town rival.
“I did all right,” Cooper said. “I had a little bit of an off game, but DeShone was having a great game, so I just gave him the ball.”
Cooper played most of the first quarter as the Wings starting point guard, and came away with some key assists in the opening frame to help Arkansas jump out to a narrow 6-5 lead by the 4:25 mark. He would play most of the second half, but could never find the perfect opportunity to score.
Rather than force the issue, Cooper played maturely and team focused, with a number of assists added to his totals in the last two quarters.
Bryant finished with two points, but it was his contributions on the defensive side of things that would make the difference in his performance. Bryant and teammate Broughton gave little inside to C-Pep, forcing them outside with a lineup that relied on inside play.
“We’ve been practicing and (we’ve) had our mind set on winning,” Bryant said. “We just wanted to keep taking it to the next step and do everything it takes to win. We did it, and it feels great to be a champion.”
By JASON KING AND RAY BENTON
Leader sports staff
Three local athletes were part of the Arkansas Wings 16-under AAU team, which won the Division 2 national championship last night at Pulaski Academy High School.
Jacksonville High’s DeShone McClure, and North Pulaski’s Aaron Cooper and DaQuan Bryant played pivotal roles on the national championship winning team.
The Wings beat Virginia C-Pep 63-42 Friday to secure the title. North Pulaski coach Raymond Cooper helped manage the team, and said all three local athletes played big roles in the team’s national tournament success.
“They’ve all had their moments in the tournament when they’ve led the team in scoring,” Raymond Cooper said. “DaQuan has had some double double games. McClure has come off the bench for us and played some great defense. Aaron is our point guard, and he’s been solid the whole tournament. This whole team has played pretty well and everybody’s gotten a lot of playing time. Everybody on the team has started at least one game.”
The Wings advanced to bracket play by breezing through their pool, winning all three pool games by more than 20 points.
The team started the tournament by routing the New Jersey Panthers 67-42 on Monday. Two wins on Tuesday advanced the team to bracket play as one of the favorites. The Georgia Grasshoppers were no match, and the Wings got their biggest margin of victory in game two of pool play 71-43. The Louisiana Things got tougher in bracket play as the Memphis Wildcats made a late surge, only to fall 63-56. Next up was Team Louisiana, which beat the Arkansas Timber Wolves 63-58 in round one. The Wings disposed of their second Louisiana team by a score of 50-37 to earn a spot in the semifinals against their third Louisiana team, Dream Team Louisiana.
In their toughest game of the tournament, the Wings battled back and forth with DTL throughout the contest, and ultimately came away with a 59-54 victory to earn the right to play for the championship against the Virginia team.
Virginia C-Pep gave the Wings problems in the first quarter, but inspired play from McClure in the second quarter gave his team a boost, and a double-digit lead in the process.
While Cooper was the only starter of the three Jacksonville players, McClure subbed for him at the 3:19 mark of the first half and wasted little time making his presence known.
C-Pep led much of the first quarter, but Arkansas took a 10-9 lead at the end of the first quarter. By the end of the second quarter, however, McClure had helped lift the Wings to a 31-20 halftime lead, and the advantage would only increase in the final two periods. McClure started out the second quarter with a steal that he converted into a lay-in, making up two of his 11 first-half points.
Arkansas led 46-30 at the end of the third quarter after a brief C-Pep rally in which the Virginia team scored two three pointers in the final minute and erased a 22-point Wings’ lead, but McClure and company gathered it back in the final eight minutes of play.
McClure went on to score 18 points in the game, including a pair of three-point baskets and steals that he converted into transition lay-ups.
The only other player to score as many points as McClure in the title game was post player Daniel Broughton who also finished with 18 points on the afternoon.
“I didn’t know I was going to have the game I had,” McClure said afterward. “I knew I was capable of it. I had an advantage on my coverage with my first step, and used it to my advantage to take it to the hole.” While Cooper may not have had the numbers that McClure did, he was happy to help out his friend and soon to be cross-town rival.
“I did all right,” Cooper said. “I had a little bit of an off game, but DeShone was having a great game, so I just gave him the ball.”
Cooper played most of the first quarter as the Wings starting point guard, and came away with some key assists in the opening frame to help Arkansas jump out to a narrow 6-5 lead by the 4:25 mark. He would play most of the second half, but could never find the perfect opportunity to score.
Rather than force the issue, Cooper played maturely and team focused, with a number of assists added to his totals in the last two quarters.
Bryant finished with two points, but it was his contributions on the defensive side of things that would make the difference in his performance. Bryant and teammate Broughton gave little inside to C-Pep, forcing them outside with a lineup that relied on inside play.
“We’ve been practicing and (we’ve) had our mind set on winning,” Bryant said. “We just wanted to keep taking it to the next step and do everything it takes to win. We did it, and it feels great to be a champion.”
FROM THE PUBLISHER >>Stax marks 50 years of great music
If you remember Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft,” the Staples Singers’ “Respect Yourself,” Eddy Floyd’s “Knock on Wood,” Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” Booker T. and the MGs’ “Green Onions” and the Mar-Keys’ “Last Night,” you would have enjoyed a concert last month in Memphis commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stax record label.
It seemed as if almost all of the label’s surviving artists showed up for a stirring concert at the Orpheum Theater (Redding, unfortunately, died in a plane crash 40 years ago). For nearly three hours, you could hear ’60s and ’70s soul and a little gospel hosted by rapper Chuck D. and “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson.
The concert was a benefit for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, which is built on the site of an old movie theater that served as a Stax studio and record shop on McLemore Avenue in Memphis.
The museum is an impressive showcase for Southern black music and history, and anyone who likes soul should make the trip to Memphis.
Jim Stewart, who founded the label with his sister, the late Estelle Axton, did not attend the concert. (Stewart and Axton had combined the first two letters of their last names for the company’s name.) Also absent was Al Bell, an Arkansas native who ran Stax in the last decade of its existence, before it went bankrupt in 1975.
The concert was organized by Stax’s longtime publicist, the ever-cheerful Deanie Parker, who had recorded a couple of singles for Stax when she was still in high school in the early 1960s.
Isaac Hayes, the headliner for the evening, shuffled out in a cape toward the end of the concert and sang his hits, including “Walk on By” and “The Theme from Shaft,” and he conducted a small orchestra for part of the performance for an enthusiastic sellout crowd.
Hayes hasn’t aged much since the 1970s, but he looked like he’s slowed down a bit, maybe from the discomfort of arthritis or some other ailment, or maybe he was smarting from being dropped from Comedy Central’s “South Park” cartoon program, where he’d done a voiceover for several years. But because he’s a Scientologist and the show had skewered Tom Cruise, another Scientologist, the church had told Hayes to move on.
The program’s creators recently killed off his character, dumping him off a cliff and disfiguring his face, and I suspect Hayes wasn’t amused.
He still looks like the black Moses and is still a charismatic entertainer (his “Presenting Isaac Hayes” CD is one of our Stax favorites), but he was far from the only big-name attraction: Booker T. and the MGs did their obligatory “Green Onions,” and trumpeter Wayne Jackson of the Mar-Keys stepped up and did “Last Night,” and there was still plenty more.
Otis Redding’s sons, Dexter and Otis III, performed with gusto, which would have pleased their dad, who died in a plane crash in 1967 at the age of 26. To think he’d only be 66 today and probably making great records. Otis’ boxed CD set “Dreams to Remember” from Rhino, as well as live recordings at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles are worth checking out.
Still looking great after all these years, Camden’s own Mable John sang a couple of numbers, including “Your Good Thing (Is About to End).” Mavis Staples of the Staples Singers, whose solo career is still going strong, sang “Respect Yourself” and a couple of other of the group’s hits.
William Bell (“I Forgot to Be Your Lover”), Edddie Floyd (“Knock on Wood”), Angie Stone (“Woman to Woman”) were among the other performers, plus the Soul Children with J. Blackfoot and young talent that Stax has signed now that the label has been revived under new ownership.
Gospel singer Rance Allen pretty much stole the show with his tent-revival performance. A veteran of the gospel circuit, he recorded for a Stax subsidiary. Allen is a big fellow — he’ll tell you he’s built for comfort — and was a crowd favorite.
He came back onstage with a couple of rousing finales with all the performers, who sang the Staples’ “I’ll Take You There” and Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” two songs that helped shape modern music.
Of course many great Stax artists are no longer with us: Little Milton died a couple of years ago, but you can listen to his “Walking the Back Streets” CD. Other late greats missing were Pops Staples (all the group’s Stax releases are terrific), as well as Rufus Thomas (“The Best of Rufus Thomas: Do the Funky Somethin’” from Rhino), although his daughter Carla (“Gee Whiz” from Collectables) still performs occasionally.
Also missing was Albert King, who grew up in Forrest City and Osceola but passed away in 1992 and is buried in Edmondson (Crittenden County) off I-40. His records apparently keep selling well since Stax continues to reissue them. They’re almost all first-rate. Some carry the Atlantic logo since Stax leased its best stuff to Atlantic, but almost all were recorded in Memphis and rank among the best blues of all time, quite an achievement for a label that was famous for soul.
His “King of the Blues Guitar” gets a top rating in the “Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings.” A previous but shorter version of that CD is called “Born Under a Bad Sign” with wonderful liner notes by Deanie Parker. All the hip white kids bought the record in the late 1960s and it has the immortal lines, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, you know I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” Cream and other rockers copied the song and made millions off King’s genius.
There are at least 15 of his Stax/Atlantic records in circulation (including several live recordings in San Francisco and Montreaux, Switzerland), making him one of the most prolific of all the Stax artists, surpassing Otis Redding, who died just as he became a superstar, and Isaac Hayes, who was still at his zenith when the company went under.
King (real name Nelson) made several fine records before and after his Stax years. He’s heard on “Door to Door,” his earliest singles recorded on the Parrot and Chess labels in the 1950s and also includes previously unissued Chess singles by the great Otis Rush from 1960.
Albert’s “Complete Bobbin and King Recordings, 1959-63” includes the rest of his earliest releases, when he developed his soulful singing style and powerful guitar playing, but was still under the influence of B.B. King (no relation, despite Albert’s claims to kinship, although they were both born near Indianola in the Mississippi Delta). Albert would develop his own signature style, and we’ll put him up there with B.B. and Freddy King in the blues pantheon. No wonder his fans call him King Albert.
You might also enjoy “In Session” with Stevie Ray Vaughan, recorded in a Canadian TV studio in 1983 but not issued till 1999.
Albert’s later work is featured on “Blues from the Road” (Fuel), a double live CD that’s out of print and is selling on eBay for $50 and more. At times he and his band didn’t make that much money in a single night.
Visit his grave sometime in Paradise Grove Cemetery in Ed-mondson and leave him a small bottle of Jack Daniels with some change.
It seemed as if almost all of the label’s surviving artists showed up for a stirring concert at the Orpheum Theater (Redding, unfortunately, died in a plane crash 40 years ago). For nearly three hours, you could hear ’60s and ’70s soul and a little gospel hosted by rapper Chuck D. and “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson.
The concert was a benefit for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, which is built on the site of an old movie theater that served as a Stax studio and record shop on McLemore Avenue in Memphis.
The museum is an impressive showcase for Southern black music and history, and anyone who likes soul should make the trip to Memphis.
Jim Stewart, who founded the label with his sister, the late Estelle Axton, did not attend the concert. (Stewart and Axton had combined the first two letters of their last names for the company’s name.) Also absent was Al Bell, an Arkansas native who ran Stax in the last decade of its existence, before it went bankrupt in 1975.
The concert was organized by Stax’s longtime publicist, the ever-cheerful Deanie Parker, who had recorded a couple of singles for Stax when she was still in high school in the early 1960s.
Isaac Hayes, the headliner for the evening, shuffled out in a cape toward the end of the concert and sang his hits, including “Walk on By” and “The Theme from Shaft,” and he conducted a small orchestra for part of the performance for an enthusiastic sellout crowd.
Hayes hasn’t aged much since the 1970s, but he looked like he’s slowed down a bit, maybe from the discomfort of arthritis or some other ailment, or maybe he was smarting from being dropped from Comedy Central’s “South Park” cartoon program, where he’d done a voiceover for several years. But because he’s a Scientologist and the show had skewered Tom Cruise, another Scientologist, the church had told Hayes to move on.
The program’s creators recently killed off his character, dumping him off a cliff and disfiguring his face, and I suspect Hayes wasn’t amused.
He still looks like the black Moses and is still a charismatic entertainer (his “Presenting Isaac Hayes” CD is one of our Stax favorites), but he was far from the only big-name attraction: Booker T. and the MGs did their obligatory “Green Onions,” and trumpeter Wayne Jackson of the Mar-Keys stepped up and did “Last Night,” and there was still plenty more.
Otis Redding’s sons, Dexter and Otis III, performed with gusto, which would have pleased their dad, who died in a plane crash in 1967 at the age of 26. To think he’d only be 66 today and probably making great records. Otis’ boxed CD set “Dreams to Remember” from Rhino, as well as live recordings at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles are worth checking out.
Still looking great after all these years, Camden’s own Mable John sang a couple of numbers, including “Your Good Thing (Is About to End).” Mavis Staples of the Staples Singers, whose solo career is still going strong, sang “Respect Yourself” and a couple of other of the group’s hits.
William Bell (“I Forgot to Be Your Lover”), Edddie Floyd (“Knock on Wood”), Angie Stone (“Woman to Woman”) were among the other performers, plus the Soul Children with J. Blackfoot and young talent that Stax has signed now that the label has been revived under new ownership.
Gospel singer Rance Allen pretty much stole the show with his tent-revival performance. A veteran of the gospel circuit, he recorded for a Stax subsidiary. Allen is a big fellow — he’ll tell you he’s built for comfort — and was a crowd favorite.
He came back onstage with a couple of rousing finales with all the performers, who sang the Staples’ “I’ll Take You There” and Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” two songs that helped shape modern music.
Of course many great Stax artists are no longer with us: Little Milton died a couple of years ago, but you can listen to his “Walking the Back Streets” CD. Other late greats missing were Pops Staples (all the group’s Stax releases are terrific), as well as Rufus Thomas (“The Best of Rufus Thomas: Do the Funky Somethin’” from Rhino), although his daughter Carla (“Gee Whiz” from Collectables) still performs occasionally.
Also missing was Albert King, who grew up in Forrest City and Osceola but passed away in 1992 and is buried in Edmondson (Crittenden County) off I-40. His records apparently keep selling well since Stax continues to reissue them. They’re almost all first-rate. Some carry the Atlantic logo since Stax leased its best stuff to Atlantic, but almost all were recorded in Memphis and rank among the best blues of all time, quite an achievement for a label that was famous for soul.
His “King of the Blues Guitar” gets a top rating in the “Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings.” A previous but shorter version of that CD is called “Born Under a Bad Sign” with wonderful liner notes by Deanie Parker. All the hip white kids bought the record in the late 1960s and it has the immortal lines, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, you know I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” Cream and other rockers copied the song and made millions off King’s genius.
There are at least 15 of his Stax/Atlantic records in circulation (including several live recordings in San Francisco and Montreaux, Switzerland), making him one of the most prolific of all the Stax artists, surpassing Otis Redding, who died just as he became a superstar, and Isaac Hayes, who was still at his zenith when the company went under.
King (real name Nelson) made several fine records before and after his Stax years. He’s heard on “Door to Door,” his earliest singles recorded on the Parrot and Chess labels in the 1950s and also includes previously unissued Chess singles by the great Otis Rush from 1960.
Albert’s “Complete Bobbin and King Recordings, 1959-63” includes the rest of his earliest releases, when he developed his soulful singing style and powerful guitar playing, but was still under the influence of B.B. King (no relation, despite Albert’s claims to kinship, although they were both born near Indianola in the Mississippi Delta). Albert would develop his own signature style, and we’ll put him up there with B.B. and Freddy King in the blues pantheon. No wonder his fans call him King Albert.
You might also enjoy “In Session” with Stevie Ray Vaughan, recorded in a Canadian TV studio in 1983 but not issued till 1999.
Albert’s later work is featured on “Blues from the Road” (Fuel), a double live CD that’s out of print and is selling on eBay for $50 and more. At times he and his band didn’t make that much money in a single night.
Visit his grave sometime in Paradise Grove Cemetery in Ed-mondson and leave him a small bottle of Jack Daniels with some change.
OBITUARIES >> 07-14-07
Ione Cranfill
Ione R. Cranfill, 77, of Beebe passed away July 11. She was born Sept. 15, 1929 in Sac City, Iowa, to the late Otis and Minnie Smith.
Also preceding her in death was one sister, Wanda Miller of Anaheim, Calif.
Survivors include five children: Karen “Kay” Rogers of Cabot, Ralph Stevens, Jessine Neemann and husband Michael of Cabot, Donnie Stevens of Egypt, Delinda “Wendy” Davidson of Cabot; one sister, Monona Johnson of Iowa; 14 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services are scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, July 14 at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church with burial immediately following at Concord Cemetery in Lonoke. Funeral arrangements will be by Thomas Funeral Service in Cabot.
Royce Hutchins
Royce Lane Hutchins, 81, died July 11. He was a member of Lynch View Baptist Church in North Little Rock and an Army veteran.
Survivors include one son, Ronald L. Hutchins of Springdale; daughter, Alisa Kelley of Jack-sonville; three brothers, Vernon Hutchins of Arkadelphia, Aubrey E. Hutchins of Cabot and Clark W. Hutchins of Bee Branch; one sister, Catherine Viola Houser of North Little Rock; five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and a host of other relatives and friends.
Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 14 at Lynch View Baptist Church in North Little Rock with burial in Weedon Cemetery, near Lonoke. Funeral arrangements are by Boyd Funeral Home in Lonoke.
Joe Bechel
Joe Bechel, 77 , died July 6.
He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Kathryn Bechel; son, Robert Bechel; daughters, Debbie and husband Banks Breashears, Cindy and husband Corey Burns and Beverly and husband Chuck Overturf, all of Lonoke; grandchildren, Gina and husband Mark Clark, Michele and husband Ca-sey Findley, Douglas and Tyler Breashears, Sterling, Emily and Caroline Burns, Blake and Madison Overturf; two great-grandchildren, Drake and Brilynn Findley; brothers, Frankie and wife Brenda Bechel of Hernando, Miss., Charlie and wife Lora Jean Bechel of Jones Mill, Jerry and wife Nancy Bechel of Germantown, Tenn.; and a sister, Betty Sue and husband Billy Mauppins of Wilson.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Raymond and Maggie Bechel and brothers, Ray and James Bechel.
Funeral services were July 9 at Boyd Funeral Home in Lonoke.
Betty Clement
Betty Jo Brumett Clement, 76, died July 6 at Woodland Hills Nursing Home in Little Rock. She was born Feb. 25, 1931 to Archibald and Hazel Brumett at Lonoke.
She graduated from Lonoke High School in 1948 as valedictorian of her class.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Fred Clement, of the Furlow Community near Lonoke.
She is survived by a son, Skipper Clement of Furlow; a daughter, Kathi Howard of North Little Rock; son, Roger Clement and wife Libby of Little Rock; brother, Donald Brumett of Lonoke; and seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services were July 9 at Concord United Methodist Church, with burial in Concord Cemetery. Arrangements were by Boyd Funeral Home of Lonoke.
Memorials may be made to Arkansas Hospice in her honor.
Ione R. Cranfill, 77, of Beebe passed away July 11. She was born Sept. 15, 1929 in Sac City, Iowa, to the late Otis and Minnie Smith.
Also preceding her in death was one sister, Wanda Miller of Anaheim, Calif.
Survivors include five children: Karen “Kay” Rogers of Cabot, Ralph Stevens, Jessine Neemann and husband Michael of Cabot, Donnie Stevens of Egypt, Delinda “Wendy” Davidson of Cabot; one sister, Monona Johnson of Iowa; 14 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services are scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, July 14 at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church with burial immediately following at Concord Cemetery in Lonoke. Funeral arrangements will be by Thomas Funeral Service in Cabot.
Royce Hutchins
Royce Lane Hutchins, 81, died July 11. He was a member of Lynch View Baptist Church in North Little Rock and an Army veteran.
Survivors include one son, Ronald L. Hutchins of Springdale; daughter, Alisa Kelley of Jack-sonville; three brothers, Vernon Hutchins of Arkadelphia, Aubrey E. Hutchins of Cabot and Clark W. Hutchins of Bee Branch; one sister, Catherine Viola Houser of North Little Rock; five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and a host of other relatives and friends.
Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 14 at Lynch View Baptist Church in North Little Rock with burial in Weedon Cemetery, near Lonoke. Funeral arrangements are by Boyd Funeral Home in Lonoke.
Joe Bechel
Joe Bechel, 77 , died July 6.
He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Kathryn Bechel; son, Robert Bechel; daughters, Debbie and husband Banks Breashears, Cindy and husband Corey Burns and Beverly and husband Chuck Overturf, all of Lonoke; grandchildren, Gina and husband Mark Clark, Michele and husband Ca-sey Findley, Douglas and Tyler Breashears, Sterling, Emily and Caroline Burns, Blake and Madison Overturf; two great-grandchildren, Drake and Brilynn Findley; brothers, Frankie and wife Brenda Bechel of Hernando, Miss., Charlie and wife Lora Jean Bechel of Jones Mill, Jerry and wife Nancy Bechel of Germantown, Tenn.; and a sister, Betty Sue and husband Billy Mauppins of Wilson.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Raymond and Maggie Bechel and brothers, Ray and James Bechel.
Funeral services were July 9 at Boyd Funeral Home in Lonoke.
Betty Clement
Betty Jo Brumett Clement, 76, died July 6 at Woodland Hills Nursing Home in Little Rock. She was born Feb. 25, 1931 to Archibald and Hazel Brumett at Lonoke.
She graduated from Lonoke High School in 1948 as valedictorian of her class.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Fred Clement, of the Furlow Community near Lonoke.
She is survived by a son, Skipper Clement of Furlow; a daughter, Kathi Howard of North Little Rock; son, Roger Clement and wife Libby of Little Rock; brother, Donald Brumett of Lonoke; and seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services were July 9 at Concord United Methodist Church, with burial in Concord Cemetery. Arrangements were by Boyd Funeral Home of Lonoke.
Memorials may be made to Arkansas Hospice in her honor.
EDITORIALS>>Water utility throws it away
The public interest, which includes the assurance that people will have clean and affordable water, is not always paramount when it collides with the profit goals of developers — not, anyway, when municipal fathers in Little Rock do the reckoning.
Still, we were astonished this week when the Central Arkansas Water Board of Commissioners voted to allow Rick Ferguson to build palatial homes in the Lake Maumelle watershed and also give him $1 million for his trouble.
Commissioners adopted a “settlement” with Ferguson — “sweetheart deal” is a better description — that in effect gives Ferguson and any other business that he may hand the project off to in the future a waiver from its watershed protection plan.
The water utility just couldn’t stand success. The utility — more aptly, its angry customers — beat down an attempt in the legislature to give the development giant Deltic Timber Corp. legal authority to plunder the watershed of 400,000 water customers in central Arkansas, and it has won victories in the courts, too. It condemned Ferguson’s speculative land along the lake in 2004, and the Pulaski Circuit Court ruled last year that the condemnation was in the public interest.
But then the utility’s governing commission decided suddenly to capitulate and give Ferguson permission to build the mammoth Waterview Estates, which will stretch over 1,100 acres west of Little Rock. Ferguson offered to build a concrete ditch that theoretically would channel the runoff from the landscaped slopes on which the luxurious homes will be built away from the lake and the intake for the region’s water supply. That is the water, remember, that you will make your coffee with every morning.
There is no guarantee that the little canal will work, nor is there any provision for its failure. If you cannot trust a bunch of developers, the commissioners theorize, whom can you trust?
Central Arkansas Water spent 18 months and $1.2 million developing a watershed management plan, and the commission adopted it with fanfare in February. We felt so much better. There could be no residential development in an area described as Critical Area A. The disputed part of Waterview Estates will be in Critical Area A. So how can the commissioners do it?
Commissioner Jane Dickey, a lawyer, explained that the ditch effectively took Waterview Estates out of Critical Area A, even though on the map it lay inside it, so the commission is not really violating its own plan. Now do you feel safer?
Why would the waterworks capitulate and go along — actually, encourage — a development that threatens water purity when it has won the battle in the eyes of the courts and certainly the public? You see, Waterview Estates LLC would make the utility pay a huge price for the condemned land that it had to surrender, and the payments to Ferguson would raise your water bills.
So the utility must surrender to the developers to save you money. But here is the real equation: Like Deltic Timber, Ferguson acquired the land knowing that it was in the watershed of central Arkansas’ main water supply. The reason that the land has a tremendous market value (although the speculators continue to pay county and school taxes on the land, pennies per acre, as if it were virtually worthless) is that Central Arkansas Water and its customers paid millions of dollars years ago to acquire land and build a lake in those valleys, creating one of the finest scenic vistas in Arkansas.
The developers are profiting obscenely from taxpayers’ investment to create a pristine water supply for their posterity. Now the taxpayers must also subsidize putting that water supply at risk. Is something wrong with this picture?
Still, we were astonished this week when the Central Arkansas Water Board of Commissioners voted to allow Rick Ferguson to build palatial homes in the Lake Maumelle watershed and also give him $1 million for his trouble.
Commissioners adopted a “settlement” with Ferguson — “sweetheart deal” is a better description — that in effect gives Ferguson and any other business that he may hand the project off to in the future a waiver from its watershed protection plan.
The water utility just couldn’t stand success. The utility — more aptly, its angry customers — beat down an attempt in the legislature to give the development giant Deltic Timber Corp. legal authority to plunder the watershed of 400,000 water customers in central Arkansas, and it has won victories in the courts, too. It condemned Ferguson’s speculative land along the lake in 2004, and the Pulaski Circuit Court ruled last year that the condemnation was in the public interest.
But then the utility’s governing commission decided suddenly to capitulate and give Ferguson permission to build the mammoth Waterview Estates, which will stretch over 1,100 acres west of Little Rock. Ferguson offered to build a concrete ditch that theoretically would channel the runoff from the landscaped slopes on which the luxurious homes will be built away from the lake and the intake for the region’s water supply. That is the water, remember, that you will make your coffee with every morning.
There is no guarantee that the little canal will work, nor is there any provision for its failure. If you cannot trust a bunch of developers, the commissioners theorize, whom can you trust?
Central Arkansas Water spent 18 months and $1.2 million developing a watershed management plan, and the commission adopted it with fanfare in February. We felt so much better. There could be no residential development in an area described as Critical Area A. The disputed part of Waterview Estates will be in Critical Area A. So how can the commissioners do it?
Commissioner Jane Dickey, a lawyer, explained that the ditch effectively took Waterview Estates out of Critical Area A, even though on the map it lay inside it, so the commission is not really violating its own plan. Now do you feel safer?
Why would the waterworks capitulate and go along — actually, encourage — a development that threatens water purity when it has won the battle in the eyes of the courts and certainly the public? You see, Waterview Estates LLC would make the utility pay a huge price for the condemned land that it had to surrender, and the payments to Ferguson would raise your water bills.
So the utility must surrender to the developers to save you money. But here is the real equation: Like Deltic Timber, Ferguson acquired the land knowing that it was in the watershed of central Arkansas’ main water supply. The reason that the land has a tremendous market value (although the speculators continue to pay county and school taxes on the land, pennies per acre, as if it were virtually worthless) is that Central Arkansas Water and its customers paid millions of dollars years ago to acquire land and build a lake in those valleys, creating one of the finest scenic vistas in Arkansas.
The developers are profiting obscenely from taxpayers’ investment to create a pristine water supply for their posterity. Now the taxpayers must also subsidize putting that water supply at risk. Is something wrong with this picture?
EVENTS>>Summer 2007
Drug Court Awareness Day planned Thursday in Lonoke
The public is invited to celebrate Drug Court Awareness at 11:30 a.m. Thursday on the Lonoke County Courthouse grounds sponsored by Judge Phillip Whiteaker, presiding judge on the 23rd Judicial Circuit Drug Court. Food will be provided by Community Bank.
Cabot High School Class of ‘87plans 20-year reunion
The Cabot High School Class of 1987 will hold its 20-year reunion in October. The two-day event will kick off Friday, Oct. 12 at the Cabot Panther homecoming football game and will continue with a dinner in Little Rock on Saturday, Oct. 13. For more information, class members can contact Lisa (Young) Lee at CabotHigh87@yahoo.com or visit the official class website at www.CabotHigh87.com.
Lonoke County retired teachers meet Monday
Lonoke County Retired Teachers will meet Monday, Oct. 8 at 11:30 a.m. The meeting will be held at Mt. Tabot UMC in Cabot. Lunch will be finger food. Bring your favorite food. Speaker will Mary Alice Hughes speaking about coming changes in the 2008 insurance program.
The group is asked to bring baby items such as forumula and diapers to be dontated to Safe Haven. All retired school personel are encouraged to join the group. For more information call Presisdent Francise Wittenberg at 843-5285.
Wing Ding to be held in Jacksonville this weekend
The Jacksonville Wing Ding festival will be held at Dupree Park Saturday, Oct. 6 starting at 7:30 a.m. Admission and parking are free. Many events are planned.
From 7:30 a.m. to noon, Ashland chemical company will sponsor a fishing derby. A 5K benefiting Special Olympics Arkansas will begin at 7:30 a.m. At 8:30 a.m., registration for the Central Arkansas Volleyball Association’s game begins.
The CenturyTel Food Court will be serving hot dogs, corn dogs, shish kebabs, roasted corn, kettle corn, pizza, nachos, funnel cakes, barbeque, snowcones, fried Twinkies and Oreos, catfish and more all day.
Leader Publishing is holding a chicken wing cook off from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Junior Auxiliary children’s tent will open at 9 a.m. and will have face painting, puppet shows, balloons, a box maze and games. There will also be a moonwalk, a trackless train, pony rides and more amusements for all ages.
A Rebsamen Medical Center health tent, the Firefighter’s Exhibit and the Moon Mullins Memorial Bike Show will be open all day beginning at 9. At 9:30 a.m., First Electric Co-op Glider Wars will assemble. Competition starts at 10:30 a.m. Paddleboat rides sponsored by Arkansas Federal Credit Union will be available from noon to 6 p.m. Entertainment on the Community Bank and First Arkansas Bank & Trust stages will last all day.
White County Junior Miss committee offers scholarship money
The White County Junior Miss committee is searching for college-bound young women who are high school seniors and have grade-point averages of at least 2.5 to compete for scholarship money.
Information letters are available in the counselors’ offices at each White County high school.
Those who are interested in entering the program should go to America’s Junior Miss website at www.ajm.org and click on the “Join Us” screen.
The White County Junior Miss program will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17 in the administration auditorium at Harding University. The program is in its tenth year.
For questions, contact the local chairman Cindy Dixon at 501-278-5831 or Robyn Pratt at 501-593-1461 or state chairman Nancy Thompson at 501-268-6292.
Cabot High School homecoming parade will be held Sunday
The Cabot High School homecoming parade will be held at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 7 beginning at the intersection of Panther Trail and Hwy. 89.
The parade ends at Main Street so observers should find a viewing position on Hwy. 89 between Main Street and Panther Trail.
In case of rain, the parade will not be rescheduled and instead, floats may be taken to the high school track for the homecoming game.
Cabot High School’s homecoming game will be held Friday, Oct. 12 as will homecoming games in Beebe and Sylvan Hills High Schools. Jacksonville will have homecoming festivities on Friday, Oct. 19.
Pulaski County Juvenile Court is now recruiting individuals to be trained as volunteer probation officers. These volunteers work with first time offenders to provide one-on-one supervision in an effort to redirect youth at risk.
The next training session for new volunteers will be Saturday, Oct. 6 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with participation in a mock trial the following Tuesday, Oct. 9 from 6 to 9 p.m., for a total of 12 hours. For more information or an application call 501-340-6676.
16th Section Community planning Saturday fish fry
The Sixteenth Section Community Center will host a Fish Fry, All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, on Saturday, Oct. 6th beginning at 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. Tickets are $9 each for adults and $4 for children ages 5 to 10. Includes bottomless drink and a variety of homemade desserts. Public and groups are invited. Funds raised will be used for maintenance of the center. Located on Hwy 319 East, two blocks from the intersection of Hwy 5 and Hwy 319.
Brockington will widen to 5 lanes in Sherwood
The state Highway Commission has opened bids to improve roads in Pulaski County, including the widening of approximately one mile of Brockington Road in Sherwood. Plans are to widen Brockington Road to five lanes and add sidewalks. The contract was awarded to Mobley Contractors of Morrilton for $4,297,032.
“This widening project will begin at Maryland Avenue and extend northward to Hwy. 107,” said commissioner Cliff Hoofman of North Little Rock. “The improvements will ease congestion through the area and make this a safer roadway for motorists in the area of Sherwood. Future plans call for widening the south end of the roadway down to Kiehl Avenue.”
The second project is to construct a new overpass for Hwy. 100 over I-40 at Crystal Hill and was awarded to Mobley Contractors for $6,076,585.
“The new overpass on Hwy. 100 will be five lanes and will better handle traffic in the Crystal Hill area,” Hoofman added.
Hoofman said construction could begin on the projects in six to eight weeks, weather permitting. The completion of the Brockington Road and the Hwy. 100 projects are expected in 2009.
Cabot City Beautiful Fall Cleanup set Saturday
Cabot City Beautiful Fall Cleanup is scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, behind the Public Schools Administration Building at 602 N. Lincoln St. Cleanup will continue until noon when lunch will be provided to all volunteers.
This fall’s cleanup will consist of litter pick-up only. Please call Irene Ernst at 501-941-0118 with any questions.
Knights of Columbus planning Oktoberfest
The Knights of Columbus, St. Jude Council 11604, in Jacksonville will hold its annual Oktober Fest at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13 at St. Jude Catholic Church, 2403 McArthur Drive.
Delicious German food and beverages will be served. There will be German music and dancing. The cost is $25 per couple or $15 for individuals.
This is for adults only. For information call Linda Seidl at 501-843-7655 or 501-626-1547.
Ashland in Jacksonville holding response drill
Ashland Performance Materials manufacturing plant in Jacksonville will have an emergency response drill at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday at 1901 North Redmond Road. Jacksonville’s fire and police departments, the Little Rock Air Force Base fire department and Rebsamen Medical Center will be participants in the annual exercise.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, Pulaski County Office of Emergency Management and the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management will monitor the exercise.
The purpose of the simulated drill is to let emergency workers practice their training and to test coordination and cooperation in dealing with an emergency situation. The plant’s evacuation alarm will sound the start of the drill. Jacksonville police will monitor traffic on Redmond Road near the plant during the exercise. The drill will be completed within two hours.
Avian bird show and sale Saturday in Jacksonville
Avian enthusiasts from all over the U.S. are flocking to Jacksonville. Saturday’s show will feature hundreds of birds and the avian experts who have raised them. There will be a great selection of birds, cages, toys, feeds and hard-to-find avian specialty items for show and sale. Truck-loads of brand new cages will be sold at wholesale cost to the public. The show is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29 at the Jacksonville Community Center. For more information, call 901-878-1307 or visit www.birdshows.com.
The 2007 Cabot High School Homecoming Parade will be held on Sunday, Oct. 7.
The parade will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the intersection of Panther Trail and
Hwy. 89. It is emphasized to the community that the parade ends at Main
Street; therefore, observers should find a viewing position on Hwy. 89
between Main Street and Panther Trail.
In case of rain, the parade will not be rescheduled but instead of the
parade, floats may be taken to the high school track for the homecoming
game.
Registration forms are available online at the Cabot Public Schools website
www.cabt.k12.ar, the Cabot High School website
www.cabot.k12.ar.us/schools/chs, or at any school office. The deadline to
register is Friday, September 28.
Commodities being distributed Thursday
The Community Action Program of Central Arkansas will hold a commodity distribution from 8:30 a.m. until noon, Thursday, Sept. 27 at the A.J. “Bo” Baker National Guard Armory, 3105 S. Main Street, Searcy.
You must show proof of income (not more than $1,483 for a two-person household) and White County residency to receive the commodities which include canned corn and carrots, tomato soup, spaghetti sauce, dried milk, peanut butter, rice, beans and grapefruit juice.
Jacksonville Dog Park committee to hold meeting
The Jacksonville Dog Park Committee will have its monthly meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the Jacksonville Community Center.
For more information call 982-0818.
Sherwood church will host revival services
Sherwood First Church of the Nazarene will hold revival services Wednesday through Sunday, Sept. 26-30 with Rev. Pat Burkhalter. Services will begin at 7p.m. on weeknights, 6 p.m. on Saturday evening and will meet at regular worship time on Sunday morning.
There will be a fall picnic held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 13.
Military spouses club plans Mad Hatter tea party
Please join the Little Rock Air Force Base Spouses Club for a Mad Hatter Tea Party luncheon on Thursday, Sept. 27 at the LRAFB Conference Center. Membership is open to any spouse of an active duty, guard, reserve or DoD employee or retiree. Check-in and daycare drop-off begins at 10:30 a.m. with the tea party starting at 11 a.m.
Tjuana Byrd, our guest speaker for the function, is from the Susan G. Komen Foundation, dedicated to education and research about causes, treatment, and the search for a cure for breast cancer. The tea party meal will be grilled chicken salad, fresh bread, coffee, tea, water and a dessert buffet; $9.95 for club members, $10.95 for non-club members.
Contests and prizes will be given for best tea party hat and “Alice in Wonderland” trivia. Limited childcare is $4 per child (cash only) at the TCAC. To RSVP for the function and childcare, visit www.littlerockspouses.com or contact Rachel Kreps at 501-765-0316.
Reservations are required by 5 p.m. Monday, September 24.
Juvenile volunteer probation officers needed
Pulaski County Juvenile Court is now recruiting individuals to be trained as volunteer probation officers. These volunteers work with first- time offenders to provide one-on-one supervision in an effort to redirect youth at risk. Any person who is over the age of 21, has no criminal history or involvement in the Juvenile Court System, and is interested in helping our youth may volunteer.
Your time commitment can be as little as on hour a week or as much time as your schedule allows.
The next training session for new volunteers will be held Saturday, Oct. 6 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and participation in a mock trial the following Tuesday, Oct. 9 from 6 to 9 p.m. for a total of 12 hours. For more information or an application call 340-6676.
Cabot Fall cleanup slated for Sept. 29
Cabot City Beautiful’s Fall Cleanup will be held Saturday, Sept. 29, beginning behind the Public Schools Administration Building at 602 N. Lincoln St. Cleanup begins at 9 a.m. and will continue until noon, at which time lunch will be provided to all volunteers. This year’s cleanup will consist of litter pick up only. For questions or to volunteer, call Irene Ernst at 941-0118.
Car seat safety check planned at Cabot Wal-Mart
The Junior Auxiliary of Cabot, will host the sixth annual car seat safety check at the Cabot Wal-Mart SuperCenter from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29.
The car seat check is free and open to anyone using a child restraint system in a vehicle. Car seats will be checked by certified car seat safety technicians from Cabot Junior Auxiliary, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the Cabot Fire and Police Departments and the Little Rock Police Department.
According to Arkansas law, children younger than 5 years of age and weighing less than 60 pounds must be in a car seat. Children age 6 to 14 and weighing more than 60 pounds must use an adult seat belt.
For more information contact Shelley Tounzen, Junior Auxiliary of Cabot Buckle Buddies Coordinator, 501-993-4496.
Cabot high school homecoming parade slated
The 2007 Cabot High School Homecoming Parade will be held on Sunday, Oct. 7. The parade will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the intersection of Panther Trail and Hwy. 89. It is emphasized to the community that the parade ends at Main Street; therefore, observers should find a viewing position on Hwy 89 between Main Street and Panther Trail.
In case of rain, the parade will not be rescheduled. In lieu of a parade, floats may be taken to the High School track for the Homecoming game.
Registration forms are available online at the Cabot Public Schools website www.cabt.k12.ar, the Cabot High School website www.cabot.k12.ar.us/schools/chs, or at any school office. The deadline to register is Friday, September 28th.
American Red Cross has issued an appeal for persons throughout the state to donate blood as soon as possible. To locate and schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVE LIFE (1-800-448-3543).
Cabot artist selected for annual exhibition
Marty Smith, a Cabot artist who works at The Leader, will have her work displayed at the Fine Arts Center, 610-A Central Ave. in Hot Springs for the third annual Diamond National Juried Exhibition.
Smith is a graphic designer and web master at The Leader.
The exhibit runs from Sept. 5 to Oct. 2 with an opening reception to be held from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7.
Gallery hours will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
For more information on the exhibit and directions to the center, one may call 501-624-0489.
National Senior Center Month will be observed
This September, the Jacksonville Senior Center invites the community to learn more about its programs and services during National Senior Center Month.
The theme of this year’s celebration is ‘Senior Centers Work!’ and a number of activities have been planned, including bargains, beans and cornbread, a craft sale for the entire community, at 8 a.m. Friday, Sept. 21. During the sale beans, cornbread and a yummy dessert will be served for $5. If you are interested in having a booth at the crafts event or to purchase tickets for the lunch, contact David Adamson at 501-982-7531.
The public is invited to celebrate Drug Court Awareness at 11:30 a.m. Thursday on the Lonoke County Courthouse grounds sponsored by Judge Phillip Whiteaker, presiding judge on the 23rd Judicial Circuit Drug Court. Food will be provided by Community Bank.
Cabot High School Class of ‘87plans 20-year reunion
The Cabot High School Class of 1987 will hold its 20-year reunion in October. The two-day event will kick off Friday, Oct. 12 at the Cabot Panther homecoming football game and will continue with a dinner in Little Rock on Saturday, Oct. 13. For more information, class members can contact Lisa (Young) Lee at CabotHigh87@yahoo.com or visit the official class website at www.CabotHigh87.com.
Lonoke County retired teachers meet Monday
Lonoke County Retired Teachers will meet Monday, Oct. 8 at 11:30 a.m. The meeting will be held at Mt. Tabot UMC in Cabot. Lunch will be finger food. Bring your favorite food. Speaker will Mary Alice Hughes speaking about coming changes in the 2008 insurance program.
The group is asked to bring baby items such as forumula and diapers to be dontated to Safe Haven. All retired school personel are encouraged to join the group. For more information call Presisdent Francise Wittenberg at 843-5285.
Wing Ding to be held in Jacksonville this weekend
The Jacksonville Wing Ding festival will be held at Dupree Park Saturday, Oct. 6 starting at 7:30 a.m. Admission and parking are free. Many events are planned.
From 7:30 a.m. to noon, Ashland chemical company will sponsor a fishing derby. A 5K benefiting Special Olympics Arkansas will begin at 7:30 a.m. At 8:30 a.m., registration for the Central Arkansas Volleyball Association’s game begins.
The CenturyTel Food Court will be serving hot dogs, corn dogs, shish kebabs, roasted corn, kettle corn, pizza, nachos, funnel cakes, barbeque, snowcones, fried Twinkies and Oreos, catfish and more all day.
Leader Publishing is holding a chicken wing cook off from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Junior Auxiliary children’s tent will open at 9 a.m. and will have face painting, puppet shows, balloons, a box maze and games. There will also be a moonwalk, a trackless train, pony rides and more amusements for all ages.
A Rebsamen Medical Center health tent, the Firefighter’s Exhibit and the Moon Mullins Memorial Bike Show will be open all day beginning at 9. At 9:30 a.m., First Electric Co-op Glider Wars will assemble. Competition starts at 10:30 a.m. Paddleboat rides sponsored by Arkansas Federal Credit Union will be available from noon to 6 p.m. Entertainment on the Community Bank and First Arkansas Bank & Trust stages will last all day.
White County Junior Miss committee offers scholarship money
The White County Junior Miss committee is searching for college-bound young women who are high school seniors and have grade-point averages of at least 2.5 to compete for scholarship money.
Information letters are available in the counselors’ offices at each White County high school.
Those who are interested in entering the program should go to America’s Junior Miss website at www.ajm.org and click on the “Join Us” screen.
The White County Junior Miss program will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17 in the administration auditorium at Harding University. The program is in its tenth year.
For questions, contact the local chairman Cindy Dixon at 501-278-5831 or Robyn Pratt at 501-593-1461 or state chairman Nancy Thompson at 501-268-6292.
Cabot High School homecoming parade will be held Sunday
The Cabot High School homecoming parade will be held at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 7 beginning at the intersection of Panther Trail and Hwy. 89.
The parade ends at Main Street so observers should find a viewing position on Hwy. 89 between Main Street and Panther Trail.
In case of rain, the parade will not be rescheduled and instead, floats may be taken to the high school track for the homecoming game.
Cabot High School’s homecoming game will be held Friday, Oct. 12 as will homecoming games in Beebe and Sylvan Hills High Schools. Jacksonville will have homecoming festivities on Friday, Oct. 19.
Pulaski County Juvenile Court is now recruiting individuals to be trained as volunteer probation officers. These volunteers work with first time offenders to provide one-on-one supervision in an effort to redirect youth at risk.
The next training session for new volunteers will be Saturday, Oct. 6 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with participation in a mock trial the following Tuesday, Oct. 9 from 6 to 9 p.m., for a total of 12 hours. For more information or an application call 501-340-6676.
16th Section Community planning Saturday fish fry
The Sixteenth Section Community Center will host a Fish Fry, All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, on Saturday, Oct. 6th beginning at 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. Tickets are $9 each for adults and $4 for children ages 5 to 10. Includes bottomless drink and a variety of homemade desserts. Public and groups are invited. Funds raised will be used for maintenance of the center. Located on Hwy 319 East, two blocks from the intersection of Hwy 5 and Hwy 319.
Brockington will widen to 5 lanes in Sherwood
The state Highway Commission has opened bids to improve roads in Pulaski County, including the widening of approximately one mile of Brockington Road in Sherwood. Plans are to widen Brockington Road to five lanes and add sidewalks. The contract was awarded to Mobley Contractors of Morrilton for $4,297,032.
“This widening project will begin at Maryland Avenue and extend northward to Hwy. 107,” said commissioner Cliff Hoofman of North Little Rock. “The improvements will ease congestion through the area and make this a safer roadway for motorists in the area of Sherwood. Future plans call for widening the south end of the roadway down to Kiehl Avenue.”
The second project is to construct a new overpass for Hwy. 100 over I-40 at Crystal Hill and was awarded to Mobley Contractors for $6,076,585.
“The new overpass on Hwy. 100 will be five lanes and will better handle traffic in the Crystal Hill area,” Hoofman added.
Hoofman said construction could begin on the projects in six to eight weeks, weather permitting. The completion of the Brockington Road and the Hwy. 100 projects are expected in 2009.
Cabot City Beautiful Fall Cleanup set Saturday
Cabot City Beautiful Fall Cleanup is scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, behind the Public Schools Administration Building at 602 N. Lincoln St. Cleanup will continue until noon when lunch will be provided to all volunteers.
This fall’s cleanup will consist of litter pick-up only. Please call Irene Ernst at 501-941-0118 with any questions.
Knights of Columbus planning Oktoberfest
The Knights of Columbus, St. Jude Council 11604, in Jacksonville will hold its annual Oktober Fest at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13 at St. Jude Catholic Church, 2403 McArthur Drive.
Delicious German food and beverages will be served. There will be German music and dancing. The cost is $25 per couple or $15 for individuals.
This is for adults only. For information call Linda Seidl at 501-843-7655 or 501-626-1547.
Ashland in Jacksonville holding response drill
Ashland Performance Materials manufacturing plant in Jacksonville will have an emergency response drill at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday at 1901 North Redmond Road. Jacksonville’s fire and police departments, the Little Rock Air Force Base fire department and Rebsamen Medical Center will be participants in the annual exercise.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, Pulaski County Office of Emergency Management and the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management will monitor the exercise.
The purpose of the simulated drill is to let emergency workers practice their training and to test coordination and cooperation in dealing with an emergency situation. The plant’s evacuation alarm will sound the start of the drill. Jacksonville police will monitor traffic on Redmond Road near the plant during the exercise. The drill will be completed within two hours.
Avian bird show and sale Saturday in Jacksonville
Avian enthusiasts from all over the U.S. are flocking to Jacksonville. Saturday’s show will feature hundreds of birds and the avian experts who have raised them. There will be a great selection of birds, cages, toys, feeds and hard-to-find avian specialty items for show and sale. Truck-loads of brand new cages will be sold at wholesale cost to the public. The show is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29 at the Jacksonville Community Center. For more information, call 901-878-1307 or visit www.birdshows.com.
The 2007 Cabot High School Homecoming Parade will be held on Sunday, Oct. 7.
The parade will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the intersection of Panther Trail and
Hwy. 89. It is emphasized to the community that the parade ends at Main
Street; therefore, observers should find a viewing position on Hwy. 89
between Main Street and Panther Trail.
In case of rain, the parade will not be rescheduled but instead of the
parade, floats may be taken to the high school track for the homecoming
game.
Registration forms are available online at the Cabot Public Schools website
www.cabt.k12.ar, the Cabot High School website
www.cabot.k12.ar.us/schools/chs, or at any school office. The deadline to
register is Friday, September 28.
Commodities being distributed Thursday
The Community Action Program of Central Arkansas will hold a commodity distribution from 8:30 a.m. until noon, Thursday, Sept. 27 at the A.J. “Bo” Baker National Guard Armory, 3105 S. Main Street, Searcy.
You must show proof of income (not more than $1,483 for a two-person household) and White County residency to receive the commodities which include canned corn and carrots, tomato soup, spaghetti sauce, dried milk, peanut butter, rice, beans and grapefruit juice.
Jacksonville Dog Park committee to hold meeting
The Jacksonville Dog Park Committee will have its monthly meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the Jacksonville Community Center.
For more information call 982-0818.
Sherwood church will host revival services
Sherwood First Church of the Nazarene will hold revival services Wednesday through Sunday, Sept. 26-30 with Rev. Pat Burkhalter. Services will begin at 7p.m. on weeknights, 6 p.m. on Saturday evening and will meet at regular worship time on Sunday morning.
There will be a fall picnic held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 13.
Military spouses club plans Mad Hatter tea party
Please join the Little Rock Air Force Base Spouses Club for a Mad Hatter Tea Party luncheon on Thursday, Sept. 27 at the LRAFB Conference Center. Membership is open to any spouse of an active duty, guard, reserve or DoD employee or retiree. Check-in and daycare drop-off begins at 10:30 a.m. with the tea party starting at 11 a.m.
Tjuana Byrd, our guest speaker for the function, is from the Susan G. Komen Foundation, dedicated to education and research about causes, treatment, and the search for a cure for breast cancer. The tea party meal will be grilled chicken salad, fresh bread, coffee, tea, water and a dessert buffet; $9.95 for club members, $10.95 for non-club members.
Contests and prizes will be given for best tea party hat and “Alice in Wonderland” trivia. Limited childcare is $4 per child (cash only) at the TCAC. To RSVP for the function and childcare, visit www.littlerockspouses.com or contact Rachel Kreps at 501-765-0316.
Reservations are required by 5 p.m. Monday, September 24.
Juvenile volunteer probation officers needed
Pulaski County Juvenile Court is now recruiting individuals to be trained as volunteer probation officers. These volunteers work with first- time offenders to provide one-on-one supervision in an effort to redirect youth at risk. Any person who is over the age of 21, has no criminal history or involvement in the Juvenile Court System, and is interested in helping our youth may volunteer.
Your time commitment can be as little as on hour a week or as much time as your schedule allows.
The next training session for new volunteers will be held Saturday, Oct. 6 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and participation in a mock trial the following Tuesday, Oct. 9 from 6 to 9 p.m. for a total of 12 hours. For more information or an application call 340-6676.
Cabot Fall cleanup slated for Sept. 29
Cabot City Beautiful’s Fall Cleanup will be held Saturday, Sept. 29, beginning behind the Public Schools Administration Building at 602 N. Lincoln St. Cleanup begins at 9 a.m. and will continue until noon, at which time lunch will be provided to all volunteers. This year’s cleanup will consist of litter pick up only. For questions or to volunteer, call Irene Ernst at 941-0118.
Car seat safety check planned at Cabot Wal-Mart
The Junior Auxiliary of Cabot, will host the sixth annual car seat safety check at the Cabot Wal-Mart SuperCenter from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29.
The car seat check is free and open to anyone using a child restraint system in a vehicle. Car seats will be checked by certified car seat safety technicians from Cabot Junior Auxiliary, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the Cabot Fire and Police Departments and the Little Rock Police Department.
According to Arkansas law, children younger than 5 years of age and weighing less than 60 pounds must be in a car seat. Children age 6 to 14 and weighing more than 60 pounds must use an adult seat belt.
For more information contact Shelley Tounzen, Junior Auxiliary of Cabot Buckle Buddies Coordinator, 501-993-4496.
Cabot high school homecoming parade slated
The 2007 Cabot High School Homecoming Parade will be held on Sunday, Oct. 7. The parade will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the intersection of Panther Trail and Hwy. 89. It is emphasized to the community that the parade ends at Main Street; therefore, observers should find a viewing position on Hwy 89 between Main Street and Panther Trail.
In case of rain, the parade will not be rescheduled. In lieu of a parade, floats may be taken to the High School track for the Homecoming game.
Registration forms are available online at the Cabot Public Schools website www.cabt.k12.ar, the Cabot High School website www.cabot.k12.ar.us/schools/chs, or at any school office. The deadline to register is Friday, September 28th.
American Red Cross has issued an appeal for persons throughout the state to donate blood as soon as possible. To locate and schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVE LIFE (1-800-448-3543).
Cabot artist selected for annual exhibition
Marty Smith, a Cabot artist who works at The Leader, will have her work displayed at the Fine Arts Center, 610-A Central Ave. in Hot Springs for the third annual Diamond National Juried Exhibition.
Smith is a graphic designer and web master at The Leader.
The exhibit runs from Sept. 5 to Oct. 2 with an opening reception to be held from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7.
Gallery hours will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
For more information on the exhibit and directions to the center, one may call 501-624-0489.
National Senior Center Month will be observed
This September, the Jacksonville Senior Center invites the community to learn more about its programs and services during National Senior Center Month.
The theme of this year’s celebration is ‘Senior Centers Work!’ and a number of activities have been planned, including bargains, beans and cornbread, a craft sale for the entire community, at 8 a.m. Friday, Sept. 21. During the sale beans, cornbread and a yummy dessert will be served for $5. If you are interested in having a booth at the crafts event or to purchase tickets for the lunch, contact David Adamson at 501-982-7531.
TOP STORY >>Charitable bingo legal on July 31
By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
Charitable bingo becomes legal July 31, but plans to tax bingo cards may swallow most of the charity groups’ income in the area.
State rules call for an excise tax of one penny on every bingo face, which is one standard game grid, which could eat into a group’s profits. Most bingo cards contain a number of bingo faces. A box of bingo cards with 9,000 bingo faces, normally cost about $25, but the tax on that box will be $90, increasing the box price to $115. There’s also an additional 10 percent tax on the sale of all other bingo related items. Non-profit organizations can sponsor bingo and raffle events only if the organization has applied for a license from the state.
Of the 92 statewide applicants to date, seven are from the local area. They are the Loyal Order of Moose Lodge in Sherwood, the Amvets Post in El Paso, Jacksonville Knights in Cabot, the King’s Outreach of Arkansas in Cabot, the American Legion Post in Lonoke and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post.
The state started accepting applicants after voters in November 2006 approved, by 69 percent, a constitutional amendment to allow charitable bingo games and raffles. Between November and now, the state has been fine-tuning the rules, regulations and taxing of the games.
The Moose Lodge in Sherwood has also been getting ready since November, adding a 100-vehicle parking lot in back of their facility at a cost of $250,000, and redoing the bingo room.
“We’re not here to run bingo,” said Bob Douglas, the lodge’s administrator. “It’s just a sideline, but it will generate money for us to do things in the community.”
How much money?
“That’s a crap shoot,” Douglas said. “It depends how many other groups are offering bingo on the same nights we are.”
By law, nonprofit organizations may only offer bingo two nights a week and only five hours a night. “That was done to help keep the commercial people out,” Douglas said, adding that the Moose Lodge will offer bingo on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We’ll play 30 to 35 sessions a night,” he said.
The Michael Ray VFW Post in Jacksonville plans to have their bingo games on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons.
“We are getting calls every day from people wanting to know when we are starting,” said Don Reynolds, the post commander. “Bingo used to be a big to-do, but we don’t know for sure what it’ll do now.” Many years ago the VFW Post sponsored bingo when it was illegal, and most people looked the other way when nonprofit groups held the bingo games.
“We got busted and officials confiscated and destroyed all of our bingo equipment,” Reynolds said. “It was not one of our finer moments.” Arkansas Bingo Supplies in Sherwood, one of four licensed distributors in the state, is already close to selling a million bingo faces. “We haven’t sold that many yet,” said John Watson, who owns the company along with his father and brother-in-law, “but we’ve had to dip into our reserves, so we’ve had to re-order to make sure we have enough on hand at all times.”
Watson said bingo players don’t usually play just one card or face. “They play five to 50 at a time. Charities will be going through a lot of paper,” he said. “That means that tax will cut into the charities’ profit line,” Watson said, adding that he hopes the state will lessen the tax.
“It’s a learning process for everyone right now,” he said.
Watson and his family have sold cars, operated a pawnshop and developed subdivisions in central Arkansas since the early 60s. His company not only sells cards, markers and other bingo items, but also leases bingo machines. “Some of these charitable organizations are small outfits and can’t afford to put out $1,500 or more for the machines. This helps them and us,” he said.
Douglas may not know how much money the Moose Lodge will generate, but he knows how the fraternal lodge plans to spend it.
Fifty percent will be on local charities and groups like Keep Sherwood Beautiful, police and fire department charitable activities, and the Sylvan Hills High School dance team and golf team; 25 percent will go to larger state charities like Arkansas Children’s Hospital; and 25 percent will be split between three lodge projects including the Boy Scouts, a children’s facility at Yellowstone and a Moose retired center in Florida.
The VFW has no set formula. “We are always getting requests and we help who we can,” Reynolds said. The post does help the Boy Scouts, Fishnet Mission, the VA Hospital, sheriff’s department and the state police.
Leader staff writer
Charitable bingo becomes legal July 31, but plans to tax bingo cards may swallow most of the charity groups’ income in the area.
State rules call for an excise tax of one penny on every bingo face, which is one standard game grid, which could eat into a group’s profits. Most bingo cards contain a number of bingo faces. A box of bingo cards with 9,000 bingo faces, normally cost about $25, but the tax on that box will be $90, increasing the box price to $115. There’s also an additional 10 percent tax on the sale of all other bingo related items. Non-profit organizations can sponsor bingo and raffle events only if the organization has applied for a license from the state.
Of the 92 statewide applicants to date, seven are from the local area. They are the Loyal Order of Moose Lodge in Sherwood, the Amvets Post in El Paso, Jacksonville Knights in Cabot, the King’s Outreach of Arkansas in Cabot, the American Legion Post in Lonoke and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post.
The state started accepting applicants after voters in November 2006 approved, by 69 percent, a constitutional amendment to allow charitable bingo games and raffles. Between November and now, the state has been fine-tuning the rules, regulations and taxing of the games.
The Moose Lodge in Sherwood has also been getting ready since November, adding a 100-vehicle parking lot in back of their facility at a cost of $250,000, and redoing the bingo room.
“We’re not here to run bingo,” said Bob Douglas, the lodge’s administrator. “It’s just a sideline, but it will generate money for us to do things in the community.”
How much money?
“That’s a crap shoot,” Douglas said. “It depends how many other groups are offering bingo on the same nights we are.”
By law, nonprofit organizations may only offer bingo two nights a week and only five hours a night. “That was done to help keep the commercial people out,” Douglas said, adding that the Moose Lodge will offer bingo on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We’ll play 30 to 35 sessions a night,” he said.
The Michael Ray VFW Post in Jacksonville plans to have their bingo games on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons.
“We are getting calls every day from people wanting to know when we are starting,” said Don Reynolds, the post commander. “Bingo used to be a big to-do, but we don’t know for sure what it’ll do now.” Many years ago the VFW Post sponsored bingo when it was illegal, and most people looked the other way when nonprofit groups held the bingo games.
“We got busted and officials confiscated and destroyed all of our bingo equipment,” Reynolds said. “It was not one of our finer moments.” Arkansas Bingo Supplies in Sherwood, one of four licensed distributors in the state, is already close to selling a million bingo faces. “We haven’t sold that many yet,” said John Watson, who owns the company along with his father and brother-in-law, “but we’ve had to dip into our reserves, so we’ve had to re-order to make sure we have enough on hand at all times.”
Watson said bingo players don’t usually play just one card or face. “They play five to 50 at a time. Charities will be going through a lot of paper,” he said. “That means that tax will cut into the charities’ profit line,” Watson said, adding that he hopes the state will lessen the tax.
“It’s a learning process for everyone right now,” he said.
Watson and his family have sold cars, operated a pawnshop and developed subdivisions in central Arkansas since the early 60s. His company not only sells cards, markers and other bingo items, but also leases bingo machines. “Some of these charitable organizations are small outfits and can’t afford to put out $1,500 or more for the machines. This helps them and us,” he said.
Douglas may not know how much money the Moose Lodge will generate, but he knows how the fraternal lodge plans to spend it.
Fifty percent will be on local charities and groups like Keep Sherwood Beautiful, police and fire department charitable activities, and the Sylvan Hills High School dance team and golf team; 25 percent will go to larger state charities like Arkansas Children’s Hospital; and 25 percent will be split between three lodge projects including the Boy Scouts, a children’s facility at Yellowstone and a Moose retired center in Florida.
The VFW has no set formula. “We are always getting requests and we help who we can,” Reynolds said. The post does help the Boy Scouts, Fishnet Mission, the VA Hospital, sheriff’s department and the state police.
TOP STORY >>Idea of hamburger tax appetizing
IN SHORT: Commission, aldermen and public will discuss Monday a two-cent levy to fund marketing and promotion plans for the city.
By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
A proposed two-cent tax on prepared foods, also known as a hamburger tax, tops the Jacksonville Advertising and Promotions agenda for its 6:30 p.m. Monday meeting at city hall.
Monday’s meeting will also include city aldermen who plan to vote on the tax idea at their Thursday night meeting. The council has enough votes at the moment to pass the tax.
Residents are also invited to give input at Monday’s meeting.
Advertising and promotion commissioners have been working on the tax idea for about nine months and sent the idea to the city council for discussion at its July 5 meeting. Aldermen split between instant approval of the tax and giving residents more time to give them input.
The proposed two-cent tax would, according to state Department of Finance and Administration figures, raise about $550,000 a year. That would be added to the city’s advertising and promotion commission’s current budget of $88,000 a year —garnered from a two-cent hotel room tax—to promote and market the city.
Cabot, to the north, and Sherwood to the south both have a prepared food tax in place to help fund their advertising promotion commissions.
Sherwood has had a two-cent tax for about 15 years that the residents voted in. By law, cities have the option of approving up to two cents of a prepared food tax just by council vote, or by a vote of the residents.
Sherwood’s tax brings in about $450,000 a year. The first $300,000 ($25,000 a month) of that goes to help maintain the city’s recreation center and $75,000 goes to the commission’s holiday display of lights called the Enchanted Forest.
“The money covers advertising, the cost of displays, upkeep and the electric bill,” said Cheryl Ferguson, the city’s advertising and promotion commission. An additional $19,000 is budgeted to the parks department for events, awards, tournament bids and advertising, $11,500 in salaries and $45,900 for contingencies.
Cabot has had 1.5 percent prepared food tax since 1993, voted in by council action. Later residents voted to dedicate a third of that tax to paying off the bonds needed to build the city’s community center.
Cabot’s tax generates about $514,000 a year.
Slightly more than $204,000 is automatically earmarked for community center payments. About $130,000 goes to the city’s parks and recreation department. About half for maintenance, $30,000 to add lights to city soccer fields and $27,000 for ball-field fencing.
The chamber of commerce gets $40,000 a year to help promote the city, and $25,000 is budgeted for improvements to the Cabot football field. Other activities supported, in whole or part, by A and P money include Cabot City Beautiful, Cabot High School Junior ROTC, the July 4th celebration and the Avenue of Dreams.
Jacksonville Alderman Marshall Smith, who chairs the advertising and promotion commission, told the council at its last meeting, “The tourism study we commissioned last year recommended the tax as a way to raise more money to promote the city. If we don’t do it, we’re not showing much faith in the study.”
The commission has suggested that it use half the $550,000 projected income, or $275,000, for professional promotion and marketing campaigns to bring people to Jacksonville and its attractions.
About 30 percent of the tax, or $163,000, will be given to the city’s parks and recreation department to be used for park improvements and operations. The commission has slated $20,000 for the patriotic spectacular show to increase promotion of the activity and allow for a bigger fireworks show.
The Reed’s Bridge Battlefield group will get $12,000 to buy Civil War displays and make other improvements to the site to bring in tourists. The Jacksonville Museum of Military History will get $22,000 of the new money to help get the necessary permission to display static aircraft and to help toward maintenance of that aircraft display. The commission plans to set aside $30,000 of the tax for projects, requests and ideas that come up during the year that are not already budgeted.
Another $18,000 will be used for help pay for the staff to coordinate and collect the tax data, staff training and educating businesses and the public on what types of items are taxable. Alderman Gary Fletcher voiced concerns about the new tax at the council meeting. “We don’t want this to look like we have a pool of money that we are divvying up among friends and favorite projects,” he said.
Jacksonville Alderman Terry Sansing didn’t like the timing. “The state just cut three cents on grocery tax and here we are wanting to add two cents on prepared foods,” he said, and a UALR task force has just recommended that the county ask residents for a 0.25-percent tax to fund jail operations.
By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
A proposed two-cent tax on prepared foods, also known as a hamburger tax, tops the Jacksonville Advertising and Promotions agenda for its 6:30 p.m. Monday meeting at city hall.
Monday’s meeting will also include city aldermen who plan to vote on the tax idea at their Thursday night meeting. The council has enough votes at the moment to pass the tax.
Residents are also invited to give input at Monday’s meeting.
Advertising and promotion commissioners have been working on the tax idea for about nine months and sent the idea to the city council for discussion at its July 5 meeting. Aldermen split between instant approval of the tax and giving residents more time to give them input.
The proposed two-cent tax would, according to state Department of Finance and Administration figures, raise about $550,000 a year. That would be added to the city’s advertising and promotion commission’s current budget of $88,000 a year —garnered from a two-cent hotel room tax—to promote and market the city.
Cabot, to the north, and Sherwood to the south both have a prepared food tax in place to help fund their advertising promotion commissions.
Sherwood has had a two-cent tax for about 15 years that the residents voted in. By law, cities have the option of approving up to two cents of a prepared food tax just by council vote, or by a vote of the residents.
Sherwood’s tax brings in about $450,000 a year. The first $300,000 ($25,000 a month) of that goes to help maintain the city’s recreation center and $75,000 goes to the commission’s holiday display of lights called the Enchanted Forest.
“The money covers advertising, the cost of displays, upkeep and the electric bill,” said Cheryl Ferguson, the city’s advertising and promotion commission. An additional $19,000 is budgeted to the parks department for events, awards, tournament bids and advertising, $11,500 in salaries and $45,900 for contingencies.
Cabot has had 1.5 percent prepared food tax since 1993, voted in by council action. Later residents voted to dedicate a third of that tax to paying off the bonds needed to build the city’s community center.
Cabot’s tax generates about $514,000 a year.
Slightly more than $204,000 is automatically earmarked for community center payments. About $130,000 goes to the city’s parks and recreation department. About half for maintenance, $30,000 to add lights to city soccer fields and $27,000 for ball-field fencing.
The chamber of commerce gets $40,000 a year to help promote the city, and $25,000 is budgeted for improvements to the Cabot football field. Other activities supported, in whole or part, by A and P money include Cabot City Beautiful, Cabot High School Junior ROTC, the July 4th celebration and the Avenue of Dreams.
Jacksonville Alderman Marshall Smith, who chairs the advertising and promotion commission, told the council at its last meeting, “The tourism study we commissioned last year recommended the tax as a way to raise more money to promote the city. If we don’t do it, we’re not showing much faith in the study.”
The commission has suggested that it use half the $550,000 projected income, or $275,000, for professional promotion and marketing campaigns to bring people to Jacksonville and its attractions.
About 30 percent of the tax, or $163,000, will be given to the city’s parks and recreation department to be used for park improvements and operations. The commission has slated $20,000 for the patriotic spectacular show to increase promotion of the activity and allow for a bigger fireworks show.
The Reed’s Bridge Battlefield group will get $12,000 to buy Civil War displays and make other improvements to the site to bring in tourists. The Jacksonville Museum of Military History will get $22,000 of the new money to help get the necessary permission to display static aircraft and to help toward maintenance of that aircraft display. The commission plans to set aside $30,000 of the tax for projects, requests and ideas that come up during the year that are not already budgeted.
Another $18,000 will be used for help pay for the staff to coordinate and collect the tax data, staff training and educating businesses and the public on what types of items are taxable. Alderman Gary Fletcher voiced concerns about the new tax at the council meeting. “We don’t want this to look like we have a pool of money that we are divvying up among friends and favorite projects,” he said.
Jacksonville Alderman Terry Sansing didn’t like the timing. “The state just cut three cents on grocery tax and here we are wanting to add two cents on prepared foods,” he said, and a UALR task force has just recommended that the county ask residents for a 0.25-percent tax to fund jail operations.
TOP STORY >>Council may vote to buy Armory land
By JOAN MCCOY
Leader staff writer
Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams has struck a deal with a development company for 15.5 acres to build a National Guard armory and will ask the city council Monday evening to approve the purchase.
At almost $26,000 an acre the land inside the industrial park on Highway 367 is less expensive than the $30,000 per acre the mayor said he expected to pay.
Ordinarily, such a purchase would have to be considered at least by the council’s budget committee before it went before the full council, but Williams said he is asking the chairmen of all three council committees to allow the purchase to go immediately to the full council.
Williams said Friday after signing the agreement with North Cabot Development to buy the land for $399,000, that the state has agreed to pay $340,000 of that amount.
The remaining $59,000 would have to be budgeted over the next year or so. Currently, the city has about $350,000 in reserve, so budgeting for the land for the armory won’t be a hardship, he said.
Once the property is purchased, the deed will be signed over to Arkansas National Guard, which will have the construction of the $8 million armory placed in line for federal funding within the next five years.
Williams says building the armory is “the single biggest thing for Cabot in recent history” which will have an economic impact on the city of $1 million or more a year.
If it is built in the industrial park, it will be visible from the new railroad overpass which should be under construction within the next two months. Since the overpass will be used by school buses, Williams said the location will be good for recruiting. He said he also hopes it will have a positive impact on his efforts to get federal money to build a north interchange that is part of his three-phase plan to connect Highway 5 to U.S. 67-167.
Leader staff writer
Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams has struck a deal with a development company for 15.5 acres to build a National Guard armory and will ask the city council Monday evening to approve the purchase.
At almost $26,000 an acre the land inside the industrial park on Highway 367 is less expensive than the $30,000 per acre the mayor said he expected to pay.
Ordinarily, such a purchase would have to be considered at least by the council’s budget committee before it went before the full council, but Williams said he is asking the chairmen of all three council committees to allow the purchase to go immediately to the full council.
Williams said Friday after signing the agreement with North Cabot Development to buy the land for $399,000, that the state has agreed to pay $340,000 of that amount.
The remaining $59,000 would have to be budgeted over the next year or so. Currently, the city has about $350,000 in reserve, so budgeting for the land for the armory won’t be a hardship, he said.
Once the property is purchased, the deed will be signed over to Arkansas National Guard, which will have the construction of the $8 million armory placed in line for federal funding within the next five years.
Williams says building the armory is “the single biggest thing for Cabot in recent history” which will have an economic impact on the city of $1 million or more a year.
If it is built in the industrial park, it will be visible from the new railroad overpass which should be under construction within the next two months. Since the overpass will be used by school buses, Williams said the location will be good for recruiting. He said he also hopes it will have a positive impact on his efforts to get federal money to build a north interchange that is part of his three-phase plan to connect Highway 5 to U.S. 67-167.
TOP STORY >>School administration makes principal moves
IN SHORT: Two principals at elementary schools have resigned, and personnel changes have been made at the high school after transfer requests were made by staff members.
By HEATHER HARTSELL
Leader staff writer
The faces of the Cabot school administration will be a bit different when school starts in August after two elementary principals resigned and numerous other changes were made following an executive meeting of the Cabot School Board Wednesday evening.
All changes are effective immediately.
“The elementary resignations and administrative changes at Cabot High School have allowed for existing staff to request different placements for the upcoming school year,” said Dr. Tony Thurman, Cabot superintendent.
Blaine Alexander resigned as principal of Magness Creek Elementary School, a position he has held since 2004.
Alexander was the first of four principals in the state, and the first ever for the Cabot district, to achieve master-school-principal status in March.
Denise Rankin also resigned from her position as principal of Eastside Elementary that she had held for three years.
According to Thurman, both Alexander and Rankin have both moved to the Pulaski County Special School District, a district whose elementary principals have less days on contract compared to Cabot elementary principals that work a 245-day contract.
In order to fill the now vacant positions, existing qualified Cabot staff was rearranged to fill the voids.
Kelly Whiddon will replace Alexander as principal at Magness Creek. Whiddon has served as principal at Southside Elementary School for two years, coming to Cabot from PCSSD. Tanya Spillane will replace Rankin as principal of Eastside Elementary, where she has been an academic coach for four years.
Spillane previously taught elementary school in New Mexico and middle school in Cabot.
Lisa York will move from assistant principal at Magness Creek to principal at Southside Elementary, replacing Whiddon.
Joanne Blalock and Jerry Vaughn are swapping positions.
Blalock will move from principal of Middle School South to principal of Central Elementary; Vaughn will move from principal at Central Elementary, a position he has had for the past six years, to principal of Middle School South, continuing his 26 years in the Cabot district.
“All existing administrators who have changed positions in the district requested to do so and all changes were made with the full support of the administrator,” Thurman said. “Changes were not mandated; the administrators made the decision that they would like to make a change,” he added.
By HEATHER HARTSELL
Leader staff writer
The faces of the Cabot school administration will be a bit different when school starts in August after two elementary principals resigned and numerous other changes were made following an executive meeting of the Cabot School Board Wednesday evening.
All changes are effective immediately.
“The elementary resignations and administrative changes at Cabot High School have allowed for existing staff to request different placements for the upcoming school year,” said Dr. Tony Thurman, Cabot superintendent.
Blaine Alexander resigned as principal of Magness Creek Elementary School, a position he has held since 2004.
Alexander was the first of four principals in the state, and the first ever for the Cabot district, to achieve master-school-principal status in March.
Denise Rankin also resigned from her position as principal of Eastside Elementary that she had held for three years.
According to Thurman, both Alexander and Rankin have both moved to the Pulaski County Special School District, a district whose elementary principals have less days on contract compared to Cabot elementary principals that work a 245-day contract.
In order to fill the now vacant positions, existing qualified Cabot staff was rearranged to fill the voids.
Kelly Whiddon will replace Alexander as principal at Magness Creek. Whiddon has served as principal at Southside Elementary School for two years, coming to Cabot from PCSSD. Tanya Spillane will replace Rankin as principal of Eastside Elementary, where she has been an academic coach for four years.
Spillane previously taught elementary school in New Mexico and middle school in Cabot.
Lisa York will move from assistant principal at Magness Creek to principal at Southside Elementary, replacing Whiddon.
Joanne Blalock and Jerry Vaughn are swapping positions.
Blalock will move from principal of Middle School South to principal of Central Elementary; Vaughn will move from principal at Central Elementary, a position he has had for the past six years, to principal of Middle School South, continuing his 26 years in the Cabot district.
“All existing administrators who have changed positions in the district requested to do so and all changes were made with the full support of the administrator,” Thurman said. “Changes were not mandated; the administrators made the decision that they would like to make a change,” he added.
TOP STORY >>$6.4M bid for Cabot overpass accepted
IN SHORT: Pine Bluff company will build the project that has been in the works for 10 years.
By JOAN MCCOY
Leader staff writer
The construction bids are in for a railroad overpass in Cabot that was planned about 10 years ago.
Southern Pavers Inc. of Pine Bluff is the apparent low bidder at $6.4 million. David Nilles, a spokesman for the state highway department which will oversee the project, said Friday that the overpass should be completed by late 2008. Construction is expected to begin within six to eight weeks, he said.
The city will pay 20 percent of the cost. The balance will be paid with federal money.
The overpass, which will connect Highway 367 to Highway 38, is the first phase of a three-phase plan to eventually connect Highway 5 to Highway 38 and add a north interchange on U.S. Highway 67-167. Phase two would connect the overpass to a north interchange and phase three would connect the overpass to Highway 5.
On Highway 367, the overpass will be inside Cabot city limits, but on Highway 38, it will be in Austin’s.
Some opponents of the overpass say it will help Austin grow. Williams does not disagree, but he says growth anywhere in the area is good for business in Cabot. Several locations were considered 10 years ago when Mayor Eddie Joe Williams (then a city council member) and Alder-man Ed Long started working on the project that will eventually close the Polk Street railroad crossing that was the site of a fatality in 1988.
But Williams maintains that the location that was chosen near Polk Street is the best one because it leaves downtown intact.
Metroplan, which distributes federal money for road projects, estimates the overpass together with a north interchange will take 4,000 to 5,000 cars a day out of downtown Cabot.
The overpass alone will not relieve downtown traffic, but it will keep about 100 buses off the railroad track.
Williams said Friday that 10 years ago, Cabot was number 13 on the list in the state to get federal money for a railroad overpass.
But when the school district agreed to use the overpass instead of crossing the railroad tracks, the proposed project moved up in priority.
Former Mayor Joe Allman was instrumental in getting the city council to agree to set aside money for the city’s part of the construction costs.
But after he left office, the $260,000 in savings did not continue to grow.
In 2005, Williams, who had already announced his candidacy for mayor, addressed the city council about funding the project.
The council responded by including $800,000 for the overpass in a $28 million bond issue that is funded by a one-cent sales tax.
Union Pacific Railroad has agreed to pay 5 percent of the cost of the actual bridge over the railroad, an estimated $75,000.
But Williams said this week that he has written to railroad officials asking them to increase that amount.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the overpass was held in late February, but the bidding was delayed because the computer programs now in use could not read the engineering study for the project that was completed about eight years ago.
To date, the project has cost $237,000 -$40,000 for right-of-way acquisition and $197,000 for engineering.
By JOAN MCCOY
Leader staff writer
The construction bids are in for a railroad overpass in Cabot that was planned about 10 years ago.
Southern Pavers Inc. of Pine Bluff is the apparent low bidder at $6.4 million. David Nilles, a spokesman for the state highway department which will oversee the project, said Friday that the overpass should be completed by late 2008. Construction is expected to begin within six to eight weeks, he said.
The city will pay 20 percent of the cost. The balance will be paid with federal money.
The overpass, which will connect Highway 367 to Highway 38, is the first phase of a three-phase plan to eventually connect Highway 5 to Highway 38 and add a north interchange on U.S. Highway 67-167. Phase two would connect the overpass to a north interchange and phase three would connect the overpass to Highway 5.
On Highway 367, the overpass will be inside Cabot city limits, but on Highway 38, it will be in Austin’s.
Some opponents of the overpass say it will help Austin grow. Williams does not disagree, but he says growth anywhere in the area is good for business in Cabot. Several locations were considered 10 years ago when Mayor Eddie Joe Williams (then a city council member) and Alder-man Ed Long started working on the project that will eventually close the Polk Street railroad crossing that was the site of a fatality in 1988.
But Williams maintains that the location that was chosen near Polk Street is the best one because it leaves downtown intact.
Metroplan, which distributes federal money for road projects, estimates the overpass together with a north interchange will take 4,000 to 5,000 cars a day out of downtown Cabot.
The overpass alone will not relieve downtown traffic, but it will keep about 100 buses off the railroad track.
Williams said Friday that 10 years ago, Cabot was number 13 on the list in the state to get federal money for a railroad overpass.
But when the school district agreed to use the overpass instead of crossing the railroad tracks, the proposed project moved up in priority.
Former Mayor Joe Allman was instrumental in getting the city council to agree to set aside money for the city’s part of the construction costs.
But after he left office, the $260,000 in savings did not continue to grow.
In 2005, Williams, who had already announced his candidacy for mayor, addressed the city council about funding the project.
The council responded by including $800,000 for the overpass in a $28 million bond issue that is funded by a one-cent sales tax.
Union Pacific Railroad has agreed to pay 5 percent of the cost of the actual bridge over the railroad, an estimated $75,000.
But Williams said this week that he has written to railroad officials asking them to increase that amount.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the overpass was held in late February, but the bidding was delayed because the computer programs now in use could not read the engineering study for the project that was completed about eight years ago.
To date, the project has cost $237,000 -$40,000 for right-of-way acquisition and $197,000 for engineering.
TOP STORY >>Air Force looks into developer shortfalls
IN SHORT: Privatization work has stopped at Little Rock Air Force Base and at other locations as military officials investigate construction delays.
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
While airmen from Little Rock Air Force Base put their lives on the line in 30-year-old C-130s in the skies above Iraq and Afghanistan, at home they are losing the battle with a Connecticut developer who seems unable to build and upgrade promised base housing for them and their families.
Work has stopped and the Air Force is investigating why American Eagle Communities LLC is months behind paying subcontractors to build new family housing at Little Rock and Moody Air Force bases. But it’s not yet ready to pull the plug.
Construction at Little Rock Air Force Base stopped May 7 for non-payment of contractors and suppliers, several months after work ceased at Moody for the same reason. Work is expected to stop within days at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, according to Mike Hawkins, spokesman for the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment.
American Eagle Communities is also the developer at Patrick. American Eagle Communities is now about two years behind on the six-year Little Rock project, according to Brig. Gen. Sel. Rowayne Schatz, base commander.
The Carabetta family, either alone or as managing partner of American Eagle Communities, is the developer of four Air Force privatization projects—those three and one at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. The Hanscom project has been plagued by delays, according to Hawkins.
LOCAL CONTRACTORS
Locally, at least two Jacksonville-area subcontractors have filed liens with the bonding company to get their money.
Austin Readimix is trying to collect “six figures” for the cement it delivered, money particularly important to his young business, according to owner Tommy Austin Jr.
“We’ve gotten a different story every time,” said Austin, who has unpaid invoices dating back to January. “They keep giving us false promises from the git-go,” he said. “The pay is slow, the paper trail takes 120 to 150 days to get your money,” he said.
JR Construction of Cabot is another subcontractor that has filed a lien with the bonding company. Efforts to reach a spokesman for JR Construction were unsuccessful.
Tom Brockway, project manager for American Eagle Communities’ Little Rock Family Housing, said he was only aware of the two companies so far.
Little Rock Family Housing has only a handful of new homes and a community center to show for American Eagle Communities’ grandiose promises in August 2004 to build or remodel 1,200 Little Rock Air Force Base homes. Brockway said he shut the job down for now to protect contractors and suppliers from further losses.
Brockway said he hopes to restart the job by September, using the same contractors. “By now we should have had 95 homes completed, we have 25. I have no reason to believe we can’t complete the job by 2011, but it’s not where I would like it.”
25 HOMES COMPLETED
In addition to the 25 homes that have been completed and occupied, about 70 concrete slabs have been poured; the contract calls for 468 new homes and 732 homes remodeled by 2011.
Representatives from Ameri-can Eagle Communities LLC, a partnership between Carabetta Enterprises, of Meriden, Conn., and Shaw Infrastructure Inc. of Baton Rouge, are meeting late this week with the company that issued $102 million bonds toward the $127 million job, according to Brockway. So far, no one will say publicly where the problem is.
In 1996, Congress enacted the Military Housing Privatization Initiative as part of a growing desire to better address the needs of American service personnel and their families. The initiative was designed to remedy the problem of deteriorated military-owned housing and a lack of appropriate private housing.
There are currently 42 Air Force bases pursuing housing privatization options and about 76 percent of military housing is being completed through privatization.
10,000 HOMES
The Carabettas with Shaw, through their various limited liability companies, are committed to build or remodel about 10,000 homes on bases and installations around the country, and all four Air Force jobs have either shut down, will be shutting down or are having troubles paying contractors, according to Hawkins.
In 2004, American Eagle also was awarded the privatization contract for Beale Air Force Base, near Sacramento, but was dropped “due to some legal questions,” according to the base public affairs officer.
Carabetta also has privatization contracts with Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri and Northwest Communities on Puget Sound.
Despite Carabettas’ 25-year history of bankruptcy, corruption allegations, unpaid contractors, slowly paid contractors, unfinished projects, unhappy partners and lawsuits, the Air Force determined that past performance was satisfactory for all four Carabetta/Shaw projects, according to Hawkins.
PROGRAM SUCCESSFUL
“By every meaningful measure, the Air Force housing privatization program is a huge success,” said Hawkins. “These difficulties are unique to this particular developer and are not found anywhere else in this very successful housing-privatization program.
“The cost to build and renovate the 1,200 units at Little Rock is $126.9 million, of which $102.4 million is sourced from bond financing and owner equity,” Hawkins said. “The remaining $24.5 million is in the form of a government direct loan, which to date has not closed or been disbursed.
“The housing-privatization program has allowed the Air Force to ensure availability of 10,781 units of quality, affordable housing for our military members and their families over the last eight years.
The Air Force has obligated $216.2M in direct loans instead of the $3.13B that would have been required had the units been constructed using traditional military construction funds. It has also meant that our people are in affordable, quality housing much quicker than if we were to pay for it with tax money and manage the construction ourselves. It’s a huge win for our men and women in uniform, their families, and the taxpayers.”
The project owner has received nothing for these projects, according to Hawkins. The construction company for each project gets approximately 4 percent of construction costs and the management company gets about 4 percent of the total rent revenue.
STAKEHOLDERS
Hawkins said the Air Force is not ready to give up on American Eagle Communities yet.
“While project defaults are options, we see them as the last resort and it would be inappropriate for us to comment on their likelihood as we continue to work in good faith with all parties concerned,” Hawkins said.
He said the privatization projects were not traditional military construction contracts, but rather 50-year real estate transactions between the developers and the Air Force whereby the developers agree to offer privately owned homes for rent to military families in exchange for an initial government capital investment (conveying existing housing/land) and rental payments by military occupants of housing.
Each of the projects is a stand-alone project with different bondholders and financial structures. The impact and actions necessary to move the projects forward will be determined by the specific legal documents involved in those transactions, according to Hawkins.
“We work on a daily basis with the bondholders, the project owner, and other stakeholders to resolve the issues at hand as expeditiously as possible,” Hawkins said. The Air Force detected performance problems early and encouraged the bondholders to become more involved in the projects. As a result, the bondholders engaged the developer in performance discussions. Their past performance has been evaluated on several projects they have proposed since award of Little Rock, and it will be considered during evaluation of any proposals they submit for future military housing privatization projects, he said.
“The Air Force does have legal remedies,” Hawkins said, “but is not pursuing such remedies at this time.”
THE COMPANIES
The Carabetta family, through its CEI Investment Corp. or through American Eagle Communities LLC, a partnership with Shaw Infrastructures, won privatization contracts for at least seven projects to own, demolish and replace some housing, remodel other housing and manage the property for members of the military and their families at bases from Florida to Puget Sound, Washington.
Shaw Infrastructures, Inc. is a subsidiary of The Shaw Group, a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange as SGR. Shaw has a long history of Defense Department infrastructure jobs. According to its website, Shaw is involved in at least seven military housing-privatization contracts, about half of them in partnership with Carabettas.
Carabetta Enterprises, or CEI Investment Corp, says it has completed 150 housing developments nationwide, totaling 36,189 homes over the past 50 years.
A spokesman for American Eagle Communities and The Shaw Group didn’t return telephone calls for this story.
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
While airmen from Little Rock Air Force Base put their lives on the line in 30-year-old C-130s in the skies above Iraq and Afghanistan, at home they are losing the battle with a Connecticut developer who seems unable to build and upgrade promised base housing for them and their families.
Work has stopped and the Air Force is investigating why American Eagle Communities LLC is months behind paying subcontractors to build new family housing at Little Rock and Moody Air Force bases. But it’s not yet ready to pull the plug.
Construction at Little Rock Air Force Base stopped May 7 for non-payment of contractors and suppliers, several months after work ceased at Moody for the same reason. Work is expected to stop within days at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, according to Mike Hawkins, spokesman for the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment.
American Eagle Communities is also the developer at Patrick. American Eagle Communities is now about two years behind on the six-year Little Rock project, according to Brig. Gen. Sel. Rowayne Schatz, base commander.
The Carabetta family, either alone or as managing partner of American Eagle Communities, is the developer of four Air Force privatization projects—those three and one at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. The Hanscom project has been plagued by delays, according to Hawkins.
LOCAL CONTRACTORS
Locally, at least two Jacksonville-area subcontractors have filed liens with the bonding company to get their money.
Austin Readimix is trying to collect “six figures” for the cement it delivered, money particularly important to his young business, according to owner Tommy Austin Jr.
“We’ve gotten a different story every time,” said Austin, who has unpaid invoices dating back to January. “They keep giving us false promises from the git-go,” he said. “The pay is slow, the paper trail takes 120 to 150 days to get your money,” he said.
JR Construction of Cabot is another subcontractor that has filed a lien with the bonding company. Efforts to reach a spokesman for JR Construction were unsuccessful.
Tom Brockway, project manager for American Eagle Communities’ Little Rock Family Housing, said he was only aware of the two companies so far.
Little Rock Family Housing has only a handful of new homes and a community center to show for American Eagle Communities’ grandiose promises in August 2004 to build or remodel 1,200 Little Rock Air Force Base homes. Brockway said he shut the job down for now to protect contractors and suppliers from further losses.
Brockway said he hopes to restart the job by September, using the same contractors. “By now we should have had 95 homes completed, we have 25. I have no reason to believe we can’t complete the job by 2011, but it’s not where I would like it.”
25 HOMES COMPLETED
In addition to the 25 homes that have been completed and occupied, about 70 concrete slabs have been poured; the contract calls for 468 new homes and 732 homes remodeled by 2011.
Representatives from Ameri-can Eagle Communities LLC, a partnership between Carabetta Enterprises, of Meriden, Conn., and Shaw Infrastructure Inc. of Baton Rouge, are meeting late this week with the company that issued $102 million bonds toward the $127 million job, according to Brockway. So far, no one will say publicly where the problem is.
In 1996, Congress enacted the Military Housing Privatization Initiative as part of a growing desire to better address the needs of American service personnel and their families. The initiative was designed to remedy the problem of deteriorated military-owned housing and a lack of appropriate private housing.
There are currently 42 Air Force bases pursuing housing privatization options and about 76 percent of military housing is being completed through privatization.
10,000 HOMES
The Carabettas with Shaw, through their various limited liability companies, are committed to build or remodel about 10,000 homes on bases and installations around the country, and all four Air Force jobs have either shut down, will be shutting down or are having troubles paying contractors, according to Hawkins.
In 2004, American Eagle also was awarded the privatization contract for Beale Air Force Base, near Sacramento, but was dropped “due to some legal questions,” according to the base public affairs officer.
Carabetta also has privatization contracts with Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri and Northwest Communities on Puget Sound.
Despite Carabettas’ 25-year history of bankruptcy, corruption allegations, unpaid contractors, slowly paid contractors, unfinished projects, unhappy partners and lawsuits, the Air Force determined that past performance was satisfactory for all four Carabetta/Shaw projects, according to Hawkins.
PROGRAM SUCCESSFUL
“By every meaningful measure, the Air Force housing privatization program is a huge success,” said Hawkins. “These difficulties are unique to this particular developer and are not found anywhere else in this very successful housing-privatization program.
“The cost to build and renovate the 1,200 units at Little Rock is $126.9 million, of which $102.4 million is sourced from bond financing and owner equity,” Hawkins said. “The remaining $24.5 million is in the form of a government direct loan, which to date has not closed or been disbursed.
“The housing-privatization program has allowed the Air Force to ensure availability of 10,781 units of quality, affordable housing for our military members and their families over the last eight years.
The Air Force has obligated $216.2M in direct loans instead of the $3.13B that would have been required had the units been constructed using traditional military construction funds. It has also meant that our people are in affordable, quality housing much quicker than if we were to pay for it with tax money and manage the construction ourselves. It’s a huge win for our men and women in uniform, their families, and the taxpayers.”
The project owner has received nothing for these projects, according to Hawkins. The construction company for each project gets approximately 4 percent of construction costs and the management company gets about 4 percent of the total rent revenue.
STAKEHOLDERS
Hawkins said the Air Force is not ready to give up on American Eagle Communities yet.
“While project defaults are options, we see them as the last resort and it would be inappropriate for us to comment on their likelihood as we continue to work in good faith with all parties concerned,” Hawkins said.
He said the privatization projects were not traditional military construction contracts, but rather 50-year real estate transactions between the developers and the Air Force whereby the developers agree to offer privately owned homes for rent to military families in exchange for an initial government capital investment (conveying existing housing/land) and rental payments by military occupants of housing.
Each of the projects is a stand-alone project with different bondholders and financial structures. The impact and actions necessary to move the projects forward will be determined by the specific legal documents involved in those transactions, according to Hawkins.
“We work on a daily basis with the bondholders, the project owner, and other stakeholders to resolve the issues at hand as expeditiously as possible,” Hawkins said. The Air Force detected performance problems early and encouraged the bondholders to become more involved in the projects. As a result, the bondholders engaged the developer in performance discussions. Their past performance has been evaluated on several projects they have proposed since award of Little Rock, and it will be considered during evaluation of any proposals they submit for future military housing privatization projects, he said.
“The Air Force does have legal remedies,” Hawkins said, “but is not pursuing such remedies at this time.”
THE COMPANIES
The Carabetta family, through its CEI Investment Corp. or through American Eagle Communities LLC, a partnership with Shaw Infrastructures, won privatization contracts for at least seven projects to own, demolish and replace some housing, remodel other housing and manage the property for members of the military and their families at bases from Florida to Puget Sound, Washington.
Shaw Infrastructures, Inc. is a subsidiary of The Shaw Group, a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange as SGR. Shaw has a long history of Defense Department infrastructure jobs. According to its website, Shaw is involved in at least seven military housing-privatization contracts, about half of them in partnership with Carabettas.
Carabetta Enterprises, or CEI Investment Corp, says it has completed 150 housing developments nationwide, totaling 36,189 homes over the past 50 years.
A spokesman for American Eagle Communities and The Shaw Group didn’t return telephone calls for this story.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
EDITORIALS>>Insuring Arkansans
If the health-care crisis yielded to simple solutions, Arkansas at least would be home free by now. But the state learned once again that even the offer of a big federal subsidy will induce few employers to insure their workers.
Gov. Beebe struck out Monday on a tour of the state to urge businesses to take advantage of ARHealthNet, the state-sponsored insurance program that was begun with fanfare late last year. When Gov. Mike Huckabee and his health director, Dr. Joe Thompson, unveiled the plan after obtaining a waiver from the federal Medicaid division, we expressed doubt that it would amount to much. We hoped we were wrong. They talked about covering 80,000 workers with the limited-benefit plan. That would be a sizable segment of the roughly 378,000 Arkansans who have no health insurance. Employers could buy into Medicaid for their low-income workers (wages up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line) by paying only 27 percent of the cost of medical benefits; Washington would pay the other 73 percent. Employers would essentially be paying the state’s low matching share of Medicaid for their workers.
For such a wonderful opportunity, there were a couple of rubs. First, businesses do have to pay something and most consider that with their tight margins even the 27 percent is too much. Second, to participate a company has to insure its other employees, too, rather than providing benefits only to its poorest employees. They have to do that with private plans for which they and their employees pay the full load.
After seven months, only 178 businesses have enrolled to cover 655 workers, roughly four per business. Beebe and Thompson, who is his new surgeon general, think that the program just needs promoting. We hope so. But experience is not encouraging. Eight other states started a similar program with about the same cheerless results. Arkansas’ earlier initiatives proved even more disappointing. After spending $500,000 preparing it and promoting it, the state abandoned a drug-discount program several months ago because not enough people expressed an interest to drive much of a discount.
Previous legislation establishing small-business insurance pools going back 15 years proved worthless. To make a dent in the problem, there will have to be mandatory participation, a concerted effort at cost control and a real financial participation by state government if it is a state program. A half-dozen states — mainly big ones but also tiny Maine — are moving toward that with mixed results. In the end, it must be a federal remedy because only the national government can impose both effective cost controls and the financing that an equitable universal system requires. —Ernie Dumas
Gov. Beebe struck out Monday on a tour of the state to urge businesses to take advantage of ARHealthNet, the state-sponsored insurance program that was begun with fanfare late last year. When Gov. Mike Huckabee and his health director, Dr. Joe Thompson, unveiled the plan after obtaining a waiver from the federal Medicaid division, we expressed doubt that it would amount to much. We hoped we were wrong. They talked about covering 80,000 workers with the limited-benefit plan. That would be a sizable segment of the roughly 378,000 Arkansans who have no health insurance. Employers could buy into Medicaid for their low-income workers (wages up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line) by paying only 27 percent of the cost of medical benefits; Washington would pay the other 73 percent. Employers would essentially be paying the state’s low matching share of Medicaid for their workers.
For such a wonderful opportunity, there were a couple of rubs. First, businesses do have to pay something and most consider that with their tight margins even the 27 percent is too much. Second, to participate a company has to insure its other employees, too, rather than providing benefits only to its poorest employees. They have to do that with private plans for which they and their employees pay the full load.
After seven months, only 178 businesses have enrolled to cover 655 workers, roughly four per business. Beebe and Thompson, who is his new surgeon general, think that the program just needs promoting. We hope so. But experience is not encouraging. Eight other states started a similar program with about the same cheerless results. Arkansas’ earlier initiatives proved even more disappointing. After spending $500,000 preparing it and promoting it, the state abandoned a drug-discount program several months ago because not enough people expressed an interest to drive much of a discount.
Previous legislation establishing small-business insurance pools going back 15 years proved worthless. To make a dent in the problem, there will have to be mandatory participation, a concerted effort at cost control and a real financial participation by state government if it is a state program. A half-dozen states — mainly big ones but also tiny Maine — are moving toward that with mixed results. In the end, it must be a federal remedy because only the national government can impose both effective cost controls and the financing that an equitable universal system requires. —Ernie Dumas
EDITORIALS>>Some taxes should go up
Every week brings new announcements of investment in the exploration of the vast Fayetteville shale gas play and, far more quietly, fresh complaints about the horrors that follow it: the waste pits, polluted ground water, the surface degradation and the weak secondary roads and city streets that are pounded into rubble by the heavy equipment.
Economic development nearly always carries some costs, but good government will always ameliorate them by stern regulation and sometimes taxation. Old-timers in south Arkansas remember the years of the oil boom, when a few got rich, others got better-paying jobs and the land and streams took a beating. Creeks and branches turned to saltwater and sludge and valleys took on the ghostly appearance of bombed-out Dresden: long stretches of whitened dead tree trunks and blackened earth that supported only the scrappiest vegetation. The state eventually passed pollution laws and established regulation over discharges, and over many decades a little verdure returned to the valleys in Union, Columbia and Lafayette counties and a little life found its way back into the streams. The legislature passed modest severance taxes on oil that paid for some of the reclamation. Now the oil bonanza is mostly gone.
Lots of personal riches will follow the shale development although the companies that drill and then pipe the gas to Midwestern industries and homes will take most of the profits out of the state as well. Gov. Beebe is hearing the complaints now as well as the euphoria, and he told a radio audience that the exploration companies ought to be paying their share to cover road and environmental damage. But they won’t. Stepped-up enforcement of highway weight limits, which Beebe promised, won’t do the job either. The state Department of Environmental Quality is drafting rules to govern the drilling and cleanup. Presumably, the regulations will include fines for violations. If they follow the Arkansas pattern, they will not be harsh enough to make a lot of difference. The companies tried and almost succeeded this year in passing legislation to limit what property owners who were abandoned by their government could recover by suing heedless developers.
Gov. Beebe, reflecting what we fear is his leadership style, said he sure wished that the state had a real severance tax on natural gas but that he was unwilling to ask the legislature to pass one. It would take a three-fourths vote in each house and that is impossible to achieve, he said. He recalled that Gov. Bill Clinton proposed a modest tax in 1983 and that he, as a state senator, had voted for it but that the House of Representatives defeated it. He implied that Clinton was a more potent leader than he and that at Clinton’s pinnacle he could not get a necessary reform done. Beebe suggested that someone draft an initiated act and get it on the ballot. He would support it. Well, somebody should, but what about Mike Beebe? We recall two such instances: Bill Clinton pushing a public initiative for ethics reform after the legislature defeated it and Mike Huckabee organizing an initiative drive for a big health-care program after the lawmakers defeated it. That was leadership.
The severance tax has a moral imperative. It’s not just a way to raise money for public works and reclamation of lands. Those who profit from the removal of a finite public asset that can never be replenished owe something back to the public trust. It is certainly not three-tenths of one penny for a thousand cubic feet, the absurd current law.
Economic development nearly always carries some costs, but good government will always ameliorate them by stern regulation and sometimes taxation. Old-timers in south Arkansas remember the years of the oil boom, when a few got rich, others got better-paying jobs and the land and streams took a beating. Creeks and branches turned to saltwater and sludge and valleys took on the ghostly appearance of bombed-out Dresden: long stretches of whitened dead tree trunks and blackened earth that supported only the scrappiest vegetation. The state eventually passed pollution laws and established regulation over discharges, and over many decades a little verdure returned to the valleys in Union, Columbia and Lafayette counties and a little life found its way back into the streams. The legislature passed modest severance taxes on oil that paid for some of the reclamation. Now the oil bonanza is mostly gone.
Lots of personal riches will follow the shale development although the companies that drill and then pipe the gas to Midwestern industries and homes will take most of the profits out of the state as well. Gov. Beebe is hearing the complaints now as well as the euphoria, and he told a radio audience that the exploration companies ought to be paying their share to cover road and environmental damage. But they won’t. Stepped-up enforcement of highway weight limits, which Beebe promised, won’t do the job either. The state Department of Environmental Quality is drafting rules to govern the drilling and cleanup. Presumably, the regulations will include fines for violations. If they follow the Arkansas pattern, they will not be harsh enough to make a lot of difference. The companies tried and almost succeeded this year in passing legislation to limit what property owners who were abandoned by their government could recover by suing heedless developers.
Gov. Beebe, reflecting what we fear is his leadership style, said he sure wished that the state had a real severance tax on natural gas but that he was unwilling to ask the legislature to pass one. It would take a three-fourths vote in each house and that is impossible to achieve, he said. He recalled that Gov. Bill Clinton proposed a modest tax in 1983 and that he, as a state senator, had voted for it but that the House of Representatives defeated it. He implied that Clinton was a more potent leader than he and that at Clinton’s pinnacle he could not get a necessary reform done. Beebe suggested that someone draft an initiated act and get it on the ballot. He would support it. Well, somebody should, but what about Mike Beebe? We recall two such instances: Bill Clinton pushing a public initiative for ethics reform after the legislature defeated it and Mike Huckabee organizing an initiative drive for a big health-care program after the lawmakers defeated it. That was leadership.
The severance tax has a moral imperative. It’s not just a way to raise money for public works and reclamation of lands. Those who profit from the removal of a finite public asset that can never be replenished owe something back to the public trust. It is certainly not three-tenths of one penny for a thousand cubic feet, the absurd current law.
SPORTS>>Cabot AAA topples NLR Colts
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
The Cabot Class AAA American Legion team needed two extra innings to get it done, but came away with a huge win over North Little Rock 8-6 Friday night at Vince De Salvo Stadium in Burns Park.
Cabot trailed the Colts 6-3 entering the top of the sixth inning, but pulled to within one score in the sixth, and tied the contest with one more run in the seventh to send the game into extra innings. “We just weren’t playing very good baseball,” Cabot coach Andy Runyan said of his team’s early struggles. “The boys clawed back in the game and started playing better. We just haven’t had very good luck at that field.
“I don’t think we’ve won a game there since I’ve started coaching, so we have some bad mojo there for some reason. The kids fought through it and did a good job.”
North Little Rock was poised for a blowout in the opening frame, scoring four runs against Cabot southpaw Justin Haas. The Clark College signee had an unusual struggle in the bottom of the first, but recovered to keep the Colts off the scoreboard in the three subsequent innings until being relieved by Josh Brown in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Brown closed out the inning without allowing a hit, paving the way for Sean Clarkson to take the mound in the sixth inning. Clarkson gave up three hits on his way to collecting the save, but no NLR runners would score.
Although Haas gave up an unfortunate nine hits, in his defense, the six runs collected by the Colts were also aided by four Cabot errors while he was on the mound. The fielding improved with the pitching in the late going, with no further errors committed in the remaining five innings.
Cabot did not come alive offensively until the top of the third inning, when three runs pulled Post 71 to within a single score at 4-3. North Little Rock did not answer until the bottom of the fifth inning with two more scores made the score 6-3 in favor of the Colts.
Cabot slowly climbed its way back in the game with a pair of runs in the sixth inning, and finally pulled even in the seventh to send the game past its scheduled seven innings.
Both teams went scoreless in the eighth, but Post 71 captured their first lead of the game in the top of the ninth inning when Sam Bates hit a two-run home run with two outs. That put North Little Rock in the unfamiliar position of facing a two-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth.
The Colts needed two scores to stay alive in the bottom of the ninth, but Clarkson would have none of it. He shut NLR down in the ninth with runners on first and third , striking out the final Colts batter to secure the incredible comeback win. Cabot is now 10-9 overall and 3-1 in zone play.
Jackson Chism led Cabot at the plate, going 3 for 4 with one run and a stolen base. Sam Bates scored the biggest hit of the game with a homerun, ending up 2 for 4 with two RBIs. Shayne Burgan was also 2 for 4 with a double and a RBI.
Cabot played against Faulkner County at Conway last night after Leader deadlines in a Class AAA doubleheader.
Leader sportswriter
The Cabot Class AAA American Legion team needed two extra innings to get it done, but came away with a huge win over North Little Rock 8-6 Friday night at Vince De Salvo Stadium in Burns Park.
Cabot trailed the Colts 6-3 entering the top of the sixth inning, but pulled to within one score in the sixth, and tied the contest with one more run in the seventh to send the game into extra innings. “We just weren’t playing very good baseball,” Cabot coach Andy Runyan said of his team’s early struggles. “The boys clawed back in the game and started playing better. We just haven’t had very good luck at that field.
“I don’t think we’ve won a game there since I’ve started coaching, so we have some bad mojo there for some reason. The kids fought through it and did a good job.”
North Little Rock was poised for a blowout in the opening frame, scoring four runs against Cabot southpaw Justin Haas. The Clark College signee had an unusual struggle in the bottom of the first, but recovered to keep the Colts off the scoreboard in the three subsequent innings until being relieved by Josh Brown in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Brown closed out the inning without allowing a hit, paving the way for Sean Clarkson to take the mound in the sixth inning. Clarkson gave up three hits on his way to collecting the save, but no NLR runners would score.
Although Haas gave up an unfortunate nine hits, in his defense, the six runs collected by the Colts were also aided by four Cabot errors while he was on the mound. The fielding improved with the pitching in the late going, with no further errors committed in the remaining five innings.
Cabot did not come alive offensively until the top of the third inning, when three runs pulled Post 71 to within a single score at 4-3. North Little Rock did not answer until the bottom of the fifth inning with two more scores made the score 6-3 in favor of the Colts.
Cabot slowly climbed its way back in the game with a pair of runs in the sixth inning, and finally pulled even in the seventh to send the game past its scheduled seven innings.
Both teams went scoreless in the eighth, but Post 71 captured their first lead of the game in the top of the ninth inning when Sam Bates hit a two-run home run with two outs. That put North Little Rock in the unfamiliar position of facing a two-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth.
The Colts needed two scores to stay alive in the bottom of the ninth, but Clarkson would have none of it. He shut NLR down in the ninth with runners on first and third , striking out the final Colts batter to secure the incredible comeback win. Cabot is now 10-9 overall and 3-1 in zone play.
Jackson Chism led Cabot at the plate, going 3 for 4 with one run and a stolen base. Sam Bates scored the biggest hit of the game with a homerun, ending up 2 for 4 with two RBIs. Shayne Burgan was also 2 for 4 with a double and a RBI.
Cabot played against Faulkner County at Conway last night after Leader deadlines in a Class AAA doubleheader.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)