TOP STORY >> Gun firm coming to Jacksonville

Jacksonville will get a $5.7 million ammunition manufacturing plant, and Lonoke County will see a $12 million Remington Arms expansion. The deals will bring at least 75 new jobs to Jacksonville and another 80 to Lonoke.

Ron Cohen, CEO of SIG Sauer, said he believes the 75 new jobs will be only the beginning.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson made the announcements Thursday afternoon from the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Show (SHOT) in Las Vegas.

Hutchinson called Arkansas a premier location for the firearms industry and said Remington and SIG Sauer would “benefit from the state’s residents who are strong believers in the Second Amendment.”

SIG Sauer plans to turn the old Meador’s Lighting facility on Swift Drive near the air base into their ammunition plant.

The governor, in a press release, added, “The fact that a world-class company like SIG Sauer is choosing to do business in the state adds to our momentum in manufacturing, and we appreciate this significant commitment they are making to locate in Arkansas.”

In making the announcement, Hutchinson said Jacksonville, “with the air base, military retirees and  an incredible workforce,” is the perfect place for the ammunition company.
Mayor Gary Fletcher said this should begin a positive “ripple effect” for the city. One of the ripples started Thursday night as the city council approved a resolution holding 15 acres of city land adjacent the SIG plant for the firearms company to purchase at a later date for expansion.

Gov. Hutchinson tweeted Thursday evening from Las Vegas, “When I took office, SIG Sauer was one of the first companies I invited to do business in Arkansas. I’m delighted they chose to expand in our state.”

Mayor Fletcher added that the governor was the one to bring SIG into Arkansas, but it was local businessman Patrick Franklin, owner of Precision Brass and Bullets, who got SIG to focus on Jacksonville.

“There are a lot of people to give accolades to here from the governor to the chamber to the state economic development commission, but it was Franklin and his connections with SIG that got it start for us,” the mayor explained Friday morning.

SIG Sauer is one of the most renowned firearms manufacturers in the world. It makes pistols and rifles as well as silencers, optics, ammunitions, air guns and accessories. The company began in 1853 as a wagon factory named Swiss Industrial Company (Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft).

According to the company, almost one-third of law-enforcement professionals in the U.S. use SIG Sauer firearms. Military and government clients include the U.S. Navy SEALS, the Federal Air Marshals, the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service and the U.S. Coast Guard.

“The Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce and the city of Jacksonville have worked very hard on this project, and we are very excited that SIG Sauer has decided to locate this ammunition manufacturing facility in Jacksonville,” said Amy Mattison of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.

The mayor said, “We look forward to a long and prosperous relationship for years to come.”

The governor announced the Remington expansion first Thursday afternoon with the company’s chief executive officer, Jim  Marcotuli. The $12 million expansion will mean 80 more jobs at Lonoke’s Remington plant, which already employees about 1,200, according to Hutchinson.

After the announcement, the governor, tweeted, “Delighted to announce Remington Outdoor Company’s decision to expand in Arkansas, furthering our reputation as a hub for firearms and ammo manufacturing!”

The governor called Arkansas a firearm-friendly state and applauded the commitment of Remington, which is celebrating its 200th year of business.

Forbes has ranked Arkansas as the third most gun-friendly state. For every 1,000 residents, there are 42 registered firearms in the state.

SPORTS STORY >> Jackrabbits demolish eStem Mets

By RAY BENTON

Leader sports editor

The Lonoke basketball teams got mixed results Friday night at eStem Charter School. The boys stopped a two-game skid with a dominant 60-32 victory while the girls lost for the second time in a row, dropping a 46-41 decision to the Mets. Last Tuesday, Lonoke suffered a 68-48 loss to No. 1 ranked and undefeated Riverview.

The boys controlled the action in their game from beginning to end. The Jackrabbits were hot from the floor early, and that’s always a big plus for a streaky shooting team like Lonoke.

“We hit shots early,” said Lonoke coach Dean Campbell. “When we come right out and shoot well, it’s also a big boost to our defensive energy. Justin Meadows was able to get out defensively and get a couple deflections, get in transition and get a couple dunks. That all really energized us from the outset and we were able to maintain it for the most part. I felt like Friday night was one of our best efforts for a complete game as far as getting everyone involved.”

Bryson Jackson hit four 3-pointers in the first half, two in each quarter. He and Meadows led Lonoke with 13 points each, while Kylan Branscomb scored 10 for the Jackrabbits.

Lonoke led eStem (11-9, 3-5) 23-7 at the end of the first quarter and added to that lead every period.

The win comes on the heels of back-to-back losses to CAC and Riverview. The Raiders are undefeated in conference play, putting a conference title out of reach for the Jackrabbits (10-8, 3-6). But Campbell still thinks his team is one capable of making some noise in the postseason if it continues to improve and peaks at the right time.

“We have to sort out a couple of things defensively,” Campbell said. “If we could make a run here, we could easily get to 8-8 and that will put us in a good seeding for district. But for us right now, it’s one game at a time. That’s the approach we’re going to have to take because sitting here 3-6 doesn’t give us much leeway.”

The Lady Jackrabbits (12-6, 5-4) fell behind early, but bounced back to outscore eStem 14-5 in the second quarter and take a 20-16 lead into halftime. That lead was down to 31-30 by the end of the third quarter, and eStem’s Bucknell signee Gia Hayes led a 16-10 fourth quarter to give the Lady Mets (19-5, 6-2) the victory.

“We’re so close, man, we’re so close,” said Lonoke girls’ coach Nathan Morris. “You hate to say that it’s still youth this time of year, but the fact of the matter is, we’re doing some things that happened when you’re playing a lot of freshmen and sophomores. And we’re still overcoming that. Everybody is disappointed in getting beat, but we knew there would be games we’d lose that we shouldn’t. And we knew we would win games we may not be expected to win. The one thing I like about this team above everything else is this. We have had the game where we just came out flat and didn’t have a good effort. We’ve gone toe-to-toe with good teams and just come up short at times.”

Hayes led all scorers with 18 points, but Morris thought sophomore guard Mariah Adams did the most damage.

She’s a 5-foot-10 guard who was able to get inside and steadily hurt us with some floaters right when they needed them,” Morris said of Adams. “Gia Hayes is a great player, but I thought we did a pretty good job on her, keeping her to 18. But they’ve got other weapons and those girls came through for them.”

Adams finished with 14 points.

Jarrelyn McCall led Lonoke with 14 points while Ashlyn Allen and Keiunna Walker scored nine apiece.

SPORTS STORY >> CHS eyes bowling hardware

By RAY BENTON

Leader sports editor

The Cabot bowling teams are undefeated so far this season after adding wins over Riverview and Benton last week at Allfam Bowling Center in Cabot. The Panther boys are the four-time defending state champions and have no intentions of letting that streak end this year. Last year’s championship team lost its top bowler, but brings back most everyone else who played a key role in last year’s title-winning performance.

First-year coach Clark Bing believes his group should be one of the leading contenders again this year.

“I think beating Benton is a good measuring stick because they’re always pretty good,” said Bing. “Benton has won a state championship and finished runner-up to us a couple years running. Of course, you never know what’s going to come out of the West (Conference). But we should be up there for sure.”

Bing says consistency is the key to a fifth-straight championship. Though undefeated, bowlers weren’t keeping scores up from one game to the next early on. The head coach sees that changing.

“For example, Josh Imhoff had a very good day last Thursday,” Bing said. “He went 267 and 268 in consecutive games. It’s hard to repeat when you bowl that well, and to bowl on pin better said a lot about how focused he was and was able to maintain it. We’re seeing that a little more.”

Imhoff, a sophomore, had the high score in the conference meet last year as a freshman. Senior Blake Palladino and junior Cole Stillman have also shown increased steadiness.

“We talk a lot about bowling above your average at game time,” Bing said. “We’re starting to see that more and more. Keaton Hayes is another kid that had a very good day last Friday. He bowled well above his average in both games against Benton.”

No one has approached record-breaking scores like Cayden Cook did in Cabot’s 2014 championship. The 2015 team managed another title without that kind of performance, and Bing believes this group can do the same after losing another top senior.

“There’s no one standout,” Bing said. “It’s been different people here and there playing above their average, and that’s our goal right now.”

On the girls’ side, Hayleigh Baugh, Micah Perry and Emily Tripp are leading the way. Sophomore Olivia New came through with a 199 against Benton, which is not her best game ever, but above her average. The Lady Panthers have also won four state championships, but never back-to-back. They have alternated between champion and runner-up the last eight years.

“I think we definitely have the potential to repeat,” Bing said. “Like I said, you never know what’s coming from the West. And if we go out there and all bowl above our average and get beat, you just have to congratulate the winner. If we go out there and don’t bowl well, that’s our fault. So we’re working hard right now on being consistent and limiting those lapses.”

Cabot has a few more matches before the conference meet at Maumelle on Feb. 12. The Panthers will host the 7A/6A state tournament at Allfam on Feb. 17.

SPORTS STORY >> Red Devils earn easy road win over BHS

By GRAHAM POWELL

Leader sportswriter

Friday’s 5A-Central Conference matchup between Jacksonville and Beebe was close after a quarter of play, but the more talented Red Devils separated themselves on the scoreboard in the second quarter and built on their lead from there, beating the Badgers 75-45 at Beebe.

Jacksonville (11-5, 3-1) scored the first five points of the conference game on a basket by Marice Lambert and three by DaJuan Ridgeway. Beebe (2-10, 0-4), though, closed to within 13-12 of Jacksonville’s lead, scoring the last two points on a pair of free throws by Tyler Bradberry with 2:05 left in the first quarter.

Jacksonville’s LaQuawn Smith and Chris Williams added the last two baskets of the quarter to make the score 17-12. The second quarter was a different story, as the Red Devils outscored the host Badgers 24-11 in that eight-minute span to lead 41-23 at halftime.

“We had a lot of defensive breakdowns,” said Jacksonville coach Victor Joyner. “We’ve got a lot of stuff to work on. We’ve got to be better, communication-wise, defensively. Offensively, early on we were impatient.”

Jacksonville opened the second half with an 8-0 run to further its lead to 49-23. Beebe answered with a 7-3 run, but the lead went back to 26 on a spectacular and-1 by Smith with 1:02 left in the third quarter.

Smith drove down the middle of the lane, went up for a right-handed contested layup, first aiming for the right side of the glass, then in midflight while facing the front of the goal and Beebe defenders, switched directions and laid it in off the left side of the glass, while still using his right hand. 

That made the score 64-38. Smith then added the final bucket of the quarter on a buzzer-beating alley-oop lay-in, receiving the pass from Tyree Appleby. That made the score 66-38 at the start of the fourth.

The Red Devils invoked the sportsmanship rule with 6:21 left to play on a free throw by Antoine Davis, which made the score 72-42. With the clock running continuously, the two teams added three points apiece to their sides of the board, setting the final score.

“I thought they settled down and worked the ball a little better in the second half,” Joyner said. “We moved the ball around and we made their defense shift. When you can get the defense shifting then you can get open glides and open shots. We did a better job in the second half of moving the ball.”

Jacksonville finished the game 26 for 46 from the floor for 57 percent. Beebe was 14 for 36 from the floor for 39 percent. From the free-throw line, the Red Devils made 19 of 30 attempts and the Badgers made 14 of 20. From 3-point range, JHS made 3 of 11 attempts and the hosts made 3 of 13.

Beebe outrebounded Jacksonville 25-16, but the Red Devils won the turnover category 7-20.

The win keeps the Red Devils on pace with three other 5A-Central teams that share the league lead. Pulaski Academy, J.A. Fair and Mills are also 3-1. McClellan and Sylvan Hills are just a game behind at 2-2 while Beebe and North Pulaski are winless in league play.

Smith led all scorers with 17 points. Appleby and Bralyn James added 11 points each and Ridgeway and Harderrious Martin scored eight points apiece.

Brad Worthington led Beebe with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Austin Moore scored nine points, all of which came in the second half.

SPORTS STORY >> Beebe girls alone in first

By GRAHAM POWELL

Leader sportswriter

The Beebe girls claimed sole position of the top spot in the 5A-Central Conference on Friday at home, and did so in a big way, as the Lady Badgers took a double-digit lead into halftime and maintained that double-digit lead throughout the second half en route to a 52-35 win over Jacksonville. 

Beebe (13-4, 4-0) and Jacksonville (9-8, 3-1) entered Friday’s conference game as the last two unbeaten teams in the 5A-Central. The Lady Badgers started the game strong and outscored the Lady Red Devils 14-5 in the first quarter.

Jacksonville cut the lead to six at the 6:19 mark of the second quarter. A 3-pointer by Desiree Williams made the score 16-10, but the Lady Badgers ended the first half with a 13-2 run to take a commanding 29-12 lead into halftime.

“We got off to a good start,” said Beebe coach Greg Richey. “I thought my bench came in and did a good job. We got into a little bit of foul trouble with our point guard (Taylor McGraw). We know that when we play Jacksonville it’s going to be a battle.

“We know it’s going to be a tough, competitive game. They came in 3-0 in conference and I didn’t expect them to go away. I knew that if we’d get out to a lead that they wouldn’t go away, but we kind of kept it 15 to 18 points most of the time.”

Jacksonville’s game plan coming in was to slow Beebe’s offense down, but that game plan wasn’t executed, according to head coach Crystal Scott.

“Our game plan coming in was to slow them down and we abandoned that in the first two minutes of the ballgame,” said Scott. “We never got into what we wanted to do. We didn’t play well, but Beebe had a lot to do with that.

“They’re a well-coached ballclub. I know coach Richey, he’s a great person. They’ve got super kids and they were just bigger and stronger than us. They had a good game plan, their kids executed. We didn’t do a good job of executing, but like I said, they had a lot to do with that.”

McGraw scored on the first possession of the second half to push the Lady Badgers’ lead to 19, 31-12, and Beebe went up 34-13 on a Libbie Hill three near the six-minute mark of the third quarter.

Jacksonville made it 37-20 with 1:51 left in the third on an Alexis James three, but Beebe’s lead was 19 by the end of the quarter, with the score 41-22.

The Lady Red Devils made it a 15-point game on another three by Williams with 5:23 left to play. That made the score 43-28. Beebe responded with a 6-2 run to push its lead back to 19, 49-30.

The lead was also 19 when Beebe scored its final point of the game – a McGraw free throw with 1:05 to play. Asia Williams scored the last points of the game on a basket with 20 seconds remaining.

Friday’s game marked Beebe’s first win against JHS since joining the Central Conference. Jacksonville swept the Lady Badgers last season.

Two different Lady Badgers scored in double figures. Gracie Anders led the way with 13 points and 13 rebounds. McGraw scored 11. Hill added nine.

Desiree Williams was the only Jacksonville player that scored in double figures. She had 12 points and James scored nine.

EDITORIAL >> Bumpers’ legacy (V)

(This is the last in a series of editorials on the life of former Arkansas senator and governor Dale Bumpers, who died on New Year’s Day at the age of 90.)

Dale Bumpers’ first legislative victory as senator was passage of a law in 1975 letting driver make right turns on red lights if traffic was clear. The nation was in the midst of an energy crisis and he said drivers would save millions of gallons of gas a year if they did not have to idle at corners where the traffic was light.

As he did as governor, Bumpers marched to his own drummer, usually at odds with nearly all Southern members of Congress, on constitutional amendments, taxes and social justice. He usually came home, made speeches explaining unpopular votes like school prayer, flag desecration, racial busing, taxes and foreign policy. In 1981, he was one of only three senators who voted for unpopular budget cuts but against popular tax cuts, the key components of President Reagan’s program. He said the tax cuts would lead to huge budget deficits, which they did.

If voters were dissatisfied, they never manifested it at the polls, except after his vote ratifying the treaty that returned control of the Panama Canal to the country of Panama. Bumpers said later that if he had had a strong opponent in 1980 he would have been beaten. He lost his home county in the Democratic primary that year.

When Republicans ran against him in 1980, 1986 and 1992 they cited GOP roll-call analyses that Bumpers had voted with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the liberal icon, 98 (or similar numbers) percent of the time. They have it exactly backwards, Bumpers would say. “Ted Kennedy voted with me 98 percent of the time.”

As a senator, Bumpers developed a close friendship and alliance with David Pryor, who followed him in the governor’s office and in the Senate. It was one of the rare instances in the Senate where there was not a natural rivalry between senators of the same state and even of the same party.

Bumpers, who passed away at the of 90 on New Year’s Day, admired President Clinton both for his skills and his toughness. Bumpers briefly ran for president in 1983–84, making the midterm “cattle shows” of the candidates and getting glowing reviews by political commentators, but pulled out early, owing partly to his and his wife’s fragile health at the time, but also to the gnawing conclusion that he simply was not prepared for the brutal campaigns that were developing and the need to raise lots of money.

But in 1987, he actually made extensive preparations to run for the nomination in 1988 and called a news conference. Many Democratic senators lined up to support him. But knee surgeries left him in considerable pain and he changed his mind at the last minute and did not run. Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, his biggest supporter, then made the race along with two other Senate friends, Joe Biden of Delaware and Al Gore of Tennessee. Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis won the nomination and was beaten by George H.W. Bush.

After watching at close hand the partisan assault on Clintons from the beginning of his 1992 campaign through eight years of his presidency, Bumpers said a few years ago that he had finally realized that if had been tormented by the silly charge that he took a bag of bills at a New York airport while he was taking his daughter to a Massachusetts hospital and by the trifling ethical slips by people who worked under him he could not have survived the continual assaults on a president. He eventually decided that his father would not have been disappointed in him.

After retiring, Bumpers briefly ran a defense think tank and associated with a Washington, D.C., law firm but sold his home and moved to his home in Little Rock. His eldest son, Brent Bumpers, was a federal prosecutor at Little Rock and then a businessman. His other son, Bill Bumpers, practices environmental law with a Washington law firm. His daughter, Brooke, who also is a lawyer with a Washington firm, moved back to Little Rock with her family but continues her practice.

— Ernie Dumas

TOP STORY >> Millage hike is needed

By GARRICK FELDMAN

Leader executive editor

Jacksonville residents are fortunate that U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., a brilliant jurist, is overseeing their move toward independence from the Pulaski County Special School District after decades of turmoil.

With encouragement from Judge Marshall, let’s hope voters will approve a 7.6-mill property tax increase on Feb. 9 to pay for $80 million in school improvements. Early voting begins Feb. 2.

The new district has bounced around from court to court, often encountering judges who knew nothing about the needs of Jacksonville students. But Marshall understands what the new district needs: Modern facilities with knowledgeable staff dedicated to improving student test scores and turning out young scholars who can compete in our modern world.

Marshall, who is in the mold of Learned Hand (the greatest federal judge who never made it to the Supreme Court), last week approved Jacksonville’s facilities plan despite an objection from civil rights attorney John Walker.

Although far from perfect, the facilities plan includes a new high school on the site of the old middle schools, a new elementary school near the air base, remodeling North Pulaski High School as a middle school and adding multi-purpose buildings at all of the other elementary schools.

Marshall cautioned that building a new high school and an elementary school is only a start. The new district must also work toward arranging state financing and replace its four other dilapidated elementary schools that should have been demolished years ago.

He wants Jacksonville schools as up to date as those in Maumelle and Sherwood that the Joshua Intervenors and Walker cited on behalf of minority students.

The judge could also point to the new Lighthouse Academy Charter Schools in Jacksonville and on the air base, as well as new facilities in Cabot and elsewhere that meet standards required by the state and federal courts. Surely youngsters in Jacksonville deserve no less.

“We must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good,” wrote Marshall as he signed off on the Jacksonville-North Pulaski School District’s master facilities plan.

“The court holds that JNPSD’s proposed master facilities plan, though incomplete, keeps faith with Plan 2000 and is likely to promote, not hinder, eliminating the vestiges of past discrimination insofar as practical,” Marshall wrote.

“The proposed master plan is approved with an important condition: it must be supplemented by (Dec. 31, 2016) with when-and-how specifics about replacing the four other elementary schools, so that all the new district’s elementary schools are equal. Joshua’s objections are overruled and its request for an evidentiary hearing is denied.”

The new district says there won’t be enough money to build six new elementaries. “That murky and complicated future, however, is precisely why JNPSD needs a complete plan for replacing all elementary facilities — with options, contingencies, fallbacks and play in the joints to accommodate the developing circumstances,” the judge wrote.

Marshall gave the district until the end of this year to draft a new master plan for 2019, when a new round of state school partnership matching money becomes available that would replace the four other elementary schools.

JNP Superintendent Tony Wood told our reporter John Hofheimer that a new facilities plan is in the works even as the district prepares for the Feb. 9 millage-tax increase and becomes fully independent July 1.

Marshall noted that the facilities master plan would be “a significant step toward equal facilities for all students. The new high school and middle school will serve children of all races. Locating the high school in downtown Jacksonville signals a commitment — not only to that city’s hub, but to the many African-American families and their children who live close by.”

Walker objected to combining Arnold Drive elementary school on the air base and the nearby Tolleson elementary into a new school along the base perimeter, calling it a gift to white students. Apparently, Walker hasn’t been on the base to notice how many minority students come from military families.

Marshall dismissed Walker’s claim that the new elementary “would become a white-flight school.” The judge pointed out the Defense Department would pay up to half the cost of the new elementary school, which shows “good stewardship of limited public dollars, not discriminatory intent,” he wrote.

But Marshall is still not satisfied: “There’s something missing,” he continued. “No plan or timetable for replacing the four other elementary schools (Bayou Meto, Dupree, Pinewood and Taylor) is included.”

Marshall wrote, “To achieve unitary status, JNPSD must have a plan for making all facilities clean, safe, attractive and equal and must be implementing that plan in good faith to the extent practicable.”

The 7.6-mill tax increase, if passed, would make property tax millage in the district 48.3 mills, the same as North Little Rock, and about 2 mills higher than the Little Rock School District — 46.4 mills.

The new district is preparing a budget of about $37 million to $40 million, including new taxes for next year, minimum foundation aid from the state and a one-time state desegregation payment of about $5 million.

Funding is not guaranteed, but Jacksonville could show Judge Marshall how the new district will not only put its finances in order but make JNPSD a beacon of hope for its students.

Walker could still take his case to the Eighth U.S. Court of Appeals, where Marshall might serve one day, probably with as much distinction as he has in Arkansas.

Once Marshall releases the Jacksonville district from court supervision, the JNPSD board should consider naming the new high school for the distinguished jurist.

Marshall High School has a nice ring to it.

TOP STORY >> PARCC scores cast pall over area’s schools

By RICK KRON

Leader staff writer

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of three articles examining the recently released PARCC scores.

Not a single eighth grader in The Leader’s coverage area exceeded expectations on last year’s statewide assessment, known as PARCC.

Also, Jacksonville Middle School had the lowest math scores in sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The eighth grade average math score of 694 was the sixth worse in the state and second worse in the district (Fuller Middle School had a 684).

In April 2015, the state gave its annual mandated assessments, but this time it was not the long-used Benchmark Exam. It was a new, more computer-oriented test known as PARRC.

But that particular testing format received a lot of controversy, and the state decided to scrap it, limiting the validity of the results.

Starting this year, students will take a different computer-oriented assessment called ACT/Aspire, which education officials say is not as rigorous as the PARCC, but still more difficult and demanding than the Benchmark.

Overall, the PARCC test show students scored significantly higher in literacy than math. Sixty percent of JMS eighth graders did not meet expectations, and 50 percent of Lighthouse Middle School eight graders also failed to meet expectations in math.

On the positive side, 61 percent of Carlisle sixth grades met or exceeded expectations in literacy and 54 percent of the Flightline Academy sixth graders did the same, as did 62 percent of the school’s seventh graders.

Based upon assessment scores, a student can be at a Level 5, exceeding expectations for that grade level; Level 4, meeting expectations for that grade level; Level 3, approaching grade-level expectations; Level 2, partially meeting expectations and needing intervention or additional help; and Level 1, not yet meeting grade expectations and needing additional help.

“For the Beebe School District, I thought the results of the PARCC were somewhat inconsistent,” said Dr. Belinda Shook, head of that district.

“For example, we compared ourselves to the state average and it was almost an every-other-grade inconsistency in the scores. One grade, we were much higher than the state average, the next grade we were lower. I don’t think there is that much variation between how our third- and fourth-grade teachers teach. They were all using the Common Core Standards. That makes me question whether it was a standards problem or an assessment problem with cut-off scores,” Shook said.

Lonoke School Superintendent Suzanne Bailey said, “Specifically for middle school, the assessments showed we need to focus on major content in math and written expression for literacy. We continue to excel in our Algebra I scores at the middle level.

“We know that test scores are just a snapshot of a period of time in a student’s academic year. They do, however, provide us with key information that is important to note as we continue to help students of the Lonoke district to be college- and career-ready,” Bailey said.

JACKSONVILLE

In math, Jacksonville eighth graders had a mean score of 694, with none of its students meeting or exceeding expectations. Sixty percent of the students did not meet any expectations, while 10 percent were listed as approaching goals. In literacy, the mean score was 710, with 1 percent exceeding goals, 13 percent meeting expectations and 21 percent approaching, but 39 percent failed to meet expectations.

Seventh graders had one of the lowest mean math scores in the area at 710. The school had 5 percent of its students meeting expectations, 21 percent approaching and 32 percent not meeting expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 714 with 3 percent exceeding expectations, 12 percent meeting expectations, 17 percent approaching goals and 39 percent failing to make the goals.

Sixth graders had a mean math score of 716, one of the lowest in the area, with 9 percent meeting expectations, 25 percent approaching and 26 percent not meeting goals at all.

PCSSD

In its last year of existence, Northwood Middle School posted a mean math score of 704 among its eighth graders, with 1 percent meeting expectations, 17 percent approaching goals and nearly half (49 percent) not meeting expectations. For literacy, the mean score was 727, with 1 percent exceeding goals, 25 percent meeting expectations and 30 percent approaching the state-set goals for eighth grade. The school had 18 percent not meet expectations.

Northwood seventh graders had a mean math score of 721, with 10 percent meeting expectations, 32 percent approaching and 14 percent not meeting expectations. For literacy, the mean score was 729, with 1 percent exceeding goals, 28 percent meeting goals and 30 percent approaching expectations. Eighteen percent failed to meet expectations in any manner.

The school’s sixth graders had a mean math score of 719, with 12 percent meeting expectations, 25 percent approaching them and 19 percent not hitting expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 733, with 31 percent meeting the mandated goals, 34 percent approaching them and 12 percent not meeting the expectations.

Sylvan Hills eighth graders had a math mean score of 706, with 3 percent meeting expectations, 21 percent approaching and 42 percent not meeting goals. In literacy, the mean score was 725, with 2 percent exceeding goals, 20 percent meeting them, 31 percent approaching expectations and 18 percent not meeting the expectations at all.

Seventh graders at Sylvan Hills Middle School had a math mean score of 726, with 15 percent meeting goals, 38 percent approaching them and 11 percent not reaching expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 730, with 3 percent exceeding expectations, 24 percent meeting them, 33 percent approaching and 15 percent not making the goals.

Sixth graders scored a mean of 723 in math, with 1 percent exceeding expectations, 30 percent approaching them and 19 percent failing to reach expectations. For literacy, the mean score was 729, with 1 percent exceeding expectations, 22 percent meeting them, 36 percent approaching and 15 percent not up to par.

LIGHTHOUSE

At the Jacksonville Lighthouse Charter School, eighth graders scored a mean of 704 in math, with no students exceeding or meeting goals, 8 percent approaching expectations and 50 percent not meeting the goals. For literacy, the mean score was 741, with no students exceeding goals, but 42 percent did meet them and another 28 percent were approaching expectations. The school had 8 percent of its eighth graders not meet literacy goals.

Seventh graders at the Light-house Middle School had a mean math score of 712, with no one exceeding or meeting expectations, but 29 were approaching goals and 18 percent failed to meet expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 741, with 6 percent exceeding expectations, 33 percent meeting the goals, 30 percent approaching them and 9 percent not meeting expectations.

Lighthouse sixth graders had a mean math score of 724, with 11 percent meeting expectations, 39 percent approaching them and 13 percent not making the goals. In literacy, the mean score was 736, with 28 percent meeting the goals, 39 percent approaching them and 7 percent not making expectations.

At the Lighthouse’s Flightline Academy, the mean math score was 706, with no one scoring in the exceeding or meeting goals categories. Nine percent did score in the approaching range, while 36 percent failed to meet expectations.

Flightline Academy seventh graders had a mean math score of 736, with 3 percent exceeding expectations, 28 percent meeting goals, 40 percent approaching them and just 3 percent failing to meet expectations. In literacy, students had a mean score of 755, the highest in the area. Eighteen percent of the seventh graders exceeded expectations, 44 percent met them, 22 percent were approaching and 4 percent didn’t meet mandated goals.

Sixth graders had a mean math score of 741, with 4 percent exceeding expectations, 35 percent meeting them, 31 percent approaching expectations and 8 percent missing the mark.

CABOT

At Cabot Junior High South, the mean math score was 723, with 11 percent exceeding goals, 34 percent approaching expectations and 19 percent failing to meet standards. In literacy, the mean score was 731, with 2 percent exceeding expectations, 25 meeting goals, 32 percent approaching and 15 percent not meeting expectations.

Seventh graders at CJH South had a math mean score of 736, with 2 percent exceeding expectations, 27 percent meeting the goals, 39 percent approaching them and just 5 percent not meeting any goals. For literacy, the mean score was 734, with 2 percent of the students exceeding expectations, 31 percent meeting the expectations and another 31 percent approaching goals, but 13 percent did not meet any goals.

Sixth graders at Cabot Middle School South had a mean math score of 743, with 4 percent exceeding the goals, 39 percent meeting them, 32 percent approaching and 7 percent failing to meet expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 746, with 3 percent exceeding expectations, 43 percent meeting them, 35 percent approaching expectations and 5 percent failing expectations.

The eighth-grade students at Cabot Junior High North had a higher math mean score at 730. The school had 17 percent of its students meet expectations, 31 percent were listed as approaching, and 14 percent did not meet expectations. The literacy mean score was 740, with 4 percent exceeding expectations, 36 percent meeting goals, 29 percent approaching and 14 percent failing to meet expectations.

Cabot North seventh graders had a mean math score of 739, the best in the area, with 3 percent exceeding expectations, 29 percent meeting goals, 42 percent approaching and 5 percent not making the goals at all. In literacy, the mean score was 736, with 8 percent exceeding goals, 27 percent meeting them, 30 percent approaching expectations and 12 percent not meeting them.

Cabot Middle School North sixth graders had a mean math score of 740, with 3 percent exceeding goals, 35 percent meeting them and the same percentage approaching expectations. Five percent of the sixth graders did not meet expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 744, with 2 percent exceeding goals, 41 percent meeting them, 34 percent approaching all the goals and 5 percent not reaching them.

The district’s behavior academy, the Academic Center for Excellence, had enough eighth graders for the scores to be tabulated. At ACE, the math mean score was 720 with 10 percent meeting expectations, 40 percent approaching and 30 percent not making the goals in any manner. For literacy, the mean score was 733, with 9 percent exceeding goals, 9 percent meeting expectations and 36 percent approaching the state-mandated goals. The school had no students in the bottom category of not meeting expectations. ACE did not test enough sixth or seventh graders for the state to publish results.

LONOKE

Lonoke’s eighth graders had one of the better math mean scores in the area with a 724. Fourteen percent of the students met expectations, and 39 percent were approaching, while 19 percent failed to meet standards. In literacy, the mean score was 727, with 1 percent of the students exceeding expectations, 22 meeting goals and 31 percent approaching them. Lonoke had 20 percent of its students not meet expectations.

In math, seventh graders had a mean score of 728, with 17 percent meeting expectations, 41 percent approaching goals and 10 percent not meeting goals. In literacy, the mean score was 720, with 2 percent exceeding expectations, 12 percent meeting expectations, 32 percent approaching and 28 percent not meeting expectations.

Sixth graders at Lonoke Middle School had a mean math score of 728, with 1 percent exceeding expectations, 18 percent meeting expectations, 35 percent approaching the goals and 12 percent not making the goals in any form. In literacy, the mean score was 734, with 1 percent of the sixth graders exceeding goals, 26 percent meeting them, 42 percent approaching expectations and 10 percent not meeting goals.

BEEBE

Eighth graders in Beebe had a mean math score of 739, the highest in The Leader coverage area, with 35 percent meeting goals, 34 percent approaching and 9 percent not meeting goals. In literacy, the mean score was 741, with 4 percent exceeding expectations, 33 percent meeting them, 34 percent approaching them and 10 percent not meeting expectations.

Seventh graders in Beebe had a mean math score of 734, with 2 percent exceeding expectations, 22 percent meeting goals, 40 percent were approaching them and 9 percent failed to meet expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 736, with 6 percent exceeding goals, 29 percent meeting them, 33 percent approaching expectations and 13 percent missing the mark completely.

Beebe sixth graders had a mean math score of 732, with 24 percent meeting expectations, 36 percent approaching them and 6 percent not making them. In literacy, it was a 740 mean score, with 2 percent exceeding goals, 32 percent meeting them, 43 percent approaching expectations and 7 percent missing the mark.

At Badger Academy, eighth graders had a mean math score of 702, with 10 percent meeting expectations and another 10 approaching. The school had 40 percent of its eighth graders not make the appropriately needed score. Badger Academy did not have enough seventh or sixth graders tested for the state to publish information on scores.

LISA ACADEMY

At Lisa Academy North, the eight graders had a math mean score of 715, with 8 percent of the students meeting expectations, 32 percent approaching and the same number, 32 percent, not meeting expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 749, the best in the area. Eight percent of the students exceeded expectations, 36 percent met expectations, 40 percent were approaching goals, and 6 percent failed to met expectations.

Seventh graders, in math, had a mean score of 718, with 9 percent meeting expectations, 19 percent approaching and 9 percent failing to meet any expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 752, with 18 percent exceeding goals, 38 percent meeting them, 22 percent approaching the mandated goals and 10 percent not meeting expectations.

Sixth graders had a mean math score of 729, with 1 percent exceeding goals, 18 percent meeting them, 39 percent in the approaching category and 9 percent failing to make the cut. In literacy, the mean score was 745, with 6 percent exceeding expectations, 39 percent meeting goals, 34 percent approaching them and 8 percent failing to achieve them.

CARLISLE

Eighth graders at Carlisle had a mean math score of 713, with 11 percent meeting expectations and another 21 percent approaching goals. More than 30 percent did not meet expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 715, with no students exceeding expectations, 9 percent meeting them and 25 approaching expectations, while the same amount, 25 percent, failed to meet the goals.

Seventh graders had a mean score of 722 in math, with 12 percent meeting goals, 38 percent approaching and 23 percent failing to meet expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 731, with 4 percent exceeding expectations, 23 meeting them, 35 percent approaching and 23 percent not meeting expectations.

Sixth graders had a mean math score of 736, with 37 percent meeting expectations, 33 percent approaching them and just 2 percent not making the cut.

ENGLAND

Eighth graders at England High School had a mean score of 709 in math, with 16 percent of the students meeting expectations and another 13 percent approaching, but 40 percent were listed as not meeting expectations in any manner. In literacy, the mean score was 707, with 1 percent exceeding expectations, another 10 percent meeting them and 20 percent approaching expectations, but 48 percent did not meet expectations.

Seventh graders had a 712 mean math score, and 3 percent met expectations, 28 percent were in the approaching category and another 28 percent did not meet expectations. In literacy, the mean score was 706, with 5 percent of the students meeting the state-mandated goals, 31 percent approaching and 41 percent failing to meet expectations.

TOP STORY >> More spending for highways

By JOHN HOFHEIMER

Leader senior staff writer

The decades-old highway-funding conundrum could be solved in the short term if a special session of the General Assembly passes the plan Gov. Asa Hutchinson proposed Tuesday afternoon to benefit road programs here.

The governor announced a plan to fund state highways to the tune of about $48 million a year over the next five years without raising taxes, but some fear, at the expense of the needy.

The state Highway and Transportation Department Director Scott Bennett says the department needs at least $46.1 million a year to provide matching funds to unlock about $200 million a year in federal highway funds.

“In addition to a state investment of more than three-quarters of a billion dollars over 10 years, this new program allows us to access billions of dollars in federal highway money—without raising taxes,” the governor said.

MAY AVERT CRISIS

While some aspects of the new highway revenue plan require approval by the General Assembly, and no group is completely happy, Hutchinson, in conjunction with the highway working group he appointed and some legislators, may have solved the highway funding crisis that has threatened the state and its economy without answer for at least a decade.

The governor announced several moves to fund the highways short term.

For 2017, he would transfer $20 million from unobligated surplus and another $20 million from the governor’s rainy day fund.

PHASED TRANSFER

He would begin the phased transfer of revenue on new and used car sales from the state general fund to the state highway funds with $1.5 million.

Beginning the second year of the plan, $4 million of diesel tax revenue will move from general revenue to highways, accounting for $2.7 million a year.

He would also eliminate the state Central Services Deduction from the temporary half-cent sales tax, adding another $5.4 million to roads.

That’s a total of $46.9 million in new highway funds for 2017.

In subsequent years, through 2021, the plan calls for no further transfer of unobligated surplus or from the governor’s rainy day fund, but revenue on new and used vehicle sales would be phased in until hitting $25 million a year.

In future years, dedicating 25 percent of surplus General Improvement Funds to the Highway Department could average $48 million a year through 2021, with highway funds growing as high as $81 million a year.

Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher said he’d not had time to review the governor’s just-announced plan, but said his concern that the state road revenue split — 70 percent to the state and 15 percent each divided by the counties and the cities—would be changed to the detriment of the cities and counties has been satisfied.

“We have infrastructure needs like everybody else,” the mayor said. “The highways and roads are falling apart faster than we can repair them.”

COUNTIES SUPPORTIVE

“We are in support of the governor’s plan on highway funding,” said Chris Vil-lines, executive director of the Association of Arkansas Counties. “Counties will not suffer immediate detrimental adjustments to critical funding for local roadways. However, we want to continue the conversation about county road needs. Counties do have significant needs in road funding, especially when it comes to county bridges.”

ADVOCATES SLIGHTLY RELIEVED

“The proposal is better than we anticipated,” said Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. “There’s not as much impact on state revenue,” he added.

But he said important programs such as pre-kindergarten, child welfare, juvenile justice and after-school programs could be hurt.

“We already have unmet needs in all those programs. People are losing sight of the fact we passed big tax cuts in 2013 and 2014 that currently throw off a $242 million general revenue stream. That’s before losing $5.4 million a year from central services to help fund highways,” he explained.

The programs Huddleston is concerned about are funded through central services in the state’s general revenues.

TOP STORY >> Band to enter competitions

By JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer

Cabot High School band director Joe Trusty told the school board on Monday about the transition the band is taking with competing in national marching competitions.

“In the early years of teaching, you found three songs you liked, you bought them, taught them to the kids and you figured out where to stand on the field and that was your halftime,” Trusty said.

He said some years the production was not as entertaining as others.

“Across the country in the past 25 years, marching bands have taken a progression towards the competitive end. In the last few years more schools in Arkansas started entering competitive bands,” Trusty said.

A few years ago the students starting asking Trusty why the marching band was not in competitions against other bands and just goes for ratings.

Trusty said the band went to events and came back with superior ratings, but students wanted to be in competitive meets and be ranked.

Three years ago, the Cabot High School band entered the competitive marching competitions.

“Competitive marching is geared towards telling a story or a concept to the audience. You have seven to nine minutes to do it. It is a major production and not just a show anymore,” Trusty said.

He said USA Bands and Bands of America are the primary competitive circuits.

Trusty compared the Bands of America competition to the Olympics. In the old-style band competition, there were three judges who looked at the entire production and said it was at a certain level and received a division rating.

He said with a Bands of America type judging there are seven judges. Each judge is in charge of one specific area of the event. The goal is to have the finest execution musically and visually. The feedback is more detailed and specific and used by the band to get better.

“You see how you stack up not just in Arkansas but around the country. Is our program as good as we think it is?” Trusty said.

“In the past two years we’ve taken the high school band and split it into two groups. We have a Friday night band, which is everyone (280 students) in the high school band is on the field for home football games. We have a subgroup, 180 in the competitive band,” Trusty said.

The competitive band practices after school, on Saturdays and during summer.

“The competition band is very demanding physically and time,” he said.

Friday night bands learn their moves in class and perform on Friday night home football games. Competitive band members spend five hours a week outside the regular school day.

Trusty said competitive band is expensive. There are travel costs, food and lodging, chartered buses if going out-of-state, entry fees and the expense of paying for the music copyrights and drills.

Currently, the district does not charge fees for students to be in the competitive marching band. No students would be turned away if they could not afford it, Trusty explained.

Trusty said most schools around the state charge students between $250 to $450 a year to be in the competitive band. Schools offer monthly payment plans, ways for students to work to earn money to pay for fees and also holds fundraisers.

Trusty said he expects interest in the competition marching band to grow. He expects 200 students in the fall.

Students will still be in the high school band, even if they do not want to be in the competition band. They would learn the routines and perform at Friday night football home games by going to class every day.

In other business, the school board recognized the two newest National Board Certified teachers: Southside Elementary counselor Janna Terrell and Westside Elementary first-grade teacher Stacy Cook.

TOP STORY >> Life without parole for Lewis

By SARAH CAMPBELL
Leader staff writer

Arron Lewis received two life sentences in state prison on Friday, one without parole, for the capital murder and kidnapping of beloved realtor Beverly Carter, who was killed in late 2013.

The jurors delivered guilty verdicts, reached unanimously, after an hour of deliberation. The death penalty was taken off the table at the victim’s family’s request.

They didn’t buy the killer’s affidavit stating that she accidently died while engaged in a sex act with his wife and accomplice, Crystal Lowery, who admitted on the stand to being involved in prostitution. She also said she was offended by the explicit account published on her husband’s Facebook page in November 2015.

Prosecutor John Johnson, in closing, called Lewis “cowardly” for suffocating Carter by wrapping her face six times in bright green duct tape. In opening statements, the tape was deemed a “mask of death.”

The state medical examiner agreed it was placed on the victim while she was alive — based on her pallor and insect activity — and caused her death. He called the other alleged cause theoretically possible but highly improbable because he’d never seen it and couldn’t find a case of it using a medical research website.

Johnson also called Lewis a “predator” and “woman hater” at the end of the four-day trial.

The victim’s eldest son, Carl Carter, Jr., spoke before the sentencing. He said his mother was a successful woman with “an obnoxious laugh that I got that would fill up the room.” Earlier, he testified that she attended a Pentecostal church with family every Sunday.

Carter said, at sentencing, that his mother deeply loved her husband of 30 years. He noted her devotion first to her children, then her grandchildren. Carter joked that her kids didn’t matter to her once the grandkids came along.

Choking back tears, but smiling at the memories, the victim’s son told jurors about how she taught her grandkids to tie their shoes, ride bikes and eat a whole box of Little Debbie snack cakes. He chuckled at the last lesson.

“There’s a hole that can’t be replaced...This world is a darker place without her,” Carter said before leaving the stand.

After Lewis was sentenced, Beverly Carter’s family and friends — tears in their eyes — hugged each other in the Little Rock courtroom. At least one said, “God is good.”

Carter was discovered several days after she was kidnapped from a house in Scott in September 2013.

The most damning piece of evidence was a recording of the victim Lewis played from his phone for detectives while being interrogated and before her body was found in a shallow grave at the Argos concrete company off Hwy. 5 in Pulaski County near Cabot, where he used to work.

Several times, jurors heard her say, “Carl, it’s Beverly. I just want to let you know I’m OK. I haven’t been hurt. Just do what he says, and please don’t call the police. If you call the police, it could be bad. Just want you to know that I love you very much.” Carl Carter Jr. identified his mother’s voice on the tape.

Lewis was the last to testify in the proceedings and took the stand for hours on Friday. He didn’t express remorse for what happened or offer condolences, which the defense attorney did each time a victim’s family member or friend testified.

The cross-examination by Johnson was a heated exchange, with the killer calling himself of “athletic” build and “superior intelligence.”

Lewis claimed he used a computer program to make the recording after Carter’s death to see if he could get a moneymaking angle out of it, but Lewis couldn’t name the program when asked to do so.

He said he taped the realtor’s face after she was dead because he had a thing about bugs and wanted to keep the grasshoppers off it. Lewis also testified that he taped the victim’s wrists behind her because the corpse “wouldn’t stay in the hole.”

Lewis spoke while gesturing with his hands about how the victim was disposed of and told the prosecutor he didn’t remember the position of Carter’s body when he was taping her face.

In opening statements, jurors learned that Lewis said the victim was alive when she wasn’t and lead investigators on a “wild goose chase” to places he told them she was being held.

The cops on that ride testified that Lewis confessed to some details, such as telling Carter before using a taser to kidnap her, “You’re about to have a bad day.” The defense disputed the statements because they weren’t recorded.

Lewis’ wife testified that he sent her a picture of victim bound with tape, which she deleted.

Prosecutors pointed out that he told police and the media several conflicting stories. They included an accomplice called Trevor who killed her and that Carter was targeted because she was a “rich broker.” He also claimed he had an affair with the victim and she was killed at the concrete plant but it was an accident.

He also claimed wanted to plead guilty but lawyers told him not to. The prosecutor asked, by publishing his affidavit, if Lewis wanted to humiliate his wife and Carter and get revenge on the world. He denied both allegations.

They also argued over whether the victim was in too much pain from her tummy tuck and breast reduction surgeries to have the kind of sex the killer’s affidavit claimed he and Carter had. No semen was found on her body, a State Crime Lab worker testified.

Her husband had taken the stand earlier Friday, saying his wife — the night before she was taken — still needed a stool he built to get in and out of their bed. He also said, “I loved her with all my heart.”

Scarring around Carter’s breasts were described in the explicit affidavit posted by an outside firm at Lewis’ request while he was incarcerated.

Prosecutors pointed out, though, that he didn’t write about a hip-to-hip scar or the fact that she was wearing a band around her abdomen designed to facilitate healing from the recent surgeries, continuing to poke holes in his inflammatory affidavit posted on Facebook.

Lewis denied copying the autopsy report the attorney said he had access to.

The killer also told the jurors about his many prior felonies involving thefts and Ponzi schemes. He said he fell into the wrong crowd as a teenager.

Lewis claimed he wanted better for Lowery and tried to protect her by lying about what happened.

He said he distrusts the justice system and didn’t think anyone would believe someone with a rap sheet like his. “I’ve got so many felonies, it’s not even funny...I’m a hopeless case, a career criminal,” he said.

Prosecutors said Lewis and his wife planned to take for ransom a married woman who worked alone, settling on a real estate broker as their target.

Lowery, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping in exchange for 30 years, testified as part of that deal. She said Lewis found the victim via an online search.

The couple communicated with Carter by texts, calls and one email, asking her to show them houses and offering a cash sale. The defense said there was no kidnapping and Carter met the two for a hookup, but investigators testified that they found no photos or hookup websites in the search history on the victim’s computer. Also, prosecutors noted, she left her purse in her car at the Scott home.

The killers used Text Me, a phone application that allows users to hide their phone numbers by giving them a fake one. But investigators traced the fake number to Lowery. The email was also traced, to their address, 165 Randall Drive in Gravel Ridge.

Lowery testified that she agreed to participate in the kidnapping to help Lewis get money so he could leave her house. She said they planned it for two weeks, and he staked out houses in west Little Rock but decided against kidnapping anyone there.

Lowery also said they got Carter’s pin number after learning she didn’t have the money to pay a $100,000 ransom Lewis had hoped for. He drove back to the Scott house to get the victim’s card out of her purse while his wife watched Carter with a taser. “I wanted her gone,” Lowery said, after finding out police were looking for the realtor. The victim was murdered because they didn’t want to get caught, she testified.

Lowery agreed that she had no excuse for not calling police, releasing Carter or telling Lewis not to kill her. She also said she held the flashlight as the victim was buried and her husband said he wasn’t “(expletive) up about” committing the murder.

Lowery testified that she didn’t know what portion of the ransom she would receive. She tried to be as uninvolved as possible and he was the “leader” who made plans that weren’t “thought out.” The defense said Lowery pleaded guilty because she was afraid she wouldn’t get a fair trial with all the publicity.

TOPSTORY >> District goes forward with court assent

By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff write

Writing Thursday that “we must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good,” U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall, Jr., signed off on the Jacksonville-North Pulaski School District’s master facilities plan, denying Joshua Intervenors attorney John Walker’s petition for an evidentiary hearing on the matter.

“The court holds that JNPSD’s proposed master facilities plan, though incomplete, keeps faith with Plan 2000 and is likely to promote, not hinder, eliminating the vestiges of past discrimination insofar as practical,” Marshall wrote.

“The proposed master plan is approved with an important condition: It must be supplemented by (Dec. 31, 2016) with when-and-how specifics about replacing the four other elementary schools, so that all the new district’s elementary schools are equal. Joshua’s objections are overruled and its request for an evidentiary hearing is denied.”

The master plan challenged by Walker as being too little, calls for building a new high school at the Main Street site of the old middle school, a new elementary school on Little Rock Air Force Base land, remodeling the existing North Pulaski High School building into a district-wide middle school and adding new multipurpose buildings at the four other elementary schools — if voters approve a millage increase.

Walker contended that plan favored white students over black and that the only by replacing those four elementary schools as well would comply with desegregation Plan 2000.

The district, answering Walker’s filing, said there wasn’t enough money to build six new schools and remodel another—hence the remark about the perfect and the good.

Walker didn’t come away completely empty-handed. Marshall gave the district until the end of this year to draft a new master plan for the 2019 round of school partnership matching money — one that would replace the four other elementary schools.

JNP Superintendent Tony Wood said Friday that even as they prepare for the Feb. 9 millage tax increase election and to transition July 1 to a fully independent, stand-alone district, he and others are thinking about that next facilities plan.

Chuck Stein, the district’s consultant for its master facilities plan and partnership funding program, will work on the new master plan the judge wants by the end of the year, along with Wood, Assistant Superintendent Jeremy Owoh and others.

Until his retirement last summer, Stein was director of the state’s facilities plan and state partnership program.

Even implementing the existing master plan is dependent upon district patrons’ approval of a 7.6 mill property tax increase, which they will vote on Feb. 9. Early voting begins Feb. 2.

Marshall’s order denying an evidentiary hearing on the adequacy of the plan considered not only Walker’s brief and the new district’s answer, but also a letter from Court Desegregation Monitor Margie Powell — which found the plan compliant — and a letter from Stein.

In making his ruling, Marshall noted that the facilities master plan would be “a significant step toward equal facilities for all students. The new high school and middle school will serve children of all races. Locating the high school in downtown Jacksonville signals a commitment — not only to that city’s hub, but to the many African-American families and their children who live close by.”

While Walker held that concentrating on a new elementary school combining students from Tolleson and Arnold Drive was a favor to white students and white flight, Marshall wrote that there was no evidence that the new school “would become a white-flight school.” He said the expectation that school would receive about half of the $16 million cost from the Defense Department shows “good stewardship of limited public dollars, not discriminatory intent.”

But of the plan, Marshall wrote, “there’s something missing. No plan or timetable for replacing the four other elementary schools (Bayou Meto, Dupree, Pinewood and Taylor) is included.”

“To achieve unitary status, JNPSD must have a plan for making all facilities clean, safe, attractive and equal and must be implementing that plan in good faith to the extent practicable.”

Stein said there should be no problem meeting the judge’s order preparing a state master plan by the end of this year, and that the judge’s process “fits very well into the state time line,” which would require a preliminary 2017-2019 master plan and partnership timetable, requiring submission by Feb. 1, 2017.

As part of the effort to pass the millage increase, JNPSD officials attended a public meeting at Bayou Meto Baptist Church on Thursday evening.

Wood and JNP school board president Daniel Gray were asked about district finances by some concerned about or against the increase.

The new 7.6-mill tax increase would make property tax millage in the district 48.3 mills, the same as North Little Rock, and about 2 mills higher than the Little Rock School District — 46.4 mills.

Including all sources of income, Wood said the district revenue for the first year would be about $37 million to $40 million, including taxes, minimum foundation aid from the state and a one-time state desegregation payment of about $5 million.

In telling the new district to draw up that additional master plan, the judge noted the uncertainties, such as Defense Department funding, construction costs, approving the millage increase and the amount of state funding.

“That murky and complicated future, however, is precisely why JNPSD needs a complete plan for replacing all elementary facilities — with options, contingencies, fallbacks and play in the joints to accommodate the developing circumstances,” the judge said.

Marshall noted the progress made over the past five years toward PCSSD becoming completely unitary.

EDITORIAL >> Bumpers’ legacy (IV)

In 1974, Dale Bumpers, who died on New Year’s Day at the age of 90, talked to some friends about running for president in 1976. His friend Jimmy Carter, the governor of Georgia, made that race and won. But on the Saturday deadline he set for himself to make a decision about whether to run for a third two-year term, which would position him to run for president in 1976, or to run for the Senate against Sen. William Fulbright, he decided to run for the Senate.

A poll showed that Fulbright, after five terms, was likely to be beaten by someone, most likely by a conservative like former Supreme Court Justice Jim Johnson, who had lost narrowly to Fulbright six years earlier. Bradley D. Jesson of Fort Smith, his close friend and adviser, had spent the previous day with Bumpers and was shocked that he announced for the Senate. Jesson said Bumpers, much the better politician, would have defeated Carter with little trouble.

The race with Fulbright was over before it started. Fulbright waged a well-financed campaign, came home and campaigned in shirtsleeves but lost nearly 2 to 1. Bumpers never uttered the slightest criticism of him, other than to say that seniority was not all that it was cracked up to be. Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd and other powerful senators came to Arkansas to campaign for Fulbright. They said Arkansas could not stand to lose Fulbright’s seniority.

But defeating a senator so revered in Washington and by his colleagues was costly to his career. He received the worst committee assignments in the Senate. The majority leader and Sen. Henry M. Jackson of Washington, a close Fulbright friend who chaired the committee making committee assignments, saw to it that Bumpers did not serve on any high-profile committee or one that dealt with major issues or constituencies.

His big committee was aeronautics and space. He chaired a subcommittee that conducted hearings on the shrinkage of the Earth’s ozone layer, which led to the world’s elimination of chlorofluorocarbons, the gases used in aerosol sprays that were burning up the ozone layer and subjecting people to cancer risks. Eventually, he got assigned to the Appropriations Committee, which enabled him to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to Arkansas in capital improvements for parks, agricultural research, wilderness preservation and flood-control improvements. He delivered so much in agricultural improvements that the University of Arkansas named its College of Agriculture after him.

At lunch one day someone asked how he got the university to name the college after him. It was easy, he said. “I took your money and gave it to them.”

His work on the Appropriations Committee added 91,000 acres of forest land in eastern Arkansas to federal wilderness lands controlled by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service being designated as national wilderness areas. Last year, Congress designated the 160,000 acres of wilderness along the White River as the Dale Bumpers White River National Wildlife Refuge.

Almost from his first days in the Senate, he fought with western senators and interests to end the virtual giveaway of mineral leases on millions of acres of federal lands to mining and oil-and-gas interests, which took away billions of dollars of minerals and paid the country as little as $2.50 an acre.

Finally, in 1994, he persuaded Congress to enact a moratorium prohibiting future patenting of federal land for which mining claims had not yet been made. He did succeed in 1987 in passing the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act, which began competitive leasing of public lands, such as those around Fort Chaffee near his home, for competitive market prices. It produced hundreds of millions of dollars a year for federal treasury.

Two of his biggest triumphs were to terminate the proposed Superconducting Super Collider and the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, massive experimental projects in Tennessee and Texas that were to cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. He unsuccessfully fought other big government projects, including the manned space station and weapons programs that he said the nation’s security did not need.

Although he was not a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education and Labor, he played a leading role in major international health developments. He led the fight to fund global polio vaccinations, which led to the eradication of polio in all but a few countries. On the Appropriations Committee, he pushed funding for cervical cancer screening and the Maternal and Child Health Program. In recognition of his and his wife’s work on immunizations, the National Institutes for Health after he left Washington dedicated the Dale and Betty Bumper Vaccine Research Center. —Ernie Dumas

SPORTS STORY >> Bears turn over NPHS for victory

By GRAHAM POWELL
Leader sportswriter

Consistency has been a big factor in Sylvan Hills’ success this season, and the Bears continued their consistent, solid play in Tuesday’s 5A-Central Conference game at home against North Pulaski, beating the Falcons comfortably by the final score of 54-34.

The Bears (10-5, 2-1) led by double digits at the end of the first quarter, 18-6, and pushed their lead to 16 by halftime, leading 33-17. Sylvan Hills made some big shots throughout the first half, but didn’t exactly light it up from the floor, making 12 of 30 shots (40 percent), including 4 for 14 from 3-point range.

The most noteworthy statistical difference, though, was the Bears had just one turnover the entire first half and North Pulaski (7-8, 0-3) had 11.

“That really wasn’t our point of emphasis going in,” said Sylvan Hills coach Kevin Davis. “I did talk to them about that this week in practice, just from the standpoint of there’s nothing anybody can help you on when we’re having unforced turnovers.

“We didn’t talk about it because we’ve been having a problem with it. We just talked about it in practice – when things are going and kids are turning the ball over, that needs to be brought out.

“That really handcuffs us when people are turning the ball over. So, treat it with respect and we’ve really got to take care of the basketball. Hopefully, it was some of that just from what we do (in practice) coming out in our game performance.”

The Bears did a good job of taking care of the basketball in the second half as well, committing just four turnovers, with only one coming in the third quarter. At the end of the third quarter, Sylvan Hills led 46-25.

Four different Falcons scored in the third quarter, and for the Bears, Cordy Winston and sophomore Zion Butler accounted for all of Sylvan Hills’ points in that time.

Winston had eight points in the third quarter, including Sylvan Hills’ first six of the period. Butler’s first basket of the quarter gave the Bears a 41-23 lead, and he added two free throws with 3:42 left in the period that put the hosts up by 20, leading 43-23.

Butler made another free throw shortly after to further the lead to 21, and that was the margin at the start of the fourth, with Winston sinking a 2-pointer for the Bears’ final points of the third quarter.

Everyone that dressed out for Sylvan Hills played Tuesday and the Bears rotated in several different combinations of players without much drop off in production. As a result of that, the closest the Falcons got to the Bears’ lead in the fourth quarter was 15 points.

North Pulaski senior guard Jermaine Lopez drained a corner three that made the score 47-32 with 4:17 to play. Sylvan Hills’ lead grew to 51-34 in the waning moments of the fourth quarter, and with 20 seconds to play, J.D. Smith sank a corner three to set the final score.

The Bears made 19 of 52 shots from the floor Tuesday for 37 percent. The Falcons made 14 of 40 shots for 35 percent. From 3-point range, SHHS was 6 for 24 and NPHS was 2 for 11. From the free-throw line, the Bears were 10 for 16 and the Falcons were 4 for 8, and all four made free throws were in the fourth quarter.

North Pulaski outrebounded Sylvan Hills 32-25, but the Bears won the turnover category 5-19.

Winston and Lopez led all scorers with 11 points apiece. Sylvan Hills’ Jordan Washington was the only other player for either team to score in double figures. He had 10 points and was a rebound shy of a double-double.

JaCobe Davis added nine points for the Bears, and teammates Butler and Alex Curry each scored seven points. Christian White scored eight points for NPHS and added a game-high 10 rebounds.

SPORTS STORY >> Weeks twins, Voskamp big wins at UofA

By RAY BENTON 
Leader sports editor

FAYETTEVILLE – In their first-ever collegiate meet competing for the No. 1 ranked defending national champions, 2015 Cabot graduates Lexi and Tori Weeks finished first and second respectively in the Arkansas Indoor Invitational on Friday at the Randall Tyson Track Center.

Another Cabot graduate, Ariel Voskamp – a fifth-year senior for the Razorbacks women’s track team – finished third, making it a Cabot clean sweep of the top three positions.

Lexi Weeks’ performance exceeded her goals for the first meet. The Razorback freshman cleared a personal best 14 feet, 9 inches, which qualifies her for the indoor national championships and the Olympic trials.

“Coming out, I was hoping to have a good meet,” Lexi Weeks said. “I was having great practices coming into it, but clearing 14-9 the way I did, clean, I couldn’t believe it.”

Friday’s meet was small with mostly smaller schools participating besides Arkansas, a track-and-field powerhouse for the last 30 years. All three Cabot natives waited for almost 90 minutes for other competitors to begin approaching competitive heights.

They entered the competition at 13-1, and Lexi’s first vault was a sign that it was going to be a good day. She cleared her first bar by a wide margin and did not need a second attempt at any height until she went for 15-1, which would have equaled last year’s NCAA national championship-winning height.

Though she didn’t reach it Friday, it is a goal before the season is over.

“I want 15 feet this season,” Lexi said. “That’s a goal for sure. I’d also like to do really well at indoor nationals. I qualified for that today and to have a good meet there would really be great.”

Tori Weeks cleared 14-3 for second place and Voskamp reached 13-10 in a bit of a disappointing performance for her. She has been a consistent 14-foot jumper and has finished in the top five in the last two NCAA national championship meets.

Friday’s meet is the first of a very busy indoor schedule, with competitions every weekend through February.

They will compete in New Mexico and Indiana next weekend before returning to Fayetteville on Jan. 29-30 to host the much larger Razorback Invitational. The Cabot trio will also compete in Fayetteville on Feb. 12-13 in the Tyson Invitational.

SPORTS STORY >> Devils pull out big win

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

High drama and controversy abounded the whole game, and never more so than in the last 10 seconds, but in the end, the Jacksonville Red Devils earned a huge 5A-Central victory on Tuesday, defeating No. 2 ranked Mills 54-53 at JHS.

Mills forward Jeremiah Toney made 1 of 2 free throws with 2:32 left in the game to tie the score at 50, and it stayed that way until the last two seconds of the game.

Both teams traded defensive stops after the free throw, and with 1:02 remaining, Jacksonville coach Vic Joyner called timeout.

He decided to try to hold for the last shot and Mills was content to let the Red Devils run down the clock. With 15 seconds left, Jacksonville made its move. Tyree Appleby tried to penetrate and had no room. He passed to LaQuawn Smith who was also cut off and passed back to Appleby.

A second Appleby attempt ended with a dish to DaJuan Ridgeway in the right corner. He went up for a shot, but 6-foot-7 Darius Hall flew towards him and Ridgeway changed his mind.

He tried to dribble out of his shooting formation, but appeared to come down with the ball. The officials called nothing and Ridgeway passed to a cutting Appleby, who was fouled with two seconds on the clock.

Mills coach Raymond Cooper came unglued that there was no traveling violation called on Ridgeway. The officials let him vent for a while, and he finally called timeout before Appleby got the ball for the potential game-winning free throw.

During the timeout, Cooper continued to berate the officials, and received a technical foul, adding two more free throws for Appleby’s trip to the line.

Appleby made just two of the four shots, but because of Cooper’s technical, Jacksonville got the ball back. Mills fouled Appleby again before the inbound pass. This time he made both free throws to seal the victory.

Jacksonville allowed Mills to throw the inbound pass the length of the court, and Quawn Marshall hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to set the final margin.

After the game, one official said they ruled that Hall had touched the ball as Ridgeway was shooting, knocking it loose from his grip and making it legal for him to come down with possession.

Cooper had little comment about that explanation other than to laugh heartily.

“I won’t comment about the officials but I’ll tell you what I saw,” Cooper said. “I saw a guy jump up to shoot the basketball, got his shot altered by a long defender coming at him and came down with the ball.”

If traveling had been called, Mills would’ve got it with about five seconds remaining, which is no guarantee of victory, and that call wasn’t what Cooper believed made the difference in the game.

“We didn’t do anything we practiced for this game,” Cooper said on Wednesday. “We abandoned everything we worked on and played Jacksonville’s game. I just watched the first quarter over again and we didn’t have a single three-pass possession the entire quarter. We got into a one-on-one game. We have a lot of size and they have three good guards who penetrate and create. We played Jacksonville’s game and that’s why we got beat.”

The game was heated from the first quarter. A minute into the game with Mills leading 4-0, Appleby and Mills’ Grehlon Easter began mouthing. Easter shoved Appleby as teams were setting up for an inbound pass and drew a technical foul. A few minutes later, Easter went up for a shot and Appleby fouled him very hard. Shortly after that, Appleby was called for a charge, and earned a seat on the bench for most of the rest of the half.

He entered briefly midway through the second quarter and charged again.

“We have to get Appleby to quit making stupid fouls because he’s too valuable to this team,” said Jacksonville coach Vic Joyner. “But the key to this game was Kameron Hamilton. He went in there and made his presence known on defense. We don’t have anybody else long enough to do that against a team as big as Mills. But he held his ground and altered some shots, and that was huge.”

Hamilton hasn’t seen much playing time since joining the team last year as a sophomore transfer from West Memphis, but the 6-8 junior was needed against the Comets’ size. He knew his mission was simple.

“Just be aggressive and guard the rim,” Hamilton said.

Joyner also bragged on Chris Williams and Marice Lambert, who have manned the post most of the season despite being at a huge height disadvantage most of the time. They were never bigger than on Tuesday.

“I have to give some credit to my little bigs,” Joyner said. “Chris Williams and Mo Lambert play their butts off. And they played their butts off tonight.”

Williams gets motivation from his role.

“My teammates motivate me to get better and it motivates me playing against bigger guys,” said the 6-foot Williams. “I just be aggressive and don’t take anything lightly. For us to win it has to be all about defense and working together.”

After being pushed to the floor early in the game, Appleby scored six points in less than a minute to give the Red Devils a 6-4 lead before taking a seat. He barely played and didn’t score in the second quarter, but his teammates still stretched their lead to 24-16 early in the period. That’s when Mills came back with its best run of the game. Easter hit back-to-back 3-pointers and Kaevon Jones came off the bench to score six-straight on midrange jumpers, giving the Comets a 28-24 lead with four minutes left in the half.

Ridgeway finally broke the run with a pair of free throws with 2:49 left, and Mills took a 32-31 lead into intermission.

Mills scored the first four points of the fourth quarter to take a 49-42 lead before Appleby reeled off six-straight. His 3-pointer made it 49-48 with 6:18 left to play, and the two teams combined for three points over the next 6:16 until Appleby’s game-clinching free throws.

Appleby finished with a game-high 18 points despite barely playing half the game. Smith and Ridgeway each scored 12. Smith scored 10 of his points in the second quarter as an answer to Mills’ big run.

Easter and Marshall scored 12 for Mills (12-5, 2-1) while Jones added 11.