Saturday, September 03, 2011

SPORTS>>North Pulaski loses opener against Lions

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

Six turnovers, numerous snap problems, a few lapses in pass defense and a speedy and accurate quarterback on the opposite sideline all spelled bad news for North Pulaski football Friday at Falcon Stadium. Searcy scored on its first two possession and never trailed, beating North Pulaski 41-13.

Lion quarterback Dezmond Stegal completed eight of 12 pass attempts for 241 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Searcy attack. His first touchdown pass came on a screen to the left side that went 45 yards for the first score of the game just 40 seconds into the game.

North Pulaski’s first miscue came on a fumbled snap that lost eight yards and forced NP to punt from its own 13-yard line. Set up with a short field, Searcy scored in just three plays. This time Stegal found slot receiver Cam Woodruff alone downfield for a 30-yard scoring hookup that put the Lions up by two scores with 8:18 left in the first quarter.

North Pulaski still could get nothing going offensively, but the defense settled down and held Searcy without a first down on its next two possessions.

The Falcons, though, finished the first quarter with -1 yard in total offense, and ended the quarter punting to the Lions.

Searcy started the second period just like it started the first.

On third and 13, Stegal found Evan Scarbrough streaking downfield for a 49-yard touchdown pass. The extra point made it 21-0 with 10:37 left in the half.

The Falcons finally got something going on their next drive, but fumbled it away, setting Searcy up at the Falcon 33. On the third play of the drive, Stegal scored from seven yards out to make it 28-0 with 7:36 left in the second quarter.

Each team had two more possessions the rest of the half, and North Pulaski out-gained Searcy in that time period, holding Searcy’s starters to one yard of offense in its final two drives. Meanwhile, the Falcons moved the ball deep into Searcy territory twice, but couldn’t finish, turning it over on downs after driving 54 yards.

NP was putting together another drive to start the second half. After a 25-yard pass play from Marvin Harris to Kevin Williams, a mishandled snap lost 15 yards. Two plays later, on third and long, Harris threw an interception at the Searcy 46-yard line.

On the very next play, Stegal found Woodruff again for a 54-yard touchdown pass that made it 35-0 with 9:06 left in the third period.

Again, NP got some momentum with a 20-yard pass and catch from Harris to Austin Allen, but another snap miscue lost eight yards. Harris was sacked and fumbled on the next play, setting up another Lion score.

Stegall found tight end John Powell for 26 yards to put it at the Falcon 10. Two plays later, Antwan Arnold rolled in from five yards out. The extra point was no good, making it 41-0 with 3:09 left in the third.

NP went backwards 10 yards on its next possession, but a big hit by Derek Walton on the punt return jarred the ball loose. The Falcons recovered the fumble, and the hit re-energized a tiring Falcons team.

North Pulaski moved the ball down the field, but another bad snap was covered by Searcy 20 yards back from the original line of scrimmage.

North Pulaski still wasn’t discouraged. After forcing a Searcy three and out, NP got on the board with a 40-yard pass from Harris to Williams with 3:47 left in the game.

NP got it back just two plays later on a Searcy fumble, and scored again when Damon Thomas ran around the right end for a 37-yard score that set the final margin.

North Pulaski will face Maumelle at 5:30 p.m. next week at Pulaski Robinson High School.

SPORTS>>Bison big in beat down

By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter

It didn’t take long for Carlisle to establish complete momentum over Riverview.

Bison sophomore Deron Ricks’ 87-yard touchdown return on the opening kickoff got Carlisle’s season off to a great start, and was a sign of things to come against a stunned Raiders team in a 42-6 mercy-ruled victory at Fred C. Hardke Stadium on Friday.

The Bison moved the ball and Riverview’s defensive line at will on their way to five touchdowns and 276 yards offense in the first half, while holding the Raiders to 112 yards and no score in that time. Sophomore running back Bo Weddle did the most damage to the Raiders’ defense in only six touches, as he ran for 109 yards and three touchdowns in the first half.

Ricks took the opening kick at the 13-yard line near the right sideline and weaved his way through Riverview defenders until he had clear field in front of him near the 45.

“That’s always a tone setter to take the opening kickoff back,” Carlisle coach Scott Waymire said. “He did a good job – read his blocks and kind of set the tone. And we came out defensively got it, so that’s always a good thing.”

The Bison also controlled the clock with long, sustained drives, but had their share of short drives that produced scores, including their first drive in the opening quarter that went just three plays and ended with a 65-yard touchdown dash by Weddle to put Carlisle up 14-0 following a two-point conversion pass from senior quarterback Zac King to Weddle.

“There’s been some question marks about our lines,” Waymire said. “We’ve got some great kids – high character kids that do the right things. I’m very proud of those guys. They’re very well deserving of everything they did tonight.”

Seniors Braxton Petrus and Ty Vaughn also had their share of productive touches with the aid of Carlisle’s big, physical offensive line in the first half. Petrus carried nine times for 65 yards and Vaughn had 10 totes for 80 yards and a touchdown.

“We feel real fortunate,” Waymire said. “We’ve got senior backs in Braxton Petrus and Ty Vaughn, and Deric Herring and Cade Madar, and we had some of the younger backs came in and did a tremendous job in Bo Weddle and Deron Ricks. And Zac King, he’s our leader, and Chris Hart did a good job when he came in.

“We’re fortunate there to have some depth, and we know that, because most 2A schools don’t. If we can stay healthy, we’re looking forward to the season.”

Riverview had its moments moving the ball, but turned it over twice on downs and fumbled another promising possession away when Desmond Pettis put it on the ground on first down at the Bison 36-yard line and Hart pounced on it for Carlisle.

That led to a six-play, 64-yard drive that was mostly Vaughn, including a 34-yard rush that set the Bison up with first and goal at the Raiders’ 2-yard line.

Vaughn finished it off on the following play by going over the top at the 4:22 mark of the second quarter. Ricks added the point-after kick to increase Carlisle’s lead to 21-0.

Weddle took in the next two scores for Carlisle with runs of eight yards and four yards, the latter increasing the Bison’s lead to 35-0 with 3:09 left in the half.

McKenzie Jones prevented a shutout against the Raiders when he returned the second-half kickoff back 85 yards for a touchdown.

With a continuous clock, the Bison marched down for one more scoring drive with 7:41 left to play when Herring broke free for a 22-yard touchdown and also added the point-after kick.

The Bison added another 99 yards to their offensive total in the second half for 375 yards, while the Raiders, who saw only seven offensive plays from scrimmage in the last two quarters, were held to four yards in the second half.

“It’s always good to get a W, and to come out and play the way they did and execute the way they did is what I was happy about,” Waymire said. “Penalties, we didn’t have them, turnovers, we didn’t have them. So I was excited about that.”

The Bison will play on the road at Bauxite next Friday. The Miners opened their season with a 26-7 victory over Glen Rose.

SPORTS>>Former Red Devil McDonald traded

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

NFL defensive tackle Clinton McDonald, a former Jacksonville Red Devil and Memphis Tiger, was traded Monday from the Cincinnati Bengals to the Seattle Seahawks for cornerback Kelly Jennings. The Bengals were deep on the defensive line and needed help in the defensive secondary, while the Seahawks were thin on the defensive front and had been increasingly unhappy with Jennings’ performance since taking him as their No. 1 pick in the 2006 draft out of the University of Miami.

McDonald is beginning his third year as a professional after being taken in the seventh round by the Bengals in 2009. He was on the practice squad his rookie season and cut from the team during preseason last year. The Bengals had no intention of giving McDonald up, however, and quickly resigned him back to the practice squad. His progress during last season eventually earned him a spot on the regular lineup by week eight. He played spot duty the rest of the season, earning four tackles.

So far this preseason, McDonald has looked better than ever. He recorded eight tackles in Cincinnati’s first preseason game against the Detroit Lions.

In the second game against the New York Jets, he recorded two solo tackles, two assists and a sack.

Bengals’ coach Marvin Lewis told Cincinnati reporters that it wasn’t easy giving up McDonald because of his recent rapid progress at defensive tackle, and because of his locker room character.

Cincinnati defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, who worked more closely with McDonald, expounded on what McDonald meant to the team.

“Clinton is a tremendous person. A good player. A good guy in the locker room,” Zimmer said. “We’ll miss him. He’s one of the good guys to have on the team. It’s one of these situations we have to try and get the team better.”

It was the first player-for-player trade made by the Bengals in 21 years. McDonald moves from a team considered to be loaded with talent but underachieving, to a team that little was expected of last year, but won the division, made the playoffs and beat defending super bowl champion New Orleans in the first round.

SPORTS>>Lady Panthers get big victory in road match

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

The Lady Panther volleyball team got a revenge win on Tuesday over Morrilton, but the celebration was short-lived. On Thursday, Cabot traveled to Russellville and dropped its conference opener to the Lady Cyclones.

Still, it was a positive week of play, according to Cabot coach Deanna Campbell, who said the win over a team it had previously lost to was a sure sign of improvement.

“We were able to beat them three straight, and consistency was one of our goals,” Campbell said. “We kept ourselves in the game and we wore them down.”

The three straight wins came after dropping the first set, and dropping it badly. The Lady Devil Dogs, who beat Cabot last week in the season opener, routed Cabot 25-9 in game one, but that only led to more praise from Campbell about her team’s resiliency.

“It’s easy to get discouraged and have a letdown after starting like that,” Campbell said. “These girls just battled. There were a lot of really long, long volleys. They just kept the ball alive and kept working. That showed us something about ourselves.”

Scores in the final three games were 25-22, 25-23 and 25-21. The slightly larger margin of victory in the final set was indicative of Cabot’s change in approach for that final set.

Also indicative of that change was the kill statistics. Lakin Best and Dominika Gubricova each finished with a team-high 10 kills, but half of them for each came in the deciding fourth set.

“The volleys were a little shorter in the fourth because we started playing more aggressively, and I think Morrilton got a little tired and wasn’t getting to as many balls,” Campbell said.

Campbell didn’t see a noticeable drop-off in the speed her players played with as the match progressed, which is something she was glad to see.

“This game was weird because in previous games we’ve started fast and then slowed down,” Campbell said. “This one, we started very slowly, but once we picked it up, we kept it there. So that was really good to see.”

Thursday’s match was a straight-set loss. Scores were 25-23, 25-18 and 25-11 for Russellville.

It was a match in which Campbell reminded herself that she coaches a very young team that starts and plays lots of sophomores.

“In a lot of areas, we actually did better than we had in previous matches,” Campbell said. “Russellville just plays a very fast game speed. They have a lot of seniors, some very good athletes. They’re just at a level that we’re not at yet, but we’re going to get there. This team is progressing very well.”

The difference between Russellville and Morrilton (which also has very good athletes) was Russellville’s ability to spread the ball around. Cabot began to read Morrilton well and anticipated where the hits were going. Russellville was much less predictable.

“They moved faster and they made very smart plays,” Campbell said. “We did really well in the first game, but after a while we didn’t read them very well. They didn’t just hit to the middle. They hit down the lines, to corners, and from anywhere.”

The Lady Cyclones also had a knuckle-ball server that gave Campbell’s charges fits.

“Her serve was amazing,” Campbell said. “It would skim the net and then move. She never aced us, but we weren’t able to run our offense off that. We just had to get it back over. Of course that gave them the advantage because it put us on defense.”

The Lady Panthers (2-3, 0-1) are back home for the first time in nearly two weeks when it hosts conference favorite Conway on Tuesday.

On Thursday the team travels to Little Rock Central to continue 7A-East play.

Look for details of both of those matches in Saturday’s edition of The Leader.

SPORTS>>Greenbrier shocks BHS in easy win

By DAN ELLIOTT
Special to The Leader

The Greenbrier Panthers, led by All-State quarterback Neal Burcham, took an early lead on an 87-yard touchdown strike to receiver Reid Cone and never looked back as they coasted to a 41-20 opening night win at A.S. “Bro” Erwin Stadium on Friday.

Beebe (0-1) used the double wing offense effectively early in the contest as the Badgers physical rushing attack ground out a 10-play drive, fueled by 1-yard touchdown by sophomore Eric Thorn. The extra point was missed and Greenbrier (1-0) held a 7-6 lead.

The Badgers were mistake prone early in the contest, especially during a one-minute stretch in the second quarter as a botched punt attempt was smothered by Greenbrier’s Jimbo Pitts on the Beebe 1-yard line, setting up an Austin Fischer touchdown plunge to increase the Panthers’ lead to 14-6.

On the ensuing kickoff return, Beebe kick returner Jay Holdway mishandled the kick. After a wild scramble, Greenbrier’s Jordan Legree recovered, setting up a 19-yard touchdown run by Fischer to widen the Panthers lead to 20-6.

“You just can’t make those kinds of mistakes against a good team like we did tonight,” Beebe coach John Shannon said. “It was a rough stretch there in the second quarter and a good team like Greenbrier will take advantage of that.”

With 44 seconds left in the first half, Greenbrier quarterback Neal Burcham hit Scott Cavin on a slant pass for a 71-yard touchdown as Cavin displayed some nice open field moves and broke several tackles on his way to the endzone for a 27-6 Panthers lead at the break.

The Badgers opened the second half much like they did early in the game as they pounded the ball at the Greenbrier defense behind the running of Thorn, Jay Holdway, Jeremy Van Winkle and quarterback Dustin Stallnacker. Junior running back Michael Kirby showed his speed as he raced around the right end for a 39-yard touchdown burst to cut the Greenbrier lead to 27-14 with 6:58 remaining in the third quarter.

Momentum was on Beebe’s side moments later as Greenbrier fumbled and Badgers Dakota Loveston recovered, setting Beebe up on their own 40-yard line. After a 43 pass from Stallnacker to Van Winkle pass set the Badgers up inside the Greenbrier 5, Stallnacker was hit as he attempted an option pitch and the Panthers pounced on the loose ball.

“Our kids never quit tonight,” added Shannon. “We came out and ran our offense the way we know how in the third quarter. We just can’t make those kinds of mistakes.”

Burcham showed why he is collegiate prospect as he dissected the Badgers pass defense for 67 yards on 4 consecutive pass completions, setting up Austin Fischer’s third rushing score of the evening to put the game out of reach at 34-14 entering the fourth quarter.

Beebe makes their first road trip of the season next Friday night as they travel to Lonoke to take on the Jackrabbits while Greenbrier hosts Faulkner County rival Mayflower.

Friday, September 02, 2011

EDITORIAL >>UCA fires Meadors

We were never so superstitious as to believe that a person could have “bad karma,” but the University of Central Arkansas is about to convince us that an institution can be infected with bad energy. Check the news almost any day and you can see the fruits of it—or maybe it is just the fruits of consistently poor leadership. Either way, UCA, as the old school is known, has had enough of it.

Yesterday, the school’s trustees hastily bought out its fairly new president’s contract—fired him—and will pay him some $525,000 to leave the premises by the end of the month, if not before. He had embarrassed them for the last time. They had paid handsomely to get rid of the previous president only three years ago after he had humiliated them and tarnished the school’s good name.

UCA’s troubles go back a decade or more, at least since September 2002, when Gov. Mike Huckabee tapped his pal Lu Hardin to be the university’s president to succeed his old enemy, Winfred Thompson, who had raised the school’s profile and modernized the campus but irked the faculty and the governor. Thompson resigned before Huckabee got full control of the board and fired him, and then he went off to become president of American University, first in the United Arab Emirates and then in Kuwait.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette touted Hardin often as a celestial gift to higher education, but it was soon obvious that Hardin’s main objective was self-promotion—he wanted to be governor or U.S. senator—and the university was his instrument. Hardin starred in television commercials and newspaper ads promoting UCA as the learning center of Arkansas and he was at the center of every other promotion as well.

That all ended with Hardin’s resignation three years ago after it was revealed that he had connived, among other things, to trick the board of trustees and the school into giving him a $300,000 bonus to help him pay his gambling debts. The trustees were happy to give him anything he wanted, but the revelation that he had gulled them made them look bad, along with the institution and its staff. Five months ago, Hardin pled guilty to federal counts of wire fraud and money laundering, and investigations of other shenanigans are continuing.

But Hardin’s hasty departure from the campus did not end the bad publicity or the blundering and self-dealing. Rather, they have cascaded on an almost weekly cycle under both the interim regime and successor administration of president Allen Meadors. This week, it reached a crescendo. Meadors and the trustees have been unhappy with conditions at the president’s mansion on the edge of the campus despite the expenditure of more than $400,000 since 2009 to improve the home and the grounds. There also had been expensive improvements when Hardin took over in 2002. Meadors says he and his wife do not mind living in the squalor of the old mansion, but it is not a fit place to entertain important guests of the university. (We were entertained there a couple of times in the last 15 years and found it elegant enough for our proletarian tastes, but it apparently is not suitable for people of better breeding.)

Owing to all that had transpired under Hardin and afterward, Meadors and the trustees agreed that it would not look good to spend public funds—the state’s tax support or students’ tuition—to gild the president’s home again, so they would seek private help. Lo, Meadors presented them last week with a deus ex machina—a gift from heaven. Aramark, the big national company that provides food services for the school, wanted to kick in $700,000 toward the renovations of the home and grounds. You don’t often encounter that kind of selfless generosity from a business. The trustees were happy and moved forward on the renovation, authorizing the school to spend $1,500 a month to rent a home for the president and his wife while the work was being done.

A nosy reporter, the Democrat-Gazette’s relentless Debra-Hale Shelton, made a request under the freedom of information law to see Aramark’s offer. The school obliged and then rushed an email to the trustees with a copy of Aramark’s letter before Shelton’s story got into print. It turned out that the company was not so generous after all. The $700,000 gift was contingent on the university renewing Aramark’s exclusive contract for campus food services for another seven years when the contract expires in May and doing it without giving competitors a chance to bid on the contract. The company would recoup its $700,000 (and how much more?) from the students over the next seven years.

The trustees, or most of them, were furious, not so much over the quid-pro-quo deal but over the administration’s misleading them by making it appear that it was an unselfish gift from the vendor. They looked foolish yet again. Meadors said he just simply did not think to tell the trustees or the public about that aspect of the deal because it did not seem important. After all, he said, such arrangements are common all across the country. Colleges apparently give big contractors sweetheart no-bid deals like that all the time.

Thursday, Meadors said he realized that he had made a big mistake and he took full responsibility for not being square with the trustees. The board named a committee to investigate the incident and take sworn testimony from everyone involved to see who was telling the truth—who was deceived and who deceived.

That hardly seemed to matter. It was inescapable that the problem was more endemic and wouldn’t be cured by determining who lied and who was just excessively meek in this embarrassing episode. The school’s leadership—the trustees and the men they choose to run the school (is cronies too strong a word for them?) — has been consistently weak. Some institutions seem to beg governors to be basely political in anointing its leaders. The state Game and Fish Commission is the exemplar.

After a day to reflect and read the press, the trustees apparently sensed that, too, and negotiated with the president to leave pronto and end the embarrassment. Buying out his contract costs the university $525,000 that it can scarcely afford, but honor sometimes comes at a price.

Gov. Beebe has to consider whether Meadors’ departure solves the underlying problem or the trustees, who include his own as well as Huckabee’s patronage, bear some of the burden. He should ask for all their resignations and open a fresh slate for the University of Central Arkansas. That superb university, which has had sliding enrollment and prestige in these debacles, deserves a better shake.

TOP STORY > >Residents in Lonoke split over principal

By SARAH CAMPBELL
Leader staff writer

Officials have breathed not a word about why Lonoke High School Principal Phynaus Wil-son was suspended with pay pending school board action, but an unconfirmed rumor is circulating in the small town via Facebook and elsewhere.

The rumor is that Wilson was suspended because Super-intendent John Tackett asked him to let outside consultants observe classes at the academically distressed high school, but the two disagreed on bringing in those consultants.

Assistant Principal Mark Hopson has taken over for Wil-son temporarily. He told The Leader he didn’t know how long he would be in that position.

“I don’t have anything to say about this,” he added, when asked if he could confirm the rumor.

The school’s website still lists Wilson as the principal. The Leader has been told Wilson worked his way up from coaching to administration and has been with the district for 30 years.

Tackett and Wilson did not return phone calls to The Leader by press time.

The district has been on the state’s school improvement list for four years.

If the district keeps that designation for a fifth year, it can bring in the state Education Department to improve test scores. But there are no plans in place to have outside parties help to improve scores. Another possibility is extending the school year or day.

Lonoke Benchmark scores for algebra and biology have dropped significantly over the past five years, while literacy scores have skyrocketed and geometry has stayed the same.

Forty percent of Lonoke students scored proficient or advanced in biology for 2009, but that dropped to 27 percent in 2010 and to 22 percent this year. Algebra was up and down, going from 69 percent scoring advanced or proficient in 2009 to 79 percent in 2010 and 63 percent this year.

Meanwhile, 49 percent scored advanced or proficient in literacy for 2009. That score went up to 64 percent in 2010 and is at 71 percent now.

Geometry advanced and proficient scores were 66 percent in 2009, 70 percent in 2010 and were at 68 percent this spring.

Although the reason for the suspension is unclear, Donn Mixon of Mixon Law Firm in Jonesboro released a statement about the incident.

It reads, “He (Wilson) is still a contract employee being paid his usual wages and benefits. I have directed the administration of the district not to share any further information about this matter. The reasons for this action are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act until such time as the school board action is completed.”

The statement also says Wilson has 30 days to request a hearing before the school board, which he can request be public or private, but any vote by the school board will be public. Mixon said, as of Friday, Wilson had not requested a hearing.

If he does request a hearing, it will be scheduled within five to 20 days after the request.

The next school board meeting is at 7 p.m. on Sept. 19. Lonoke school board held a special meeting for personnel on Aug. 22.

The purpose of the meeting was personnel, but no vote on personnel was recorded, according to Lonoke School District’s office.

Lonoke High School has a new $9.3 million campus with 600 students in ninth through 12th grades.

The two-story 74,000 square-foot building at West Academy Street and College Avenue replaces the neighboring 75-year-old high school.

The district received $5.2 million is state partnership funds to build the school. The district is paying off $4.1 million with second-lien bonds.

The info section for a Face-book page titled “Front Street Lonoke,” reads, “Since the news about Coach Wilson broke, a lot of discussion took place. Some were at church, some were on the telephone, and a great deal happened on a few of the Facebook pages that were started in support of Wilson. It seemed most people were in favor of bringing back Coach Wilson.”

The posting went on, “How-ever, when the topic turned to Dr. Tackett, disagreements arose, and pages were either closed, or disagreeing posts (along with their authors) were deleted. That won’t happen here. Feel free to talk about what’s going on in our town. Just try to keep it respectful.”

Posts on the page also claim teachers have been told to keep quiet about the suspension. One response to a reporter asking for someone to go on record with a reason for the action states, “Under threat of suspension? Hmmmmm... No free speech here.”

Another consensus that seems to have been reached on the Facebook page is that there are not many details on the suspension and people want to know what is going on.

Front Street Lonoke posted, “…Problem is, not too many details are being given to the public, as it took Dr. Tackett until today (Wednesday) to release a statement on this situation, which took place last week.”

Others said things like, “Let’s all remember that transparency is a good thing,” and, “Just saying that if they don’t/aren’t divulging what is going on there is something fishy going on.”

Other comments, such as, “I am not a ‘muzzled dog’ but I do choose to respect the wishes of the administration regardless of my personal opinions. It is called being a professional,“ and “I understand it is a personnel issue that can’t be discussed.” Many support keeping the lid on the issue.

Several students wearing “We want Wilson” T-shirts protested Wilson’s suspension this week. They spoke favorably of the principal and demanded the superintendent explain why Wilson was suspended.

TOP STORY > >BBC crew filming blackbird deaths

By JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer

International interest in the intriguing death of thousands of red-wing blackbirds on New Year’s Eve in Beebe continues. This week, a British Broadcasting Corp. film crew was in Beebe interviewing residents about the night blackbirds rained from the sky.

The British crew from Bristol, England, is working for the BBC’s natural-history unit. They were recording footage and interviews for an untitled nature series to air on the BBC early next year and possibly on BBC America later in mid-2012.

The theme of the show is unusual occurrences in nature. Along with the blackbirds, the crew is covering weather phenomena, sink holes and insect swarms.

Lucy Wells, a researcher with the film crew, said people in England have heard about the blackbird deaths here. She said the story captures the imagination.

“I think the Beebe birds hit international news almost straight away. There was certainly something about the story that captured public imagination—probably that such a high number fell on an auspicious night—plus the pictures of men in white chem suits,” sound engineer Chloe Pearne said.

Among people the BBC crew interviewed were Beebe Police Chief Wayne Ballew, Windwood subdivision residents Charles and Faye Moore, and Karen Rowe, a nongame bird biologist for Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

The crew also visited a lab at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Athens, where some of the dead blackbirds from Beebe were dissected.

“I think it is great we have people coming from England to our little community in Beebe, Arkansas, for two days. It gives us a touch of interacting with people from across the water. Their accents are wonderful,” said Charles Moore, an algebra professor at Arkansas State University-Beebe.

“It has put (Beebe) on the map. I’m amazed at the continued interest (in the blackbird deaths). It is fascinating. People love a mystery. It is fun to talk about. There are a lot of unanswered question with any theory you select,” Moore said.

Last week, Moore was interviewed by David Rush, a man from Las Vegas who has a travel show on the Internet. Rush is traveling across the United States, recording places he sees and the people he interviews on his website, www.DavidRush.net, and on YouTube.

The common belief for the massive deaths of blackbirds is large fireworks startled the estimated 1.6 million blackbirds from their roosts in the trees in the field near the Windwood subdivision.

Moore, a 16-year resident of Beebe, said pine trees once grew in the field along West Center Street. The pines were harvested and thorny trees grew up in their place. The new trees attracted the red-wing blackbirds and the birds have since migrated to the area every fall.

The Game and Fish Com-mission reported that three laboratories determined the 4,000 to 5,000 blackbirds scattered around town died from blunt-force trauma caused by crashing into each other, into houses and trees.

Experts say the blackbirds cannot see well at night. On New Year’s Eve, the blackbirds were seen on weather radar leaving their roosts. One wave of birds was recorded at 10:20 p.m. and a second smaller wave was at 11:21 p.m.

City clerk/treasurer Carol Crump-Westergren said calls to city hall about the blackbirds have stopped, except for a few from concerned residents before the Fourth of July celebration.

Back in February, John Rubin Productions, a documentary film crew from Cambridge, Mass., recorded footage of the blackbird flocks leaving their roost at dawn and returning to their roosts in the evening.

They also interviewed Beebe residents and city officials for a documentary to air on National Geographic Channel’s Explorer series.

Last week, producer/director John Rubin told The Leader that no air date for the documentary has been set by the National Geographic Channel.

TOP STORY > >BBC crew filming blackbird deaths

By JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer

International interest in the intriguing death of thousands of red-wing blackbirds on New Year’s Eve in Beebe continues. This week, a British Broadcasting Corp. film crew was in Beebe interviewing residents about the night blackbirds rained from the sky.

The British crew from Bristol, England, is working for the BBC’s natural-history unit. They were recording footage and interviews for an untitled nature series to air on the BBC early next year and possibly on BBC America later in mid-2012.

The theme of the show is unusual occurrences in nature. Along with the blackbirds, the crew is covering weather phenomena, sink holes and insect swarms.

Lucy Wells, a researcher with the film crew, said people in England have heard about the blackbird deaths here. She said the story captures the imagination.

“I think the Beebe birds hit international news almost straight away. There was certainly something about the story that captured public imagination—probably that such a high number fell on an auspicious night—plus the pictures of men in white chem suits,” sound engineer Chloe Pearne said.

Among people the BBC crew interviewed were Beebe Police Chief Wayne Ballew, Windwood subdivision residents Charles and Faye Moore, and Karen Rowe, a nongame bird biologist for Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

The crew also visited a lab at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Athens, where some of the dead blackbirds from Beebe were dissected.

“I think it is great we have people coming from England to our little community in Beebe, Arkansas, for two days. It gives us a touch of interacting with people from across the water. Their accents are wonderful,” said Charles Moore, an algebra professor at Arkansas State University-Beebe.

“It has put (Beebe) on the map. I’m amazed at the continued interest (in the blackbird deaths). It is fascinating. People love a mystery. It is fun to talk about. There are a lot of unanswered question with any theory you select,” Moore said.

Last week, Moore was interviewed by David Rush, a man from Las Vegas who has a travel show on the Internet. Rush is traveling across the United States, recording places he sees and the people he interviews on his website, www.DavidRush.net, and on YouTube.

The common belief for the massive deaths of blackbirds is large fireworks startled the estimated 1.6 million blackbirds from their roosts in the trees in the field near the Windwood subdivision.

Moore, a 16-year resident of Beebe, said pine trees once grew in the field along West Center Street. The pines were harvested and thorny trees grew up in their place. The new trees attracted the red-wing blackbirds and the birds have since migrated to the area every fall.

The Game and Fish Com-mission reported that three laboratories determined the 4,000 to 5,000 blackbirds scattered around town died from blunt-force trauma caused by crashing into each other, into houses and trees.

Experts say the blackbirds cannot see well at night. On New Year’s Eve, the blackbirds were seen on weather radar leaving their roosts. One wave of birds was recorded at 10:20 p.m. and a second smaller wave was at 11:21 p.m.

City clerk/treasurer Carol Crump-Westergren said calls to city hall about the blackbirds have stopped, except for a few from concerned residents before the Fourth of July celebration.

Back in February, John Rubin Productions, a documentary film crew from Cambridge, Mass., recorded footage of the blackbird flocks leaving their roost at dawn and returning to their roosts in the evening.

They also interviewed Beebe residents and city officials for a documentary to air on National Geographic Channel’s Explorer series.

Last week, producer/director John Rubin told The Leader that no air date for the documentary has been set by the National Geographic Channel.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

SPORTS >> NP ladies beat Sylvan Hills in league opener

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

North Pulaski got a big win to open 5A Southeast Conference volleyball play Monday night, beating Sylvan Hills in five hard-fought sets to take the victory. Monday’s match came on the heels of both teams participating in the Spikefest Tournament on Saturday. That tournament featured 28 teams and was spread out over four locations in Little Rock.

In Monday’s matchup, the Lady Falcons overcame a two-sets-to-one deficit, winning the fourth and fifth sets to steal the victory from the visiting Lady Bears. Scores in the match were for North Pulaski 25-22, 17-25, 21-25, 25-14 and 15-7.

“One thing about these girls is they aren’t going to quit,” North Pulaski coach Ben Belton said. “We’ve got a lot of things to work on, a lot of things we need to do to get better, but they don’t quit.”

North Pulaski had leads in every set, and big leads in each of the two it lost. The Lady Bears came back from a 10-2 deficit in set two to take it, then rallied from 12 points down in the third set to win it and take a 2-1 lead. North Pulaski led 16-4 in the third, but Sylvan Hills outscored the home team 21-6 from that point.

“There really wasn’t ever a set where, at one point or another, that we weren’t in control,” Belton said. “One of the things we have to start doing is finishing. We can’t keep letting teams come back on us when we’ve got them down that much. We have to finish teams off. We were fortunate to go ahead and get that win. But we made it hard on ourselves. Take nothing away from Syvlan Hills. They battled and they got themselves back in it and deserved to be there. We just didn’t do the things we needed to do.”

North Pulaski’s service game was the difference. When it was on, Sylvan Hills struggled, but the Lady Falcons were inconsistent.

Sophomore Emily Long had several long services, and her jump serve dominated the fourth set.

“She hadn’t jump served the whole match, but I knew she was capable,” Belton said. “When I asked her to do it in the fourth set, Sylvan Hills really had trouble with it.”

Long started serving in the fourth with North Pulaski trailing 3-1. She finished with her team up 9-4. A few rotations later, she served again, this team leading 17-14, and served the set out.

Other Lady Falcons had long services at times in the match. Shelby Floyd served eight straight points to start the match. Megan Chargualaf served eight straight at one point, and Shelby Floyd served the last three of the match.

“We’ve got a few kids that have really good serves. They’re just not consistent with it and don’t have the confidence in it to really go after it,” Belton said. “We’re still a young team. If we can get everything going like I think we can, we’re going to be pretty good.”

Over the weekend, North Pulaski was put into a tough pool with class 7A Bentonville, and 6A Van Buren and Sheridan. Pool play in Spikefest was a two-set round robin, with each team playing two sets against every other team. Bentonville and Van Buren swept North Pulaski and Sheridan, while North Pulaski and Sheridan split with each other.

After pool play, North Pulaski went to tournament play and beat Little Rock Hall before losing to Mills.

“I was most disappointed in the Mills game,” Belton said. “Bentonville and Van Buren are outstanding teams. They’re big, athletic and most of them play pretty much year round. We did pretty well against Sheridan, but we just didn’t play against Mills. I don’t know if we put a ball down that whole match. I know this, they didn’t get our best. Hopefully it will be different next time we see them.”

North Pulaski and Sylvan Hills will both continue conference play at 5 p.m. Thursday. North Pulaski will play an away game at Little Rock Christian. Sylvan Hills will play at home against Central Arkansas Christian.

SPORTS >> Eagles blow up in first half, pound Sylvan Hills

By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter

The second day of the 2011 Arkansas High School Football Classic quickly turned into a classic blowout in the early game as Vilonia clobbered Sylvan Hills 45-7 at War Memorial Stadium on Tuesday.

Senior running back Trey Bone broke the biggest run of the first half to give the Bears their only score when he got free at the line of scrimmage and darted 67 yards for a touchdown with 4:44 left in the first half. Vilonia defenders caught up with Bone at the Eagles 20, but he cut towards the middle of the field and back out to the left to freeze them. Sophomore kicker Philip Wood added the extra point to make it 27-7.

“That’s just a young football team,” Sylvan Hills coach Jim Withrow said. “When you play good teams, you can’t make mistakes. It’s a learning experience for us, you know, it’s not a conference game. But we’ve got to get on track this coming week. We had I don’t know how many blown assignments in the first five plays of the game. If we clean that up, I think we’ll be fine.”

Bone was one bright spot in a Bears offense that found trouble in many forms, including penalties, turnovers and missed blocking assignments. He finished with a game-high 112 yards, almost half of Sylvan Hills’ 235 total yards.

“He did a great job,” Withrow said. “Trey’s had a hamstring pull; he’s not practiced for a week and a half. It’s exactly what we thought we would get with him. Once we decided to execute, we had some good moments. We’re going to keep banging away at it. We’ll get there.”

The Eagles wasted little time getting on the scoreboard on their first possession with a five-play, 41-yard drive that was set up with a shaky punt by Bears junior kicker Michael Neal. Neal had trouble getting the low snap, but still managed to punt the ball 20 yards while dodging oncoming Eagle defenders.

Senior running back James Sax and sophomore Houston Cotton each ran twice to push the ball into the red zone, setting up Drew Estes for a 20-yard touchdown run across the left side with 8:35 left in the first quarter. James Gardner added the extra point to put Vilonia up 7-0.

Sax finished with a team-high 93 yards for Vilonia while Estes had 76 yards. The Eagles had 276 total yards, all on the ground.

“The defense played great,” Vilonia coach Jim Stanley said. “Sylvan Hills is so fast. I was really concerned.”

Things started out promising for the Bears on their third possession when Bone picked up a first down with an 18-yard run up to the Sylvan Hills 31-yard line. But on third down, Miller was intercepted by Jake Kirk, who returned it 39 yards to put the Eagles up by two scores just before the end of the quarter.

Vilonia struck fast again to start the second quarter with a six-play, 49-yard drive. It was Estes once again, bookending the drive with an eight-yard scamper on first down, and a 20-yard run similar to his opening score. Bears junior Jaleel Henson blocked Gardner’s extra-point kick to leave the margin at 20-0 with 8:43 remaining in the first half.

The Eagles got another gift at the end of the Bears’ next possession when Neal’s punt went 10 yards and then took a backwards bounce to set Vilonia up at the Sylvan Hills’ 23-yard line.

That led to the first score for Sax three plays later. Sax, the high-profile senior running back for Vilonia, took it in from five yards out to give the Eagles a 27-0 lead with 5:05 left in the first half.

SPORTS >> Mistakes hurt Jackrabbits, Bulldogs get win

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

Lonoke’s first offensive play was a turnover. It’s last offensive play was a turnover. In between there were nine penalties for 45 yards in losses, and it was all enough to help Star City overcome the Jackrabbits 21-7 Monday in the opening game of the 2011 football season at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

There were bright spots for Lonoke on offense and defense, and plenty on which to build once it eliminates the kind of mistakes that were made against the Bulldogs.

Part of the problem for Lonoke, possibly a major part, was that it was playing in its first game-type action in the regular-season opener. While most teams played a scrimmage game against another team or two, Lonoke’s scheduled scrimmage against Maumelle a week earlier was called off after just 15 minutes because of lightning in the area.

“I think that hurt us,” Lonoke coach Doug Bost said. “We scrimmaged for 15 minutes and really didn’t have a scrimmage. Star City got to scrimmage for two hours, had a good scrimmage and got to really work on things, see what needed work and got to go back and practice those things. We didn’t get anything like that, and I think it showed tonight in some of the mistakes we made.”

Star City took a 14-0 lead into halftime after scoring on its first and last possessions of the half. The Bulldogs capped each drive with 35-yard scoring plays. The opening drive took only four plays to go 75 yards, and quickly highlighted Star City’s numerous weapons. Four different players got the ball on the drive. Junior Lavonte Gardner got the ball first and went 17 yards on the first play of the game.

Two plays later, receiver and sometimes-quarterback DaVondrick Shelton caught a 13-yard pass. Quarterback Austin White carried for a short gain before handing off to Reshod Davis, who scampered 35 yards for the score. The extra point was no good, giving Star City a 6-0 lead with 10:28 left in the first quarter.

On Lonoke’s first play, junior running back Eric Williams ran 10 yards up the gut, but lost the ball, giving it back to the Bulldogs at the Lonoke 45-yard line.

The defense stopped Star City at the seven-yard line, where it missed a 24-yard field-goal attempt.

Defenses took control for most of the half, until Star City drove 85 yards in 3:01 to make it 14-0 with 1:13 left in the half.

The Bulldogs suddenly came out throwing in that drive. Seven of its 10 plays were passes, and five were complete, including a 35-yard connection from White to Shelton, who was covered well by two Lonoke defenders.

Lonoke ended the half with a 36-yard run by Williams. Lonoke picked up in the second half where it left off in the first, moving the ball with ease.

The Jackrabbits went 69 yards in 10 plays to start the second half, mixing the pass and run and keeping the Bulldogs off balance on defense.

Lonoke finished the drive when quarterback D.J. Burton threw a jump ball pass to the end zone, where Lonoke receiver Blake Mack out-jumped Star City’s defender to pull down the 12-yard touchdown pass.

After that, it became a defensive struggle again, with neither team able to do much offensively.

Star City was able to do nothing over its next two drives. The Lonoke defense gave up 10 total yards in the second half until Star City began its final scoring drive with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Star City netted five yards in each of its previous two second-half drives, but was able to move 80 yards in eight plays to make it 21-7 with 4:27 remaining in the game.

A little bad luck for Lonoke helped Star City get into the end zone. The Bulldogs had first and goal at the 1-yard line, but was stuffed for no gain on first and second down. The Jackrabbits won the initial push on third down, but White fumbled the snap on the quarterback sneak. By the time he picked it up, he was able to find a hole in the defense and score.

Lonoke got it back and drove the length of the field for a first down at the Star City 8-yard line with plenty of time remaining. But on second down, a bad snap led to a loose ball, which Star City recovered with 2:34 left in the game.

One first down later, and the Bulldogs went to a victory formation to run out the clock and seal the win.

One of the bright spots for Lonoke was the play of Burton in the passing game. Burton was a question mark going into the season, having never played significant minutes at quarterback. Against Star City, he completed 10 of 14 pass attempts for 115 yards, with one touchdown and no interceptions.

“He did pretty well,” Bost said of Burton. “We were a little concerned about him being a little nervous. But I didn’t see it out there. I didn’t see any nerves. He looked fine.”

Star City gained 314 total yards with 194 rushing and 120 through the air. Lonoke gained 173 yards rushing to go with Burton’s 115 passing to finish with 288 total yards.

Gardner led all players with 147 total yards, including 114 on the ground. Williams led all rushers with 119 yards on 13 carries.

Lonoke will get plenty of practice time to work on the areas of concern before it plays longtime rival Beebe at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9 at Beebe.

SPORTS >> Cabot wins ‘Brawl’ going away

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

Close for a half, the Backyard Brawl turned into a backyard mauling, as Cabot flexed its defensive muscle, controlled the line of scrimmage and ran away from rival Jacksonville 34-13 Tuesday at Panther Stadium.

Jacksonville wasn’t without its moments, but penalties continually put the Red Devils in poor situations, and Cabot’s line controlled most of the game.

“I thought they did pretty good,” Cabot coach Mike Malham said of his offensive line, which features several sophomores. “I’ll have to look at film to see the particulars. It’s just eliminate mistakes and don’t stop yourself. They (the Red Devils) hurt themselves a bunch with penalties. We don’t want to do that, we want to make them stop us.”

No penalty was bigger than the first one called on Jacksonville. It negated a 33-yard touchdown run by Cortez Brown. The Red Devils had to punt four play later.

Cabot got the ball and went to work.

Starting from its own 6-yard line, the Panthers drove length of the field in 15 plays with fullback Ian Thompson barreling for the last two to give the home team the early lead.

After Cabot’s score, Jacksonville got it back and tied the game on play that Cabot appeared to have stopped dead.

On fourth and nine from the 31-yard line, the Cabot pass rush had quarterback Tirrell Brown wrapped up four yards deep in the backfield. Brown’s size came in handy. He managed to stay on his feet long enough to make a throw to the flat to Smith. The Cabot defensive back made a play on the ball and missed. When Smith made the catch, it was an easy walk into the end zone. The extra point made it 7-7 with 9:51 left in the half.

“We had him (Brown) wrapped up in the backfield, hanging all over him,” Malham said. “He’s just a load. He’s 6-feet-5, 230-pounds. That’s tough to bring down.”

The Panthers answered right back with a 12-play, 80 yard drive. A missed extra point made it 13-7 with 4:32 left in the half.

Cabot finally got Brown down in the backfield when defensive end Brandon Schiefelbein got a sack for minus five yards on first down. Two plays later the Red Devils punted back to Cabot.

The Panthers mounted another long drive, but disaster struck on third and goal from the 11-yard line. Smith picked off a Zach Craig pass and returned it 99 yards to tie the game with 13 seconds left in the first half.

The second half was all Cabot, as Jacksonville had trouble going forward.

Cabot scored on its first two drives of the half to take a 14-point lead. The first drive ended on a 1-yard quarterback sneak. The second was a one-play drive when senior halfback Weston Conard went 22 yards for the score.

Jacksonville had as many penalties on its first two drives of the second half as it did snaps. There were four of each, and the last snap resulted in a fumble that Cabot recovered at the Jacksonville 18-yard line. Nose guard T.C. Carter forced the fumble and Schiefelbein recovered it. Cabot gave it right back with its own fumble three plays later.

Jacksonville finally got something going in the fourth quarter, but a 53-yard drive ended at the 1-yard line when Chris Luna intercepted a Brown pass and returned it out to the 28.

Jacksonville’s next drive was going well too, but it also brought the nail in the coffin. The Red Devils moved from their own 41 to the Cabot 37 in just three plays, but the fourth was picked off by Chase Boyles and returned 65 yards for the final touchdown of the game.

Officially, Jacksonville was flagged 11 times for 67 yards, but many penalties negated plays that would have been good gains. After the game, it wasn’t the penalties that Jacksonville coach Rick Russell was upset about. It was his team’s reaction to them.

“This was not a team-oriented game,” Russell said. “We had some plays that didn’t go our way early. We started getting frustrated with the officials’ calls. We started getting frustrated with each other. And until we bond as a team, and understand that we have to go on to the next play, it’s going to be a long year for these Red Devils.

“We were in sync early. We scored a touchdown early, our right tackle they said was in the backfield. Maybe he was, maybe not. We got to work through that.”

Cabot held the advantage in total yards, gaining 374 yards to Jacksonville’s 237.

Conard led everyone with 174 yards and one touchdown on 17 carries. Tirell Brown led Jacksonville offensively. He completed 24 of 36 pass attempts for 236 yards, with one touchdown and one two interceptions.

Cabot will host nationally ranked Pulaski Academy next week while Jacksonville will play its home opener against Benton.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

EDITORIAL >> Financing highways

Gov. Beebe called a special election on Nov. 8 on whether to issue bonds to speed up repairs to the state’s interstate highway system. Whether you vote and whether voters statewide endorse the debt are nearly immaterial questions. The outcome will scarcely affect your life or change the course of public life.

Either way, the state Highway and Transportation Department will repair several hundred miles of the state’s perpetually disintegrating superhighways. Interstate lanes built only a decade ago are already crumbling under the relentless hammering of 80,000-pound loads. The repairs may be made slightly faster if the bonds are issued, so if that is an incentive for you to vote “yes” on Nov. 8, you can feel can feel good about exercising your civic duty to vote. We would not advise anyone to vote against it.

But everyone should understand what is at issue. The highway bonds will not mean improvements to the streets, county roads or the primary and secondary highways over which most Arkansawyers travel every day for work or leisure. The bond proceeds and the revenues to retire the bonds are dedicated to improving interstate highways exclusively.

The interstate system has become primarily the infrastructure for the transportation industry. It gets long-haul goods to the markets, which means we all have something invested in it even if in much of the state people don’t travel it often. In central Arkansas, interstates are more important to the vitality of civic life.

The big question for voters then is whether it’s better business to borrow $1 billion and spend it in rather speedy fashion, over eight or nine years, or build as the taxes are collected. The highway folks always argue that it is better to borrow and spend because inflation in construction and materials will eat too much of the revenues if the work is spread out over 14 or 15 years. The big interstate bond program of 1999 was probably unwise because inflation did not prove as steep as the industry had predicted, and the state probably could have improved more miles with the same revenue the past 12 years under a pay-as-you-go approach. But highway officials will dispute that.

In this case, the math looks better. Because interest rates are at historic lows and should be little higher when the bonds are ready for sale in another 15 months, borrowing costs should be cheap. No one can anticipate what construction costs will be in 2015 or 2020. So bonds should be a better bargain in 2012 than they were in 1999 or in 2005 when the state made a stab at renewing the bonds.

There is one downside. Retiring the bonds could one day require theft from the public schools if the highway revenues dedicated to the bonds come up short. That would not be a serious consideration except for the parlous times. What if the Republicans block the renewal of the federal tax on motor fuels this fall, as many of them are threatening? The tax expires at the end of September. Many Republicans are sworn to oppose all tax increases, and the sponsors of the antitax revolt consider restoring an expiring tax a tax increase.

If the tax were not renewed, the state’s road improvement program would come to a near standstill. Gone also would be a sizable part of the revenues to retire the bonds. The 1999 highway bond act specifies that if the special revenues dedicated to the bonds fall short, the state’s general revenues will retire the bonds. Tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars would be taken from public school funds to pay for interstate repairs. School children would be subsidizing the shipping and transportation industries. You will remember that the industries reneged this spring on an agreement to raise taxes on diesel to pay for the interstate repairs.

But if the Republicans block renewal of the taxes and take the federal government out of road building, we are sure that Beebe will not push the bond election, at least without first changing Arkansas’ own highway finances. It bears watching.

TOP STORY >> Landmark letters taken

By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer

“It breaks our hearts. It’s frustrating, and it makes us angry!”

Those were Daniel Gray’s thoughts about the people who took all the letters off both sides of the landmark Bart Gray Realty sign on T.P. White Drive along U.S. Hwy. 67/167.

Gray said it happened a week ago. The sign had messages on both sides and the next day all the letters were gone. “We still had some letters in the office, but only one A and just a few of the other vowels. It makes it hard to put up a message,” he said.

But the third-generation realtor said the company did put up a message Tuesday on one side of the board honoring the recent death of Zelma Riddle, a former agent.

Sadly, the other side, for lack of letters, remains blank.

“The sign’s messages were always relevant and we changed it almost daily,” Gray said.

Former Mayor James Reid, who was an agent for the company, made it a point to keep up with the message board seven days a week, rain, cold, heat or any kind of weather, explained Rick White, another member of the realty company.

Gray remarked that the company’s been in busy for 60 years and the signs been there for at least 40 years.

“And we’ve always put birthdays, anniversaries, welcome homes and other community message on it and never charged anyone,” Gray said.

“Everybody in town always comments about the sign and the messages. Everyone likes it,” he said.

“What a shame our opportunity to convey a personal or community message has been interrupted. It seems the person responsible had just one purpose and that was to disrupt the benefit of others,” said White.

The company has never had the letters taken before.

“We’ve had people come and rearrange the letters a time or two, just to be cute, but that’s tolerable,” Gray said.

He said the letters, many which are as old as the sign, run about $5 apiece, meaning the thieves took a couple hundred dollars worth when they yanked them off the sign.

“Thank goodness for Google,” Gray said. “We were able to find one company that still has them and have ordered some letters. But we would really, really like our old ones back.”

A police report has been filed and the department is taking the theft seriously. “We’ve not gotten any leads yet,” Gray said.

But the company simply wants the letters back.

Anyone with any knowledge of the theft should call Bart Gray Realty at 501-982-2159.

TOP STORY >> Victory salute for airmen

By SARAH CAMPBELL
Leader staff writer

Airmen and Brig. Gen. Rick Martin, Rodeo 2011 the commander, gathered Monday to celebrate Little Rock Air Force Base’s 314th Airlift Wing receiving two trophies that say it is the best Air Mobility Command wing and the best airdrop wing in the world.

The wing was not presented those trophies at Rodeo 2011 because of a scoring error. Martin apologized that the team was not recognized at the grandiose award ceremony held in joint base Lewis-McChord, Wash., where airmen competed in a variety of competitive events during the last week of July.

He also complimented the 314th’s care of its C-130 E-model, the oldest plane used at this year’s competition. “You made it shine like a ghost,” he said.

Col. Mark Czelusta, 314th Airlift Wing commander, made it clear that his team couldn’t do what it does without the help of its sister wing, the 19th Airlift Wing. He also thanked the community for its support.

“There’s a partnership with the 19th Airlift Wing. We couldn’t do without them,” he said. “The partnership with our community; when they say it’s their base, they mean it and they’re absolutely right.”

Rodeo is the Air Force’s and Air Mobility Command’s premier air-mobility competition. The competition draws the “best of the best” from air forces around the world.

LRAFB teams competed against more than 40 teams and 2,500 people from U.S. Air Force, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard and several foreign countries.

The teams brought home eight trophies.

The 314th Airlift Wing boasts seven of those. In addition to the two trophies it received Monday, the team won best C-130 team, best C-130 airdrop wing, best C-130 maintenance skills team, best C-130 maintenance team and best overall maintenance skills team.

The wing had to turn over one award, best C-130 airdrop crew, to the 19th Airlift Wing because of the scoring error. It was the only award that wing, which was named the best C-130 wing at the last rodeo in 2009, got this year.

Air Mobility Command officials found the programming error on Aug. 18 after doing another check of the results before posting the detailed scores for rodeo competitors to access, according to a release.

Some C-17 and C-130 scores were miscalculated during an automated process that incorrectly assigned a median score for events.

TOP STORY >> Future unclear after Greystone closes its doors

By JOAN McCOY
Leader staff writer

Plans to reopen one or two of the golf courses at Greystone Country Club remain uncertain, although undeveloped land near the club could be used for future home construction.

Greystone Country Club, which has been part of Cabot’s identity for more than 17 years, closed its doors last week.

The regular morning golfers weren’t among those who received an e-mail about the closing from owner Bill Minton. They arrived Friday morning and found the doors locked.

Sometime later that day, sources say, a representative of Metropolitan National Bank, which holds the mortgage on the two golf courses and clubhouse, hired the club maintenance crew to keep the place presentable. Members have been told that if they have personal belongings in the clubhouse, they should call before they attempt to pick it up to be sure someone is there to unlock the door.

Ed Passini, a Greystone resident and club member who was part of a group trying in January to put together a plan to keep the club open until a new buyer could be found, said he was sitting in the clubhouse at 9 p.m. when an employee came out of the office and announced, “We’re done.”

Club owner Bill Minton should have given members a little more notice, Passini said.

Greystone residents have known for eight months that the country club was in trouble. But Passini said the residents didn’t try to save it when they had an opportunity.

His group had appealed to Greystone residents to join the country club instead of just living in the subdivision. If they could double membership to about 500, the club could survive, the group said.

They appealed to residents saying to save the country club was to save their way of life and maintain the value of their homes. Now the fear that property values would plummet will become reality, Passini said.

By the time it closed, only one of the two courses was open. Cypress Creek, the back course, closed July 3. The manager said the grass was dying from a fungus due to the combination of rain and hot weather.

The club was set for auction at the end of the summer. Minton said in July that there were possible buyers but by the time it closed, insiders were saying that all the possible buyers had declined.

In January, the club was reportedly falling $40,000 a month short of the revenue needed to operate and pay the $1.2 million mortgage. And Mayor Bill Cypert said if it closed the negative economic impact to the city would be about $25 million over a 10-year period.

Contacted this week, a spokesman for Metropolitan National Bank said the bank could not comment about the future of Greystone.

TOP STORY >> Middle school awes parents

By JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer

The new $31.5 million, 197,000 square-foot Sylvan Hills Middle School has a modern look inside and out. The sprawling building replaces the former 56-year-old school built in 1955 as Sylvan Hills High School.

The middle school has 785 students in sixth through eighth grades. The building separates grade levels into the three pods. The sixth-grade pod has yellow accented walls. The seventh-grade pod has blue accented walls. The eighth-grade pod has red accented walls.

Each pod has 16 classrooms, a conference room, a computer lab, a teacher’s workroom, a seminar room with seating for 100 students for projects or combining classes; and two commons area for students to meet.

The new school has nine separate science labs, three per grade level, all similarly equipped.

Eighth-grade science teacher Chuck Sawatski said the science labs have more presentation tables than at the old school.

The science labs have five computers per room. Students can do research here in case they don’t have a computer at home. The labs are roomier. Teachers are able to have more science equipment at hand, instead of packed away in storage rooms.

“Students need to see the globes, microscopes and Bunser burners. It excites the mind,” Sawatski said.

The school has two band rooms, two choir rooms and two art rooms. A stage was built inside the cafeteria. The school also has six career-education classrooms, an athletic gym that holds 1,200 students and a practice gym.

Construction crews are finishing the wood floors in both gyms and are scheduled to be completed by Labor Day.

“We feel blessed to be here. An open house had close to 1,400 parents and students. Parents were amazed at the building, saying it was beautiful, gorgeous and awesome,” Principal Jo Wilcox said.

Wilcox said the school had lots of help moving from the old middle school.

“The teachers have done wonderful, the parent teacher association was helpful and the parent volunteers have been positive,” she said.

Wilcox said the teachers and students appreciate the new middle school. They will care for the building and the grounds for future students and generations.

“One eighth-grade girl said, ‘We can’t let anyone write on the new desks,’” Wilcox said.

The school has skylights and large windows illuminating the wide hallways with natural light. Floor tiles are made of recycled rubber requiring no wax, but a special machine to clean the floors.

The school has new furniture and each classroom has a direct phone line for parents to contact teachers.

Classroom doors open into the hallway. At the old middle school, classroom doors opened to the outside. Wilcox said it will be easier for staff to keep up with students. She said the restrooms were a major improvement.

The school is equipped with the latest technology.

The school has computers; four computers are in each core curriculum classroom. Three traveling carts, one cart per grade level, contain 30 iPads with learning applications. Each classroom has an interactive Promethean whiteboard.

“Technology is a huge difference because the old school had two computer labs with troubles with the Internet,” Wilcox said.

“The technology budget was $1 million. I think that was impressive. State funding paid for 500 desktop computers,” school bookkeeper Peggy Holladay said.

The middle school has a parenting center for parents to use computers to check on their child’s grades. The center also has parenting books and materials.

Media specialist Sandy Robbins said the media center is much brighter, bigger and spacious than the old school. It is more inviting for students.

She said the media center has 19 brand new student computers. The library has more bandwidth so students can do more with the computers online at the same time.

“It doesn’t stall out,” Robbins said.

The library has a research lab and conference room. A large screen drops down from the ceiling for presentation.

Robbins said she loved the tall glass wall of the media center. It is the center of attention. Automated shades lower in front of the glass to darken the room.

She said the media center has no leaks and has a new car smell.

The school is built upon a hill with trees surrounding the building giving an isolated feeling in a busy city. Deer and Canadian geese have been seen feeding on the recently laid sod.

“The grounds are beautifully landscaped. The building is awesome to look at,” Wilcox said.

The school had traffic snarls on the first day of school, but traffic is moving smoother.

Wilcox said the mayor, police chief and fire chief met with school officials to improve traffic flow.

The school changed student car pick-ups to double-file lines. Sherwood officers are helping to direct traffic while the traffic lights are adjusted.