By HEATHER HARTSELL
Leader staff writer
Work on Cabot School District’s ninth elementary school, Mountain Springs Elementary, will soon be under way, Superintendent Dr. Tony Thurman said during last week’s school board meeting.
The board approved the $160,000 purchase of Bill and Mildred Ray’s 16 acres for the new elementary, located a half-mile from the Mountain Springs Road/Hwy. 5 intersection, during the November meeting.
Mountain Springs Elementary, planned to open in the fall of 2010, will help relieve overcrowding at Magness Creek and Northside Elementary schools.
The drives and parking areas for the new campus have been identified and the information is on its way to the Cabot Planning Commission, Thurman said.
The details of getting the utilities to the site are being worked out between the school and the city, as the 16 acres are currently outside the Cabot city limits, he added.
Work is also coming along on schedule at the $11.6 million Cabot Junior High North, planned for completion in July 2009, where crews have been busy painting interior walls, laying block walls and bringing the roof to near completion.
The band hall, choir area and cafeteria only lack a final coat of paint, ceiling tile and floor covering to complete construction.
The kitchen walls have been primed and are ready for wall-coverings; the walk-in coolers and freezers have been set and the floor poured; work on the wall covering and ceiling grid will begin the first week after the holidays.
The exterior block walls of the two-story, 134,000-square-foot structure are complete.
The exterior veneer – a split-faced finish block that covers the structural blocks – is complete on the band hall, cafeteria, offices, media center and kitchen.
The veneer will be 98 percent finished on the rest of the exterior walls by Christmas, Thurman said.
The final 2 percent will be completed after the forklift traffic is no longer necessary.
The metal trusses and metal decking of the roof are completed and the two layers of insulation on top of the decking are 66 percent completed.
“The roof crew was increased last Monday from eight to 15 men in order to speed up the roof completion,” Thurman told the board.
For the first time since the August 2006 fire, the power has been restored to the vocational building, one of the few buildings left intact after the electrical fire destroyed the rest of the eight-year-old campus.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
TOP STORY > >Successor moving in as county prosecutor
By JOAN McCOY
Leader staff writer
Although Lona McCastlain is officially the Lonoke County prosecutor until Jan. 1, Will Feland, her replacement, is already on the job.
Feland, a former Lonoke County prosecutor, has been sworn in as an unpaid deputy prosecutor so he can review cases, but he says he is in contact with McCastlain, who is using vacation days to spend Christmas with her husband in Germany where he is stationed.
McCastlain’s husband, Bruce, who serves full time in the National Guard, was promoted Sept. 14 from lieutenant colonel to full-bird colonel. He got his orders for Europe Sept. 17 shortly before McCastlain announced that she was retiring as Dist. 23 prosecuting attorney.
McCastlain said when she announced her retirement that December was a slow month for the courts and therefore a good time for the transition to a new prosecutor.
Feland, 56, said this week that the transition is going well. The only major change, he said, is the chief deputy prosecutor. Stuart Cearley resigned to take the chief deputy position in Benton County, Feland said.
Cearley’s replacement is Bart Dickinson, a former deputy prosecutor for Pulaski County who now works for the attorney general. Feland said while Dickinson was with Pulaski County, he prosecuted more than 60 cases in criminal court.
Cearley’s departure was completely voluntary, he said, adding that he was pleased with his replacement.
“Because of his experience, I am really excited for Bart to come aboard,” Feland said.
Longtime Circuit Judge Lance Hanshaw is retiring at the end of December. His First Division seat will be filled by Judge Barbara Elmore, who was appointed as circuit judge in 2007 to the newly created Third Division. Judge Phillip Whiteaker presides over Second Division and Hanshaw’s son-in-law, Sandy Huckabee, won over McCastlain for the Third Division seat that Elmore will vacate at the end of the month.
Currently, the judges divide the workload with Hanshaw hearing mostly criminal cases, Whiteaker mostly civil cases and Elmore mostly domestic violence and juvenile cases. But that arrangement changes in January, when Elmore, Whiteaker and Huckabee will share the criminal case load. Getting ready for the change is keeping Feland and the staff in the prosecutor’s office busy.
“We’ve worked hard to get organized,” Feland said. “I wanted to hit the ground running in January.”
In addition to being a lawyer, Feland is pastor of the First Christian Church in Sherwood and the owner of Pinnacle Structures in Cabot, which manufactures metal buildings. He said this week that while he is prosecutor, he will turn the operation of his business over to Ken Kincade.
Feland was one of two lawyers McCastlain recommended to Gov. Mike Beebe as her successor. She also recommended one of her former deputy prosecutors, Norene Smith.
“I couldn’t have been more pleased if I had (picked him) myself,” McCastlain said after Beebe selected Feland. “He’s professional and will serve the people well. He did it before and I know he will do it again.”
Feland served four two-year terms as Lonoke County prosecutor before deciding in 1992 to go to seminary instead of seeking reelection.
Because he’s appointed to the position, he’ll not be eligible to succeed himself at the end of his term. He will serve until Dec. 31, 2010.
Leader staff writer
Although Lona McCastlain is officially the Lonoke County prosecutor until Jan. 1, Will Feland, her replacement, is already on the job.
Feland, a former Lonoke County prosecutor, has been sworn in as an unpaid deputy prosecutor so he can review cases, but he says he is in contact with McCastlain, who is using vacation days to spend Christmas with her husband in Germany where he is stationed.
McCastlain’s husband, Bruce, who serves full time in the National Guard, was promoted Sept. 14 from lieutenant colonel to full-bird colonel. He got his orders for Europe Sept. 17 shortly before McCastlain announced that she was retiring as Dist. 23 prosecuting attorney.
McCastlain said when she announced her retirement that December was a slow month for the courts and therefore a good time for the transition to a new prosecutor.
Feland, 56, said this week that the transition is going well. The only major change, he said, is the chief deputy prosecutor. Stuart Cearley resigned to take the chief deputy position in Benton County, Feland said.
Cearley’s replacement is Bart Dickinson, a former deputy prosecutor for Pulaski County who now works for the attorney general. Feland said while Dickinson was with Pulaski County, he prosecuted more than 60 cases in criminal court.
Cearley’s departure was completely voluntary, he said, adding that he was pleased with his replacement.
“Because of his experience, I am really excited for Bart to come aboard,” Feland said.
Longtime Circuit Judge Lance Hanshaw is retiring at the end of December. His First Division seat will be filled by Judge Barbara Elmore, who was appointed as circuit judge in 2007 to the newly created Third Division. Judge Phillip Whiteaker presides over Second Division and Hanshaw’s son-in-law, Sandy Huckabee, won over McCastlain for the Third Division seat that Elmore will vacate at the end of the month.
Currently, the judges divide the workload with Hanshaw hearing mostly criminal cases, Whiteaker mostly civil cases and Elmore mostly domestic violence and juvenile cases. But that arrangement changes in January, when Elmore, Whiteaker and Huckabee will share the criminal case load. Getting ready for the change is keeping Feland and the staff in the prosecutor’s office busy.
“We’ve worked hard to get organized,” Feland said. “I wanted to hit the ground running in January.”
In addition to being a lawyer, Feland is pastor of the First Christian Church in Sherwood and the owner of Pinnacle Structures in Cabot, which manufactures metal buildings. He said this week that while he is prosecutor, he will turn the operation of his business over to Ken Kincade.
Feland was one of two lawyers McCastlain recommended to Gov. Mike Beebe as her successor. She also recommended one of her former deputy prosecutors, Norene Smith.
“I couldn’t have been more pleased if I had (picked him) myself,” McCastlain said after Beebe selected Feland. “He’s professional and will serve the people well. He did it before and I know he will do it again.”
Feland served four two-year terms as Lonoke County prosecutor before deciding in 1992 to go to seminary instead of seeking reelection.
Because he’s appointed to the position, he’ll not be eligible to succeed himself at the end of his term. He will serve until Dec. 31, 2010.
TOP STORY > >Little girl left Santa very sad
By GARRICK
Leader editor
(This is a reprint of a previous Christmas column.)
When my friend Jack Sallee was with the Jaycees in Fayetteville, they’d put an ad in the paper at Christmastime, saying that for $2 you could have Santa come to your place.
There’d be a group of Santas going out every night, and Sallee was among them.
“Each Santa went to about 10 homes a night,” Sallee says. “Each Santa had a driver. Mine was named Larry Nixon. He was a big fellow, and I would tell the kids Larry was driving me around town.”
Usually nothing out of the ordinary happened. Kids got to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas, and Santa gave them lots of candy, and everybody went to bed happy.
But then something different did happen. Sallee says, “One night we had two houses left to go. We drove around for a while, and when we found one, it was a one-room house. We went inside, and the house had a dirt floor and hardly any furnishings.”
A young girl was there with her mother. They were as poor as they could be: They had nothing — or very little.
The two Jaycees, college educated and professionals who’d seen dozens of nice homes, couldn’t believe what they had walked into.
“There were two cots to sleep on, and a table and a chair,” Sallee says. “The house had a pot-bellied stove. She had one of those small Styrofoam ice chests. So needless to say, I was taken aback because I didn’t think people still lived like that. This was inside the Fayetteville city limits.”
“The girl was seven or eight years old,” Sallee continues, “and she had long hair and blue eyes. She wore a nightgown that looked like a man’s T-shirt her mother had cut off. She was flabbergasted that Santa Claus would actually visit her.”
He says, “For a Christmas tree, her mother had brought in a branch and put it on the table.”
Her mother had found her a present — a ball wrapped in tissue paper. Sallee wondered what else this poor girl would ask for.
“In the homes we had seen,” he continues, “the children would tell us what they wanted by reciting the toy sections in stores they’d been to.”
But that wasn’t what the girl wanted.
“The girl sat on my lap and looked at me seriously,” Sallee recalls. “She said, ‘Santa, the only thing I want is for Daddy to come home.’”
“I looked at my driver, this big, burly guy, and he had to walk outside because tears were streaming down his face,” Sallee says.
“The mother turned her back to us, and I just turned my head away from her,” he adds. “I was just stunned and moved and speechless. I wanted to hold the little girl and tell her everything was going to be all right, but there was nothing you could do.
You felt helpless. She never asked for a toy or clothes.”
“I said there are some things Santa Claus can’t do,” Sallee adds, “but Santa Claus would try. I gave her all the candy I had.”
“It’s an experience you’ll never forget,” he says. “It will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Sallee remembers that little girl around this time of the year. He wonders what happened to her father.
Maybe this Christmas he will be home, and, who knows, they’ll have a nice home to live in. You can’t lose hope.
Leader editor
(This is a reprint of a previous Christmas column.)
When my friend Jack Sallee was with the Jaycees in Fayetteville, they’d put an ad in the paper at Christmastime, saying that for $2 you could have Santa come to your place.
There’d be a group of Santas going out every night, and Sallee was among them.
“Each Santa went to about 10 homes a night,” Sallee says. “Each Santa had a driver. Mine was named Larry Nixon. He was a big fellow, and I would tell the kids Larry was driving me around town.”
Usually nothing out of the ordinary happened. Kids got to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas, and Santa gave them lots of candy, and everybody went to bed happy.
But then something different did happen. Sallee says, “One night we had two houses left to go. We drove around for a while, and when we found one, it was a one-room house. We went inside, and the house had a dirt floor and hardly any furnishings.”
A young girl was there with her mother. They were as poor as they could be: They had nothing — or very little.
The two Jaycees, college educated and professionals who’d seen dozens of nice homes, couldn’t believe what they had walked into.
“There were two cots to sleep on, and a table and a chair,” Sallee says. “The house had a pot-bellied stove. She had one of those small Styrofoam ice chests. So needless to say, I was taken aback because I didn’t think people still lived like that. This was inside the Fayetteville city limits.”
“The girl was seven or eight years old,” Sallee continues, “and she had long hair and blue eyes. She wore a nightgown that looked like a man’s T-shirt her mother had cut off. She was flabbergasted that Santa Claus would actually visit her.”
He says, “For a Christmas tree, her mother had brought in a branch and put it on the table.”
Her mother had found her a present — a ball wrapped in tissue paper. Sallee wondered what else this poor girl would ask for.
“In the homes we had seen,” he continues, “the children would tell us what they wanted by reciting the toy sections in stores they’d been to.”
But that wasn’t what the girl wanted.
“The girl sat on my lap and looked at me seriously,” Sallee recalls. “She said, ‘Santa, the only thing I want is for Daddy to come home.’”
“I looked at my driver, this big, burly guy, and he had to walk outside because tears were streaming down his face,” Sallee says.
“The mother turned her back to us, and I just turned my head away from her,” he adds. “I was just stunned and moved and speechless. I wanted to hold the little girl and tell her everything was going to be all right, but there was nothing you could do.
You felt helpless. She never asked for a toy or clothes.”
“I said there are some things Santa Claus can’t do,” Sallee adds, “but Santa Claus would try. I gave her all the candy I had.”
“It’s an experience you’ll never forget,” he says. “It will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Sallee remembers that little girl around this time of the year. He wonders what happened to her father.
Maybe this Christmas he will be home, and, who knows, they’ll have a nice home to live in. You can’t lose hope.
TOP STORY > >Officials can ask for road funding
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
Arkansas could get as much as $13 billion for local transportation projects as part of the federal stimulus package.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln and other members of the Arkansas congressional delegation are eager to hear from local officials about projects they want done.
Pinch-hitting for Lincoln’s aide Donna Kay Yeargan, Metroplan executive director Jim McKenzie last week told board members,
“Blanche says she needs feedback from elected officials.”
“I have a packet together and ready to go,” said Ward Mayor Art Brooke, who was elected president of the Metroplan board for 2009.
Brooke also handed a ceremonial gavel to outgoing president Tab Townsell of Conway.
McKenzie encouraged central Arkansas mayors and county judges to contact the congressional delegation with any projects they have ready to go.
Widening Brockington Road in Sher-wood and Graham Road in Jacksonville are two examples of the kind of shovel-ready projects so far unpaid for that could benefit quickly when Congress approves a version of President-elect Barack Obama’s infrastructure/economic stimulus bill early next year, according to McKenzie,
“We need to remake our crumbling transportation system,” Obama said Friday in introducing Illinois Rep. Ray LaHood as transportation secretary.
New funding could expedite the widening of state Hwy. 107 from Bearpaw to Brockington.
The money could also move up the widening of southbound Hwy. 67/167 from Redmond Road to Kiehl Avenue.
McKenzie told Metroplan board members that he had heard discussion of a stimulus package of more than $500 billion, of which perhaps $13 billion could go directly to Arkansas transportation.
“We have a list of shovel-ready projects sent to (Cong. Vic) Snyder,” McKenzie said.
“There’s a lot we don’t know,” said Scott Bennett, the state Highway Department’s member on the board.
“Lists don’t mean anything other than we have a lot ready to go.”
He said Obama’s team had said they wanted projects ready to go in 30 to 60 days after authorization, but jobs routinely take about six months to move through the process.
He said he thought there would be $60 billion available nationwide during the first couple of years.
“We say you’ve got to give us flexibility,” Bennett said. “Don’t put money in projects that already have committed money.
“We turned in a $1.1 billion list,” Bennett said. “We could double that.”
He said the money could be spent on projects already identified with some work begun on the Surface Transportation Project list and also on the Transportation Improvement Program.
“This is a very fluid situation,” Bennett said.
Answering a question from Benton Mayor Rick Holland, McKenzie said there were relatively few city projects known to be shovel-ready.
Roads are not the only infrastructure that government money might be used for in central Arkansas.
Transit, building or repairing water systems or sewage systems like the ones on the I-430 bridge; insulating public buildings and putting energy-efficient heating and cooling systems in them; improvements to airports, rural utilities, rehabilitation and maintenance of hydropower facilities; funding public housing; and building and repairing energy-transmission networks are all possible improvements.
State Rep. Kathy Webb, chairman of the governor’s commission on global warming, gave a short recap of the 350-page report the commission has submitted to Gov. Mike Beebe.
The report contains 53 recommendations of which several could be proposed as laws in the next session.
By a one-vote margin, the commission recommended a moratorium on coal-fired power plants, Webb said, a proposal so controversial that she doesn’t expect it to be submitted as a bill in the legislature.
The commission was broad-based with environmentalists, energy producers, professors, business people, legislators, state agency heads and others, but it actually managed to pass 48 recommendations either unanimously or nearly so, she said.
The commission recommended a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, 35 percent below by 2025 and 50 percent reduction by 2035.
It called for the state to lead by example, decreasing its own energy usage by 30 percent by 2035, through the purchase of more efficient cars and trucks, better insulation of buildings, more efficient heating and cooling and perhaps a shortened work week.
Also, the commission unanimously called for a long-range study leading to a state water plan.
In other action, Holland presented state Sen. Shane Broadway with the Regional Jack Evans Leadership Award, named after the late former Sherwood mayor.
“Senator Broadway has been a leader in the General Assembly on the critical issues of education and economic development,” Holland said.
Broadway called the award an honor and said, “I appreciate all Metroplan does. It helps us craft better policy.”
Leader senior staff writer
Arkansas could get as much as $13 billion for local transportation projects as part of the federal stimulus package.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln and other members of the Arkansas congressional delegation are eager to hear from local officials about projects they want done.
Pinch-hitting for Lincoln’s aide Donna Kay Yeargan, Metroplan executive director Jim McKenzie last week told board members,
“Blanche says she needs feedback from elected officials.”
“I have a packet together and ready to go,” said Ward Mayor Art Brooke, who was elected president of the Metroplan board for 2009.
Brooke also handed a ceremonial gavel to outgoing president Tab Townsell of Conway.
McKenzie encouraged central Arkansas mayors and county judges to contact the congressional delegation with any projects they have ready to go.
Widening Brockington Road in Sher-wood and Graham Road in Jacksonville are two examples of the kind of shovel-ready projects so far unpaid for that could benefit quickly when Congress approves a version of President-elect Barack Obama’s infrastructure/economic stimulus bill early next year, according to McKenzie,
“We need to remake our crumbling transportation system,” Obama said Friday in introducing Illinois Rep. Ray LaHood as transportation secretary.
New funding could expedite the widening of state Hwy. 107 from Bearpaw to Brockington.
The money could also move up the widening of southbound Hwy. 67/167 from Redmond Road to Kiehl Avenue.
McKenzie told Metroplan board members that he had heard discussion of a stimulus package of more than $500 billion, of which perhaps $13 billion could go directly to Arkansas transportation.
“We have a list of shovel-ready projects sent to (Cong. Vic) Snyder,” McKenzie said.
“There’s a lot we don’t know,” said Scott Bennett, the state Highway Department’s member on the board.
“Lists don’t mean anything other than we have a lot ready to go.”
He said Obama’s team had said they wanted projects ready to go in 30 to 60 days after authorization, but jobs routinely take about six months to move through the process.
He said he thought there would be $60 billion available nationwide during the first couple of years.
“We say you’ve got to give us flexibility,” Bennett said. “Don’t put money in projects that already have committed money.
“We turned in a $1.1 billion list,” Bennett said. “We could double that.”
He said the money could be spent on projects already identified with some work begun on the Surface Transportation Project list and also on the Transportation Improvement Program.
“This is a very fluid situation,” Bennett said.
Answering a question from Benton Mayor Rick Holland, McKenzie said there were relatively few city projects known to be shovel-ready.
Roads are not the only infrastructure that government money might be used for in central Arkansas.
Transit, building or repairing water systems or sewage systems like the ones on the I-430 bridge; insulating public buildings and putting energy-efficient heating and cooling systems in them; improvements to airports, rural utilities, rehabilitation and maintenance of hydropower facilities; funding public housing; and building and repairing energy-transmission networks are all possible improvements.
State Rep. Kathy Webb, chairman of the governor’s commission on global warming, gave a short recap of the 350-page report the commission has submitted to Gov. Mike Beebe.
The report contains 53 recommendations of which several could be proposed as laws in the next session.
By a one-vote margin, the commission recommended a moratorium on coal-fired power plants, Webb said, a proposal so controversial that she doesn’t expect it to be submitted as a bill in the legislature.
The commission was broad-based with environmentalists, energy producers, professors, business people, legislators, state agency heads and others, but it actually managed to pass 48 recommendations either unanimously or nearly so, she said.
The commission recommended a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, 35 percent below by 2025 and 50 percent reduction by 2035.
It called for the state to lead by example, decreasing its own energy usage by 30 percent by 2035, through the purchase of more efficient cars and trucks, better insulation of buildings, more efficient heating and cooling and perhaps a shortened work week.
Also, the commission unanimously called for a long-range study leading to a state water plan.
In other action, Holland presented state Sen. Shane Broadway with the Regional Jack Evans Leadership Award, named after the late former Sherwood mayor.
“Senator Broadway has been a leader in the General Assembly on the critical issues of education and economic development,” Holland said.
Broadway called the award an honor and said, “I appreciate all Metroplan does. It helps us craft better policy.”
SPORTS>>Vilonia girls hand Cabot lopsided loss
By KELLY FENTON
Leader sports editor
GREENBRIER — It’s a game best forgotten. The question is, will the Cabot Lady Panthers ever be able to shake off the lingering effects of their total domination by Vilonia on Monday afternoon in the Battle of the Brier?
The Class 5A Lady Eagles, who improved to 11-0, thumped 7A Cabot, shutting it out in the third period en route to a 58-27 win.
Head coach Carla Crowder, while not happy with the performance, didn’t appear too concerned afterwards that the loss would shake her team’s confidence down the road.
“This happens all the time,” said Crowder, whose Lady Panthers fell to 8-3 and will take on Greenbrier on Saturday at 4 p.m.
“That’s just part of coaching. Sometimes you play like that.”
Crowder obviously hopes that will be the last time in a while, though.
“I told them, if we play like that, we’ll get our butts kicked every time.”
There was nothing good about this one, and what started out badly only got worse. The Lady Panthers hung around in the first half only because Stephanie Glover scored her team’s first 10 points. But by the time she reached that total, Cabot was already trailing 22-10. Glover finished with 16 points, one of only four Cabot players to score. Shelby Ashcraft added six, including the final four Cabot points of the first half. Cabot trailed 30-14 at intermission after Vilonia scorched the nets for 7-of-9 shooting.
Overall, Vilonia made just three fewer shots than Cabot attempted, finishing a torrid 24 of 38 to the Lady Panthers’ 11 of 27.
The Vilonia defense was every bit as impressive with an active 2-3 zone that had Cabot scrambling all night for open looks.
“They played a very solid game, but I don’t think it had anything to do with them,” Crowder said. “I think it had to do with us. I could tell yesterday we were going to play like that.”
The Lady Panthers committed eight turnovers in the third period and took only four shots — all misses — as Vilonia increased its lead to a crowd-silencing 38-14.
Cabot ended a 9-minute, 29-second scoring drought when Glover scored inside with 7:22 left in the game. It began the only run of the night for the Lady Panthers, who launched a 9-2 run to get within 18.
But Vilonia closed out the game the way it began it, going on a 17-4 run to set the final margin.
“Our whole team overall, I was pleased with our offensive and defensive effort,” said Vilonia coach Alvin Riley. “It’s the best we’ve played all year, by far. Cabot’s a very good team and I was worried we’d have trouble scoring on them, but what we did was we hit our open shots.
“Our 2-3 zone kept them off balance all night.”
The Lady Eagles scored the first six points of the game before Glover scored inside and hit a pair of free throws. Vilonia reeled off 14 of the next 16 points to take a 20-6 lead with 5:18 left in the half.
The Lady Eagles had no one reach double figures, but had three with nine points and another with eight.
Cabot reached the semifinals with a 53-30 cruise past Wonderview on Saturday. Jenna Bailey hit three three-pointers on her way to 14 points. Ashcraft had eight, while Amber Rock and Sarah Moore each added six.
Leader sports editor
GREENBRIER — It’s a game best forgotten. The question is, will the Cabot Lady Panthers ever be able to shake off the lingering effects of their total domination by Vilonia on Monday afternoon in the Battle of the Brier?
The Class 5A Lady Eagles, who improved to 11-0, thumped 7A Cabot, shutting it out in the third period en route to a 58-27 win.
Head coach Carla Crowder, while not happy with the performance, didn’t appear too concerned afterwards that the loss would shake her team’s confidence down the road.
“This happens all the time,” said Crowder, whose Lady Panthers fell to 8-3 and will take on Greenbrier on Saturday at 4 p.m.
“That’s just part of coaching. Sometimes you play like that.”
Crowder obviously hopes that will be the last time in a while, though.
“I told them, if we play like that, we’ll get our butts kicked every time.”
There was nothing good about this one, and what started out badly only got worse. The Lady Panthers hung around in the first half only because Stephanie Glover scored her team’s first 10 points. But by the time she reached that total, Cabot was already trailing 22-10. Glover finished with 16 points, one of only four Cabot players to score. Shelby Ashcraft added six, including the final four Cabot points of the first half. Cabot trailed 30-14 at intermission after Vilonia scorched the nets for 7-of-9 shooting.
Overall, Vilonia made just three fewer shots than Cabot attempted, finishing a torrid 24 of 38 to the Lady Panthers’ 11 of 27.
The Vilonia defense was every bit as impressive with an active 2-3 zone that had Cabot scrambling all night for open looks.
“They played a very solid game, but I don’t think it had anything to do with them,” Crowder said. “I think it had to do with us. I could tell yesterday we were going to play like that.”
The Lady Panthers committed eight turnovers in the third period and took only four shots — all misses — as Vilonia increased its lead to a crowd-silencing 38-14.
Cabot ended a 9-minute, 29-second scoring drought when Glover scored inside with 7:22 left in the game. It began the only run of the night for the Lady Panthers, who launched a 9-2 run to get within 18.
But Vilonia closed out the game the way it began it, going on a 17-4 run to set the final margin.
“Our whole team overall, I was pleased with our offensive and defensive effort,” said Vilonia coach Alvin Riley. “It’s the best we’ve played all year, by far. Cabot’s a very good team and I was worried we’d have trouble scoring on them, but what we did was we hit our open shots.
“Our 2-3 zone kept them off balance all night.”
The Lady Eagles scored the first six points of the game before Glover scored inside and hit a pair of free throws. Vilonia reeled off 14 of the next 16 points to take a 20-6 lead with 5:18 left in the half.
The Lady Eagles had no one reach double figures, but had three with nine points and another with eight.
Cabot reached the semifinals with a 53-30 cruise past Wonderview on Saturday. Jenna Bailey hit three three-pointers on her way to 14 points. Ashcraft had eight, while Amber Rock and Sarah Moore each added six.
SPORTS>>Cabot boys rally in win over Beebe
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Inspiring sub play lifted the Cabot Panthers to a dramatic 63-61 win over Beebe on Friday night. The Badgers spent three quarters building a steady lead, and extended that lead into double digits halfway into the fourth quarter.
“Give Beebe a lot of credit,” said Panthers coach Jerry Bridges. “They probably outplayed us. We stepped up our defensive intensity at the end. We were down 10 or so there with three minutes to go, so we were pretty fortunate to win it.”
Bridges’ frustration with the defensive efforts of his starters came to a head late, as Darin Jones, Paul Ford, Kai Davis, Christian Armstrong and Patrick Martin came into the game to replace the senior starting five. Jones, the 6-1 sophomore, scored a pair of critical baskets.
“Those guys really sparked the team,” Bridges said. “They were a big reason why we were able to come back.”
Adam Sterrenberg led the Panthers with 22 points and four steals. Miles Monroe added seven points and nine rebounds, while Austin Johnson and Jack Bridges each added seven. Bridges led in assists with eight, and Gary Clark finished with seven rebounds.
For Beebe, Zach Kersey led with 25 points. Will Scott had 12, and Anthony Forte 10.
The Panthers are 8-2, and will begin tournament play at Ft. Smith in the Coke Classic Monday at 4:15 p.m. against Subiaco Academy.
Leader sportswriter
Inspiring sub play lifted the Cabot Panthers to a dramatic 63-61 win over Beebe on Friday night. The Badgers spent three quarters building a steady lead, and extended that lead into double digits halfway into the fourth quarter.
“Give Beebe a lot of credit,” said Panthers coach Jerry Bridges. “They probably outplayed us. We stepped up our defensive intensity at the end. We were down 10 or so there with three minutes to go, so we were pretty fortunate to win it.”
Bridges’ frustration with the defensive efforts of his starters came to a head late, as Darin Jones, Paul Ford, Kai Davis, Christian Armstrong and Patrick Martin came into the game to replace the senior starting five. Jones, the 6-1 sophomore, scored a pair of critical baskets.
“Those guys really sparked the team,” Bridges said. “They were a big reason why we were able to come back.”
Adam Sterrenberg led the Panthers with 22 points and four steals. Miles Monroe added seven points and nine rebounds, while Austin Johnson and Jack Bridges each added seven. Bridges led in assists with eight, and Gary Clark finished with seven rebounds.
For Beebe, Zach Kersey led with 25 points. Will Scott had 12, and Anthony Forte 10.
The Panthers are 8-2, and will begin tournament play at Ft. Smith in the Coke Classic Monday at 4:15 p.m. against Subiaco Academy.
SPORTS>>Rollins Elam: Like father, like son
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Rollins Elam comes by his football talent naturally.
Jamie Elam led the Des Arc Eagles to their only state championship back in the mid-1970s, earning high school All-American honors along the way. He also set numerous passing records around the state, many of which stood until the rise of the pass-oriented Spread offense a decade ago.
Some 30 years later, Jamie’s son appeared to be on his way to repeating his father’s feat when Rollins led the Jackrabbits to the 4A state quarterfinals last month.
Rollins racked up impressive numbers while doing so, completing 160 of 301 passes for 2,616 yards and 27 touchdowns and compiled a 16-4 record as a starter at Lonoke.
As a result, Rollins Elam has been named the 2008 Leader Offensive Player of the Year.
Elam was an All-Conference and All-State selection his junior and senior years. He was also named an outstanding back in Class 4A football this year, and was nominated for best offensive player in Class 4A.
“It was a great season,” said Elam. “We were expected to do good this year. We had a lot of returning starters coming back. We happened to run into a pretty good team to end our season in the playoffs, and they went on to win the championship. It was a good season. We just hated to come up short.”
At only 5-9, 180 pounds, Elam may not be big, but his strong arm, combined with his leadership skills made him the go-to guy for Lonoke head coach Jeff Jones, now preparing for his fourth season at the ’Rabbit helm.
“It’s big for his teammates,” Jones said. “Knowing that they have that kind of leader out there who knows what’s going on.
They look to him all the time. Usually as Rollins went, we went. If he was on and doing well, we were doing well. The team really bought into him being the leader, and they followed well.”
Elam’s days as a quarterback go back to first grade, when he played in Cabot youth leagues before Lonoke got its own program a couple of years later.
Elam got an early jump on understanding the Xs and Os of Jones’ newly-installed Spread offense during his sophomore season when he was a blocking back behind quarterback Alex Cash. The Spread was a departure for the Lonoke varsity team, which had been known for its rushing offenses.
It wasn’t physical prowess that got him the job leading Jones’ offense; it was mental toughness and a thorough understanding of the game.
“He was always asking questions about different aspects of running the offense,” Jones said. “Trying to figure out the small details early that make you special.
“He was probably the least athletic of the guys that were going out for quarterback. So that first year, he didn’t play any at quarterback.”
Elam got his chance earlier than expected, but that opportunity came at a devastating price. Cash died in a car accident in the spring before his senior year.
Elam got off to an outstanding start to his high school quarterbacking career but a leg injury suffered in a playoff-clinching win over Marianna cut short his 2007 season.
Elam returned to fall camp fully recovered, and embarked on a dream season, which began with a 35-20 win over Dumas at UAPB during Hootens’ kickoff week.
Beebe handed Lonoke its only loss in the regular season 28-19 in Week 2, but a thrilling 41-38 win over Central Arkansas Christian the following week set the tone for a dominant run through the 2-4A Conference and a 7-0 record, including a decisive 41-22 win over Stuttgart, a perennial favorite in 4A football every season.
Elam proved to be a consistent performer, leading the Jackrabbits to a number of blowout wins, which included a 45-24 spanking of Warren in the second round of the playoffs.
While fellow seniors Joel Harris, Clarence Harris, Michael Howard and Morgan Linton were drawing the notice of colleges, Elam has continued to fly under the radar and has received no scholarship offers.
He should do just fine, however, with a 3.5 GPA and 21 ACT score. He plans on going to college and pursuing a degree in education, though he hasn’t decided on a school.
Rollins got much of his education in football from his legendary father, who also served as a coach during his youth-league days.
“It helped out a lot,” Elam said. “He always pushed me harder than all of the other kids. He expected more, and it made me a better player. It’s kind of cool your dad was an all American and everything. You’re expected to do well also. You’ve got to fill in the shoes where he left off.”
Elam gives a lot of credit to linemen and a talented corps of receivers, led by fellow senoirs Howard and Clarence Harris, who made the tough catches all year.
“I wouldn’t have made it without them,” he said.
Jones credits Elam’s enthusiasm and passion for much of his success.
“He just wants to play, and play to win,” he said. “That doesn’t just go for Friday nights, it’s also Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He’s the kind of guy you have to have on your team to win championships. He had a great career for us.”
Football is one of Elam’s two great passions. The other is duck hunting. Elam’s duck-calling skills rival his ability at quarterback, but he opts not to do that competitively, citing the trendy duck-calling competitions in the area as “silliness.”
Elam will most likely pass on the reins to sophomore Logan Dewitt, who saw playing time late in blowout wins this season.
“He played in Rollins’ shadow this year and saw the kind of leadership it takes to play,” Jones said. “He and I had a lot of talks about it, and I know he diligently watched and learned from Rollins. I think he’s really going to blossom into a great one, and Rollins is going to be a big part of that, the way he showed him how to play the game.”
Elam was the first of his kind at Lonoke High School, a pure passing quarterback. The 2-4A title season has put the football Jackrabbits back on the map, validating the decade of dreaming and hard work by Elam and his fellow seniors, many of whom have played together since age eight.
“The teams right before us didn’t have very good records,” Elam said. “We kind of set a new standard with a 10-2 record.
That’s the best Lonoke has had since around 2000. That’s a really good feeling to show the state and our community what we were really made of.”
Leader sportswriter
Rollins Elam comes by his football talent naturally.
Jamie Elam led the Des Arc Eagles to their only state championship back in the mid-1970s, earning high school All-American honors along the way. He also set numerous passing records around the state, many of which stood until the rise of the pass-oriented Spread offense a decade ago.
Some 30 years later, Jamie’s son appeared to be on his way to repeating his father’s feat when Rollins led the Jackrabbits to the 4A state quarterfinals last month.
Rollins racked up impressive numbers while doing so, completing 160 of 301 passes for 2,616 yards and 27 touchdowns and compiled a 16-4 record as a starter at Lonoke.
As a result, Rollins Elam has been named the 2008 Leader Offensive Player of the Year.
Elam was an All-Conference and All-State selection his junior and senior years. He was also named an outstanding back in Class 4A football this year, and was nominated for best offensive player in Class 4A.
“It was a great season,” said Elam. “We were expected to do good this year. We had a lot of returning starters coming back. We happened to run into a pretty good team to end our season in the playoffs, and they went on to win the championship. It was a good season. We just hated to come up short.”
At only 5-9, 180 pounds, Elam may not be big, but his strong arm, combined with his leadership skills made him the go-to guy for Lonoke head coach Jeff Jones, now preparing for his fourth season at the ’Rabbit helm.
“It’s big for his teammates,” Jones said. “Knowing that they have that kind of leader out there who knows what’s going on.
They look to him all the time. Usually as Rollins went, we went. If he was on and doing well, we were doing well. The team really bought into him being the leader, and they followed well.”
Elam’s days as a quarterback go back to first grade, when he played in Cabot youth leagues before Lonoke got its own program a couple of years later.
Elam got an early jump on understanding the Xs and Os of Jones’ newly-installed Spread offense during his sophomore season when he was a blocking back behind quarterback Alex Cash. The Spread was a departure for the Lonoke varsity team, which had been known for its rushing offenses.
It wasn’t physical prowess that got him the job leading Jones’ offense; it was mental toughness and a thorough understanding of the game.
“He was always asking questions about different aspects of running the offense,” Jones said. “Trying to figure out the small details early that make you special.
“He was probably the least athletic of the guys that were going out for quarterback. So that first year, he didn’t play any at quarterback.”
Elam got his chance earlier than expected, but that opportunity came at a devastating price. Cash died in a car accident in the spring before his senior year.
Elam got off to an outstanding start to his high school quarterbacking career but a leg injury suffered in a playoff-clinching win over Marianna cut short his 2007 season.
Elam returned to fall camp fully recovered, and embarked on a dream season, which began with a 35-20 win over Dumas at UAPB during Hootens’ kickoff week.
Beebe handed Lonoke its only loss in the regular season 28-19 in Week 2, but a thrilling 41-38 win over Central Arkansas Christian the following week set the tone for a dominant run through the 2-4A Conference and a 7-0 record, including a decisive 41-22 win over Stuttgart, a perennial favorite in 4A football every season.
Elam proved to be a consistent performer, leading the Jackrabbits to a number of blowout wins, which included a 45-24 spanking of Warren in the second round of the playoffs.
While fellow seniors Joel Harris, Clarence Harris, Michael Howard and Morgan Linton were drawing the notice of colleges, Elam has continued to fly under the radar and has received no scholarship offers.
He should do just fine, however, with a 3.5 GPA and 21 ACT score. He plans on going to college and pursuing a degree in education, though he hasn’t decided on a school.
Rollins got much of his education in football from his legendary father, who also served as a coach during his youth-league days.
“It helped out a lot,” Elam said. “He always pushed me harder than all of the other kids. He expected more, and it made me a better player. It’s kind of cool your dad was an all American and everything. You’re expected to do well also. You’ve got to fill in the shoes where he left off.”
Elam gives a lot of credit to linemen and a talented corps of receivers, led by fellow senoirs Howard and Clarence Harris, who made the tough catches all year.
“I wouldn’t have made it without them,” he said.
Jones credits Elam’s enthusiasm and passion for much of his success.
“He just wants to play, and play to win,” he said. “That doesn’t just go for Friday nights, it’s also Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He’s the kind of guy you have to have on your team to win championships. He had a great career for us.”
Football is one of Elam’s two great passions. The other is duck hunting. Elam’s duck-calling skills rival his ability at quarterback, but he opts not to do that competitively, citing the trendy duck-calling competitions in the area as “silliness.”
Elam will most likely pass on the reins to sophomore Logan Dewitt, who saw playing time late in blowout wins this season.
“He played in Rollins’ shadow this year and saw the kind of leadership it takes to play,” Jones said. “He and I had a lot of talks about it, and I know he diligently watched and learned from Rollins. I think he’s really going to blossom into a great one, and Rollins is going to be a big part of that, the way he showed him how to play the game.”
Elam was the first of his kind at Lonoke High School, a pure passing quarterback. The 2-4A title season has put the football Jackrabbits back on the map, validating the decade of dreaming and hard work by Elam and his fellow seniors, many of whom have played together since age eight.
“The teams right before us didn’t have very good records,” Elam said. “We kind of set a new standard with a 10-2 record.
That’s the best Lonoke has had since around 2000. That’s a really good feeling to show the state and our community what we were really made of.”
SPORTS>>Devils take round 3
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Victor Joyner and Raymond Cooper have both referred to the rivalry series between their two basketball teams as heavyweight prize fights on multiple occasions.
If that’s the case, then give round three to Jacksonville on a flurry of late Red Devil punches.
The Red Devils (5-2) held North Pulaski (7-3) to only one field goal in the fourth quarter to claim a 44-35 win on Friday night at the Falcons’ Nest. North Pulaski led from the start of the game until the final minute of the third quarter, when a three-point basket by Stan Appleby tied it at 32, and the Devils never trailed again.
After dropping an early-season tilt with their cross-town rivals, Jacksonville has bounced back to win the next two.
The Falcons came out with something to prove, with shooting ace Aaron Cooper on the bench for the game. Fellow junior Duquan Bryant took up much of that slack in the first half, leading all scorers with 13 points. He was, however, the only NP player to finish in double digits.
“North Pulaski just took it to them in the first half,” said Joyner. “And they knew that, they knew it at halftime. We knew it before the game when we found out that Cooper wasn’t going to play, we knew everybody else was going to step up, because we’ve been there. We’ve all been in that situation when your key guy is gone.
“It’s like losing your hearing, all your other senses are heightened. Well, their senses were heightened. We knew that was going to happen, we talked about it. We didn’t match their intensity early. We had too many miscues, weren’t patient.”
After controlling well over half the game, a three-pointer from the top of the key by Duquan Bryant with 26 seconds left to play was all the Falcons had to show for in the final quarter.
Meanwhile, the Red Devils had gone on a 10-0 run to build a 42-32 lead. Appleby started the final period just as he had ended the previous one, with a long-distance trey that gave Jacksonville its first lead since the 7:16 mark of the first quarter.
Most of Jacksonville’s points came on the inside. Antwan Lockhart put in two of his six points at the 3:35 mark to give Jacksonville a 38-32 lead, and Demetrius Harris scored down low with a minute left after a Cortell Eskridge free throw to make it 41-32. Harris went on to lead the Red Devils with 12 points and eight rebounds.
“That’s the main thing,” Joyner said. “That’s what this team hasn’t realized. We have a lot of potential stars, and I’m saying ‘potential’, because they sure ain’t big stars yet, but we have some potential stars out there.
“They don’t want to share the ball in certain situations, and that’s why we had to put a couple of them on that bench. Sit them over there and let them think about it. Then the ball got to moving around, and going to places where I wanted it to go. We’ve got something to work with on this team, but mentally, they’ve got to focus in on the game plan, and stick with it, regardless.”
The Falcons controlled the scoreboard in the first half, but could never pull away from Jacksonville. Their biggest lead was at the beginning of the second quarter, when a pair of free throws by T.J. Green put them up 15-8.
“I’m totally pleased with them, because they responded,” Joyner said. “We knew they were going to come out with both barrels.
But they burned a whole lot of energy early. I think the size and the banging, it just eventually wore them down.”
The Devils sputtered offensively in the first half. They still found ways to avoid falling out of contention, with a pair of second-quarter shots by LaQuinton Miles and a pair of three pointers by Deshone McClure for six of his 10 points in the game. The slow pace seemed to favor the Falcons in the first half, but the size of Jacksonville took its toll down the stretch.
“That’s to our advantage,” Joyner said. “We’ve got the bigger people. If you want to slow it down, we’ll play that way. We want our big men to get under there and rebound the ball. When they beat us over there, we were letting them drive. We weren’t rotating over well. But this time, we rotated over there. We helped tonight by making them shoot jumps shots.”
Appleby finished with eight points for Jacksonville. Kyron Ware added seven for North Pulaski.
The Lady Red Devils took the opener Friday with a 69-26 mercy-ruled win over North Pulaski. Post player Jessica Lanier led the way for Jacksonville with 12 points, with 10 from Tyra Terry. Chyna Davis and Crystal Washington each added nine points for the Lady Red Devils, who improved to 4-5 on the year. For North Pulaski, senior Laura Dortch led the way with 10 points, while Bianca Harper had eight.
Jacksonville will host the annual Red Devil Classic tournament beginning Saturday.
Leader sportswriter
Victor Joyner and Raymond Cooper have both referred to the rivalry series between their two basketball teams as heavyweight prize fights on multiple occasions.
If that’s the case, then give round three to Jacksonville on a flurry of late Red Devil punches.
The Red Devils (5-2) held North Pulaski (7-3) to only one field goal in the fourth quarter to claim a 44-35 win on Friday night at the Falcons’ Nest. North Pulaski led from the start of the game until the final minute of the third quarter, when a three-point basket by Stan Appleby tied it at 32, and the Devils never trailed again.
After dropping an early-season tilt with their cross-town rivals, Jacksonville has bounced back to win the next two.
The Falcons came out with something to prove, with shooting ace Aaron Cooper on the bench for the game. Fellow junior Duquan Bryant took up much of that slack in the first half, leading all scorers with 13 points. He was, however, the only NP player to finish in double digits.
“North Pulaski just took it to them in the first half,” said Joyner. “And they knew that, they knew it at halftime. We knew it before the game when we found out that Cooper wasn’t going to play, we knew everybody else was going to step up, because we’ve been there. We’ve all been in that situation when your key guy is gone.
“It’s like losing your hearing, all your other senses are heightened. Well, their senses were heightened. We knew that was going to happen, we talked about it. We didn’t match their intensity early. We had too many miscues, weren’t patient.”
After controlling well over half the game, a three-pointer from the top of the key by Duquan Bryant with 26 seconds left to play was all the Falcons had to show for in the final quarter.
Meanwhile, the Red Devils had gone on a 10-0 run to build a 42-32 lead. Appleby started the final period just as he had ended the previous one, with a long-distance trey that gave Jacksonville its first lead since the 7:16 mark of the first quarter.
Most of Jacksonville’s points came on the inside. Antwan Lockhart put in two of his six points at the 3:35 mark to give Jacksonville a 38-32 lead, and Demetrius Harris scored down low with a minute left after a Cortell Eskridge free throw to make it 41-32. Harris went on to lead the Red Devils with 12 points and eight rebounds.
“That’s the main thing,” Joyner said. “That’s what this team hasn’t realized. We have a lot of potential stars, and I’m saying ‘potential’, because they sure ain’t big stars yet, but we have some potential stars out there.
“They don’t want to share the ball in certain situations, and that’s why we had to put a couple of them on that bench. Sit them over there and let them think about it. Then the ball got to moving around, and going to places where I wanted it to go. We’ve got something to work with on this team, but mentally, they’ve got to focus in on the game plan, and stick with it, regardless.”
The Falcons controlled the scoreboard in the first half, but could never pull away from Jacksonville. Their biggest lead was at the beginning of the second quarter, when a pair of free throws by T.J. Green put them up 15-8.
“I’m totally pleased with them, because they responded,” Joyner said. “We knew they were going to come out with both barrels.
But they burned a whole lot of energy early. I think the size and the banging, it just eventually wore them down.”
The Devils sputtered offensively in the first half. They still found ways to avoid falling out of contention, with a pair of second-quarter shots by LaQuinton Miles and a pair of three pointers by Deshone McClure for six of his 10 points in the game. The slow pace seemed to favor the Falcons in the first half, but the size of Jacksonville took its toll down the stretch.
“That’s to our advantage,” Joyner said. “We’ve got the bigger people. If you want to slow it down, we’ll play that way. We want our big men to get under there and rebound the ball. When they beat us over there, we were letting them drive. We weren’t rotating over well. But this time, we rotated over there. We helped tonight by making them shoot jumps shots.”
Appleby finished with eight points for Jacksonville. Kyron Ware added seven for North Pulaski.
The Lady Red Devils took the opener Friday with a 69-26 mercy-ruled win over North Pulaski. Post player Jessica Lanier led the way for Jacksonville with 12 points, with 10 from Tyra Terry. Chyna Davis and Crystal Washington each added nine points for the Lady Red Devils, who improved to 4-5 on the year. For North Pulaski, senior Laura Dortch led the way with 10 points, while Bianca Harper had eight.
Jacksonville will host the annual Red Devil Classic tournament beginning Saturday.
Monday, December 22, 2008
TOP STORY > > Ward gas station didn’t gouge
The attorney general has concluded after an investigation into possible price gouging that a Ward gas station did not overcharge for gasoline earlier this year as Hurricane Ike approached the Texas coast last September.
Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel has found that 31/38 Grocery in Ward, along with eight others in the state, did not overcharge their customers.
Many Arkansans had contacted the attorney general’s office to complain about the sky-rocketing cost of gasoline.
In response to nearly 5,000 complaints, McDaniel issued investigative subpoenas to 15 companies that own or operate approximately 80 gas stations across the state.
All 15 companies have now responded to the investigative subpoenas.
The attorney general’s office is seeking additional information and documentation from several of these companies to clarify the initial responses and those investigations are continuing.
McDaniel said four companies had provided information and other documentation demonstrating that the retail price of gasoline at their locations did not violate the price gouging law or the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
The attorney general’s conclusion was based upon an extensive review of records submitted to his office as well as a review of gasoline market prices at the time.
Besides 31/38 Grocery, the companies and gas stations that were exonerated include:
Day and Nite Stores, with seven stations in El Dorado, Hampton, Sheridan, Warren, England, Stephens and Camden; Circle C Community Grocery in Wooster, and A.J.’s station in Paragould.
McDaniel’s office sent a letter to these companies thanking them for their cooperation and telling them that the investigation into their companies is now closed.
The attorney general’s office has not yet reached any conclusions about the remaining parties.
Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel has found that 31/38 Grocery in Ward, along with eight others in the state, did not overcharge their customers.
Many Arkansans had contacted the attorney general’s office to complain about the sky-rocketing cost of gasoline.
In response to nearly 5,000 complaints, McDaniel issued investigative subpoenas to 15 companies that own or operate approximately 80 gas stations across the state.
All 15 companies have now responded to the investigative subpoenas.
The attorney general’s office is seeking additional information and documentation from several of these companies to clarify the initial responses and those investigations are continuing.
McDaniel said four companies had provided information and other documentation demonstrating that the retail price of gasoline at their locations did not violate the price gouging law or the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
The attorney general’s conclusion was based upon an extensive review of records submitted to his office as well as a review of gasoline market prices at the time.
Besides 31/38 Grocery, the companies and gas stations that were exonerated include:
Day and Nite Stores, with seven stations in El Dorado, Hampton, Sheridan, Warren, England, Stephens and Camden; Circle C Community Grocery in Wooster, and A.J.’s station in Paragould.
McDaniel’s office sent a letter to these companies thanking them for their cooperation and telling them that the investigation into their companies is now closed.
The attorney general’s office has not yet reached any conclusions about the remaining parties.
TOP STORY > > Ward knife maker sharpens his skill
By JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer
Tough times can lead to ingenuity. When Robert Spradlin was a teenager, he needed a knife for hunting and fishing, so he became a self-taught bladesmith.
Spradlin, a 30-year-old Beebe native who’s a diesel mechanic in Ward, was 10 years old when his father passed away. The family could not afford their house payments and had to move into a smaller rental house in town.
“We were living on my dad’s Social Security, and we didn’t have much,” he said.
“I’ve always liked hunting, guns and knives. It’s always been a passion. I could not afford a good knife and I had to make my own,” Spradlin said.
Spradlin began making knives when he was 14. His father was a carpenter and left an old bench grinder, tools and hand drills. With those pieces of equipment and a coal-burning stove, Spradlin turned old files, leaf springs and saw blades into knives.
After a long break, he returned to forging knives five years ago. He makes knives in his spare time at his shop on Pigeon Road.
He has completed the American Bladesmith Society’s introduction class to bladesmithing.
One knife can take him between two and 60 hours to make, depending on complexity and design. Each knife is a unique.
Spradlin shapes the blades, cuts the handles and stitches leather sheaths. He makes close to 100 knives a year.
“I look at it as art. It is functional. I never make the same knife twice. I am a perfectionist,” Spradlin said.
Spradlin also makes spears, tomahawks and hatchets.
He has made miniature knives that are an inch long. His largest piece is a 22-inch short sword.
When Spradlin makes a knife, he uses new steel to forge a blade.
He can also make knives by recycling old files, wheel-bearing races and thick, steel cable.
Used steel has metal alloys that give the knife’s edge sharpness and durability.
Spradlin can also craft a Da-mascus pattern into a knife using two different metal alloys of steel. During the forging process, the metal is heated and folded several times. The layering gives the blade a grainy swirl pattern. Grinding and polishing the blade enhances the design.
“I don’t use anything from China in my blades. I use U.S. or Canadian metals. I try to keep my material price down to keep the price of the knife down,” he said.
When Spradlin begins to forge a blade, the metal is heated to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in a gas-fired furnace. The hot glowing steel turns into a soft plastic-like texture that is easy to form.
Spradlin hammers and reheats the steel to move the metal until he gets the blade to the shape and style he wants.
During the forging process, he’ll normalize the blade three times. In normalizing, the steel is heated, then removed from the heat and slowly cooled in a box of lime. This removes the stress of the metal from heating and working of the blade.
Later, Spradlin does a rough grind of the blade. Next, he gives the knife a heat treatment. The metal is heated in a small kiln and then dipped into oil. This gives the knife hardness and durability.
Spradlin does a final grind and hand finishes the blade. He then makes a hand guard and handle fitting, leading to the assembling and finishing of the whole knife.
Spradlin prefers to use mostly local, natural-made resources for his knife handles. The handles can be crafted from deer or elk antlers, sheeps’ horns and animal bones.
He also uses natural woods from Arkansas, such as a spalted maple, or exotic woods such as eucalyptus from Australia.
His knives are often sold at knife shows. He said the Farm Bureau has purchased knives from him and auctioned them off for charity.
“Most of my knives are sold by word-of-mouth,” he said.
People have asked Spradlin to recreate antique bowie knives and knives from the movies, such as “The Legends of the Fall” and “Crocodile Dundee.”
To keep the interest of bladesmithing alive, Spradlin teaches knife making at his shop on Thursday nights at 7 p.m.
The classes are free.
Students need to bring their own supplies, or Spradlin will sell them the materials. Class sizes range from two to 12 people.
“Arkansas is a good place to learn knife making. Most of the famous knife makers come from Arkansas. They are real friendly and would love to help you,” Spradlin said.
To learn more about his knife-making classes or to view a selection of his custom-made knives, call 501-281-0573 or visit his Web site at www.spradlinknives.com.
Leader staff writer
Tough times can lead to ingenuity. When Robert Spradlin was a teenager, he needed a knife for hunting and fishing, so he became a self-taught bladesmith.
Spradlin, a 30-year-old Beebe native who’s a diesel mechanic in Ward, was 10 years old when his father passed away. The family could not afford their house payments and had to move into a smaller rental house in town.
“We were living on my dad’s Social Security, and we didn’t have much,” he said.
“I’ve always liked hunting, guns and knives. It’s always been a passion. I could not afford a good knife and I had to make my own,” Spradlin said.
Spradlin began making knives when he was 14. His father was a carpenter and left an old bench grinder, tools and hand drills. With those pieces of equipment and a coal-burning stove, Spradlin turned old files, leaf springs and saw blades into knives.
After a long break, he returned to forging knives five years ago. He makes knives in his spare time at his shop on Pigeon Road.
He has completed the American Bladesmith Society’s introduction class to bladesmithing.
One knife can take him between two and 60 hours to make, depending on complexity and design. Each knife is a unique.
Spradlin shapes the blades, cuts the handles and stitches leather sheaths. He makes close to 100 knives a year.
“I look at it as art. It is functional. I never make the same knife twice. I am a perfectionist,” Spradlin said.
Spradlin also makes spears, tomahawks and hatchets.
He has made miniature knives that are an inch long. His largest piece is a 22-inch short sword.
When Spradlin makes a knife, he uses new steel to forge a blade.
He can also make knives by recycling old files, wheel-bearing races and thick, steel cable.
Used steel has metal alloys that give the knife’s edge sharpness and durability.
Spradlin can also craft a Da-mascus pattern into a knife using two different metal alloys of steel. During the forging process, the metal is heated and folded several times. The layering gives the blade a grainy swirl pattern. Grinding and polishing the blade enhances the design.
“I don’t use anything from China in my blades. I use U.S. or Canadian metals. I try to keep my material price down to keep the price of the knife down,” he said.
When Spradlin begins to forge a blade, the metal is heated to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in a gas-fired furnace. The hot glowing steel turns into a soft plastic-like texture that is easy to form.
Spradlin hammers and reheats the steel to move the metal until he gets the blade to the shape and style he wants.
During the forging process, he’ll normalize the blade three times. In normalizing, the steel is heated, then removed from the heat and slowly cooled in a box of lime. This removes the stress of the metal from heating and working of the blade.
Later, Spradlin does a rough grind of the blade. Next, he gives the knife a heat treatment. The metal is heated in a small kiln and then dipped into oil. This gives the knife hardness and durability.
Spradlin does a final grind and hand finishes the blade. He then makes a hand guard and handle fitting, leading to the assembling and finishing of the whole knife.
Spradlin prefers to use mostly local, natural-made resources for his knife handles. The handles can be crafted from deer or elk antlers, sheeps’ horns and animal bones.
He also uses natural woods from Arkansas, such as a spalted maple, or exotic woods such as eucalyptus from Australia.
His knives are often sold at knife shows. He said the Farm Bureau has purchased knives from him and auctioned them off for charity.
“Most of my knives are sold by word-of-mouth,” he said.
People have asked Spradlin to recreate antique bowie knives and knives from the movies, such as “The Legends of the Fall” and “Crocodile Dundee.”
To keep the interest of bladesmithing alive, Spradlin teaches knife making at his shop on Thursday nights at 7 p.m.
The classes are free.
Students need to bring their own supplies, or Spradlin will sell them the materials. Class sizes range from two to 12 people.
“Arkansas is a good place to learn knife making. Most of the famous knife makers come from Arkansas. They are real friendly and would love to help you,” Spradlin said.
To learn more about his knife-making classes or to view a selection of his custom-made knives, call 501-281-0573 or visit his Web site at www.spradlinknives.com.
Friday, December 19, 2008
EDITORIAL >>Scholarships and the lottery
Gov. Mike Beebe and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, between whom no love is lost, are already scrapping over what to do with the tens of millions of dollars annually that will be collected by the state lottery when tickets start being sold in 2010. Theirs is a senseless argument that legislators should ignore when they craft the implementing lottery law this winter.
Halter may claim the moral privilege because he wrote and pushed the lottery amendment to adoption while Beebe opposed it, but that shouldn’t give Halter special prerogative in designing the law. The practical situation is that lawmakers love the governor and most of them do not care for the lieutenant governor, even in the Senate where Halter presides, but Beebe’s ideas should be put to the test just as rigorously as Halter’s.
The lottery’s net proceeds must be used for college scholarships, and the amendment requires the state to continue its current financial efforts, which amounts to about $115 million annually at the public colleges and universities. Halter says the lottery will produce $100 million to $120 million annually, but the state Department of Finance and Administration says it will produce no more than $50 million. For that, we must wait and see.
Beebe’s and Halter’s essential disagreement is whether the lottery proceeds should be deposited in the current scholarship system or, as Halter wants, an entirely separate program. The biggest of some 21 different scholarship programs run by the state is the Academic Challenge Scholarship, which is available to every youngster whose family is not affluent enough to pay the tuition, who has completed the college-preparatory core curriculum, who earns at least a 2.75 grade point in high school and who scores at least 19 on the ACT. (That, by the way, is a very low score.)
Beebe is right that the state should not run competing scholarship programs but he is wrong in insisting that the current programs are well run. They aren’t. Now, millions of dollars a year in scholarship funds are going begging, which has built up a surplus of $52 million. Halter says it is not because there are not needy youngsters who want to go to college but because the state’s criteria are so baffling and cumbersome that people don’t apply for the scholarships. He wants one or two simple criteria that every youngster, parent and high school counselor understands. He suggests a simple 2.5 grade point but no ACT score requirement and an easy threshold of family need.
We think that makes sense, although we might quarrel with a grade-point requirement rather than an ACT score that suggests that the youngster can do college work. Grade-point averages in Arkansas high schools are notoriously imprecise measures of either achievement or capacity to do scholarly work.
So Beebe’s and Halter’s ideas ought to be meshed. There should be one need-based scholarship program available to every youngster in Arkansas who meets one simple criterion, whether it be grade-point average or college-entrance test score.
There could be additional standards for older adults who want to return to college on a scholarship.
Beyond that, Halter spelled out some standards that he would like to see in the implementing law to insure that the lottery is operated with maximum transparency and accountability. The state enters a perilous domain when it embraces any form of gambling as a government enterprise. It is fraught with opportunities for fraud, favoritism and simple dishonesty with the participating public. The public should know every financial detail of the operation, including the odds that every ticket buyer faces.
If the government is going to run a numbers racket, it must be done with as much probity as humanly possible, and the good ends of the operation, a college education for all who want it, must be accomplished as simply as possible. And the egos of competing politicians need not be obliged to do it right.
Halter may claim the moral privilege because he wrote and pushed the lottery amendment to adoption while Beebe opposed it, but that shouldn’t give Halter special prerogative in designing the law. The practical situation is that lawmakers love the governor and most of them do not care for the lieutenant governor, even in the Senate where Halter presides, but Beebe’s ideas should be put to the test just as rigorously as Halter’s.
The lottery’s net proceeds must be used for college scholarships, and the amendment requires the state to continue its current financial efforts, which amounts to about $115 million annually at the public colleges and universities. Halter says the lottery will produce $100 million to $120 million annually, but the state Department of Finance and Administration says it will produce no more than $50 million. For that, we must wait and see.
Beebe’s and Halter’s essential disagreement is whether the lottery proceeds should be deposited in the current scholarship system or, as Halter wants, an entirely separate program. The biggest of some 21 different scholarship programs run by the state is the Academic Challenge Scholarship, which is available to every youngster whose family is not affluent enough to pay the tuition, who has completed the college-preparatory core curriculum, who earns at least a 2.75 grade point in high school and who scores at least 19 on the ACT. (That, by the way, is a very low score.)
Beebe is right that the state should not run competing scholarship programs but he is wrong in insisting that the current programs are well run. They aren’t. Now, millions of dollars a year in scholarship funds are going begging, which has built up a surplus of $52 million. Halter says it is not because there are not needy youngsters who want to go to college but because the state’s criteria are so baffling and cumbersome that people don’t apply for the scholarships. He wants one or two simple criteria that every youngster, parent and high school counselor understands. He suggests a simple 2.5 grade point but no ACT score requirement and an easy threshold of family need.
We think that makes sense, although we might quarrel with a grade-point requirement rather than an ACT score that suggests that the youngster can do college work. Grade-point averages in Arkansas high schools are notoriously imprecise measures of either achievement or capacity to do scholarly work.
So Beebe’s and Halter’s ideas ought to be meshed. There should be one need-based scholarship program available to every youngster in Arkansas who meets one simple criterion, whether it be grade-point average or college-entrance test score.
There could be additional standards for older adults who want to return to college on a scholarship.
Beyond that, Halter spelled out some standards that he would like to see in the implementing law to insure that the lottery is operated with maximum transparency and accountability. The state enters a perilous domain when it embraces any form of gambling as a government enterprise. It is fraught with opportunities for fraud, favoritism and simple dishonesty with the participating public. The public should know every financial detail of the operation, including the odds that every ticket buyer faces.
If the government is going to run a numbers racket, it must be done with as much probity as humanly possible, and the good ends of the operation, a college education for all who want it, must be accomplished as simply as possible. And the egos of competing politicians need not be obliged to do it right.
TOP STORY > >City to help renters after foreclosure
By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
The Jacksonville City Council voted Thursday night to help out about 14 tenants who have been told they need to be out of Manor House Apartments by the first of the year.
The apartment complex at 1705 S. Redmond Road is in foreclosure and receivership because the owners haven’t been paying bills the tenants have endured water shut-offs, heat turned off and no electricity.
City Administrator Jay Whisker has been working with Fannie Mae officials and others to keep the utilities on and try to make an arrangement to let the remaining tenants stay on after Jan. 1.
Mayor Tommy Swaim said many of the apartment residents have already moved and found other places, but many of the ones remaining are financially strapped, and have been told they have no chance of getting any of their security deposits back from the apartment management to help them pay deposits on new places.
Theresa Watson, director of the city’s community development block grant, told the city council that about 10 of the 14 tenants qualify under CDBG requirements for some assistance.
“We’ve not done this before,” the mayor said, and at the urging of Alderman Gary Fletcher, made it clear that this was a one time deal.
Whisker told the council that the owners of the apartment complex are deployed and turned over the complex to another individual who turned it over to a third party. Water is included in the rent, but no one connected with the apartment ownership has been paying the water bill, which forced the Jacksonville Water Department to turn it off recently.
“We got it back on, but it looks like it will be turned off again the first of January,” Whisker said.
The council authorized Watson to work with the remaining tenants to try and help them find new places and to assist them with deposits.
The council told Watson she could spend up to $4,000 in emergency funds to aid the tenants.
Leader staff writer
The Jacksonville City Council voted Thursday night to help out about 14 tenants who have been told they need to be out of Manor House Apartments by the first of the year.
The apartment complex at 1705 S. Redmond Road is in foreclosure and receivership because the owners haven’t been paying bills the tenants have endured water shut-offs, heat turned off and no electricity.
City Administrator Jay Whisker has been working with Fannie Mae officials and others to keep the utilities on and try to make an arrangement to let the remaining tenants stay on after Jan. 1.
Mayor Tommy Swaim said many of the apartment residents have already moved and found other places, but many of the ones remaining are financially strapped, and have been told they have no chance of getting any of their security deposits back from the apartment management to help them pay deposits on new places.
Theresa Watson, director of the city’s community development block grant, told the city council that about 10 of the 14 tenants qualify under CDBG requirements for some assistance.
“We’ve not done this before,” the mayor said, and at the urging of Alderman Gary Fletcher, made it clear that this was a one time deal.
Whisker told the council that the owners of the apartment complex are deployed and turned over the complex to another individual who turned it over to a third party. Water is included in the rent, but no one connected with the apartment ownership has been paying the water bill, which forced the Jacksonville Water Department to turn it off recently.
“We got it back on, but it looks like it will be turned off again the first of January,” Whisker said.
The council authorized Watson to work with the remaining tenants to try and help them find new places and to assist them with deposits.
The council told Watson she could spend up to $4,000 in emergency funds to aid the tenants.
TOP STORY > >Arkansan key player in machine
By GARRICK FELDMAN
Leader editor-in-chief
Back in the 1950s, the Chicago political machine picked a young black lawyer who was born in Blytheville to run for the state House of Representatives after reapportionment gave the city an additional district.
His name was Cecil Partee, who had moved north to attend Northwestern University Law School, graduating in 1946, five years ahead of Dale Bumpers, an amazing accomplishment for a black man from Arkansas whose father was a cotton grader back home.
Partee got himself elected to the Illinois House and later to the Illinois Senate and eventually became its president. He was later Chicago treasurer and Cook County prosecutor. He died in 1994 at the age of 73, having done very well as a key participant in a political machine that handed out jobs and contracts and took kickbacks for every human activity, from fixing speeding tickets to issuing driver’s licenses to anybody who couldn’t pass the exam to paying off building inspectors so they’d look the other way.
City workers openly gave the machine 5 percent of their salaries, creating an enormous slush fund that even let the mob skim from the top. Politicians kept shoe boxes in their closets stuffed with cash because there was so much of it.
Partee’s rise in state politics under the Daley machine made way for other black politicians whose roots were in the South — first- and second-generation northerners who still felt southern decades after they or their families had left Dixie.
They competed with other ethnics for patronage jobs, public-works contracts and power and prestige. Some got caught, like Gov. Rod Blagojevich and about half the Chicago City Council, but most keep their heads down and share in the spoils, out of view of law-enforcement officials.
The ethnic stew that is the main dish of Illinois politics — from Richard Daley (both of them) to Barack Obama, from Jesse Jackson (both of them) to Ram Emanuel, from Michael Bilandic to Harold Washington, from Roman Pucinski to Abner Mikva, from the convicted Dan Rostenkowski to the disgraced Rod Blagojevich, from the felon Dan Walker to the imprisoned George Ryan — why, the state has offered opportunities to ambitious people from every ethnic group since before the great Chicago fire.
Only those from outside Chicago would snigger at a name like Blagojevich — a Serb American whose neighborhood is as much a part of the political mix as the areas populated by Polish Americans, Jewish Americans, Irish Americans and now presumably Arab Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans and groups you may never have heard of.
The faces change, but the rules of the game are the same.
Illinois is not the most corrupt state — according to the New York Times, Florida has sent more politicians to prison than any other state (Arkansas ranks in the bottom third, as it usually does when it comes to rankings).
Blagojevich will leave office and maybe go to jail. He’d be the third Illinois governor in recent memory to serve time in the slammer, but most politicians, of course, will escape prosecution.
Like Cecil Partee, you get in the middle of the action but away from the spotlight where a prosecutor may be watching.
Leader editor-in-chief
Back in the 1950s, the Chicago political machine picked a young black lawyer who was born in Blytheville to run for the state House of Representatives after reapportionment gave the city an additional district.
His name was Cecil Partee, who had moved north to attend Northwestern University Law School, graduating in 1946, five years ahead of Dale Bumpers, an amazing accomplishment for a black man from Arkansas whose father was a cotton grader back home.
Partee got himself elected to the Illinois House and later to the Illinois Senate and eventually became its president. He was later Chicago treasurer and Cook County prosecutor. He died in 1994 at the age of 73, having done very well as a key participant in a political machine that handed out jobs and contracts and took kickbacks for every human activity, from fixing speeding tickets to issuing driver’s licenses to anybody who couldn’t pass the exam to paying off building inspectors so they’d look the other way.
City workers openly gave the machine 5 percent of their salaries, creating an enormous slush fund that even let the mob skim from the top. Politicians kept shoe boxes in their closets stuffed with cash because there was so much of it.
Partee’s rise in state politics under the Daley machine made way for other black politicians whose roots were in the South — first- and second-generation northerners who still felt southern decades after they or their families had left Dixie.
They competed with other ethnics for patronage jobs, public-works contracts and power and prestige. Some got caught, like Gov. Rod Blagojevich and about half the Chicago City Council, but most keep their heads down and share in the spoils, out of view of law-enforcement officials.
The ethnic stew that is the main dish of Illinois politics — from Richard Daley (both of them) to Barack Obama, from Jesse Jackson (both of them) to Ram Emanuel, from Michael Bilandic to Harold Washington, from Roman Pucinski to Abner Mikva, from the convicted Dan Rostenkowski to the disgraced Rod Blagojevich, from the felon Dan Walker to the imprisoned George Ryan — why, the state has offered opportunities to ambitious people from every ethnic group since before the great Chicago fire.
Only those from outside Chicago would snigger at a name like Blagojevich — a Serb American whose neighborhood is as much a part of the political mix as the areas populated by Polish Americans, Jewish Americans, Irish Americans and now presumably Arab Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans and groups you may never have heard of.
The faces change, but the rules of the game are the same.
Illinois is not the most corrupt state — according to the New York Times, Florida has sent more politicians to prison than any other state (Arkansas ranks in the bottom third, as it usually does when it comes to rankings).
Blagojevich will leave office and maybe go to jail. He’d be the third Illinois governor in recent memory to serve time in the slammer, but most politicians, of course, will escape prosecution.
Like Cecil Partee, you get in the middle of the action but away from the spotlight where a prosecutor may be watching.
TOP STORY > >Cabot eatery serving liquor
By JOAN MCCOY
Leader staff writer
“We got it. Free memberships available at the door,” reads the cryptic sign that went up outside Fat Daddy’s on Hwy. 367 in Cabot Wednesday afternoon.
Designed to adhere to the letter of the law that says no advertising is allowed, the sign tells customers of the six-month-old restaurant known for its Delta-raised catfish and deep-fried dill pickles that they can now have beer and wine with their meals.
“It” is the private club liquor license the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board issued Wednesday that allows the restaurant to serve alcohol in a dry county.
And although many who see the sign likely don’t understand it, at least 1,000 area residents do, because they signed the petition that restaurant owners Kevin and Karen Elrod took with them to the ABC Board.
Fat Daddy’s is the second restaurant in Cabot to be approved for a license to sell alcohol. Kopan, a relatively new restaurant serving sushi as well as other Japanese and Korean foods, got its license in October. Although Mayor Eddie Joe Williams and some church leaders opposed that application, Kopan owners had the signatures of more than 1,000 customers who supported it.
Until those two licenses were approved, only members of Cabot’s two country clubs could buy alcoholic beverages with their meals.
The mayor and Cabot Police Chief Jackie Davis attended the Wednesday meeting of the ABC Board to speak against Fat Daddy’s application.
The mayor told the board that even without restaurants serving alcohol in Cabot, sobriety checkpoints net so many drunk drivers that they can only stay open about two hours before the jail is full and all the police officers are occupied with paperwork.
But Elrod says the state laws that he must comply with won’t let him serve alcohol without food. And in his opinion, the sobriety checkpoints are catching drunks leaving bars in Little Rock, not diners who wanted a beer or wine with their steak or fish.
With the exception of a handful of country clubs, selling alcoholic beverages in Lonoke County has been illegal for more than seven decades, but changes made in recent years to state liquor laws to promote tourism and economic development now allow restaurants open to the public to sell alcohol even in the dry counties. So far, three restaurants have been approved in
Lonoke County and one more has applied.
In addition to Kopan and Fat Daddy’s, a liquor license has been granted to a planned restaurant in Ward, contingent on its actually being built.
That license has been appealed to circuit court in Pulaski County. Also in Cabot, Deer Creek Grill, which also has not been built, has applied for a license.
The wet/dry issue was decided in Lonoke County on Dec. 14, 1937 by the majority of 1,160 voters who turned out for the special election. Of that number, 328 voted to continue selling alcohol, and 832 voted to ban it.
By state law, for voters to have a say in the matter today would require a petition containing the verified signatures of 38 percent of the county’s registered voters. Since Lonoke County has 36,534 registered voters, 13,883 signatures would be needed to get the issue on the ballot in November 2010.
That number is so great in Lonoke County as well as the other dry counties that make up about half the state that taking the issue to a vote today would be nearly impossible. But instead of upholding the wishes of the majority who voted much of the state dry decades ago, those who are opposed to public restaurants getting private club liquor licenses say state lawmakers have found a way to subvert county law.
“Do you think Chile’s in Jacksonville is a private club?” asks Barry Ammon, a businessman from Ward who, through the Citizens for Sound Government, is fighting the liquor license issued to Win Knight for the restaurant he plans to build in Ward.
“The law has been subverted or perverted to help private business,” Ammon said.
The Citizens for Sound Govern-ment is a group whose membership changes with the issues they are dealing with, but always includes former state Rep. Randy Minton, who is known for his conservative values. The group is part of the beginnings of a coalition of organizations from across the state that is calling the changes in the state liquor laws unconstitutional. And, according to Ammon those changes are “so convoluted that they defy interpretation by the average person.”
In Cabot last week, representatives from groups from DeQueen, Jonesboro, Conway and Heber Springs, who feel like Ammon, argued that the new state laws are a way to get around county voters.
“What we’re trying to do is put together a coalition statewide, be-cause we don’t feel like we’re going to get anywhere with the ABC Board,” Ammon said.
The board grants licenses to restaurant owners who have filled out the forms correctly, he said. Although the law places restrictions on the restaurants, such as requiring customers to show membership cards before they are served, there is no evidence that the law is enforced, he said.
Mayor Williams agrees that enforcement is lax. “I’ve been to some of those restaurants and they don’t ask me for identification. They show me the wine list,” he said.
And like Ammons he says the changes in the liquor laws are drafted in such a way that communities can’t fight them, so at the very least they should be enforced.
“All I’m asking is for them to enforce the laws they’ve enacted,” he said.
Two days into running a Cabot eatery with a license to sell liquor, Kevin Elrod said business is good and he is following all the rules. Like the sign says, memberships are free. With his system, customers get a card with a stub. The customer keeps half and Fat Daddy’s keeps half and customers must sign in and show their cards at the door.
The restaurant closes at 9 p.m., and since he won’t serve alcohol without food, his customers shouldn’t be driving home drunk, he said.
Judging from the number of customers who signed his petition, Elrod says there is a demand with restaurants that serve alcohol.
“Colton’s is here in town but to get a steak, we go to Little Rock. The guys want a beer with their steaks and their wives like a glass of wine,” he said.
Elrod, who like most residents moved to Cabot for the schools, said he thinks Cabot people should spend their money at home.
“I’m not trying to push any morals on anyone; I’m just trying to keep people in town,” he said.
Leader staff writer
“We got it. Free memberships available at the door,” reads the cryptic sign that went up outside Fat Daddy’s on Hwy. 367 in Cabot Wednesday afternoon.
Designed to adhere to the letter of the law that says no advertising is allowed, the sign tells customers of the six-month-old restaurant known for its Delta-raised catfish and deep-fried dill pickles that they can now have beer and wine with their meals.
“It” is the private club liquor license the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board issued Wednesday that allows the restaurant to serve alcohol in a dry county.
And although many who see the sign likely don’t understand it, at least 1,000 area residents do, because they signed the petition that restaurant owners Kevin and Karen Elrod took with them to the ABC Board.
Fat Daddy’s is the second restaurant in Cabot to be approved for a license to sell alcohol. Kopan, a relatively new restaurant serving sushi as well as other Japanese and Korean foods, got its license in October. Although Mayor Eddie Joe Williams and some church leaders opposed that application, Kopan owners had the signatures of more than 1,000 customers who supported it.
Until those two licenses were approved, only members of Cabot’s two country clubs could buy alcoholic beverages with their meals.
The mayor and Cabot Police Chief Jackie Davis attended the Wednesday meeting of the ABC Board to speak against Fat Daddy’s application.
The mayor told the board that even without restaurants serving alcohol in Cabot, sobriety checkpoints net so many drunk drivers that they can only stay open about two hours before the jail is full and all the police officers are occupied with paperwork.
But Elrod says the state laws that he must comply with won’t let him serve alcohol without food. And in his opinion, the sobriety checkpoints are catching drunks leaving bars in Little Rock, not diners who wanted a beer or wine with their steak or fish.
With the exception of a handful of country clubs, selling alcoholic beverages in Lonoke County has been illegal for more than seven decades, but changes made in recent years to state liquor laws to promote tourism and economic development now allow restaurants open to the public to sell alcohol even in the dry counties. So far, three restaurants have been approved in
Lonoke County and one more has applied.
In addition to Kopan and Fat Daddy’s, a liquor license has been granted to a planned restaurant in Ward, contingent on its actually being built.
That license has been appealed to circuit court in Pulaski County. Also in Cabot, Deer Creek Grill, which also has not been built, has applied for a license.
The wet/dry issue was decided in Lonoke County on Dec. 14, 1937 by the majority of 1,160 voters who turned out for the special election. Of that number, 328 voted to continue selling alcohol, and 832 voted to ban it.
By state law, for voters to have a say in the matter today would require a petition containing the verified signatures of 38 percent of the county’s registered voters. Since Lonoke County has 36,534 registered voters, 13,883 signatures would be needed to get the issue on the ballot in November 2010.
That number is so great in Lonoke County as well as the other dry counties that make up about half the state that taking the issue to a vote today would be nearly impossible. But instead of upholding the wishes of the majority who voted much of the state dry decades ago, those who are opposed to public restaurants getting private club liquor licenses say state lawmakers have found a way to subvert county law.
“Do you think Chile’s in Jacksonville is a private club?” asks Barry Ammon, a businessman from Ward who, through the Citizens for Sound Government, is fighting the liquor license issued to Win Knight for the restaurant he plans to build in Ward.
“The law has been subverted or perverted to help private business,” Ammon said.
The Citizens for Sound Govern-ment is a group whose membership changes with the issues they are dealing with, but always includes former state Rep. Randy Minton, who is known for his conservative values. The group is part of the beginnings of a coalition of organizations from across the state that is calling the changes in the state liquor laws unconstitutional. And, according to Ammon those changes are “so convoluted that they defy interpretation by the average person.”
In Cabot last week, representatives from groups from DeQueen, Jonesboro, Conway and Heber Springs, who feel like Ammon, argued that the new state laws are a way to get around county voters.
“What we’re trying to do is put together a coalition statewide, be-cause we don’t feel like we’re going to get anywhere with the ABC Board,” Ammon said.
The board grants licenses to restaurant owners who have filled out the forms correctly, he said. Although the law places restrictions on the restaurants, such as requiring customers to show membership cards before they are served, there is no evidence that the law is enforced, he said.
Mayor Williams agrees that enforcement is lax. “I’ve been to some of those restaurants and they don’t ask me for identification. They show me the wine list,” he said.
And like Ammons he says the changes in the liquor laws are drafted in such a way that communities can’t fight them, so at the very least they should be enforced.
“All I’m asking is for them to enforce the laws they’ve enacted,” he said.
Two days into running a Cabot eatery with a license to sell liquor, Kevin Elrod said business is good and he is following all the rules. Like the sign says, memberships are free. With his system, customers get a card with a stub. The customer keeps half and Fat Daddy’s keeps half and customers must sign in and show their cards at the door.
The restaurant closes at 9 p.m., and since he won’t serve alcohol without food, his customers shouldn’t be driving home drunk, he said.
Judging from the number of customers who signed his petition, Elrod says there is a demand with restaurants that serve alcohol.
“Colton’s is here in town but to get a steak, we go to Little Rock. The guys want a beer with their steaks and their wives like a glass of wine,” he said.
Elrod, who like most residents moved to Cabot for the schools, said he thinks Cabot people should spend their money at home.
“I’m not trying to push any morals on anyone; I’m just trying to keep people in town,” he said.
TOP STORY > >Educator: schools can teach better
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
The time to ensure that children will succeed in school and graduate is when they are toddlers and even earlier, not when they arrive in high school with bad attitudes, low expectations and few math, language or coping skills, an acclaimed educator told officials Wednesday from the Pulaski County Special School District and a dozen other districts with dismal graduation rates.
Pat Cooper, who earned his stripes as former superintendent of the McComb, Miss., School District, cites Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when he says that children who arrive in kindergarten healthy and fit with good vocabularies and resulting self-esteem will succeed in class and won’t often become discipline problems.
Cooper says he has years of data to support his contention.
“You’ve got to do everything for all children that you do for yours,” he said to the teachers, board members and administrators attending the state Education Department’s graduation summit at the Crown Plaza Conference Center in west Little Rock.
“If children don’t come ready to learn and don’t finish school, the public school system fails,” Cooper said.
That failure will cost more in crime, unemployment, and prison expenses than it would cost to educate youngsters and get them to school healthy, he said.
PCSSD has instituted some of Cooper’s recom mendations in a piecemeal fashion, according to Beverly Ruthven, assistant superintendent.
“We are not systematic,” she said Friday, “but bringing mental health (counselors into schools) was a step.”
“I particularly like (his contention) that it’s not just the school’s task to address the needs of the whole child, but the whole community, a more holistic approach,” she said.
Ruthven said that PCSSD is taking advantage of Arkansas’ Better Chance pre-kindergarten programs and that research supports the contention that the best way to increase graduation rates is to make sure that children come to kindergarten healthy, fit and with skills to perform at grade level.
She said working with daycare centers “down the road” would be an excellent plan — that it’s better to be proactive.
She said school administrators and teachers are torn between so many demands, but so little time to do everything, especially with all the things that are mandated.
“This could yield the highest return.”
“But when you have kids in ninth grade who can’t read, you must move forward,” Ruthven said.
Toward that end, the district has implemented transition camps in the summer to help students with academic and social challenges adapt from elementary school to middle school and again for students moving from middle school to high school.
Also, all district high schools now have a freshman academy, where teachers are grouped with some students at the beginning of the year who stay in touch with those students throughout the year, alert for problems or deficiencies.
Cooper said most school-reform projects are promoted by those with textbooks or programs to sell and that statistically nothing introduced to students in middle or high school is going to affect graduation rates.
He said after-school programs may keep children off the streets and out of trouble, but they don’t have a meaningful impact on graduation rates.
Cooper said that after six years, George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program has proven to be a failure. And if changing textbooks or techniques were the answer to educating students and raising graduation rates, he asked why has there been no improvement in 40 years.
“Reformers lie, cheat and do anything they can to make a living off us,” he complained.
“I do think the next president is going to do something for us,” Cooper said.
He said children from upper- and middle-class families usually arrive in kindergarten with 2,000-word vocabularies, while many or most poor children have a vocabulary of about 400 words.
“Kids have to get things settled before they can learn,” he said.
Cooper said schools must work with daycare providers to make sure children come to kindergarten with grade-level skills and that children should be tested so that substandard daycare education can be identified. Then the schools need to work again with those daycares and the test scores should be published so parents know which to avoid.
Also, Cooper said, 80 percent of pregnant girls drop out of school to raise the next generation of dropouts.
He said 80 percent of the children of dropouts come to kindergarten at age 5, but with the developmental level of a 3-and-a-half-year-old.
What he proposes, and what has worked in his experience, he says, is to have daycare centers in the schools, so that the newborns beginning at age 6 weeks can be nourished, fit and learn the skills they need and so that their mothers can return to the classroom and graduate from high school.
The mothers also need to become trained daycare providers so they can help at the daycare and also understand how to help their own children.
“We have taken a whole generation of people and screwed them up,” Cooper said. Eighty-two percent of prisoners are school dropouts.
Schools should be community centers, available around the clock and include English as a second language and adult education classes.
Each school should have a nurse, mental-health counselor and a dentist and doctor available, as well as nutritionist.
He prefers the four nine-weeks system and would have real health and nutrition taught one section a year, with physical education taught the other three.
“We want graduates without a criminal record, a drug problem, a baby and without obesity,” Cooper added.
He said the schools and districts just waste time on the red-ribbon just-say-no campaigns and suggests the money be used instead for random drug tests and that any student failing the test be tested frequently thereafter.
Suspension and expulsion don’t work, he said. That just puts teenagers out on the street to burgle and get in trouble. What’s needed is an alternative school, such as the one in Lonoke County, where those students are sent by a judge after being put on probation.
If they behave, they can be reintegrated into their regular schools. They can be bused back to those schools to participate in athletics or their favorite art or music class.
If they act out while in alternative schools, they go to jail for two days, then back to alternative school — back to jail, back to alternative school as many times as it takes before they decide to behave at alternative school.
Leader senior staff writer
The time to ensure that children will succeed in school and graduate is when they are toddlers and even earlier, not when they arrive in high school with bad attitudes, low expectations and few math, language or coping skills, an acclaimed educator told officials Wednesday from the Pulaski County Special School District and a dozen other districts with dismal graduation rates.
Pat Cooper, who earned his stripes as former superintendent of the McComb, Miss., School District, cites Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when he says that children who arrive in kindergarten healthy and fit with good vocabularies and resulting self-esteem will succeed in class and won’t often become discipline problems.
Cooper says he has years of data to support his contention.
“You’ve got to do everything for all children that you do for yours,” he said to the teachers, board members and administrators attending the state Education Department’s graduation summit at the Crown Plaza Conference Center in west Little Rock.
“If children don’t come ready to learn and don’t finish school, the public school system fails,” Cooper said.
That failure will cost more in crime, unemployment, and prison expenses than it would cost to educate youngsters and get them to school healthy, he said.
PCSSD has instituted some of Cooper’s recom mendations in a piecemeal fashion, according to Beverly Ruthven, assistant superintendent.
“We are not systematic,” she said Friday, “but bringing mental health (counselors into schools) was a step.”
“I particularly like (his contention) that it’s not just the school’s task to address the needs of the whole child, but the whole community, a more holistic approach,” she said.
Ruthven said that PCSSD is taking advantage of Arkansas’ Better Chance pre-kindergarten programs and that research supports the contention that the best way to increase graduation rates is to make sure that children come to kindergarten healthy, fit and with skills to perform at grade level.
She said working with daycare centers “down the road” would be an excellent plan — that it’s better to be proactive.
She said school administrators and teachers are torn between so many demands, but so little time to do everything, especially with all the things that are mandated.
“This could yield the highest return.”
“But when you have kids in ninth grade who can’t read, you must move forward,” Ruthven said.
Toward that end, the district has implemented transition camps in the summer to help students with academic and social challenges adapt from elementary school to middle school and again for students moving from middle school to high school.
Also, all district high schools now have a freshman academy, where teachers are grouped with some students at the beginning of the year who stay in touch with those students throughout the year, alert for problems or deficiencies.
Cooper said most school-reform projects are promoted by those with textbooks or programs to sell and that statistically nothing introduced to students in middle or high school is going to affect graduation rates.
He said after-school programs may keep children off the streets and out of trouble, but they don’t have a meaningful impact on graduation rates.
Cooper said that after six years, George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program has proven to be a failure. And if changing textbooks or techniques were the answer to educating students and raising graduation rates, he asked why has there been no improvement in 40 years.
“Reformers lie, cheat and do anything they can to make a living off us,” he complained.
“I do think the next president is going to do something for us,” Cooper said.
He said children from upper- and middle-class families usually arrive in kindergarten with 2,000-word vocabularies, while many or most poor children have a vocabulary of about 400 words.
“Kids have to get things settled before they can learn,” he said.
Cooper said schools must work with daycare providers to make sure children come to kindergarten with grade-level skills and that children should be tested so that substandard daycare education can be identified. Then the schools need to work again with those daycares and the test scores should be published so parents know which to avoid.
Also, Cooper said, 80 percent of pregnant girls drop out of school to raise the next generation of dropouts.
He said 80 percent of the children of dropouts come to kindergarten at age 5, but with the developmental level of a 3-and-a-half-year-old.
What he proposes, and what has worked in his experience, he says, is to have daycare centers in the schools, so that the newborns beginning at age 6 weeks can be nourished, fit and learn the skills they need and so that their mothers can return to the classroom and graduate from high school.
The mothers also need to become trained daycare providers so they can help at the daycare and also understand how to help their own children.
“We have taken a whole generation of people and screwed them up,” Cooper said. Eighty-two percent of prisoners are school dropouts.
Schools should be community centers, available around the clock and include English as a second language and adult education classes.
Each school should have a nurse, mental-health counselor and a dentist and doctor available, as well as nutritionist.
He prefers the four nine-weeks system and would have real health and nutrition taught one section a year, with physical education taught the other three.
“We want graduates without a criminal record, a drug problem, a baby and without obesity,” Cooper added.
He said the schools and districts just waste time on the red-ribbon just-say-no campaigns and suggests the money be used instead for random drug tests and that any student failing the test be tested frequently thereafter.
Suspension and expulsion don’t work, he said. That just puts teenagers out on the street to burgle and get in trouble. What’s needed is an alternative school, such as the one in Lonoke County, where those students are sent by a judge after being put on probation.
If they behave, they can be reintegrated into their regular schools. They can be bused back to those schools to participate in athletics or their favorite art or music class.
If they act out while in alternative schools, they go to jail for two days, then back to alternative school — back to jail, back to alternative school as many times as it takes before they decide to behave at alternative school.
TOP STORY > >Hospital deal almost done
By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
Jacksonville is close to turning over the reins of its hospital, North Metro, to Allegiance Health management.
“We have a verbal agreement and it’s a sound agreement,” Mayor Tommy Swaim told aldermen Thursday, “but it’s not a deal until all the paperwork is signed.”
He told the council there were still some technical issues that needed to be solved before the Shreveport, La.-based management firm took control of the hospital.
The city wanted to lease it to Allegiance, but in the current economic conditions that fell through. Instead Allegiance will manage the hospital and have an option to buy it.
Back in October, the city council approved leasing the hospital to Allegiance, but the mayor came back to the council earlier this month to get permission for the current management-option deal. “There’s no guarantee that Allegiance will buy it right away or even after a few years, but it will help seal the deal,” the mayor pointed out.
“We cannot continue to maintain a hospital,” the mayor told the city council at its Dec. 4 meeting. “North Metro is losing $400,000 a month.”
“Negotiations have been going on everyday for weeks. Our goal is to have something final no later than Dec. 31,” said the mayor, who also serves as chairman of the hospital’s board of directors, “and in the meantime, it’s business as usual at the hospital.”
If and when Allegiance decides to purchase the hospital, it will either pay the appraised price or the amount the hospital is in debt, which ever is greater, according to the mayor.
“This is an effort to maintain an acute-care hospital in the city of Jacksonville,” said Swaim, who is also the chairman of the hospital’s board of directors.
Local attorney Mike Wilson, who is also on the board, told the council that no matter what, the hospital would continue to operate a walk-in clinic.
Brig. Gen. Rowayne Schatz, top commander at Little Rock Air Force Base, said in an interview last week that the base relies on the hospital. “North Metro is the closest emergency room facility,” the general said. “We don’t have an ER in the base clinic. We rely on them for medical services in our local community, to provide an emergency room and in-patient services.”
“We do send several of our airmen and their families to North Metro and they’ve been a good provider for us and we’ve been monitoring their situation as a customer,” he said. “But we have no sway.”
The proposed agreement with Allegiance calls for all major aspects of the hospital — the emergency room, outpatient care and surgeries — to continue. The mayor said Allegiance has plans to consolidate aspects of its operations that are in other leased locations to North Metro and believes it can make the hospital profitable within about six months.
Swaim said the city had tried to make deals with Baptist and St. Vincent’s, but neither submitted proposals. He said Baptist has reported a loss of $17 million and St. Vincent is $3 million in the red.
The mayor added that the company current managing the hospital had no interest in leasing or buying the hospital.
The last year that the hospital operated in the black was 2003-04, when it closed the fiscal year June 30, 2004 with a $652,000 positive income. The next year, net income slipped to the other side of the ledger with a $98,000 loss.
From fiscal year 2006 (ending June 30) to FY 2007, North Metro’s annual net loss increased from $804,000 to $3 million, according to a recent Arkansas Business report. For FY 2007, the hospital had a 3.45 percent negative return on total billed charges and $4.8 million loss in uncompensated care billed to insurers, out of a total $46.8 million billed. The report is based on data from Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield provided by hospitals.
Much of North Metro’s losses are attributable to uncompensated and charity care, as well as the low reimbursement level for
Medicaid and Medicare patients.
The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act mandates that any hospital that gets Medicare and Medicaid funding – and essentially all do – must provide a medical screening and treatment if necessary for anyone who comes to the emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay.
Swaim said another part of North Metro’s financial problems is that most residents in the area have a choice of hospitals within reasonable range. “But we are committed to have a hospital in our city. It’s just a question of whether we own it or a private company does,” he said.
(Leader staff writer Nancy Dockter contributed to this article.)
Leader staff writer
Jacksonville is close to turning over the reins of its hospital, North Metro, to Allegiance Health management.
“We have a verbal agreement and it’s a sound agreement,” Mayor Tommy Swaim told aldermen Thursday, “but it’s not a deal until all the paperwork is signed.”
He told the council there were still some technical issues that needed to be solved before the Shreveport, La.-based management firm took control of the hospital.
The city wanted to lease it to Allegiance, but in the current economic conditions that fell through. Instead Allegiance will manage the hospital and have an option to buy it.
Back in October, the city council approved leasing the hospital to Allegiance, but the mayor came back to the council earlier this month to get permission for the current management-option deal. “There’s no guarantee that Allegiance will buy it right away or even after a few years, but it will help seal the deal,” the mayor pointed out.
“We cannot continue to maintain a hospital,” the mayor told the city council at its Dec. 4 meeting. “North Metro is losing $400,000 a month.”
“Negotiations have been going on everyday for weeks. Our goal is to have something final no later than Dec. 31,” said the mayor, who also serves as chairman of the hospital’s board of directors, “and in the meantime, it’s business as usual at the hospital.”
If and when Allegiance decides to purchase the hospital, it will either pay the appraised price or the amount the hospital is in debt, which ever is greater, according to the mayor.
“This is an effort to maintain an acute-care hospital in the city of Jacksonville,” said Swaim, who is also the chairman of the hospital’s board of directors.
Local attorney Mike Wilson, who is also on the board, told the council that no matter what, the hospital would continue to operate a walk-in clinic.
Brig. Gen. Rowayne Schatz, top commander at Little Rock Air Force Base, said in an interview last week that the base relies on the hospital. “North Metro is the closest emergency room facility,” the general said. “We don’t have an ER in the base clinic. We rely on them for medical services in our local community, to provide an emergency room and in-patient services.”
“We do send several of our airmen and their families to North Metro and they’ve been a good provider for us and we’ve been monitoring their situation as a customer,” he said. “But we have no sway.”
The proposed agreement with Allegiance calls for all major aspects of the hospital — the emergency room, outpatient care and surgeries — to continue. The mayor said Allegiance has plans to consolidate aspects of its operations that are in other leased locations to North Metro and believes it can make the hospital profitable within about six months.
Swaim said the city had tried to make deals with Baptist and St. Vincent’s, but neither submitted proposals. He said Baptist has reported a loss of $17 million and St. Vincent is $3 million in the red.
The mayor added that the company current managing the hospital had no interest in leasing or buying the hospital.
The last year that the hospital operated in the black was 2003-04, when it closed the fiscal year June 30, 2004 with a $652,000 positive income. The next year, net income slipped to the other side of the ledger with a $98,000 loss.
From fiscal year 2006 (ending June 30) to FY 2007, North Metro’s annual net loss increased from $804,000 to $3 million, according to a recent Arkansas Business report. For FY 2007, the hospital had a 3.45 percent negative return on total billed charges and $4.8 million loss in uncompensated care billed to insurers, out of a total $46.8 million billed. The report is based on data from Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield provided by hospitals.
Much of North Metro’s losses are attributable to uncompensated and charity care, as well as the low reimbursement level for
Medicaid and Medicare patients.
The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act mandates that any hospital that gets Medicare and Medicaid funding – and essentially all do – must provide a medical screening and treatment if necessary for anyone who comes to the emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay.
Swaim said another part of North Metro’s financial problems is that most residents in the area have a choice of hospitals within reasonable range. “But we are committed to have a hospital in our city. It’s just a question of whether we own it or a private company does,” he said.
(Leader staff writer Nancy Dockter contributed to this article.)
SPORTS>> Trojans’ rally falls short vs. Memphis
By JOE ANGOLIA
UALR sports information
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The UALR men’s basketball team (7-3) battled back from an 18-point second-half deficit on Wednesday night to pull within five points before dropping a 59-51 decision to the No. 21 Memphis Tigers at FedExForum.
Former North Pulaski player Steven Moore led the Trojans with 16 points.
Memphis (6-2) led 50-32 with 8:07 remaining after a bucket by Antonio Anderson, but went the rest of the game without a field goal. The Trojans, who held Memphis to a 33 percent shooting percentage, pulled within five points on three separate occasions, but were unable to get any closer.
“I’m proud of our guys for continuing to fight and compete in an adverse situation, after being down 18 in this kind of environment with a hostile crowd against us,” said UALR head coach Steve Shields. “The thing we have to do is learn from some of those situational mistakes that cost us tonight, but I’m proud of our guys’ ability to continue to fight, scrap and claw their way back into the game.”
The smaller Trojans out-rebounded the Tigers 38-36, including a plus-6 rebounding margin in the second half. Both teams shot 33.3 percent from the field, but Memphis converted 26 of 40 trips to the foul line, while the Trojans made just 15 trips to the charity stripe — making eight.
“I thought our guys did an excellent job of closing gaps defensively and a very good job on the defensive glass,” added Shields. “Memphis is a team that had 25 offensive rebounds at Georgetown last Saturday and only had nine tonight.”
Three players scored in double figures for the Tigers, led by 15 points from Robert Dozier, who went 3 for 4 from the field and 9 of 12 at the foul line. Tyreke Evans chipped in 12 points and four assists, while Shawn Taggart contributed 12 points off the bench, despite going 3 of 11 from the field.
Moore led the Trojans in scoring for the fifth consecutive outing, finishing, with a game-high 16 points off the bench. Senior John Fowler added eight points for the Trojans and led all players with nine rebounds.
The Trojans led 19-18 after a three-point play by Moore with 8:46 left in the first half, but would be outscored 12-3 the rest of the way after managing just one field goal after Moore’s bucket. UALR held the Tigers to 32 percent shooting over the first 20 minutes, including a 2-of-11 effort from three-point range, but shot just 27.6 percent themselves.
The Tigers used a quick 8-0 run in the second half to extend their lead to 45-28 with 14:16 remaining. Down 50-34 with 7:08 to go, the Trojans mounted a comeback with a quick 8-0 spurt, sparked by three pointers from freshman Curtis Jackson and sophomore Matt Mouzy.
UALR made it a two-possession game, 51-45, off a three-pointer by Moore with 2:27 to play, and pulled within five three times after that, but the Tigers converted 8 of 12 foul shots the rest of the way to preserve the win.
The Trojans return to action tonight at 7 p.m. when they open Sun Belt Conference play against Arkansas State at the Jack Stephens Center.
UALR sports information
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The UALR men’s basketball team (7-3) battled back from an 18-point second-half deficit on Wednesday night to pull within five points before dropping a 59-51 decision to the No. 21 Memphis Tigers at FedExForum.
Former North Pulaski player Steven Moore led the Trojans with 16 points.
Memphis (6-2) led 50-32 with 8:07 remaining after a bucket by Antonio Anderson, but went the rest of the game without a field goal. The Trojans, who held Memphis to a 33 percent shooting percentage, pulled within five points on three separate occasions, but were unable to get any closer.
“I’m proud of our guys for continuing to fight and compete in an adverse situation, after being down 18 in this kind of environment with a hostile crowd against us,” said UALR head coach Steve Shields. “The thing we have to do is learn from some of those situational mistakes that cost us tonight, but I’m proud of our guys’ ability to continue to fight, scrap and claw their way back into the game.”
The smaller Trojans out-rebounded the Tigers 38-36, including a plus-6 rebounding margin in the second half. Both teams shot 33.3 percent from the field, but Memphis converted 26 of 40 trips to the foul line, while the Trojans made just 15 trips to the charity stripe — making eight.
“I thought our guys did an excellent job of closing gaps defensively and a very good job on the defensive glass,” added Shields. “Memphis is a team that had 25 offensive rebounds at Georgetown last Saturday and only had nine tonight.”
Three players scored in double figures for the Tigers, led by 15 points from Robert Dozier, who went 3 for 4 from the field and 9 of 12 at the foul line. Tyreke Evans chipped in 12 points and four assists, while Shawn Taggart contributed 12 points off the bench, despite going 3 of 11 from the field.
Moore led the Trojans in scoring for the fifth consecutive outing, finishing, with a game-high 16 points off the bench. Senior John Fowler added eight points for the Trojans and led all players with nine rebounds.
The Trojans led 19-18 after a three-point play by Moore with 8:46 left in the first half, but would be outscored 12-3 the rest of the way after managing just one field goal after Moore’s bucket. UALR held the Tigers to 32 percent shooting over the first 20 minutes, including a 2-of-11 effort from three-point range, but shot just 27.6 percent themselves.
The Tigers used a quick 8-0 run in the second half to extend their lead to 45-28 with 14:16 remaining. Down 50-34 with 7:08 to go, the Trojans mounted a comeback with a quick 8-0 spurt, sparked by three pointers from freshman Curtis Jackson and sophomore Matt Mouzy.
UALR made it a two-possession game, 51-45, off a three-pointer by Moore with 2:27 to play, and pulled within five three times after that, but the Tigers converted 8 of 12 foul shots the rest of the way to preserve the win.
The Trojans return to action tonight at 7 p.m. when they open Sun Belt Conference play against Arkansas State at the Jack Stephens Center.
SPORTS>> ’Rabbits roll ’Dogs
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Lonoke coach Wes Swift admits there are still some kinks left to work out with his new high-octane Jackrabbits.
But that high-octane style was still good for nine steals and 22 points in the first quarter alone during Lonoke’s 75-59 win over Star City on Thursday night in the first round of the Pulaski Academy tournament.
The Jackrabbits (4-1) ended up winning the turnover battle by only one at 20-19, although most of those giveaways came with extended sub play in the second half by Lonoke.
“We played the kind of game we wanted to play,” Swift said. “We made so many mistakes, but it’s still early and we’re a work in progress. I thought we made a few shots tonight. I think you’re going to see us make more and more. Obviously, we’re not going to make the three-point shot every night, but I think we have enough players that can knock down a couple.”
There was no shortage of Jackrabbit players knocking down the three-pointers against Star City. Trenton Spencer and Michael Howard each had two in the first half, while Lance Jackson put up 11 of his total 13 points in the third quarter alone, nine of which came from behind the arc.
The outside game generated plenty of points, and a 13 point, eight rebound performance by senior forward Pierre Smith gave the Jackrabbits balance on the inside.
The Bulldogs tried to put the defensive pressure on Howard and fellow senior Clarence Harris, but it was to little avail, as Lonoke used its depth and a plethora of skilled shooters to spread the scoring around. Howard still went on to lead all scorers in the game with 16 points, while Jackson had a good night on both ends with 13 points and six steals.
“That’s what we talked about up at Morrilton,” said Swift. “We got up there, and it was Michael Howard. Mike’s going to be a consistent scorer for us. He can really score. They went to face guarding him tonight. And like I told them, that’s still fine. We still have enough scorers that I don’t think teams are going to be able to do that to us. Any time you take a defensive player out of the mix, it’s always advantage-offense.”
Lonoke’s offense held quite an advantage during the first half, outscoring the Bulldogs 22-10 in the first quarter. The Jackrabbits went on to hold a dominant 49-29 lead at the half, and was one point away from a mercy rule at the 1:19 mark of the third quarter before relieving the starters.
Star City took advantage of the subs’ inexperience, cutting the lead to 73-57 with 2:42 left, which prompted Swift to put his starting five back in for the remainder.
A total of 28 rebounds was enough for Lonoke to win the rebounding battle against the comparably-sized Bulldogs, but not by much. Swift said that is one area in which he and his players are still not on the same page.
“It’s not very good, and that’s a weak spot for us,” he said. “It’s what we talk about every practice. It’s my number-one priority, and I think about their number 10 priority right now, so that’s not a good thing. That’s going to be a work in progress.”
Darius Scott had eight points and five steals for Lonoke. Spencer and Harris also finished with eight points. For Star City, post player Deandra Edwards led with 15 points, with 13 for C.J. Waters and 10 for point guard Issac Hawkins.
Lonoke played host Pulaski Academy last night in the semifinals after Leader deadlines.
Leader sportswriter
Lonoke coach Wes Swift admits there are still some kinks left to work out with his new high-octane Jackrabbits.
But that high-octane style was still good for nine steals and 22 points in the first quarter alone during Lonoke’s 75-59 win over Star City on Thursday night in the first round of the Pulaski Academy tournament.
The Jackrabbits (4-1) ended up winning the turnover battle by only one at 20-19, although most of those giveaways came with extended sub play in the second half by Lonoke.
“We played the kind of game we wanted to play,” Swift said. “We made so many mistakes, but it’s still early and we’re a work in progress. I thought we made a few shots tonight. I think you’re going to see us make more and more. Obviously, we’re not going to make the three-point shot every night, but I think we have enough players that can knock down a couple.”
There was no shortage of Jackrabbit players knocking down the three-pointers against Star City. Trenton Spencer and Michael Howard each had two in the first half, while Lance Jackson put up 11 of his total 13 points in the third quarter alone, nine of which came from behind the arc.
The outside game generated plenty of points, and a 13 point, eight rebound performance by senior forward Pierre Smith gave the Jackrabbits balance on the inside.
The Bulldogs tried to put the defensive pressure on Howard and fellow senior Clarence Harris, but it was to little avail, as Lonoke used its depth and a plethora of skilled shooters to spread the scoring around. Howard still went on to lead all scorers in the game with 16 points, while Jackson had a good night on both ends with 13 points and six steals.
“That’s what we talked about up at Morrilton,” said Swift. “We got up there, and it was Michael Howard. Mike’s going to be a consistent scorer for us. He can really score. They went to face guarding him tonight. And like I told them, that’s still fine. We still have enough scorers that I don’t think teams are going to be able to do that to us. Any time you take a defensive player out of the mix, it’s always advantage-offense.”
Lonoke’s offense held quite an advantage during the first half, outscoring the Bulldogs 22-10 in the first quarter. The Jackrabbits went on to hold a dominant 49-29 lead at the half, and was one point away from a mercy rule at the 1:19 mark of the third quarter before relieving the starters.
Star City took advantage of the subs’ inexperience, cutting the lead to 73-57 with 2:42 left, which prompted Swift to put his starting five back in for the remainder.
A total of 28 rebounds was enough for Lonoke to win the rebounding battle against the comparably-sized Bulldogs, but not by much. Swift said that is one area in which he and his players are still not on the same page.
“It’s not very good, and that’s a weak spot for us,” he said. “It’s what we talk about every practice. It’s my number-one priority, and I think about their number 10 priority right now, so that’s not a good thing. That’s going to be a work in progress.”
Darius Scott had eight points and five steals for Lonoke. Spencer and Harris also finished with eight points. For Star City, post player Deandra Edwards led with 15 points, with 13 for C.J. Waters and 10 for point guard Issac Hawkins.
Lonoke played host Pulaski Academy last night in the semifinals after Leader deadlines.
SPORTS>> SHARP SHOOTER
By KELLY FENTON
Leader sports editor
Don’t misunderstand him. Joe Foley is really high on junior guard Kim Sitzmann, but the University Arkansas-Little Rock head coach isn’t comparing her to Michael Jordan.
He’s only saying that the great shooters share one thing in common: They all eventually hit a rough patch.
So it was with Sitzmann, the former Cabot High standout who took the Sun Belt Conference by storm two seasons ago by earning Freshman of the Year honors. Seems Sitzmann, a three-point shooting specialist, was struggling with her specialty when the 2008-09 season began last month.
“It was bound to come sooner or later,” said Foley, the Trojans’ head man the past five years who has compiled a 533-150 career record. “All the great shooters, even Michael Jordan, go through that. It’s just part of the game. Sometimes the basket looks real big, sometimes real small.
“It looks real big to Kim right now.”
Big enough that Sitzmann’s 28 points and five three-pointers against Southern Miss and six steals and 13 points on three three-pointers against 17th-ranked Oklahoma State garnered her Sun Belt Player of the Week on Dec. 9.
“That was a complete thrill,” said Sitzmann, whose Trojans (8-2) received votes for the Top 25 for the first time in their history. “I was pretty excited.”
Though she was anything but excited, she never lost her confidence when she came out of the chutes this season averaging just seven points and making only 6 of 20 threes over the first five games of the season. Sitzmann, who led UALR in scoring as a freshman, said she wasn’t looking for her shot all that much in the early going. Her teammates, she said, got on her for not shooting enough.
She responded with a three-game stretch during which she scored 61 points and made 13 of 25 three-pointers. She also snagged 15 steals over that span, two more than she’d recorded through the first five games.
“I wasn’t all that frustrated because I figured the shots would come,” said the 5-10 Sitzmann. “But it feels great to have the shooting slump gone. Hopefully, it stays gone.”
Sitzmann re-emergence just happened to coincide with one of the more remarkable stretches the Trojans have ever enjoyed. After struggling a little early – sneaking by at Grambing by a single point after losing on the road at Southeast Missouri State – UALR ripped off five straight wins, including impressive ones over Rice, Southern Miss, Oklahoma State and Tulsa. On
Thursday, they went on the road and beat Ole Miss.
That win over the Cowgirls, then ranked 17th in the country, put UALR women’s basketball on the map, Sitzmann said.
“Playing a Big 12 school is a big deal,” she said. “We had 1,800 people here and it was great. We didn’t even play all that well and still beat them. They know where Little Rock is now.”
Foley said Sitzmann wasn’t what he would call a “can’t-miss” coming out of Cabot, despite the fact that she averaged 21 points, four assists, six rebounds and three steals in her career there. She was a two-time All-State player and was named All-Conference in all three of her seasons.
SMOOTH TRANSITION
Her sophomore year, she led the Lady Panthers to the 5A state championship game. But Foley said there were nights he came to watch her play when she looked merely like an above-average player.
“You never really know with high school kids,” said Foley, who entered his sixth season at the Trojan helm with a 77-70 record. “Some kids you can say, yeah, she’s going to be a great player. A lot of it is what kind of work habits they have, how much they want to put into the game, whether or not they’re going to be real good players.
“But coming from a real good program like Cabot, you knew she had good work habits. Some nights I’d watch her and think, she’s something special. She’s got that court awareness and coaching ability on the court. That’s something they develop if they have a love for the game.”
That 5A championship game in 2004 is one Sitzmann said she likely won’t ever forget. And not just because she and the Lady Panthers played in front of an Alltel Arena crowd of more than 10,000. She’ll remember it for what might have been. Cabot was whistled for a dubious traveling call late in the contest, missed two free throws that might have iced it, and lost by a single point to Parkview on a last-second rebound basket.
“I think about it all the time,” she said. “We should have had a championship ring.”
Sitzmann said the transition to Division I basketball from high school wasn’t nearly as tough as it might have been. She knew the pace of the game would be quicker, she said, but credits Cabot High School coach Carla Crowder and assistant coach
Charles Ruple for helping to prepare her.
“They’re just amazing,” she said. “Basically when I came up here, I just had to get used to the speed. The transitions are a lot faster and you have to get used to the shot clock.”
Sitzmann served notice from the beginning that she was going to be better than the above-average player Foley witnessed some nights on his recruiting trips to Cabot. Though her first game was against D-II Ouachita Baptist, Sitzmann scored 10 points and grabbed seven steals. Pilferage, along with her trademark sharp shooting, would become her stock in trade as a freshman as she recorded 70 steals to lead UALR.
She followed her debut with 11 points, 10 assists and four steals against Creighton; 14 points, eight assists and three steals versus Southern Arkansas; and 18 points and seven boards against UT-Arlington. Sitzmann was off and running.
Sitzmann garnered Freshman of the Year honors after leading her team with averages of 14.1 points, 4.3 assists and 2.3 steals as UALR compiled a 21-10 record.
Last year, Sitzmann’s average fell off to 12. 4 points but she raised her overall shooting percentage. Sitzmann’s drop off in points, assists and steals can be in part attributed to recovery from surgery for tendenosis in her knee, a disease that blocks the flow of blood to the tendon. Surgery at the end of her freshman season left her out of shape at the start of her sophomore season and she never full recovered. The extra weight slowed her down and limited her effectiveness.
Sitzmann still suffers from the effects of the disease and will likely require more surgery. In the meantime, she is fit and trim and playing through the pain of her knee ailment.
“I’m pretty psyched before games so I generally don’t think about it much,” she said. “And they numb it up. But, yeah, it bothers me. It’s hurting right now.”
SURPRISING START
What makes Sitzmann’s relatively smooth transition to D-I basketball more impressive is that it came while learning one of the most difficult offensive systems – the motion offense.
Indeed, Foley said UALR is one of only a couple of women’s basketball programs that runs the offense whose creation is credited to coaching legend Bobby Knight. And almost no high schools utilize it.
The learning curve for the motion offense is steep and Foley said it usually takes new players a full year to begin to grasp its intricacies.
“We have to do a lot of teaching,” Foley said. “It’s the hardest offense to teach and the hardest to learn. But it’s also the hardest to guard.”
Unlike a standard offense that features set plays, the motion offense is read-and-react, allowing the players more freedom but requiring much more precision and concentration.
“They have to learn how to coach themselves out there,” Foley said. “I’ve never had a freshman that wasn’t frustrated but I’ve never had one that at the end of the year didn’t find it rewarding.”
Sitzmann had 99 turnovers as a freshman in the new offense and cut that back to 72 as a sophomore. Her decision-making and anticipation, both on offense and defense, continue to get better and better, Foley said.
“The thing I see about Kim is, when the game gets tight, you see her come to the front because she has the experience and that maturity,” he said. “Last week against good competition, she really stepped it up.
“She makes crucial steals for us. She’s one of those connivers who may not try to do it every time, but when it hurts you the most she’ll take the heart out of you.”
Sitzmann is one of only three juniors on a team with no seniors, making her a de facto leader, along with fellow junior Anshel Cooper of Marion.
All that youth has Foley scratching his head trying to explain how his Trojans have raced out to such a good start. After that five-game winning streak, the Trojans stumbled in a road loss to Missouri State earlier this week, a team that came into the game with just one win.
But UALR responded with another history-making win on Thursday night, beating its first-ever Southeastern Conference team with a 64-61 overtime victory at Ole Miss.
“This is a schedule we looked at and could see helping us get ready for conference,” said Foley. UALR won its first-ever SBC West Division title and reached the WNIT for the first time last season. “Both Southern Miss and Rice beat us last year and with Oklahoma State we thought, hey, we may lose a little confidence, but we’re also going to figure out what it takes to win.
“It could have been a killer schedule as young as we are, but we also thought we had good athletes and good players. We got a little ahead of schedule.”
SPECIAL SEASON
This year, it was another distraction that may have led to Sitzmann’s slow start. Her mother had been ill in the hospital earlier in the season. She’s better now and Sitzmann hopes she and her father can start coming to her games again.
Todd and Luan Sitzmann, she says, missed only one game prior to this season, whether the Trojans were playing at home or on the road. Todd is retired from the Air Force, giving them the freedom to travel to watch their daughter play.
“They drove to California, they flew to Florida, they go everywhere,” Sitzmann said. “The Southern Miss game my freshman year was the only game they’d missed before this season. I’ve been very fortunate.”
Sitzmann hopes that her folks will be returning to watch a record-breaking season for the Trojans, who, along with Arkansas State, were the preseason picks to win the West Division.
The sting of missing the NCAAs last season when the Trojans lost in the conference tourney semis to Middle Tennessee State, is still there. But Foley said the SBC is starting to gain respect around the country and it is no longer necessary to win the outright tournament title to earn an NCAA bid.
“It’s really political,” he admitted. “There are so many teams on that next tier and sometimes you get in and sometimes you don’t. A couple of years ago, Western Kentucky was 17th in the RPI and didn’t even get in.
“But Middle (Tennessee State) has beaten LSU the last couple of years and we beat Oklahoma State, so we’re starting to get better awareness. We’ve got two kids (from the SBC) playing in the WNBA this year.”
Foley said that, before his team can worry about such things, they need to improve in a lot of areas they’ve been able to cover up by playing at home. Overconfidence, he said, should not be an issue.
For Sitzmann, this season and the next hold much promise.
“This could be a special year,” she said. “We’re young and that will factor into how we finish out. But every year that I’ve been here, we’ve played our best ball in March. We usually start getting pretty good in January. This year, we’re already playing good now.”
Leader sports editor
Don’t misunderstand him. Joe Foley is really high on junior guard Kim Sitzmann, but the University Arkansas-Little Rock head coach isn’t comparing her to Michael Jordan.
He’s only saying that the great shooters share one thing in common: They all eventually hit a rough patch.
So it was with Sitzmann, the former Cabot High standout who took the Sun Belt Conference by storm two seasons ago by earning Freshman of the Year honors. Seems Sitzmann, a three-point shooting specialist, was struggling with her specialty when the 2008-09 season began last month.
“It was bound to come sooner or later,” said Foley, the Trojans’ head man the past five years who has compiled a 533-150 career record. “All the great shooters, even Michael Jordan, go through that. It’s just part of the game. Sometimes the basket looks real big, sometimes real small.
“It looks real big to Kim right now.”
Big enough that Sitzmann’s 28 points and five three-pointers against Southern Miss and six steals and 13 points on three three-pointers against 17th-ranked Oklahoma State garnered her Sun Belt Player of the Week on Dec. 9.
“That was a complete thrill,” said Sitzmann, whose Trojans (8-2) received votes for the Top 25 for the first time in their history. “I was pretty excited.”
Though she was anything but excited, she never lost her confidence when she came out of the chutes this season averaging just seven points and making only 6 of 20 threes over the first five games of the season. Sitzmann, who led UALR in scoring as a freshman, said she wasn’t looking for her shot all that much in the early going. Her teammates, she said, got on her for not shooting enough.
She responded with a three-game stretch during which she scored 61 points and made 13 of 25 three-pointers. She also snagged 15 steals over that span, two more than she’d recorded through the first five games.
“I wasn’t all that frustrated because I figured the shots would come,” said the 5-10 Sitzmann. “But it feels great to have the shooting slump gone. Hopefully, it stays gone.”
Sitzmann re-emergence just happened to coincide with one of the more remarkable stretches the Trojans have ever enjoyed. After struggling a little early – sneaking by at Grambing by a single point after losing on the road at Southeast Missouri State – UALR ripped off five straight wins, including impressive ones over Rice, Southern Miss, Oklahoma State and Tulsa. On
Thursday, they went on the road and beat Ole Miss.
That win over the Cowgirls, then ranked 17th in the country, put UALR women’s basketball on the map, Sitzmann said.
“Playing a Big 12 school is a big deal,” she said. “We had 1,800 people here and it was great. We didn’t even play all that well and still beat them. They know where Little Rock is now.”
Foley said Sitzmann wasn’t what he would call a “can’t-miss” coming out of Cabot, despite the fact that she averaged 21 points, four assists, six rebounds and three steals in her career there. She was a two-time All-State player and was named All-Conference in all three of her seasons.
SMOOTH TRANSITION
Her sophomore year, she led the Lady Panthers to the 5A state championship game. But Foley said there were nights he came to watch her play when she looked merely like an above-average player.
“You never really know with high school kids,” said Foley, who entered his sixth season at the Trojan helm with a 77-70 record. “Some kids you can say, yeah, she’s going to be a great player. A lot of it is what kind of work habits they have, how much they want to put into the game, whether or not they’re going to be real good players.
“But coming from a real good program like Cabot, you knew she had good work habits. Some nights I’d watch her and think, she’s something special. She’s got that court awareness and coaching ability on the court. That’s something they develop if they have a love for the game.”
That 5A championship game in 2004 is one Sitzmann said she likely won’t ever forget. And not just because she and the Lady Panthers played in front of an Alltel Arena crowd of more than 10,000. She’ll remember it for what might have been. Cabot was whistled for a dubious traveling call late in the contest, missed two free throws that might have iced it, and lost by a single point to Parkview on a last-second rebound basket.
“I think about it all the time,” she said. “We should have had a championship ring.”
Sitzmann said the transition to Division I basketball from high school wasn’t nearly as tough as it might have been. She knew the pace of the game would be quicker, she said, but credits Cabot High School coach Carla Crowder and assistant coach
Charles Ruple for helping to prepare her.
“They’re just amazing,” she said. “Basically when I came up here, I just had to get used to the speed. The transitions are a lot faster and you have to get used to the shot clock.”
Sitzmann served notice from the beginning that she was going to be better than the above-average player Foley witnessed some nights on his recruiting trips to Cabot. Though her first game was against D-II Ouachita Baptist, Sitzmann scored 10 points and grabbed seven steals. Pilferage, along with her trademark sharp shooting, would become her stock in trade as a freshman as she recorded 70 steals to lead UALR.
She followed her debut with 11 points, 10 assists and four steals against Creighton; 14 points, eight assists and three steals versus Southern Arkansas; and 18 points and seven boards against UT-Arlington. Sitzmann was off and running.
Sitzmann garnered Freshman of the Year honors after leading her team with averages of 14.1 points, 4.3 assists and 2.3 steals as UALR compiled a 21-10 record.
Last year, Sitzmann’s average fell off to 12. 4 points but she raised her overall shooting percentage. Sitzmann’s drop off in points, assists and steals can be in part attributed to recovery from surgery for tendenosis in her knee, a disease that blocks the flow of blood to the tendon. Surgery at the end of her freshman season left her out of shape at the start of her sophomore season and she never full recovered. The extra weight slowed her down and limited her effectiveness.
Sitzmann still suffers from the effects of the disease and will likely require more surgery. In the meantime, she is fit and trim and playing through the pain of her knee ailment.
“I’m pretty psyched before games so I generally don’t think about it much,” she said. “And they numb it up. But, yeah, it bothers me. It’s hurting right now.”
SURPRISING START
What makes Sitzmann’s relatively smooth transition to D-I basketball more impressive is that it came while learning one of the most difficult offensive systems – the motion offense.
Indeed, Foley said UALR is one of only a couple of women’s basketball programs that runs the offense whose creation is credited to coaching legend Bobby Knight. And almost no high schools utilize it.
The learning curve for the motion offense is steep and Foley said it usually takes new players a full year to begin to grasp its intricacies.
“We have to do a lot of teaching,” Foley said. “It’s the hardest offense to teach and the hardest to learn. But it’s also the hardest to guard.”
Unlike a standard offense that features set plays, the motion offense is read-and-react, allowing the players more freedom but requiring much more precision and concentration.
“They have to learn how to coach themselves out there,” Foley said. “I’ve never had a freshman that wasn’t frustrated but I’ve never had one that at the end of the year didn’t find it rewarding.”
Sitzmann had 99 turnovers as a freshman in the new offense and cut that back to 72 as a sophomore. Her decision-making and anticipation, both on offense and defense, continue to get better and better, Foley said.
“The thing I see about Kim is, when the game gets tight, you see her come to the front because she has the experience and that maturity,” he said. “Last week against good competition, she really stepped it up.
“She makes crucial steals for us. She’s one of those connivers who may not try to do it every time, but when it hurts you the most she’ll take the heart out of you.”
Sitzmann is one of only three juniors on a team with no seniors, making her a de facto leader, along with fellow junior Anshel Cooper of Marion.
All that youth has Foley scratching his head trying to explain how his Trojans have raced out to such a good start. After that five-game winning streak, the Trojans stumbled in a road loss to Missouri State earlier this week, a team that came into the game with just one win.
But UALR responded with another history-making win on Thursday night, beating its first-ever Southeastern Conference team with a 64-61 overtime victory at Ole Miss.
“This is a schedule we looked at and could see helping us get ready for conference,” said Foley. UALR won its first-ever SBC West Division title and reached the WNIT for the first time last season. “Both Southern Miss and Rice beat us last year and with Oklahoma State we thought, hey, we may lose a little confidence, but we’re also going to figure out what it takes to win.
“It could have been a killer schedule as young as we are, but we also thought we had good athletes and good players. We got a little ahead of schedule.”
SPECIAL SEASON
This year, it was another distraction that may have led to Sitzmann’s slow start. Her mother had been ill in the hospital earlier in the season. She’s better now and Sitzmann hopes she and her father can start coming to her games again.
Todd and Luan Sitzmann, she says, missed only one game prior to this season, whether the Trojans were playing at home or on the road. Todd is retired from the Air Force, giving them the freedom to travel to watch their daughter play.
“They drove to California, they flew to Florida, they go everywhere,” Sitzmann said. “The Southern Miss game my freshman year was the only game they’d missed before this season. I’ve been very fortunate.”
Sitzmann hopes that her folks will be returning to watch a record-breaking season for the Trojans, who, along with Arkansas State, were the preseason picks to win the West Division.
The sting of missing the NCAAs last season when the Trojans lost in the conference tourney semis to Middle Tennessee State, is still there. But Foley said the SBC is starting to gain respect around the country and it is no longer necessary to win the outright tournament title to earn an NCAA bid.
“It’s really political,” he admitted. “There are so many teams on that next tier and sometimes you get in and sometimes you don’t. A couple of years ago, Western Kentucky was 17th in the RPI and didn’t even get in.
“But Middle (Tennessee State) has beaten LSU the last couple of years and we beat Oklahoma State, so we’re starting to get better awareness. We’ve got two kids (from the SBC) playing in the WNBA this year.”
Foley said that, before his team can worry about such things, they need to improve in a lot of areas they’ve been able to cover up by playing at home. Overconfidence, he said, should not be an issue.
For Sitzmann, this season and the next hold much promise.
“This could be a special year,” she said. “We’re young and that will factor into how we finish out. But every year that I’ve been here, we’ve played our best ball in March. We usually start getting pretty good in January. This year, we’re already playing good now.”
SPORTS>> Falcons starting strong
By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Fourth-year North Pulaski High School coach Raymond Cooper has been busy building a powerhouse program since his arrival at the school in 2005. For a school not known for its athletic prowess, the Falcon basketball team has a chance this season to be among the best in Class 5A.
The tradition began under current Jacksonville head coach Vic Joyner, who coached current University of Arkansas-Little Rock guard Steven Moore when the two were at North Pulaski four years ago.
After narrowly missing the playoffs last season, the Falcons are off to a solid start this year, winning their first seven games before suffering a pair of setbacks in the Wampus Cat Invitational tournament in Conway last week.
Those two losses came at the hands of Conway, last year’s 7A runner up, and local rival Jacksonville in the third-place final.
Strong shooting and full-court pressure serve as the Falcons’ calling cards, along with enough depth to allow for near limitless substitution.
“It’s pretty unique in that we have a lot of skill guys, which makes it fun to coach them,” said Cooper (40-45 record at NP). “But it’s also a double-edged sword because we have a weakness in that we don’t have a lot of inside presence offensively. But we’ve tried to do unique things to try and get easy baskets with penetration and defense, which makes the game up-tempo.”
The strength and weaknesses of the Falcons can be summed up by their post position, which is shared by senior Carlos Donley and sophomore Brian Coulson. Strength, in that Donley is one of only two seniors on the team that will be lost at the end of the season. Weakness, in that they are the only two players on the team that exceed 6-2.
“Brian Coulson is a sophomore who has come in and played a lot of minutes,” Cooper said. “He’s learning, he’s playing hard, and between him and Carlos, we kind of look at them as one guy.
“Their numbers by themselves may not look that great, but we want them to have a double-double between the two of them.
By them subbing for each other, that allows them to play harder. That’s the strategy we’re looking at with them. One of them may not stand out alone, but the two of them together, we think they can do a good job.”
That lack of height does not translate into timidness on the court. In fact, the Falcons’ smallest player, 5-0 junior guard Joe
Agee, is their hardest-nosed. Agee gives up more than a foot of height to his opponent on most nights, but that hasn’t deterred him from emerging as a team leader this year.
“I wish we had everybody come out with his intensity,” Cooper said. “Even in the Conway game, he comes out with that kind of intensity. I can’t say enough about him. A lot of the things he does emotionally, a lot of the things he does as a leader, a lot of the things he does defensively – small things like diving on the floor, and he doesn’t mind mixing it up with big guys.
“He’s a dream to coach because he’s the same way in practice every day. I’d take one of him every year.”
What the Falcons may lack in overall size, they compensate for in depth. Of the 14 players listed on the roster, 10 have seen significant playing time in most of the games.
The talent is abundant, especially when it comes to the duo of juniors Daquan Bryant and Aaron Cooper, the coach’s son.
Aaron is the second of Cooper’s sons to play for him. Quinn, now a sophomore at Lyon College, was a team captain for the first two years of Ray Cooper’s tenure.
Aaron leads the team in scoring with 19.4 points per game, accounting for almost a third of the Falcons’ total points. Bryant is next with an 11.5 average, and is the leading rebounder with 6.5 per game.
“Numbers-wise and production-wise, they’ve done well,” Cooper said. “I’m trying to get them both to take a step and be a little more like Joe, because Joe’s more vocal. He really wears his heart on his sleeve, and he goes out there and lays it all on
the line.
“Aaron has stepped up some and become more vocal. Neither one of them are real emotional kind of kids, they’re just kind of even keel.”
This season will be the first year back in the 5A Southeast Conference after spending two years in the 5A East. The Southeast has some strong contenders in Little Rock McClellan local foe Sylvan Hills, but may not be as tough throughout as the East, according to Cooper.
“I look at it as at the top, it’s tough,” Cooper said. “And the thing about the 5A East was, it was tough from top to bottom.
Even some of the bottom teams, especially going to their home courts were really, really tough. I’m not sure that this conference has quite the balance that it had.”
Of all the potential new rivals, it will be hard for any to match that of their hometown 6A rivals Jacksonville. The two teams face off at least four scheduled times each year, in addition to chance meetings in tournaments.
The two schools have battled twice already, splitting the first two games. The Falcons took the first game 49-43 in late November before Jacksonville got its revenge in a 57-51 win in Conway. The two teams were set for a third meeting last night, this time at the Falcons’ Nest, North Pulaski’s home gym.
“I thought the Jacksonville game was probably the best game for us,” Cooper said. “We had to win in a different kind of way.
And we won it in a hostile environment, plus Jacksonville is traditionally a good team, and they’re a perennial playoff team. We get tired of playing each other, but in the long run, I think it’s good for both of us.
“In the 5A, we won’t face a team that is as athletic, or have the size across the board as Jacksonville does. So it helps us prepare for those games on the road in the conference and hopefully, it prepares us for those tougher teams in the tournaments.”
Cooper is aware of the school’s struggles athletically and takes it all in stride. He said he hopes that his team’s success can spill into other sports.
“I welcome that, because I think North Pulaski is a good school,” Cooper said. “And we’re striving as an athletic program to do things and to get better.
“We don’t consider ourselves as carrying the banner for the school, we’re just doing the best we can to do our part. And we think that our other programs are coming along, and we’re all going to do better.
“Our administration has been committed, and has done things to try and better the program as a whole.”
Leader sportswriter
Fourth-year North Pulaski High School coach Raymond Cooper has been busy building a powerhouse program since his arrival at the school in 2005. For a school not known for its athletic prowess, the Falcon basketball team has a chance this season to be among the best in Class 5A.
The tradition began under current Jacksonville head coach Vic Joyner, who coached current University of Arkansas-Little Rock guard Steven Moore when the two were at North Pulaski four years ago.
After narrowly missing the playoffs last season, the Falcons are off to a solid start this year, winning their first seven games before suffering a pair of setbacks in the Wampus Cat Invitational tournament in Conway last week.
Those two losses came at the hands of Conway, last year’s 7A runner up, and local rival Jacksonville in the third-place final.
Strong shooting and full-court pressure serve as the Falcons’ calling cards, along with enough depth to allow for near limitless substitution.
“It’s pretty unique in that we have a lot of skill guys, which makes it fun to coach them,” said Cooper (40-45 record at NP). “But it’s also a double-edged sword because we have a weakness in that we don’t have a lot of inside presence offensively. But we’ve tried to do unique things to try and get easy baskets with penetration and defense, which makes the game up-tempo.”
The strength and weaknesses of the Falcons can be summed up by their post position, which is shared by senior Carlos Donley and sophomore Brian Coulson. Strength, in that Donley is one of only two seniors on the team that will be lost at the end of the season. Weakness, in that they are the only two players on the team that exceed 6-2.
“Brian Coulson is a sophomore who has come in and played a lot of minutes,” Cooper said. “He’s learning, he’s playing hard, and between him and Carlos, we kind of look at them as one guy.
“Their numbers by themselves may not look that great, but we want them to have a double-double between the two of them.
By them subbing for each other, that allows them to play harder. That’s the strategy we’re looking at with them. One of them may not stand out alone, but the two of them together, we think they can do a good job.”
That lack of height does not translate into timidness on the court. In fact, the Falcons’ smallest player, 5-0 junior guard Joe
Agee, is their hardest-nosed. Agee gives up more than a foot of height to his opponent on most nights, but that hasn’t deterred him from emerging as a team leader this year.
“I wish we had everybody come out with his intensity,” Cooper said. “Even in the Conway game, he comes out with that kind of intensity. I can’t say enough about him. A lot of the things he does emotionally, a lot of the things he does as a leader, a lot of the things he does defensively – small things like diving on the floor, and he doesn’t mind mixing it up with big guys.
“He’s a dream to coach because he’s the same way in practice every day. I’d take one of him every year.”
What the Falcons may lack in overall size, they compensate for in depth. Of the 14 players listed on the roster, 10 have seen significant playing time in most of the games.
The talent is abundant, especially when it comes to the duo of juniors Daquan Bryant and Aaron Cooper, the coach’s son.
Aaron is the second of Cooper’s sons to play for him. Quinn, now a sophomore at Lyon College, was a team captain for the first two years of Ray Cooper’s tenure.
Aaron leads the team in scoring with 19.4 points per game, accounting for almost a third of the Falcons’ total points. Bryant is next with an 11.5 average, and is the leading rebounder with 6.5 per game.
“Numbers-wise and production-wise, they’ve done well,” Cooper said. “I’m trying to get them both to take a step and be a little more like Joe, because Joe’s more vocal. He really wears his heart on his sleeve, and he goes out there and lays it all on
the line.
“Aaron has stepped up some and become more vocal. Neither one of them are real emotional kind of kids, they’re just kind of even keel.”
This season will be the first year back in the 5A Southeast Conference after spending two years in the 5A East. The Southeast has some strong contenders in Little Rock McClellan local foe Sylvan Hills, but may not be as tough throughout as the East, according to Cooper.
“I look at it as at the top, it’s tough,” Cooper said. “And the thing about the 5A East was, it was tough from top to bottom.
Even some of the bottom teams, especially going to their home courts were really, really tough. I’m not sure that this conference has quite the balance that it had.”
Of all the potential new rivals, it will be hard for any to match that of their hometown 6A rivals Jacksonville. The two teams face off at least four scheduled times each year, in addition to chance meetings in tournaments.
The two schools have battled twice already, splitting the first two games. The Falcons took the first game 49-43 in late November before Jacksonville got its revenge in a 57-51 win in Conway. The two teams were set for a third meeting last night, this time at the Falcons’ Nest, North Pulaski’s home gym.
“I thought the Jacksonville game was probably the best game for us,” Cooper said. “We had to win in a different kind of way.
And we won it in a hostile environment, plus Jacksonville is traditionally a good team, and they’re a perennial playoff team. We get tired of playing each other, but in the long run, I think it’s good for both of us.
“In the 5A, we won’t face a team that is as athletic, or have the size across the board as Jacksonville does. So it helps us prepare for those games on the road in the conference and hopefully, it prepares us for those tougher teams in the tournaments.”
Cooper is aware of the school’s struggles athletically and takes it all in stride. He said he hopes that his team’s success can spill into other sports.
“I welcome that, because I think North Pulaski is a good school,” Cooper said. “And we’re striving as an athletic program to do things and to get better.
“We don’t consider ourselves as carrying the banner for the school, we’re just doing the best we can to do our part. And we think that our other programs are coming along, and we’re all going to do better.
“Our administration has been committed, and has done things to try and better the program as a whole.”
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
EDITORIAL > > Justices make wrong call
Sometimes the law is just too clear for clear-eyed judges to see. The solemn delegates who wrote the state’s Constitution in 1874 as the state was emerging from Reconstruction were usually plainspoken men who left ambiguity to those who would later write the amendments changing their work. They were not always farsighted or wise, but they were almost always clear.
They were clear when they drafted a sentence requiring public officials to take bids on major public works like buildings and bridges and to give contracts for the work to those who submitted the lowest responsible bids. Thursday, the Arkansas Supreme Court said the authors did not mean to do that. The drafters wanted it to apply only to county governments, the justices said. Everyone else in government — state, city and school officials — presumably could be trusted to be honest and economical with the taxpayers’ money, but county government officials were obliged to strictly follow prudent contracting policies.
Thus, all state agencies can hand construction contracts valued at more than $5 million to their favorite builder — maybe businessmen who are politically matched with the administration — without taking bids. The legislature and Gov. Mike Huckabee changed the law in 2001 to end the requirement of competitive bids. Too cumbersome, too confining, they said. It is better, they said, to negotiate a contract privately with a preferred builder.
Since then, nearly all state building contracts have gone to four big construction companies. We have no way of knowing whether the taxpayers got their dollar’s worth. Some contractors sued on the ground that the Constitution required bids.
This is what it says: “All contracts for erecting or repairing public buildings or bridges in any county, or for materials therefore, or for providing for the care and keeping of paupers where there are no alms houses, shall be given to the lowest responsible bidder under such regulations as may be provided by law.”
The argument was over the words “in any county.” The justices wrote that those words clearly meant that the framers of the Constitution intended it to apply only to county governments.
But that is not what it says. It says bids are required on any public building or bridge in any of the 75 counties. If it meant buildings built by the county government it would have said so.
If the bidding applied only to county government, the section would have appeared in the county government article of the Constitution, where all the other specifications for county government are lodged. Instead, it appears in the Miscellaneous section at the end of the Consti-tution. All the provisions under Miscellaneous apply to the whole state and to the state government. The provision right above it requires bids to be taken on all contracts for state printing. It is a requirement for the state government, not counties. The other 26 sections of the Miscellaneous article all apply to the state government, though a few apply to counties and cities, too, as clearly the public buildings and bridges section was supposed to do.
History also does not support the court’s theory. The delegates who assembled to write a new Constitution to throw off the shackles of the Reconstruction law had an overweening fear of state executive power because they had seen rampant corruption and abuse by the Reconstruction Republican government. Throughout the document, including its miscellaneous provisions, that fear guided the delegates’ work. They intended to rein in those abuses by providing checks and confining the executive branch’s prerogatives. Competitive bidding was one of the weapons.
Sometimes they went too far and hamstrung government’s ability to meet the changing needs of the people. But the requirement of competitive bidding is not such an instance. That prudence is as valuable today as it was in 1874.
Governments now say bidding is just too time-consuming and complicated and that it ties their hands. We need to look no further than the mammoth waste and fraud in the awarding of no-bid contracts for war support in Iraq, all given to friendly businesses.
This case is reversed and remanded with instructions to follow the Constitution.
They were clear when they drafted a sentence requiring public officials to take bids on major public works like buildings and bridges and to give contracts for the work to those who submitted the lowest responsible bids. Thursday, the Arkansas Supreme Court said the authors did not mean to do that. The drafters wanted it to apply only to county governments, the justices said. Everyone else in government — state, city and school officials — presumably could be trusted to be honest and economical with the taxpayers’ money, but county government officials were obliged to strictly follow prudent contracting policies.
Thus, all state agencies can hand construction contracts valued at more than $5 million to their favorite builder — maybe businessmen who are politically matched with the administration — without taking bids. The legislature and Gov. Mike Huckabee changed the law in 2001 to end the requirement of competitive bids. Too cumbersome, too confining, they said. It is better, they said, to negotiate a contract privately with a preferred builder.
Since then, nearly all state building contracts have gone to four big construction companies. We have no way of knowing whether the taxpayers got their dollar’s worth. Some contractors sued on the ground that the Constitution required bids.
This is what it says: “All contracts for erecting or repairing public buildings or bridges in any county, or for materials therefore, or for providing for the care and keeping of paupers where there are no alms houses, shall be given to the lowest responsible bidder under such regulations as may be provided by law.”
The argument was over the words “in any county.” The justices wrote that those words clearly meant that the framers of the Constitution intended it to apply only to county governments.
But that is not what it says. It says bids are required on any public building or bridge in any of the 75 counties. If it meant buildings built by the county government it would have said so.
If the bidding applied only to county government, the section would have appeared in the county government article of the Constitution, where all the other specifications for county government are lodged. Instead, it appears in the Miscellaneous section at the end of the Consti-tution. All the provisions under Miscellaneous apply to the whole state and to the state government. The provision right above it requires bids to be taken on all contracts for state printing. It is a requirement for the state government, not counties. The other 26 sections of the Miscellaneous article all apply to the state government, though a few apply to counties and cities, too, as clearly the public buildings and bridges section was supposed to do.
History also does not support the court’s theory. The delegates who assembled to write a new Constitution to throw off the shackles of the Reconstruction law had an overweening fear of state executive power because they had seen rampant corruption and abuse by the Reconstruction Republican government. Throughout the document, including its miscellaneous provisions, that fear guided the delegates’ work. They intended to rein in those abuses by providing checks and confining the executive branch’s prerogatives. Competitive bidding was one of the weapons.
Sometimes they went too far and hamstrung government’s ability to meet the changing needs of the people. But the requirement of competitive bidding is not such an instance. That prudence is as valuable today as it was in 1874.
Governments now say bidding is just too time-consuming and complicated and that it ties their hands. We need to look no further than the mammoth waste and fraud in the awarding of no-bid contracts for war support in Iraq, all given to friendly businesses.
This case is reversed and remanded with instructions to follow the Constitution.
TOP STORY > > Construction set for base exchange
Baggette Construction Inc. of Decatur, Ill., broke ground last week at Little Rock Air Force Base on a new $22.3 million base exchange.
The new base exchange will be located next to the existing commissary, according to Brig. Gen. Rowayne Schatz, commander of the 19th Airlift Wing at the base. The project is being funded by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service. Construction is slated to begin in January and the project should be completed by summer 2010.
The facility features an additional 48,000 square feet to account for an assortment of new dining choices and a larger merchandise selection, according to Pam Honor, Little Rock AFB Exchange general manager.
Alan Thurston, Baggette Con-struction project manager, said plans call for using local companies as much as possible for subcontracting. “We’re pleased with the project and looking forward to working with the base, community and AAFES,” added Thurston.
The current base exchange building will be converted for another use, perhaps as a base library, Schatz said.
Work could also begin this summer on the long-sought $14.8 million Joint Education Center, a partnership between the air base and the city of Jacksonville.
Jacksonville residents taxed themselves $5 million to help provide a new, updated building for the college, outside the base perimeter.
The new base exchange will be located next to the existing commissary, according to Brig. Gen. Rowayne Schatz, commander of the 19th Airlift Wing at the base. The project is being funded by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service. Construction is slated to begin in January and the project should be completed by summer 2010.
The facility features an additional 48,000 square feet to account for an assortment of new dining choices and a larger merchandise selection, according to Pam Honor, Little Rock AFB Exchange general manager.
Alan Thurston, Baggette Con-struction project manager, said plans call for using local companies as much as possible for subcontracting. “We’re pleased with the project and looking forward to working with the base, community and AAFES,” added Thurston.
The current base exchange building will be converted for another use, perhaps as a base library, Schatz said.
Work could also begin this summer on the long-sought $14.8 million Joint Education Center, a partnership between the air base and the city of Jacksonville.
Jacksonville residents taxed themselves $5 million to help provide a new, updated building for the college, outside the base perimeter.
TOP STORY > > Young pastor leads Jacksonville church
Nick Bumgardner, the new pastor at North Jacksonville Missionary Baptist Church, is ready to put down roots. Although not yet 30 years old, Bumgardner has a decade of pastoring behind him. He is also a family man, with a wife and four children, ranging in age from 5 years down to 11 months. A Benton native, he has been away from Arkansas for six years. He is glad to be back in his home state.
Bumgardner is close to the same age as when his predecessor, Pastor Lyndon Whitledge, who retired this fall, took the helm of the church.
The first Sunday that Bumgard-ner delivered a sermon at North Jacksonville Missionary Baptist Church marked 42 years to the day that Whitledge, then 26, started at the church. To Bumgardner, the prospect of a similarly long tenure suits him just fine.
“My desire would be to see my kids grow up here, get married, have a family and see their kids raised here, too. If I am here 42 years, great, or longer, great.”
The two pastors have already settled into an easy rapport. Bumgardner is glad too that Whitledge is staying involved with the doings of the church, and the two seem comfortable with their respective roles on Sunday mornings.
“On Sundays, he gets to relax,” Bumgardner says. “He’s ready for it to be someone else’s turn.”
A lifetime of experience prepared the young minister for his new post. Reared in the same denomination that he now serves, he was saved at age 7 and enjoyed family life that revolved around the church. But like many adolescents, he drifted away from his faith to see if that was any better.
“I grew up in the church and everything was pretty much normal, until age 16 or 17, when I tried to get away from the church to experience other things in life,” Bumgardner said.
The sudden death of the 14-old-year brother of a close friend made Bumgardner re-evaluate his life and what gave it meaning. He regretted having never shared anything about God with his now-deceased friend or the boy’s family. How he related to the people in his life changed from that point forward.
“I started ministering to them; I let them know what the Lord has done for me,” he said. “I started looking at things differently. I realized that there are opportunities to do God’s work all around us, but we have to be willing to do it.”
A year later, at church camp, Bumgardner dedicated his life to God and has never looked back.
“I made a commitment to God to do exactly what He wanted me to do with my life, to pastor His churches,” he said.
A year later, still a teenager, he started looking for a church to pastor. Connections through Missionary Baptist Seminary in Little Rock directed him to a church in Alma, one of appropriate size for a novice preacher.
The congregation numbered no more than 20. He stayed with that church more than two years.
Since leaving at the end of 2002, the young pastor has led three more churches, each congregation larger than the one before – in Slidell, La.; Jerome, Idaho, and most recently, Greenville, Miss.
During those years of gaining practical experience as a pastor, Bumgardner earned a bachelor’s degree in theology from Missionary Baptist Seminary and is now working on a master’s degree in theology from Oxford Baptist Institute, in Oxford, Miss.
Bumgardner is clear about the purpose he is to fulfill at his new church.
“The reason I am here is to reach out to assist in anyway that I can to those who are in Jacksonville, Cabot and the area around, to try to minister to them, to let them know that the Lord has done for me,” he said.
When pressed for specifics, Bumgardner recounted the story of a young woman from his hometown whose life is joined with his by their shared faith and an experience of the miraculous.
When doctors told her that she had advanced ovarian cancer, she and fellow Christians, including Bumgardner, were steadfast in their confidence that God would restore her health.
Going into surgery, her prognosis was grim, but when she awoke from the operation, her doctors told her they had no scientific explanation for the puzzling findings. The workings of a higher power they acknowledged was the only explanation for the mere trace of cancer they had found.
“I got to be part of that, to pray with her, to stay with her, encourage her and help out,” Bumgardner said. “But in return, she got to teach us how important faith is.”
Jacksonville Missionary Bible Church is a place where people can find acceptance and love, Bumgardner says. A focus on youth will be a priority, to create a haven for young people, where they feel comfortable and a part of things.
“People are looking for something where they can be loved and connected through, a place where they can come and be part of a family,” he said.
Bumgardner is close to the same age as when his predecessor, Pastor Lyndon Whitledge, who retired this fall, took the helm of the church.
The first Sunday that Bumgard-ner delivered a sermon at North Jacksonville Missionary Baptist Church marked 42 years to the day that Whitledge, then 26, started at the church. To Bumgardner, the prospect of a similarly long tenure suits him just fine.
“My desire would be to see my kids grow up here, get married, have a family and see their kids raised here, too. If I am here 42 years, great, or longer, great.”
The two pastors have already settled into an easy rapport. Bumgardner is glad too that Whitledge is staying involved with the doings of the church, and the two seem comfortable with their respective roles on Sunday mornings.
“On Sundays, he gets to relax,” Bumgardner says. “He’s ready for it to be someone else’s turn.”
A lifetime of experience prepared the young minister for his new post. Reared in the same denomination that he now serves, he was saved at age 7 and enjoyed family life that revolved around the church. But like many adolescents, he drifted away from his faith to see if that was any better.
“I grew up in the church and everything was pretty much normal, until age 16 or 17, when I tried to get away from the church to experience other things in life,” Bumgardner said.
The sudden death of the 14-old-year brother of a close friend made Bumgardner re-evaluate his life and what gave it meaning. He regretted having never shared anything about God with his now-deceased friend or the boy’s family. How he related to the people in his life changed from that point forward.
“I started ministering to them; I let them know what the Lord has done for me,” he said. “I started looking at things differently. I realized that there are opportunities to do God’s work all around us, but we have to be willing to do it.”
A year later, at church camp, Bumgardner dedicated his life to God and has never looked back.
“I made a commitment to God to do exactly what He wanted me to do with my life, to pastor His churches,” he said.
A year later, still a teenager, he started looking for a church to pastor. Connections through Missionary Baptist Seminary in Little Rock directed him to a church in Alma, one of appropriate size for a novice preacher.
The congregation numbered no more than 20. He stayed with that church more than two years.
Since leaving at the end of 2002, the young pastor has led three more churches, each congregation larger than the one before – in Slidell, La.; Jerome, Idaho, and most recently, Greenville, Miss.
During those years of gaining practical experience as a pastor, Bumgardner earned a bachelor’s degree in theology from Missionary Baptist Seminary and is now working on a master’s degree in theology from Oxford Baptist Institute, in Oxford, Miss.
Bumgardner is clear about the purpose he is to fulfill at his new church.
“The reason I am here is to reach out to assist in anyway that I can to those who are in Jacksonville, Cabot and the area around, to try to minister to them, to let them know that the Lord has done for me,” he said.
When pressed for specifics, Bumgardner recounted the story of a young woman from his hometown whose life is joined with his by their shared faith and an experience of the miraculous.
When doctors told her that she had advanced ovarian cancer, she and fellow Christians, including Bumgardner, were steadfast in their confidence that God would restore her health.
Going into surgery, her prognosis was grim, but when she awoke from the operation, her doctors told her they had no scientific explanation for the puzzling findings. The workings of a higher power they acknowledged was the only explanation for the mere trace of cancer they had found.
“I got to be part of that, to pray with her, to stay with her, encourage her and help out,” Bumgardner said. “But in return, she got to teach us how important faith is.”
Jacksonville Missionary Bible Church is a place where people can find acceptance and love, Bumgardner says. A focus on youth will be a priority, to create a haven for young people, where they feel comfortable and a part of things.
“People are looking for something where they can be loved and connected through, a place where they can come and be part of a family,” he said.
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