Arkansas Times | May 2023

SANDERS SACRIFICES HER HOME STATE FOR NATIONAL NOTORIETY.

BY LINDSEY MILLAR AND AUSTIN BAILEY

RIGHT

So you said in an executive order. Why, then, are you using your civil o ce to indoctrinate Arkansas students with your religious and white Christian nationalist views?

Governor, stop your culture war:

• Censoring books, free inquiry, classroom discussion and even acknowledgment of gender, sexual orientation, race and Black American history.

• Defunding the symbol of our democracy — public schools — to bene t religious schools.

Your voucher scheme will destroy Arkansas public schools. Your universal voucher program will siphon public dollars from Arkansas public schools to pay for private (mostly religious) schools, which specialize in indoctrination. You will divert public resources to schools that aren’t accountable to taxpayers or even required to accept all students. e outrageous cost to Arkansas taxpayers is projected to reach $343 million by the second year. How will our public schools survive this assault?

‘Schools must educate, not indoctrinate.’ JOIN FFRF

Arkansas freethinkers, ght back! Help the Freedom From Religion Foundation keep government and public schools free from religious control, indoctrination and censorship. FFRF is currently suing to remove a monument to the biblical Ten Commandments on Capitol grounds because the state of Arkansas has no business telling citizens which gods to have, how many gods to have or whether to have any gods at all. rf.us/arkansas

1.800.335.4021

Or ask for information, including a sample of our newspaper, Freethought Today

BUNCOMBE COUNTY

ROCK: Asheville, North Carolina, band Wednesday lands at Stickyz this month (page 18).

FEATURES

23 THE SARAH EFFECT

How Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders et al. managed to wreck things for Arkansans in under 100 days.

By Austin Bailey and Lindsey Millar

31 ACADEMIC ALL-STARS

Meet 20 Arkansas high school seniors excelling in their studies and making the future look a little brighter.

9 THE FRONT

From the Farm: Haunting history from an old homestead.

Q&A: With TikTok scholar Ashley Clayborn.

Big Pic: Meet Arkansas's roster of nepo babies.

17 THE TO-DO LIST

Author Monica Potts at Potluck and Poison Ivy, Bright Eyes at The Hall, world premieres from Ballet Arkansas, the Freshgrass Music Festival, "F for Fake" at the Arkansas Times Film Series and more.

55 CULTURE

A broad look at the grand reopening of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, including a Q&A with Executive Director Victoria Ramirez and Curator Theresa Bembnister.

By Daniel Grear

62 CULTURE

On Jude Brothers' searingly honest sophomore album.

By Daniel Grear

67 FOOD & DRINK

Why does chef Peter Brave feel so sanguine about leaving his prized kitchen to go cross-country cycling? The answer: Ben Lindley.

By Rhett Brinkley

72 HISTORY

The World War II Japanese Internment Museum remembers Rohwer.

By Correne Spero

76 CANNABIZ

What Delta-8 is, and why the legislature decided to ban it.

By Griffin Coop

82 THE OBSERVER

Drink your V8 (unless you're The Observer).

ZACHARY CHICK

Marijuana is for use by qualified patients only. Keep out of reach of children. Marijuana use during pregnancy or breastfeeding poses potential harms. Marijuana is not approved by the FDA to treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Do not operate a vechicle or machinery under the influence of marijuana.

march aT dogToWn Tavern: FOOD FOOD

Foosball league + Pool league Tuesdays & Wednesdays (sign uP aPa WebsiTe) + Poker league Tuesdays & Thursdays

serviceman (hero) discounTs (FirsT resPonders, miliTary, Police & Fire)

oPen Tuesday-sunday 10:30-10 Pm

FOOD

PUBLISHER Alan Leveritt

EDITOR Lindsey Millar

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mandy Keener

SENIOR EDITOR Max Brantley

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Austin Bailey

MANAGING EDITOR Stephanie Smittle

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rhett Brinkley

CANNABIZ EDITOR Griffin Coop

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Daniel Grear

REPORTER Mary Hennigan

REPORTER Debra Hale-Shelton

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Mara Leveritt

PHOTOGRAPHER Brian Chilson

DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL STRATEGY Jordan Little

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Wythe Walker

ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR Mike Spain

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Sarah Holderfield

DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING

Phyllis A. Britton

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Lee Major, Evan Ethridge

Terrell Jacob and Kaitlyn Looney

ADVERTISING TRAFFIC MANAGER Roland R. Gladden

IT DIRECTOR Robert Curfman

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Jackson Gladden

CONTROLLER Weldon Wilson

BILLING/COLLECTIONS Charlotte Key

PRODUCTION MANAGER Ira Hocut (1954-2009) association

VOLUME 49, ISSUE 9

return postage

a

included. All materials are handled with due care; however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for care and safe return of unsolicited materials. All letters sent to ARKANSAS TIMES will be treated as intended for publication and are subject to ARKANSAS TIMES’ unrestricted right to edit or to comment editorially.

stamped

©2023 ARKANSAS TIMES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP

VISIT ARKANSAS IN COMFORT

HAMPTON INN & SUITES CONWAY

2400 Sanders Road Conway, AR 72032 501-327-0200 conwayar.hamptonbyhilton.com

• Just off I-40 near Hendrix College and UCA

• Large contemporary rooms and suites

• Breakfast included

• Large indoor pool and exercise room

• Meeting room

• Group and corporate rates available

• Pet friendly

• Hilton Honors points

HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS & SUITES

DOWNTOWN LITTLE ROCK

811 E. 4th Street Little Rock, AR 72201 501-372-5102

hiexpress.com/littlerockdwtn

• Newest hotel in Downtown Little Rock

• Next to Heifer International and Clinton Presidential Center

• Minutes from The River Market District

• Breakfast included

• Indoor pool and exercise room

• Meeting room

• Group and corporate rates available

• IHG Rewards points

With properties around the state, you’re never too far from a comfortable night’s stay. At Beechwood Pinnacle Hotels, our welcoming rooms and suites are the perfect place to rest after experiencing everything the area has to offer.

www.beechwoodpinnaclesales.com

bphsales@lrar.com

SATURDAYS • 7 AM - 2 PM MAY - SEPTEMBER

400 PRESIDENT CLINTON AVE.

The Farmers Market is filled with farm-fresh produce straight from the backs of the trucks. You will find bargains on fresh Arkansas crops as well as a bountiful array of handmade arts and crafts.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT LITTLEROCK.COM

'JOHN, IS THAT YOU?'

BY ALAN LEVERITT

Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt has lived on his greatgrandparents’ farm in North Pulaski County for 40 years. This is the latest in a series of columns about day-to-day life on the land where he raises heirloom tomatoes and other crops for local restaurants and the Hillcrest Farmers Market.

This old log house has stories to tell, and I suppose I do as well. A man named Mason is said to have built my house around 1859 right off Batesville Pike in North Pulaski County. Back then that was the highway to St. Louis. A band of Native Americans known locally as the Bayou Meto Indians lived along Bayou Meto creek just down from the house. Shortly after my ex-wife Mara and I rebuilt the dilapidated cabin in 1982 and moved in, I was rummaging through an old collapsed smokehouse when I came upon a rotted mule bridle wrapped around a large spear point. I’m sure that my great-grandfather, John Williamson, known as Pa in our family, had been plowing down near the bayou when he surfaced the spear point with this plow. My grandmother, Mama Grace, said that an old Indian graveyard existed somewhere downstream but if it’s still there and hasn’t washed away, I haven’t found it.

My great-grandparents were considered prosperous by the standards of North Pulaski County at the turn of the last century. Though they didn’t have running water or electricity, Pa owned his

THE PAST SPEAKS UP — SOMETIMES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

THESE WALLS SOMETIMES TALK: Leveritt's 19th century cabin in North Pulaski County.

land and a Model T truck.

Forty years ago when I first moved to the farm, I still had a lot of elderly relatives out here who had known Ma and Pa. One described Pa as “peculiar,” which is polite country code for “he could be a real ass sometimes.” Ma and Pa were members of a little faith healer congregation and at some point they donated a nearby piece of land where they built the church, which is still there. On Sundays they would hitch a mule to a carriage and ride the short distance to church. If Pa was politely described as peculiar, my great-grandmother Alice (Ma) was often summed up with the comment, “Well you know she wore red dresses.” That was country code for “she was difficult.” More positively, it meant she was not afraid to give her husband a clear picture of what was on her mind.

One Sunday on their ride back from church, Ma was giving Pa hell, an argument that had apparently preceded that morning’s service. Pa had said little but about midway he stopped the carriage, got out, pulled a twoby-four plank out of the back of the carriage and brought it down over the mule’s head with all his might. He looked at his wife, threw down the board and walked the rest of the way home, leaving Ma and the dazed mule parked in the middle of the dirt road. Things never got better after that and they finally divorced, a rarity in those days.

My grandmother, who attended the faith healer church, became a Southern Baptist, though she was more like an anti-clerical Baptist. She did not like preachers. Parasites was too strong a word, but you get my drift. The church members out there would host the preacher for Sunday dinner each week and Mama Grace complained that he showed up at their farm far too often. That meant she would have to kill an additional chicken, which could be in short supply depending on the time of the year.

The church eschewed doctors in favor of prayer for sick congregants. In February of 1939, Pa came down with pneumonia after a cold, wet day in the field. He forbade Mama

Grace to fetch a doctor from Cabot and instead insisted on hosting the church people, who attempted to cure him through prayer. When he slipped into a coma, Mama Grace jumped on a horse and rode the 12 miles into Cabot for a doctor. When she and the doctor returned the next day, Pa was already dead. That evening she walked out to the barn where she knew Pa had buried a coffee can filled with gold coins. The can was gone and the earth covered in coal oil to disguise its recent disturbance.

We had to take the old log house down to three walls when we renovated it. Carl Gumann and Stan Phoebus, two talented interior finish carpenters, camped out in the cabin for a couple of weeks while completing the house. It was a long way into town and there was no running water or electricity yet. I drove out one morning to check on the boys and it was evident that something disturbing had happened to Stan. He said he was sleeping on his cot when he was awakened by a woman’s voice repeating over and over, “John, is that you? John, is that you?” It scared the hell out of him and he called out to her, “No, this is Stan Phoebus!”

After that there was silence.

That afternoon my mother drove out to check on our progress and I told her the story. A shadow passed over her expression and she appeared to almost start crying.

She told me this story.

After Pa’s death, Ma would take the train to McGehee at least once a month to visit Mama Grace and her young family, including my mother. Ma and my mother would sleep together in the small shotgun house on Adams Avenue. They were close, and Ma confided that she had regretted the divorce her whole life — and that she and Pa were talking of getting back together when he died. She had never recovered from his sudden death and their stillborn reunion. Many, many nights, my mother said, she would be awakened with her sleeping grandmother sitting straight up in bed, calling out, “John, is that you? John?”

FORTY YEARS AGO WHEN I FIRST MOVED TO THE FARM, I STILL HAD A LOT OF ELDERLY RELATIVES OUT HERE WHO HAD KNOWN MA AND PA. ONE DESCRIBED PA AS “PECULIAR,” WHICH IS POLITE COUNTRY CODE FOR “HE COULD BE A REAL ASS SOMETIMES.”

UAMS Health.

Top 5% in the Nation.

Each year, Healthgrades, a leading resource connecting doctors and patients, identifies the topperforming hospitals for specialty care. In addition to being recognized for a second year in a row as a Cranial Neurosurgery Excellence Award™ recipient for 2023, UAMS Health was also recognized as one of the Top 5% in the Nation for Cranial Neurosurgery by Healthgrades. This achievement reflects UAMS’s commitment to exceptional healthcare and distinguishes UAMS as one of the nation’s leading hospitals for brain surgery.

We’re Arkansas’ first neurosurgery center to:

 Treat brain tumors with a tumor killing virus plus immunotherapy

 Use robotic assisted surgery

 Navigate the brain with amazing clarity via a computerized navigation system

 Find the best path for accessing and removing a tumor safely utilizing surgical planning software

 Precisely target tumors using high-dose radiation treatments

Don’t trust your brain surgery to just anyone. Our team of brain tumor experts, neurosurgeons, and radiation oncologists are utilizing the latest, innovative technology to create personalized treatment plans. Learn more at uams.health/BrainExperts

For appointments, call (501) 686-5270.

An award-winning, innovative approach to brain surgery.

DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE LITTLE GUYS

TIKTOK SCHOLAR ASHLEY CLAYBORN HIGHLIGHTS ARKANSAS’S RURAL COMMUNITIES.

When I met Ashley Clayborn, her cottage core aesthetic was complete: thrifted strawberry earrings, a loved leather crossbody and tattoos that highlight her admiration of folklore. Amongst her mushroom, floral and insect ink, Clayborn also donned The Natural State's geographic outline. A self-proclaimed Arkansas enthusiast, Clayborn has taken her love of the state’s history to a wider audience of thousands on TikTok. With the online name of feralacademic1836, Clayborn has shared stories of an iconic Budweiser silo and how the Christ of the Ozarks statue looks interestingly like a ‘90s country music star, among many other tales. Clayborn has the bug for taking people’s history straight from the people, and when she’s taking a break from the occasionally toxic environment that is TikTok, she focuses on a doctoral dissertation in rural education and on her job with the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute.

AGE: 28

HOMETOWN: Hot Springs

RECOMMENDATIONS: “Papaw Land” (2021) and “Daughter of the White River”

by Denise Parkinson

How did you get started making TikToks on Arkansas history? I just happened to be at a rally back during the summer [of 2022] for reproductive justice. I was taking videos like everyone else, and the doctor was just a very good speaker. I, on a whim, thought, “This would make a good TikTok.” I hadn’t really posted anything, and I posted just the clip of the video. I actually went to Greers Ferry the next day and didn’t have signal for most of the day. As soon as I had signal, suddenly I had like 400,000 likes and so many followers and before it was just my mom and my brothers that followed me. I was like, “Well, this is cool. As an Arkansas enthusiast, what if I started talking about Arkansas a little bit more?” It just was an excellent, serendipitous happenstance that people were all of a sudden caring at all about Arkansas history and these little bitty stories that not everyone even in Arkansas knows about.

Do you know how many of your followers are from Arkansas? I know that a lot of them are not, but a lot of them are from the American South. There were a lot of people that were like, “Solidarity from Tennessee.” There were also a lot from Virginia and West Virginia, which I thought was interesting. I do know the majority of my followers are female, and most of them are aged 25-35.

Can you talk about the importance of people being aware of these niche stories? I’m a first-generation college graduate. I come from a

very rural family where a lot of times there weren't opportunities to take on a job or a project that required a lot of sitting and thinking — there was a lot of hard labor involved. But, nonetheless, they always had the best stories. My boppa [grandfather] is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. He consumes facts and then remembers them for years. I remember being frustrated — there’s probably a lot of boppas out there that have really good stories, and nobody’s writing them down. What do we do with that? For me, it’s a personal thing. You don’t have to be the president, or a celebrity, for your story to be worth telling. It can be that your uncle painted the Budweiser can on his silo, and you know what? That’s pretty cool. People will like it. I have proof people will like it.

Where did the name feralacademic1836 come from? That came from me withdrawing from my [first] doctoral program. I think I saw something online where somebody was making the joke, “I’m not a trained poet, I’m a feral poet. I just garble words together and hope something comes out nice.” I like the idea of like, I’m not a trained academic, I’m a feral academic. I’m going to find these weird, niche stories in the middle of nowhere, including the giant Budweiser can, and I’m going to tell everybody about it. It’s not what might be considered history in the big sense, but it’s fun and it’s the people's history. I really like that grassroots kind of approach. Then 1836 is when Arkansas [gained statehood].

You have some videos talking about how you’re defending Arkansas, even though there are times when its history is sometimes disappointing. Can you talk about why you’re doing that? That goes back to my experience in Georgia. I was doing research on the best practices in public history. It was an ongoing joke among my classmates that if Arkansas ever came up, everybody looked at me. There was a lot of, “Oh, I’m sorry you’re from Arkansas. That sucks, what’s there?” Or they would make fun of how the state is pronounced or whatever. Honestly, I was a little bit spiteful. Actually, Arkansas is fantastic and also difficult at times, but I love it very much. I think the defense of it really comes from having to justify why I love it and why I want to research it.

— Mary Hennigan

BRIAN CHILSON

KNOW YOUR ARKANSAS NEPO BABIES

FAMILY TREES AND GENERATIONAL WEALTH.

The beneficiaries of almost unfathomable generational wealth run everything everywhere. That’s capitalism. But Arkansas is a small, poor state, so the lucky inheritors of fortunes here have an especially outsized impact — and have for several generations. Here’s a rundown of some of the most prominent powerful people benefiting from family money or fame in Arkansas. Or, to embrace a buzzword, here are our nepo babies (short for nepotism) and what they’ve done for you lately.

Among those who don’t go here anymore, there are a couple you might care about:

Rob Walton, Sam’s eldest son, recently bought the Denver Broncos with a group of investors including his daughter, Carrie Walton Penner, and her husband, Greg Penner, who was named CEO of the Broncos. Rob and Carrie, like others in their family, pour money into propping up charter schools.

Ann Walton Kroenke, daughter of Bud Walton, Walmart co-founder and brother to Sam, is married to Stan Kroenke, real estate billionaire and owner of gobs of sports teams, including the Denver Nuggets of the NBA, the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL, the Colorado Avalanche of the NHL and Arsenal of the English Premier League.

In Arkansas:

Jim Walton, Sam’s youngest son, is chairman of Arvest Bank and perhaps the most influential advocate for the sorts of so-called education reform found in Arkansas LEARNS — vouchers, an expansion of charter schools, merit pay. When, in a rare moment of raw honesty, longtime voucher opponent Rep. Bruce Cozart (R-Hot Springs) said, “The rich want vouchers. That’s who [LEARNS] is for,”

THE DILLARDS

William T. Dillard, the late founder of the department store chain, had five children, who all now run the company along with some of their children. There are too many to keep up with and they all keep relatively low profiles. They’ve given you massive returns if you’re a stockholder (up more than 1,500% since April 2020) and those cool parquet floors in the Dillard’s in Park Plaza. They’re also at least partially to blame for the gap in the Arkansas River Trail because they’ve refused to allow the city to build behind their campus on Cantrell Road. he was probably mostly talking about Jim Walton.

Alice Walton, Sam’s daughter, is easily the best Walton. She founded Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, instantly making the Ozarks a destination for art lovers the world over. Coming soon, she’s opening the holistic health-focused Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in Bentonville. It’s scheduled to welcome its first class in 2025.

Tom and Steuart Walton, sons of Jim, have been spending big money to make Northwest Arkansas hip. They’ve paid for oodles of bike trails and invested heavily in making Bentonville the center of mountain bike culture in the U.S. (plus, they’ve poured money into the development of bike trails in state parks throughout Arkansas). They’ve got a holding company that’s invested heavily in good restaurants, and they’re behind the Momentary, the contemporary art space that often hosts concerts, and FORMAT Festival, the annual music and art fest. Steuart, who former Gov. Asa Hutchinson named to lead an economic recovery task force during the coronavirus pandemic, flew a WWIIera fighter plane over the state … to honor frontline workers battling COVID?

THE TYSONS

Tyson CEO John H. Tyson — not to be confused with his grandfather and the founder of Tyson Foods, John W. Tyson, or his son, John R. Tyson, the company’s CFO who recently got arrested after he drunkenly fell asleep in a stranger’s home — was something of a Kendall Roy figure in the 1980s when his father, the late Don Tyson, was running the company. John H. had a ponytail, was addicted to cocaine and alcohol, and was largely disregarded by his father. But he recovered, found Jesus and has greatly grown and diversified Tyson (and battled lawsuits over price fixing and over a lack of COVID protections for workers).

THE WALTONS

The heirs to the Walmart fortune aren’t just the richest people in Arkansas; they’re among the wealthiest in the world. Most of them don’t live in Arkansas much or at all.

ENCYCLOPEDIAOFARKANSAS.NET

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Sam Walton

William T. Dillard

THE STEPHENSES

The Stephens patriarchs, Witt and Jackson T. Stephens, were perhaps the most powerful business and political figures in Arkansas in the 20th century. They founded Stephens Inc., long one of the nation’s largest investment banks not based on Wall Street, and had massive natural gas holdings, including Arkla. With Stephens Inc., they handled the initial public offerings of Arkansas’s biggest companies, including Walmart and Tyson. Witt’s children keep a fairly low profile.

Jackson T. “Steve” Stephens Jr., who inherited $40.9 million from his father, was the plaintiff in an unsuccessful 2014 lawsuit to remove an initiated act to raise the state’s minimum wage; voters ultimately approved it. He’s also long been chairman of the antitax Club for Growth foundation, backing the likes of U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. In 1970, he and some buddies formed Rayburn, a psych/prog-rock band that recorded for Mega Records, an RCA subsidiary, but never released anything in its heyday. Psych of the South, an Arkansas label, put out some Rayburn demos several years back and members of the band have reunited to continue making music.

Warren Stephens runs Stephens Inc. and has poured money into endeavors that make life better for rich people in or traveling to Arkansas. He restored The Capital Hotel, built the high-end private golf club The Alotian in Roland and bankrolled the development of the private Episcopal Collegiate School. He and his wife have also been major donors to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, though he’s often wielded the influence imperiously. A major donor to Republican politicians, Stephens created a multimedia campaign called “This Is Capitalism,” promoting the widely held belief among the super-rich that market economics make everything in life better. Warren’s son John Stephens and John’s wife, Mary Olive, will soon open an Italian restaurant in the Heights in the former home of Cafe Prego.

THE HUCKABEES

Mike Huckabee, a megachurch pastor and small-time televangelist, won a special election to become Arkansas lieutenant governor after Bill Clinton became president and then-Lt. Gov Jim Guy Tucker became governor. When Tucker got railroaded in the Whitewater case and was forced to resign, Huckabee became governor. He raised taxes and lived in a triple-wide on the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion. After he left office, he made several attempts to run for president, became a Donald Trump toady and wrote goofy books. He continues to make bad jokes on Twitter and host conservative TV shows on marginal channels.

THE HUSSMANS

Walter Hussman Sr. married into the newspaper business, grew it and, in 1974, bought the Arkansas Democrat and dispatched his 27-year-old son, Walter Hussman Jr., to run the Little Rock paper. Walter Jr. waged a long newspaper war against the Arkansas Gazette, hemorrhaging money, but he ultimately prevailed and started calling his paper the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He’s long heavily invested in his newsroom while maintaining a retrograde opinion section to which he often contributes unsigned editorials. You may own a ratty, near obsolete iPad thanks to him. Like many others in this group, he’s a major advocate for and financial supporter of school choice policies. Hussman drew gobs of negative national press recently after he lobbied against famed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones getting a position at the University of North Carolina journalism school, to which he’s pledged $25 million. UNC ultimately offered Jones the position, but she turned it down, citing in particular Hussman’s involvement in the process.

Despite career experience limited to working on political campaigns, Huckabee’s only daughter got tapped in 2017 to serve as former President Donald Trump’s press secretary. She used her high profile as liar-in-chief as a springboard to return to Arkansas and win the governorship. So far she’s governed performatively, embracing culture war battles and never missing an opportunity to castigate “the radical left.” She’s clearly angling for higher office.

Hussman has rapidly promoted his daughter, Eliza Gaines, 35, through the family media company. She was briefly the executive editor of the Democrat-Gazette and was named as publisher of WEHCO Media on Jan. 1. She has four kids and admitted in a recent Q&A that the juggle was difficult, but maybe that ensures that a fifth generation of the family will continue in the newspaper business.

BRIAN CHILSON

ENCYCLOPEDIAOFARKANSAS.NET

ENCYCLOPEDIAOFARKANSAS.NET

BRIAN CHILSON LINKEDIN

Witt Stephens

Mike Huckabee

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Eliza Hussman Gaines

Walter Hussman Jr.

BY DANIEL GREAR, OMAYA JONES AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

BRIGHT EYES

MONDAY 5/15. THE HALL. 8 P.M. $35-$50.

I’ve spent a lot of energy arguing for the legitimacy of Conor Oberst, the impetus behind Bright Eyes. I’ve told a lot of people that if they could just get over his unusually angsty voice, then Oberst’s peerless songwriting would come into focus. Just pull up the lyrics to his best album, “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” and read them as a series of poems, I’ve suggested, hoping it’ll all make sense. Lately, I’ve been reconsidering this thinking. What I mean is that maybe Oberst’s voice shouldn’t be considered an obstacle or even a neutral force; maybe his voice is the point. It’s undeniable that years of performing and record-making have made the 43-year-old singer-songwriter’s delivery less jagged, but refinement aside, every word that passes through his mouth is still glossed with honest terror, wonder and uncertainty. What’s more timeless than that? DG

SHAWN BRACKBILL

TOMBERLIN

MONDAY 5/8. GEORGE’S MAJESTIC LOUNGE, FAYETTEVILLE. 8 P.M. $16-$18.

Following in the footsteps of confessional, post-evangelical songwriters like Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan, Tomberlin’s songs often examine the half-life of a Christian upbringing, the way it tends to haunt those who leave it behind. If her first album was a direct response to losing her religion, her sophomore record — “I Don’t Know Who Needs To Hear This…” — documents the dogged yet heartbreakingly unsuccessful attempt she makes to fill the faith-shaped hole. In “Born Again Runner,” she’s watching “your sermon looking for an apology.” In “Tap,” she scrolls and hearts and “talk[s] to strangers” on social media until she “hates herself.” In “Happy Accident,” she “walk[s] five miles” in reckless devotion to a negligent lover who only wants her when they’re “lonely and bored,” an arrangement not dissimilar from her efforts to connect with a distant God. A sad song is not inherently a good song, but Tomberlin is the queen of artful devastation. Her opener is Trace Mountains, a solo project from the former lead singer of LVL UP, and he’s so talented that I consider this a co-headlining situation.

DG

WEDNESDAY

FRIDAY 5/19. STICKYZ ROCK ’N’ ROLL CHICKEN SHACK. 8:30 P.M. $16-$20.

Visions of the American South can sometimes be vague, oldtimey and mythical, but Wednesday — a scruffy indie rock band from Asheville, North Carolina — has an unflinchingly specific, contemporary and bleak way of describing this place. “Bath County” — named after an area on the border of Virginia and West Virginia — is my favorite song from their new album, “Rat Saw God,” and it’s littered with references to Dollywood, Planet Fitness, Narcan, the Drive-By Truckers and “piss colored bright yellow Fanta.” So much crusty commercial name dropping might indicate that Wednesday is out to merely shock and disgust, but when the distortion swirls down the drain at 1:45 and Karly Hartman leans into the sweeter side of her vocal register over weeping riffs from guitarist MJ Lenderman (whose solo work is also spectacular), Wednesday seems capable of just about anything. DG

MICHELLE YOON

FRESHGRASS MUSIC FESTIVAL

FRIDAY 5/19-SATURDAY 5/20. THE MOMENTARY, BENTONVILLE. $140$375.

If the organizers behind the Momentary’s annual bluegrass and roots festival were breaking a sweat about how to top last year’s Tanya Tuckerand Margo Price-studded lineup, they aren’t showing it. The list of headliners promises a master class in how ideas around country and traditional music forms are being reconsidered and revived, with sets from R&B matriarch Mavis Staples; bluegrass legend Del McCoury; badass flatpicker Molly Tuttle (pictured) and her band Golden Highway; virtuosity and pageantry from West Virginia country darling Sierra Ferrell; funk-meets-performance art from the inimitable Tank and the Bangas; and Willi Carlisle, whose showmanship is so seamlessly stellar you’ll hardly notice he’s peddling some of the most subversive ideas in modern country music. Add to that a silent film screening with a live score from the real-deal Melissa Carper, and a country music-inspired video project from filmmaker Moheb Soliman and you’ve got yourself a fine set of reasons to spend a mid-May weekend in Waltonland. SS

BALLET ARKANSAS: NEW WORKS

THURSDAY 5/4 & SUNDAY 5/6. ARKANSAS MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 7:30 P.M. $40.

ARKANSAS TIMES TACOS & TEQUILA

THURSDAY 5/18. ARGENTA PLAZA. 6-9 P.M. $35-$100.

The main thing you need to know about the Arkansas Times Tacos & Tequila bash is that last year it involved publisher Alan Leveritt dressing up as a taco, his farm-tanned arms wrapped in a tortilla shawl, his torso bedecked with shredded Colby Jack and iceberg lettuce. This year, the possibility of such costumery looms large, as do other lures: a bevy of competitors vying to win your favor with their best taco offerings, including Santo Coyote, Big Whiskey's, The Cajun Trouxth, Dogtown Tavern and reigning champions Jimmy’s Jerk Chicken & BBQ, plus Hornitos Tequila-spiked cocktails. Many thanks to Tres Generaciones, Hornitos Tequila and Charlotte Potts State Farm Agency, sponsors of the event. Early Bird and VIP tickets (including special seating, catered dining, premium Tres Generaciones tequila, special parking and early entrance) are available at centralarkansastickets.com, and you must be 21 or older to enter. SS

All due respect to Tchaikovsky et al., you might be more likely to see a spark appear in a ballet fan’s eye when you mention works by living choreographers, or the chance to see a world premiere. In their time at Ballet Arkansas, directors Michael and Catherine Fothergill have remained devoted to keeping contemporary and new ballet compositions in the company’s repertoire, and though a program title like “New Works” might not ignite as much name recognition as, say, “The Nutcracker,” what happens on stage is perhaps a better indicator of where ballet is in 2023 as an art form: eager to innovate, committed to being in conversation with its cultural context and very much alive. This May performance features five world premieres in collaboration with the newly reopened Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in the museum’s intimate “glass box” space, and is followed by a Q&A with the choreographers. SS

SAMANTHA MULJAT

BRIAN CHILSON

ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES: ‘F FOR FAKE’

TUESDAY 5/23. RIVERDALE 10 CINEMA. 7 P.M.

One of the first lines uttered by director Orson Welles in “F for Fake” (1974) — a documentary that flirts with dramatic elements — is a message to the viewer: “Ladies and gentleman, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery, fraud, about lies … But not this time. No, this is a promise. During the next hour, everything you’ll hear from us is really true and based on solid facts.” What follows is a trailblazing, video essay-esque exploration of Elmyr de Hory, a prolific art forger, via his biographer, Clifford Irving, a man notorious for having written an entirely falsified ghost autobiography of billionaire recluse Howard Hughes, an act so scandalous that it caused Hughes to come out of self-imposed exile to issue a response. With the help of a skillful editing style that may or may not have been designed to playfully deceive the audience, Welles — the mind behind perhaps the most revered movie of all time, “Citizen Kane” — uses his second-to-last completed film to parse essential themes at the heart of artmaking, like authenticity and authorship. “If you get on the film’s wavelength and listen to what he’s saying and watch what he’s doing, it’s riveting,” said director Peter Bogdanovich, who Welles lived with during the production of “F for Fake.” “If you fight it, and you expect it to be a linear kind of thing, then you’re not going to enjoy it.” OJ

POTLUCK & POISON IVY: MONICA POTTS

THURSDAY 5/25. THE JOINT THEATER AND COFFEEHOUSE. 7 P.M. $35.

This month, Monica Potts will publish “The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America,” a book that was set into motion when Potts — who spent her workingclass adolescence in Clinton, but ultimately left town to pursue college and become a successful journalist — started comparing her path to the girls she grew up with who didn’t make it out, whose lives were stalled and blighted by poverty and substance abuse. Upon further investigation and a reexamination of her own memories and those of her childhood best friend, Potts discovered that so much of this bifurcation in fate could be attributed to small, seemingly insignificant choices they made while they were still children, particularly ones related to sex. In a culture of moral binaries — “Girls were either virgins or whores; students were either geniuses or failures; you could go to church or you could be a sinner” — one impulsive, puberty-fueled decision to prioritize the attention of boys over focusing on school could be a critical step on a trajectory toward early pregnancy, domestic violence and a stunted future, rather than just a weekend of harmless fun. “The rigid divide allowed no room for subtleties or missteps,” Potts says. The book, which has been getting praise from prestigious outlets, was described by The Guardian as “a lament for lost opportunities and wasted lives; a controlled expression of rage at a system that continues to fail so many even as it exploits their despair.” Potts will tell her story alongside music and dinner at May’s Potluck & Poison Ivy. DG

A PLIABLE LEGISLATURE STOMPED ON THE POOR, INDULGED THE RICH AND THREW TEACHERS, LIBRARIANS, CHILDREN AND TRANS PEOPLE UNDER THE BUS, ALL BECAUSE THE MAGA GOVERNOR TOLD THEM TO.

BY AUSTIN BAILEY AND LINDSEY MILLAR

With the 2023 legislative session blessedly at its end, Arkansas progressives (plus moderates and anyone to the left of the Proud Boys) know what complete and utter political defeat looks like. It’s this: tax cuts for the wealthy and out-of-state investors, even as children in the state go hungry; universal vouchers to subsidize wealthy families’ private school tuitions while denigrating and defunding the traditional public schools that educate the masses; no budging on a near-total abortion ban, not even for victims of incest or women carrying fetuses destined to die before birth or to suffer for only a few torturous hours beyond it; a barrage of new laws that do nothing but hammer home the message that transgender Arkansans are not welcome and will not be accommodated.

Supercharged by a mountain of MAGA money and an even bigger ego, Gov. Sarah Sanders called all the shots. The supermajority Republican legislature raced to do her bidding. Their rubber stamp on all of Sanders’ priorities (vouchers, prison expansion, tax cuts) marked a vast departure from the last administration, when Asa Hutchinson’s pro-gun, pro-life record failed to impress an increasingly insane right-wing extremist legislative branch. Where Hutchinson recoiled from drama, Sanders pursued it, eager to throw Trumpian blows of staggering cruelty if it landed her on Fox News. Her foot soldiers didn’t seem to mind Sanders’ obvious bid to get out of Arkansas and back on the national stage as soon as possible. It wouldn't have mattered if they did. Republican lawmakers knew to expect a primary challenger to knock them out of office if they dared veer out of lockstep.

Saying it’s the worst session ever feels trite, too flip to capture the brutality heaped on all but the wealthiest and most insulated. Not only did lawmakers do nothing to protect Arkansans from our charttopping gun death rates, they voted instead to protect

the gun companies from us. A new law passed this session bars state entities from investing with firms that eschew the industry profiting off our homicide epidemic. Protecting children got lots of lip service, but no real action. Requiring proof of age and identity to get a social media account or view online porn, laws passed allegedly to protect kids, will be a boon for identity theft but won’t likely shield many innocent eyes. Threatening librarians with jail time if they allow young people to view or check out books about sex is not only a direct assault on free speech, but also a surefire way to maintain Arkansas’s spot as the state with the most teen pregnancies.

Protecting kids was not a priority when lawmakers opted to sacrifice children to quell the labor shortage. The 94th General Assembly did away with a work permit requirement for 14- and 15-year-olds, meaning children can now get a job without their parents having to sign off and without any government oversight to make sure working conditions and hours are safe and appropriate.

Arkansas’s wealthy and its businesses are safer than ever, having easily secured tax cuts by simply pointing fingers at transgender children and woke librarians, then grabbing the cash when no one was looking. Most of us didn’t get much of anything beyond the insult that the schools we send our children to — schools that anchor our communities — are hotbeds of inadequacy and indoctrination that anyone with the means should flee at their first opportunity. Is this really what Arkansas voted for?

CULTURE WARS

The Arkansas Capitol grounds will soon get a “monument to the unborn” thanks to a new law sponsored by Sen. Kim Hammer (R-Benton) and Rep. Mary Bentley (R-Perryville), which allows for private funds to pay for a monument dedicated to the embryos

aborted when women still had bodily autonomy in Arkansas. Bentley promised the design would be “something beautifully done to honor precious children.” Several Republican opponents of abortion pushed back on the proposal, with one suggesting it had “the look and feel of spiking the football.” Rep. Cindy Crawford (R-Fort Smith), always ready with a comment so inane you wonder if you’re hearing things right, suggested we call on slaves for wisdom and guidance here. “You can ask slaves what happens when we forget. We have to remember slavery in America so it won’t come back. We have to remember abortion in Arkansas so it won’t come back. There’s no reason why we can’t have a monument. It’s not a poke in the eye; it’s a ‘God forgive us for what we have done.’ ”

In other culture war news, Arkansas will be the first state in the country to require users to show ID to create new social media accounts. Senate Bill 396, sponsored by Sen. Tyler Dees (R-Siloam Springs) and championed by the governor, will require social media companies to contract with third-party companies to perform age verification on new users. Those younger than 18 won’t be able to register for an account on the platforms without parents’ permission. How all that will work remains unclear. Dees repeatedly referenced Idemia, a third-party verifier based in France, as a good actor.

This legislature has done a lot of things that make little sense, but in the same breath that lawmakers talk about the national security concerns TikTok poses, they want Arkansans to give sensitive personal information to a foreign company?

Many legislators were told that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, believes that there’s no way to comply with the law. The way it’s written, a private citizen can bring a legal claim against a social media company if their child gets an account without parental permission, but the soon-to-be law also forces third-party verifiers to delete personal information. So how could the social media company defend itself?

Dees also sponsored another similar new law that will require Arkansas residents to show ID to visit pornography websites. Let’s hope no one tells these guys how easy it is to pay $5 a month for VPN access to mask your location, thereby bypassing all of this nonsense.

The economic cost of culture wars became briefly quantifiable during debate over a new law to require all state entities to divest from holdings with financial providers who consider ESG — environmental, social and governance — factors. It was sponsored by Rep. Jeff Wardlaw (R-Hermitage) and Sen. Ricky Hill (R-Cabot) and based on a model from the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Koch-funded right-wing bill factory. It’s also part of an increasingly activist turn for right-wing state treasurers, including Arkansas Treasurer Mark Lowery. Called the State Financial Officers Foundation, Lowery’s group aims to wield the power of the state to protect polluters from those forces attempting to save humanity by stopping climate change. Sure, the planet will die sooner

DEES IS NUTS: Siloam Springs Sen. Tyler Dees (right) passed laws requiring Arkansans to show ID to watch porn and create social media accounts.

DRAGGED: Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R-Branch) got his way most of the session, but his bid to effectively ban drag shows was amended to be almost meaningless.

BRIAN CHILSON

BUREAU OF LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH

if Lowery and his ilk succeed and states will sacrifice investment dollars for this newest version of corporate welfare, but the rich guys will go out on top. Similar laws have cost other states millions of dollars.

The same sponsors also pushed through related legislation that requires all state contractors to pledge that they won’t boycott energy, fossil fuel, firearms or ammunition industries. After the bill was introduced, Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt wrote a slightly tongue-in-cheek op-ed pledging to continue the Times’ long-standing policy of boycotting gun and fossil fuel industries by keeping our money in the bank. The new act is based on an existing law that requires contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel. The Times has refused to sign that pledge and unsuccessfully challenged its constitutionality in the federal court system.

VOTING

Republican lawmakers hate that the Arkansas Constitution gives citizens the ability to propose laws and constitutional amendments for consideration on the ballot. The legislature tried to curb that power by referring to voters a constitutional amendment in 2020 that would have raised the threshold required to make the ballot, and another one in 2022 that would have required 60% of voters to approve constitutional amendments for them to pass. Both proposals failed handily with voters, who recognized these amendments for what they were: a power grab by legislators to weaken the power of the people.

Unfettered, this session Republicans passed a clearly unconstitutional new law that increases the number of counties from which signatures for a ballot initiative or constitutional amendment must be submitted, upping that number from 15 to 50. The state Constitution specifically says “at least 15 counties,” which merely sets the floor required, sponsor Sen. Jim Dotson (R-Bentonville) said. Just like many other things that are silent in the constitution, here the legislature can step in and make laws, he argued.

But Sen. Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock), who should have been paid by the hour for all the legal advice he was forced to dispense to his know-nothing colleagues, said he believed this was among the most blatantly unconstitutional bills he’d ever seen during his time in the ledge, including bills that were inviting constitutional challenges. The “at least 15 counties” language in the Constitution clearly means that “you don’t have to stop at 15” when gathering signatures. He also noted that while Dotson is correct that when the Constitution is silent, the legislature can make laws, in this case, Article 5, Section 1 of the Constitution explicitly says that unwarranted restrictions are prohibited.

Other anti-democracy bills aimed to make voting less convenient and less comfortable in hopes of convincing more people to give up on

the American experiment entirely. “Election integrity” is code for “voter suppression,” and Arkansas Republicans touted election integrity all over the place as they carried on with their years-long campaign to make it harder to get your ballot counted.

Act 544 by Rep. Austin McCollum (R-Bentonville) and Sen. Jim Petty (R-Van Buren) creates a so-called election integrity unit within the attorney general’s office to further police the polls, adding new layers of red tape and intimidation. Because the AG is a partisan official, the measure further politicizes the management of our elections and delivers another unfair advantage to Republicans, who are quite skilled at using their power to keep challengers at bay.

Arkansas lawmakers also pushed some cookie-cutter legislation crafted by out-of-state groups as part of their ongoing “stop the steal” disinformation campaign. Sen. Tyler Dees (R-Siloam Springs) carried the water on a bill outlawing ballot collection boxes in Arkansas, just in case anybody ever thinks about putting one up. We don’t have them here, even though they’ve worked well in other states. National voter suppression groups shopped the same bill to outlaw ballot collection boxes in South Dakota, Virginia, Ohio, Kansas and Arizona. Absentee voters routinely send ballots through the mail, and Dees was unable to answer questions about how ballot drop boxes were more susceptible to fraud than the U.S. Postal Service. His bill passed into law anyway.

MOTHERS AND BABIES

With a near-total abortion ban in place after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, women in Arkansas find themselves in even worse shape than before. Arkansas had the highest maternal mortality rate of any state before the ban, and without access to abortion care, more women stand to suffer and die.

Amazingly, Arkansas lawmakers failed to come through on the paltry handful of smallpotatoes bills that aimed to help keep mothers and babies alive and healthy. Most of these measures are low-hanging fruit and already standard practice in other states. But the Republican supermajority at the Arkansas Capitol failed to make maternal health a priority, dedicating their time instead to heaping shame on public school teachers and transgender children.

A plan to add Arkansas to the list of states that provide Medicaid for new mothers for a full year after birth went nowhere. Thirty-two states plus Washington, D.C., already tap into federal dollars to help make sure new moms with scant financial resources are covered through that tumultuous year after pregnancy and birth. Ten more states have plans in the works to extend coverage beyond the minimum 60 days federal law requires. If any state needs to add this tool to its arsenal, it’s us. Arkansas

Arkansas will be the first state in the country to require users to show ID to create new social media accounts. Senate Bill 396, sponsored by Sen. Tyler Dees (R-Siloam Springs) and championed by the governor, will require social media companies to contract with third-party companies to perform age verification on new users.

is the most dangerous state in the country for expectant women, with high poverty rates and an undeniable need for more support for new moms. Rep. Aaron Pilkington (R-Knoxville) sponsored the bill to extend Medicaid coverage for new mothers, but the committee never even bothered to take it up. Aptly enough, this change that would cost less than $2 million and would definitely save lives got no attention from lawmakers and was left to die in committee. That $2 million savings the state will realize by letting new mothers’ health coverage lapse is enough to offset only a drop in the bucket of tax breaks legislators granted to the wealthy this session.

Women carrying fetuses cursed to suffer and die got a similar F.U. from Arkansas lawmakers this session. Rep. Nicole Clowney (D-Fayetteville) represented the will of the majority of Arkansans who, polls show, support exemptions to Arkansas’s near-total abortion ban. Her effort to change the law to reflect Arkansas’s wishes tanked in the face of bullying from the Christian soldiers who claim to know what is best for everyone. Women carrying a fetus that will die before birth or suffer for a few hours or days before dying after birth will still have no choice but to carry the baby to term.

Rep. Ashley Hudson (D-Little Rock) mounted a similar failing effort with a bill to let women who become pregnant through rape or incest access abortion. In this post-apocalyptic wasteland of reproductive rights, it’s unclear whether we should consider it a small victory or an utter defeat that Hudson did get one pregnancy-related bill passed. Her House Bill 1161 ensuring the school days teenagers miss to have babies count as excused absences is now signed into law.

EDUCATION

The Arkansas LEARNS universal voucher bill to sacrifice Arkansas students and communities at the altar of right-wing ideology might or might not be the biggest travesty of the session, but it’s likely the one whose harm will spread the farthest, the fastest. A Waltonite lobbyist’s dream of a law based on the demonstrably false premise that the school choice tide will raise all schools’ boats, Arkansas LEARNS will subsidize the private school tuition payments of wealthy families at the expense of traditional public schools that serve all students. By giving parents with the time, money and know-how enough public cash to get their children into private schools and away from us riffraff, the state’s new universal voucher program will send us back to Arkansas’s shameful days of segregated classrooms.

But it’s not all bad. Arkansas LEARNS’ high points include a minimum $50,000-a-year salary for every public school teacher in Arkansas, and $2,000 raises for educators already over $50K. That’s where they leave you, though. LEARNS repeals the state salary schedule which, to be fair, was almost wholly under the $50K mark,

The Arkansas

anyway. But now, without state-funded step increases, only districts with tax bases robust enough to foot the bill will be able to give annual raises based on service and education. The state will fund some merit-based bonuses instead, but there’s not much cash set aside for this, not even enough for a single teacher at every Arkansas public school to earn the maximum $10,000 bonus. It will be difficult for poorer districts to entice teachers into a career with no real prospects of a raise, ever.

Plenty of educators applaud the literacy component of Arkansas LEARNS, but bristle at the characterization that the state’s thirdgrade literacy rates indicate “we have failed our children.” Only 35% of Arkansas third-graders are proficient readers. In Massachusetts, the top state for third-grade literacy, 44% score as proficient or higher. Arkansas LEARNS calls for third-graders in public schools to be held back until they can reach reading proficiency (or until they transfer to a private school or homeschool with no such requirement).

To improve literacy, Arkansas LEARNS includes plans for more reading coaches, plus some money for tutoring programs. Not enough, but some.

The rest of the 144-page bill has less to like. Arkansas hasn’t gone in for these gigantic, allin-one, D.C.-style omnibus bills in sessions past, and for good reason. I like 60-70% of the bill, Sen. Greg Leding (D-Fayetteville) said, but a cheeseburger that’s 30% poison is still a bad cheeseburger.

Leding was being generous with his percentages. Some consider the repeal of the Fair Teacher Dismissal Act that protected teachers from petty, political or personal retribution to be the poison pill that makes LEARNS simply untenable. For others, the “don’t say gay” component forbidding teachers to acknowledge the existence of anyone not straight and cisgender until middle school is enough to tank the whole deal. Or maybe sending public money to fund private schools that are by definition exclusionary and unaccountable is the arsenic in the well.

The vast majority of vouchers in states with universal voucher programs like the one codified in Arkansas LEARNS goes to families who were already paying their own private school tuitions just fine but certainly aren’t going to turn down a windfall.

Only the kids at the bottom of that system will be saddled with a new graduation requirement that sounds a lot like the criminal sentence for a first-time DWI offense. With the passage of LEARNS, all public school students will have to put in 75 hours of community service to graduate. Proponents argue that 75 will be easy because high school students can answer phones in the school office or provide unpaid, coerced labor to small businesses. Not surprisingly, private school students are exempt from such requirements, meaning their

LEARNS universal voucher bill to sacrifice Arkansas students and communities at the altar of right-wing ideology might or might not be the biggest travesty of the session, but it’s likely the one whose harm will spread the farthest, the fastest.

spring break ski trips and horseback riding lessons are safe from any interruption. Any student who takes a LEARNS voucher but fails to meet the new private school’s academic expectations can get kicked out of not just the school, but the voucher program entirely. Crafters of this bill determined the rightful consequence for such a lapse is a return to public schools, which don’t have the option of booting poor performers. It’s barbs like this one that suggest attending public schools is a punishment, along with LEARNS sponsors’ oddly venomous accusations that public school teachers are indoctrinators and liars, that make lead sponsor Sen. Breanne Davis’ (R-Russellville) pledges that she has teachers’ backs ring hollow. Scheduling the Senate’s only public hearing on the bill for a school day, then joining Sanders staffers in attacking teachers for taking a day off to be there to testify, felt shady, too.

It’s notable that the educators who stand to earn sizable raises are the plan’s most outspoken opponents. During the two marathon days of public comment on the bill, only three of the dozens of public school educators who gave testimony were there in support. A coalition of teachers and other public education supporters are attempting to repeal the LEARNS Act by referendum; others are planning legal challenges.

The Marvell-Elaine School District became the first led into a privatization scheme under LEARNS. Trapped between consolidating with another district because of its low enrollment numbers or going under state control because of low scores, the district is now the first to choose door number three, making plans to hand over the reins to a yetunnamed outside entity.

Will Marvell-Elaine ever get the district back into local hands? Sen. Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock) and Rep. Vivian Flowers (D-Pine Bluff), both of whose home school districts have fallen victim to state takeover, scored the rare moderate win this session with the commonsense Senate Bill 364. Now Act 633, the measure limits the time the state can keep their hold on districts to a firm five years before releasing them back into a local school board’s hands. What about Marvell-Elaine, though? Does the new legislation apply here, or can the charter company stay in charge? Florida man and Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva suggested such questions are now a matter of local control.

LGBTQ+

The church lady caucus came in hot for the 2023 session, gunning to protect innocent eyes from lewd and lascivious drag shows. Republican morality police duo Rep. Mary Bentley of Perryville and Sen. Gary Stubblefield of Branch humiliated themselves with their sophomoric stabs at drag shows that almost certainly never happened. Bentley claimed a good Christian family asked for her help after seeing a drag queen wield a dildo as a microphone during a parade. Stubblefield claimed it was a drag queen who implored him most passionately to save the children from all the jumping up and gyrating that goes on at drag shows.

LEARNS WILL LEAD TO SEGREGATION: But Republican lawmakers, who with few exceptions supported the omnibus bill, don't care.

BAD NEWS BENTLEY: If Perryville Republican Rep. Mary Bentley sponsored a bill or spoke for it, we knew to beware. She repeatedly pushed harmful ideas in the name of "protecting children." Rep. Ryan Rose (R-Van Buren; right) was a frequent ally.

BRIAN CHILSON BRIAN CHILSON

Of course, drag is a form of artistic expression that spans cultures and centuries, and our Constitution protects it. A legal case against the original drag show ban bill would have been a slam dunk. Bentley’s and Stubblefield’s attempts to regulate drag shows like they were peep shows or porn shops was eventually so watered down that it does nothing at all.

Still, LGBTQ+ Arkansans and the people who love them took plenty of hits this session. As we await a ruling from U.S. District Judge James Moody on a challenge to the 2021 ban on medical genderaffirming care for Arkansas youth, legislators hedged their bets by piling on more impediments. Lawmakers passed a bill that adds new restrictions on access to gender-affirming care for people under 18 and creates debilitating malpractice liabilities for any medical providers involved.

Pegging bathroom bills as the nonsensical economy killers they are, the Arkansas business community saved us from such legislation in the past. They dropped the ball this year, though, sticking Arkansas with two humiliating hate laws targeting any trans person who happens to be in Arkansas when nature calls. A bill that would have made it a sex crime for a transgender person to be in a bathroom when anyone under 18 was also present nearly passed, but a commonsense suggestion added at the last minute — on the suggestion of a dad of a transgender youth — adds the caveat that the adult in this situation would have to be in the bathroom for the purpose of sexual gratification. The law passed, which is redundant since peeping tom and sexual assault laws are already on the books. Transgender kids’ bathroom habits also got a creepy amount of attention from lawmakers. Arkansas’s public school educators will now have to police bathrooms lest a trans person uses the facilities corresponding with his/her/their gender.

And speaking of pronouns, it’s probably best that we find a way to work around them entirely, as Rep. Wayne Long (R-Bradford) was successful in passing his Given Name Act. A plug-and-play piece of legislation crafted by the anti-trans hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, this new law that right-wingers are shopping to red legislatures across the country polices what teachers can and cannot call their students. A signed permission slip from parents will be required before teachers can show their students the respect of using preferred names and pronouns.

TAXES

Same song, new verse: Lawmakers passed yet another tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy, which Sanders has framed as a first step toward eliminating the income tax altogether. Retroactive to Jan. 1, the state’s top income tax rate will drop from 4.9% to 4.7%, which follows a steep reduction of the top rate — from 5.5% to 4.9% — by the legislature in a 2022 special session. Under the new plan, the top corporate tax rate would drop from 5.3% to 5.1%. Combined, the cuts will reduce state revenue by an estimated $124 million per year.

RICH GET RICHER: Gov. Sarah Sanders, House Speaker Matthew Shepherd (left) and Sen. Jonathan Dismang pushed through another tax break for wealthy Arkansans and out-of-state corporate shareholders.

FITE-ING SOLAR PROGRESS: Benton Republican Rep. Lanny Fite carried water for Entergy and other electrical utitlities with a bill that will hamper Arkansas's booming solar industry.

BRIAN CHILSON BRIAN CHILSON

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates 80% of the benefits of the income tax cut will go to the top 20% of earners and that $20 million of the $24 million corporate tax cut will go to out-of-state shareholders.

The legislature also approved a phase-out of the state’s “throwback rule,” which required sales that multistate corporations based in Arkansas make in other states or to the federal government that aren’t taxable to be “thrown back” to Arkansas for tax purposes. The change will ultimately reduce state revenue by $74 million in fiscal year 2030 and beyond.

That $74 million would have been more than enough to cover free school lunches for every student in the state and a full year of Medicaid coverage after birth to ensure the health of new mothers, and we would still have tens of millions to spare. It’s all about priorities, and in Arkansas, corporate profits for out-ofstate investors trump the wellbeing of our own mothers and children.

CRIME AND PRISON

Arkansas already has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and it’s not working: The state also has one of the country’s highest crime rates. But solving difficult problems has never been in modern Arkansas Republicans’ wheelhouse. So while the likes of Texas and Oklahoma are embracing economically and ethically wise reform to reduce their prison populations, Arkansas plans to build a new nearly-half-billion-dollar prison and keep offenders locked up longer. The “Protect Arkansas Act,” sponsored by Sen. Ben Gilmore (R-Crossett) and Rep. Jimmy Gazaway (R-Paragould) and crafted with heavy input by Attorney General Tim Griffin, will eliminate parole for the most serious felonies and require those who commit other serious crimes to serve 85% of their sentence.

Sanders and Griffin said that the new prison would allow county jails, which for years have housed overflow state prisoners, to go back to serving local communities. Griffin said misdemeanor justice had been effectively removed from the state criminal code because of the county jail backup, but now we will have room to lock up the scofflaws once again.

“I was going to Chick-fil-A the other day,” Griffin said at a press conference announcing the plans, “and there were people riding wheelies on dirt bikes — and I love dirt bikes — riding wheelies on dirt bikes that aren’t street legal with no helmets … If you think you’re going to get jobs to come to this state with that kind of nonsense going on, you’re sadly mistaken.”

ENERGY

Arkansas’s booming solar industry will see a slowdown thanks to a new law. Senate Bill 295, sponsored by Sen. Jonathan Dismang (R-Searcy) and Rep. Lanny Fite (R-Benton), will end Arkansas’s one-to-one net-metering policy,

where customers who generate electricity, usually with solar arrays, get credited at the full retail rate for any excess power they generate. Instead, solar customers would only get credited for the wholesale rate. The difference today would amount to about 5 cents per kilowatt hour.

After negotiations with the Arkansas Advanced Energy Association, the bill was amended to grandfather solar projects into existing net-metering policy until Sept. 30, 2024. It also caps the project size at 5 megawatts and allows the solar array to be located within 100 miles of the location of the business that owns the array (Little Rock-based Central Arkansas Water’s solar system, for instance, is located in Cabot).

Dismang said that in 2019, when the legislature passed a law that allowed net metering, thenPublic Service Commission Chairman Ted Thomas admitted that net metering would lead to what’s known as cost shifting, where the expense of utilities having to pay the retail rate for excess solar generation gets passed along to customers without solar. He said Thomas promised lawmakers that within six months the PSC would evaluate the cost shifting, but failed to follow through.

Thomas, in fiery testimony in House and Senate committees during this session, acknowledged that promise, but said that Entergy and the electric co-ops had never demonstrated that cost-shifting amounted to anything significant. The Arkansas Court of Appeals has also upheld the net-metering rate structure.

HUNGER

A commonsense bill by Dismang and Rep. DeAnn Vaught (R-Horatio) to ensure that any student who qualifies for reduced-price school meals would get them for free sailed through the ledge. But another proposal from Dismang aimed at helping the working poor was amended to be almost meaningless after Sanders dissed the original.

Arkansas is one of only a handful of states with restrictive asset limits from supplemental nutrition assistance payments (SNAP, or what used to be known as food stamps). SNAP eligibility is based on family income, but Arkansas additionally limits recipients based on their savings. If you’ve got more than $2,250 in assets, you won’t qualify. Dismang’s bill initially would have raised the asset limit to $12,500, a move that would have given families the breathing room to save up for a car, education expenses or a deposit on a better place to live without having to starve. Gov. Sanders’ spokeswoman, Alexa Henning, announced Sanders’ opposition early in the process: “We oppose expanding welfare and trapping more people in lifetime dependency that is paid for by the labor of hardworking taxpayers.” The bill then got amended to raise the asset limit to $5,500 if the federal government approves a waiver request from the state.

Arkansas already has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and it’s not working: The state also has one of the country’s highest crime rates. But solving difficult problems has never been in modern Arkansas Republicans’ wheelhouse.

EXPECT MORE SCHOLARSHIPS |

It’s a declaration.

It’s a call to action. A promise being made.

| STUDENT SUPPORT

At the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, you get more. Excellent academics. Faculty support.

Community internships and partnerships.

IT’S TIME TO EXPECT MORE. FROM YOURSELF. FOR YOURSELF. FOR YOUR FUTURE.

ualr.edu/admissions

MEET OUR 2023 ACADEMIC ALL-STARS.

BY AUSTIN BAILEY, RHETT BRINKLEY, DANIEL GREAR, MARY HENNIGAN, LINDSEY MILLAR AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

The 2023 Arkansas Times Academic All-Star Team, the 29th team the Times has honored, is made up of 20 students selected from a wide pool of applicants from across the state, each nominated by their school counselor or principal. Past winners have tended to be multitalented students and have gone on to become innovators in the fields of science, engineering, medicine, technology and the arts, and this year’s roster includes budding activists, tireless volunteers, computer whizzes, polished musicians and aspiring physicians. Read the following profiles for a much-needed antidote to the state’s legislative debacles, followed by the lists of All-Star finalists and nominees.

'NUMBERS KIND OF CLICK': Says Little Rock Parkview's Tyler Hasberry, who plans to become a tax attorney.

ROBERT BOERWINKLE

Age: 18

Hometown: El Dorado

High School: Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and Arts

Parents: David and Robin Boerwinkle

College plans: Missouri University of Science and Technology

Charismatic Robert Boerwinkle is a self-proclaimed stereotypical computer science major, which he said includes key traits like a dash of social awkwardness, plenty of time behind the screen — a “room rat” if you will — and an interest in robotics. Robert doesn’t mess with the gamer computer setups with flashing lights and mechanical keyboards. No, he works his coding languages on hand-me-down business laptops that have seen better days. Before finally getting a recent upgrade, Robert made magic on a 2011 Lenovo that he had repaired time and time again through a broken hinge, cracked screen, blown fuse and failed hard drive. It’s not so much about the machine you’re working on as it is about how skillful the user is. Despite his dad’s recommendation to choose a major other than computer science, he and his siblings have run straight to it. Robert said he was raised to be curious and he thinks of computer science as a tool that will help him build other tools. He plans to spend his summer self-studying the programming language C, which his future college uses as the foundation of its classes. For the sake of science — and for fun — Robert has his sights set on a future in big data and software development, though he hasn’t completely crossed off robotics and artificial intelligence. Of all his accolades, Robert said that being involved in former Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s push to encourage computer science in the state is near the top of his list. Robert was part of the team that came out with the blue ribbon for Hutchinson’s all-state coding competition in 2022. MH

EMMA GRACE COOLEY

Age: 18

Hometown: Little Rock

High School: Episcopal Collegiate School

Parents: Chris and Cristy Cooley College plans: Vanderbilt University

Over spring break, Emma Grace Cooley accompanied her mentor, Dr. Laura J. Hobart-Porter, to the 2023 World Congress on Spina Bifida Research & Care, where Hobart-Porter presented the research they conducted together last summer during an intensive, eight-week internship at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. On top of shadowing specialists and attending lectures on subjects as wide-ranging as hematology, cardiology and medical ethics, Emma Grace supported Hobart-Porter in evaluating the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in children afflicted with a specific spinal birth defect. “My role primarily was to just go down rabbit holes of different articles to try and find different ways that ASD and spina bifida could potentially correlate,” she said. There’s a good chance Emma Grace will study biology and chemistry on the path to becoming a pediatric physician, but characterizing her as just a science nerd is an incomplete picture. Through years of grind in the Writing Center at Episcopal Collegiate, Emma Grace now occupies the highest leadership role, student director. “There’s a lot of reading and a lot of writing in research activities in the medical field,” she said. “While they can seem like opposite subjects, I feel like they can go hand in hand.” Additionally, as a freshman, she was nominated by her peers to be a member of the Honor Council. Now — of course — she’s the president, with integrity and rehabilitation as her modus operandi. “It’s a really thoughtful and heavy topic,” she said. “While there is obviously a consequence if a student commits an infraction, we’re constantly trying to ask ourselves how we can help, whether it’s referring them to a tutor or getting help from a teacher.”

Without even mentioning Emma Grace’s extensive volunteer history, which includes nearly a thousand hours of service to the National Charity League, it’s clear that whatever she ends up doing, intellect and empathy will be the driving forces. DG

JOSHUA DIAZ

Age: 18

Hometown: Little Rock

High School: Pulaski Academy

Parents: Edwin and Kristi Diaz College plans: Undecided

Josh Diaz’s parents are both medical doctors, so when Josh created an email in middle school he included “md” in the address. But a model United Nations class his freshman year shifted his focus to international relations and diplomacy. At Pulaski Academy, where he’s ranked near the top of his class with a 4.68 GPA, the official title of his book-length senior honors thesis is “The Clash of Secularization and Religion in Post-Colonial States.” He used India and Nigeria as case studies. “Their traditional religious beliefs were suppressed during colonialism, which left people to politicize religion,” he explained. “That’s a consequence of secularism.” But he found that when traditional beliefs were allowed to flourish, there was less politicized religion and violence. Josh credits his parents for instilling a hard work ethic in him. His dad is a urologist who also has his MBA and is attending law school. “He loves school and he’s definitely imparted that on me and my siblings,” Josh said. Following in those footsteps would be cool, but for now Josh sees himself pursuing a career in the international realm, either in diplomacy or at a firm that invests globally. “Those are both ways to get involved in the international system and make change,” he said. To that end, he’s already about halfway to becoming a proficient Mandarin Chinese speaker. He’s studied the language since eighth grade and is taking AP Chinese 5 this year. He’s passed three of the six HSK Tests, the standard test to determine proficiency. Despite a high school career jam-packed with advanced and honors classes, Josh finds time to play on the school’s lacrosse team, read for fun (Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children” was a recent favorite) and play jazz and blues guitar. He’s an Eagle Scout, too. You can thank him for wayfinding help on the west side of Pinnacle Mountain State Park. He erected trail markers on the mountain as part of his Eagle Scout service project. LM

JESSICA DOSS

Age: 17

Hometown: Little Rock

High School: Central High School

Parents: Sumana George and Doss Lucas College plans: University of Arkansas at Fayetteville or University of Washington at Seattle

Central High senior Jessica Doss runs her life with order and efficiency, with no moments going to waste. She has to. With eight AP classes, a volunteer gig, Quiz Bowl and dance to squeeze in, she has to stay on schedule. “I know a lot of people consider me Type A. I like keeping everything in order,” she said. She never procrastinates, and craves the satisfaction that comes with getting things done. It’s possible that a medical challenge from age 11 drives Jessica’s regimented approach. A Type 1 diabetes diagnosis meant she had little choice but to pay attention to sleep, exercise and diet in ways other kids her age didn’t. “I have a lot of mental fortitude when it comes to the way I live my life,” she said. She wakes up early, eats healthy and dances a lot. “I enjoy being active, and it’s something that my body requires of me to keep myself healthy.” She aims to keep other people healthy too by pursuing a career in medicine. This path interests her because she both likes and excels in math, and because heart disease runs in her family. Based on her beyond-perfect track record and pulling a superhuman GPA while volunteering with the American Red Cross, we’re predicting success. There’s more to Jessica than her sky-high GPA and relentless drive to do all the things perfectly. She adds art and beauty to her life with dance and music, thanks to some influence from her dance instructor mom. For 10 years Jessica has honed her skills in Kerala, a form of Indian classical dance. She’s also a singer of both Western pop and Indian music, and she plays bamboo flute and piano. She’s got some innate talent with languages, too, speaking Tamil and Spanish and with plans to add more languages to her roster. Jessica aims to study abroad, and to put herself to the test someday with a challenge some would find daunting but she finds exciting: “I would like to drop myself in a place where I have no linguistic ability and pick it up.” AB

Congratulations to Taksh Patel for helping continue the long history of academic excellence at Fayetteville High School!

XAVIER GRAVES

Age: 17

Hometown: Sherwood

High School: Sylvan Hills High School

Parent: Krisharna Blackman College plans: Morehouse College or Tennessee State University

When Xavier Graves was only 8 years old, he went to the hospital after school practically every single day. Locked into place by his older sister’s near-death health crisis, he clocked so many hours in waiting rooms that the hospital transformed into one of his primary sources of community. “The staff and doctors and nurses — they really were there to provide me and my family a second home,” he said. Although Xavier appreciated the embrace of this ecosystem, he also felt powerless and excluded. “I was never allowed to see her,” he said. “All I knew was that my older sister was somewhere behind these closed doors that I’d never be able to go through. And it hurt me.” After six months of standing by without knowing how to help, Xavier was given two gifts — the survival of his sister and a purpose: to live intentionally and to one day become a doctor. Ever since, Xavier has held tight to that commitment. Some of his proudest moments include almost single-handedly organizing two fall food drives through his role on the student council and taking part in the UAMS Healers program, a selective and behind-thescenes exposure to the medical field for juniors and seniors that finally granted him the access he’d been craving since his sister’s hospitalization. Through volunteering and observation, Xavier deduced the strand of medicine he hopes to eventually join: anesthesiology. In pursuit of his dreams, Xavier plans to major in biology at a historically Black college or university, where he expects to find lifelong camaraderie. “If you ever talk to someone that’s attended an HBCU, that’s all they mostly talk about,” he said. “That sense of community that you build.” He has a full-ride offer waiting for him at Morehouse College and is a finalist for the Gates Scholarship. DG

ADISON HALBERT

Age: 17

Hometown: Little Rock

High School: Little Rock Christian Academy

Parents: Ricky and Shea Halbert College plans: University of Michigan

Little Rock Christian Academy’s Adison Halbert is so sweet that you’ll have a toothache by the time you’re done talking with her. It’s fitting considering Adison founded the school’s Spread Kindness Club during her junior year. Now, only in its second year of existence, the club is one of the school’s largest with 80 members. At the helm of the ship, Adison has organized a variety of do-good events, including fundraisers for local homeless organizations and the collection of nonperishable goods for the Arkansas Food Bank. She has already made an impact both big and small. “It really put into perspective that what I’m doing when I’m actively involved in community service isn’t going to nothing,” Adison said. “It’s actually affecting people in my community and playing out in their everyday lives as well.” The club’s focus also stems from Adison’s up-front approach to mental health. She said that everyone should have a therapist to talk to. She’s seen one for several years, and said that there’s no shame in taking care of your mental health like you would your physical health. With this in mind — and volunteer work with expectant mothers at the Arkansas Pregnancy Resource Center under her belt — Adison is an aspiring pediatric psychiatrist. She’s particularly interested in the biopsychology cognition and neuroscience major offered at the University of Michigan. She’s headed there in the fall, and we hope she finds the right cold-weather gear to make it through those winter months. Aside from Adison’s impressive academic accolades that include national merits, she also balances out her mental state with creative outputs. Lately, she’s been working as head of the make-up crew for school plays and honing her skill on colorful eyelashes for the bird girls in “Seussical: The Musical.” MH

NEVAEH MCFELSON

Age: 18

Hometown: North Little Rock

High School: North Little Rock High School

Parent: Antranette McFelson College plans: Columbia University

During her freshman year at North Little Rock High School, Nevaeh McFelson became aware of the district’s lagging achievement in science, technology and math. “I kind of wanted to see what I could do to help,” she said. So she started the EAST Elementary Project. The EAST Initiative (EAST stands for “education accelerated by service and technology”) begins in middle school, but Nevaeh thought the EAST model could work in elementary school with high school EAST leaders assisting elementary teachers. She pitched the idea to the North Little Rock Public Education Foundation in 2021 and was the first student to be awarded a teaching grant. She’s already seen the project inspire the elementary students. One class, after learning about robotics, was working on a mechanized solution to help a classmate with mobility issues. Another group of students, after learning about hydroponics, had started their own garden. She’s also a co-founder of the Be a Buddy program at NLRHS where she and other students work to build relationships with their special needs classmates, who are often physically separated from the rest of the student body. The Be a Buddy group organizes field trips and activities, and was planning a special high school prom designed to accommodate neurodivergent students who can’t handle loud noises. Even with those efforts and a sterling academic career, Nevaeh makes time to volunteer at a small animal rescue service (she owns a rabbit); plays violin, cello, viola, ukulele and piano; draws, paints and spends time outdoors. She’ll head to Columbia University in New York in the fall on a Questbridge Scholarship. LM

ALWAYS A ROCKET

Congratulations to the Class of 2023!

“Remember the Lord in all that you do, and He will show you the right way.” — Proverbs 3:6

OLIVIA PATTERSON

Age: 17

Hometown: Bentonville

High School: Haas Hall Academy in Rogers

Parents: Antonio and Coletta Patterson College plans: Boston College

Olivia Patterson was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, famous as Oprah Winfrey’s small town birthplace. “There was a lot of struggle there,” Olivia said. “There was a lot of hereditary disease — diabetes, heart disease and such. And a lot of people using government aid and not knowing the right insurance.” Her grandmother developed breast cancer, which might have been detected if she’d had more frequent screenings. Being around those sorts of health disparities inspired questions she hopes to one day help to solve: “How can we get underrepresented people better health care, and how can we make sure they’re better informed? And how can we defend these people to make sure they’re getting equal care?” To address those questions, she plans to double major in political science and public health at Boston College, where she’s attending on a full ride courtesy of the prestigious Questbridge Scholarship. From there, she hopes to be admitted to medical school and then law school en route to becoming a medical lawyer. As a Black woman, Olivia said she’s understood from a young age that she would have to work especially hard to succeed. Her parents helped. From early in Olivia’s life, they presided over “Patterson school,” and would prepare worksheets and reading assignments for her. Moving from Mississippi to Northwest Arkansas helped her along her academic path, Olivia said. She’s part of the inaugural graduating class at Haas Hall Academy in Rogers. Amelia Dunavan, Olivia’s academic adviser, said she’s worked with other similarly intelligent students in the past, but that Olivia’s humility and good nature separate her. “She never talks down to her classmates,” Dunavan said. “Instead, she’s patient and kind. She works to guide her peers with dignity, grace and a healthy sense of humor.” An accomplished artist, Olivia takes commissions in her spare time and has had art featured at the Springdale gallery Interform. LM

PHILIP WU

Age: 18

Hometown: Fayetteville

High School: Haas Hall Academy

Parents: Xintao and Guohua Wu College plans: Considering Georgia Tech

Forget learning within the restraints of time or topics, Philip Wu said that he finds joy in “learning irresponsibly.” While other kids may have spent their downtime during the pandemic vegging away in front of a television, Philip was drawn to a whiteboard and dove into a self-study of advanced mathematics, including surface integrals, terrain of gradients and integration theorems. His journey first started as a way to show off and then became pure, he said. “In hindsight, it was very immature,” Philip said. “When I was younger — to some degree — I used to conflate someone’s worth with how intelligent they were. And, for some reason, to me, mathematical ability was one of the more significant indicators of intelligence. I’ve come to realize that that is definitely not true.” In conversation with Philip, he was methodical and answered questions with patience and poise. The “freedom” that he said came from his personal study of mathematics was charming, especially as he admitted he may not be smart enough to become a mathematician. (He was selected to lead an advanced physics study group absent a qualified teacher.) Philip said his path will likely include something adjacent to researching artificial intelligence through an engineering or computer science degree, but he also hopes that his school of choice has room for exploration into humanities for more of that irresponsible learning. He said that while quite scary, he thinks artificial intelligence is both impressive and “incredibly intimidating.” To balance his already wildly impressive academic involvement — he’s also great on the school’s Quiz Bowl team — Philip plays piano and clarinet. He started playing piano around age 7, and has played every day for the last handful of years. Philip played Chopin’s “Nocturnes, Op. 48 No. 1” at his school talent show in April. Humbly, Philip said that his attention toward academics and instruments are seasonal, and he has enough time to balance his interests. MH

SYDNEY MASSEY

Age: 18

Hometown: Little Rock

High School: eStem High School

Parents: Howard and Carrie Massey College plans: Harvard University

Like Elle Woods of “Legally Blonde,” Sydney Massey is not to be underestimated. A rising senior bound for Harvard University who was accepted into all but one Ivy League school, Massey was described by her school counselor as “brilliant, mature, creative, caring and empathetic … one of the most remarkable students I have known during my 21 years in education.” Sparked by inspiration from none other than Elle Woods herself, Sydney’s headed for law school after she obtains her bachelor’s degree in environmental public policy, hoping to work for the Environmental Protection Agency or for an NGO defending sustainability-focused projects. “A lot of times, underrepresented communities don’t have a voice” when it comes to impactful environmental policy, Sydney told us, citing developments like pipelines and energy infrastructure. Empathy, Sydney said in her submission essay, is her “number one value.” She’s used it to foster understanding between classmates in her role as student body president and when her school director sought out her input to increase waning participation in extracurricular school events. She used it in her family life when, after her mother was hospitalized with liver failure, she stepped in to help her father in caretaking; Sydney maintains her impeccable academic record all while managing household responsibilities like grocery shopping and housekeeping. She also used it in her work at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library, where she helped develop a reading nook in which characters with diverse backgrounds and identities were represented. “I feel like every kid deserves to see themselves in the books they read,” she told us. SS

TAKSH PATEL

Age: 17

Hometown: Fayetteville

High School: Fayetteville High School

Parents: Kinnary and Yogeshbhai Patel College plans: Undecided

Taksh Patel joined Fayetteville High School’s vaunted Science Bowl team as a freshman and was encouraged by seniors on the team to pick a subject area focus. Taksh chose physics, and when the coronavirus hit and he was forced into isolation, he dove into the subject headlong. “It was frustrating at first, but I kind of got used to it,” he remembered. “It kind of became a passion, and I thought, ‘Why not take it to the next level?’” So he got connected with the University of Arkansas Quantum Materials lab, where he has worked for two years alongside graduate students growing quantum materials that could be used to make more effective solar panels or more efficiently conduct electricity. Perhaps not surprisingly, Taksh won a first place in a special category at the International Science and En gineering Fair and his Science Bowl team won the state competition in 2022. “What I really appreciate about Taksh is that even though he is brilliant, he is so kind and respectful,” his school counselor, Cindy Marsh, said. “He has a gentleness about him that I am not sure even he sees in himself. He has told me he is an in trovert and feels like he struggles with getting to know others; however, I see him as a great leader in our school.” In that vein, he’s the state service coordinator for the Hindu denomination Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swamina rayan Sanstha and a member of the Fayetteville Public Library Advisory Board. Ranked No. 1 at FHS with near-perfect ACT and SAT scores, Taksh plans to continue his exploration of phys ics in college. LM

KATE PEARCE

Age: 17

Hometown: Bentonville High School: Bentonville High School

Parents: Jay and Ann Pearce College plans: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Kate Pearce isn’t afraid of artificial intelligence. In fact, she’s written two papers about it and says it’s misunderstood. “I feel like people just maybe have a lot of misconceptions about what AI is,” she said. The Bentonville High School senior said artificial intelligence is a helpful tool that can be used to help people complete tasks, like audio transcription, that they’d rather not do. It’s also helpful with data visualization, which is another of her interests. “I generally have a positive view on the future of AI as something that makes way for humans to spend less time on menial tasks,” she said. Kate has published one research paper on the topic and has written another that hasn’t been published but has been cited by other researchers. Headed for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall, Kate has already put her interest in AI and data science to practical use. She’s worked with organizations like the Sunrise Movement, which advocates for green infrastructure, and Code for Democracy and has been a tutor with Khan Academy. “While her technical expertise is second to none, she applies this knowledge to work in pursuing societal reform,” said Justin Horschig, Kate’s college and career counselor. Ranked second in her class of 705 students, Kate hasn’t settled on a college major, but said she’s considering computer science, linguistics, urban planning or, of course, artificial intelligence. GC

DINESH VASIREDDY

Age: 18

Hometown: Bentonville High School: Bentonville High School

Parents: Anitha Yerneni and Srikanth Vasireddy College plans: Harvard University

Looking at Dinesh Vasireddy’s list of accomplishments is enough to make you want to hand the leadership reins over to the next generation immediately. He was honored by Yale University (at which he’d later be accepted, though he’s headed to Harvard) for research he did on the acceleration of online xenophobia during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was presented the Modern Visionary Award by Democratic Party of Arkansas Secretary Joshua Price for developing an artificial intelligence model to predict electoral trends among Arkansas voters. He’s become a voice for change and visibility through the Indian Students Association, talking with school administrators “for months,” his career counselor said, to receive approval “to host cultural events, traditional sports events and public displays on religious holidays (Holi, Diwali, Ramadan, etc.) on campus.” He worked with Arkansas United to develop policy proposals aimed at “addressing unethical labor laws, inadequate health care access, which are now being used by AU in national lobbying efforts regarding DACA and the DREAM Act.” On top of all that, he maintained a 4.67 GPA and made near-perfect scores on both his ACT and SAT. His transcript is full of computer science and STEM courses — an effort, he says, to “learn things I want to learn about and apply those things outside of school. It also helps me keep a mental balance — I’m not stressed out trying to pursue all of these activities because a lot of them I’m very passionate about.” Up ahead: Dinesh wants to work at the intersection of computer science and politics. Narrowing down a focus is an ongoing project, but he’s most interested in predicting election outcomes to optimize political analysis, “advocating for responsible legislation surrounding technology usage” and generally seeking to make political campaign data work for the “benefit of the social good.” SS

TYLER HASBERRY

Age: 18

Hometown: Little Rock

High School: Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School

Parents: Verora Dean and Talmadge Hasberry College plans: University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

Tyler Hasberry has always been good with numbers, which makes him a shoo-in for the accounting degree he’ll obtain at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville starting this fall, but there’s one number that stood out to us when we read his All-Stars submission criteria. That’d be the number one, the class ranking Tyler holds in a particularly competitive graduating class at Parkview. “Numbers kinda click,” Tyler told us. “It’s just something I’ve always been drawn to, even as a kid.” His interest in law came later when he practiced debate at school, getting an introduction to policy debate and the process of constructing arguments — skills he honed at Boys State, at Arkansas Governor’s School and in the whopping 13 AP classes on his school transcript. “Legal advice and working with people, and seeing that there’s multiple sides to the same argument — it just drew me into that atmosphere,” he said. As for his plans after college, Tyler is particularly interested in practicing tax law as a defense attorney, so he’s bound for three years of law school with his CPA in hand. “I try to set the bar high for myself,” Tyler said, and a little friendly competition with his siblings adds fuel to that drive. “My older sister motivates me to try and do better than her, to excel. And then my brother makes me more competitive, gives me that edge, like if I’m going to do something, I’m gonna try to be the best at it.” Most impressive to us? Tyler’s maintained his spotless academic record, kept up some extracurricular basketball with his brother Talmadge, and balanced schoolwork with volunteer opportunities at organizations like Paws on the Runway — all without keeping a day planner. “I just try to focus on one thing at a time,” he said. SS

asmsa.org

Congratulations to Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts seniors Kacie Koen and Robert Boerwinkle for being nominated as Arkansas Times Academic All-Stars!

Kacie is an aspiring playwright who has already garnered attention in state and national theater competitions. Last summer, she attended the prestigious Iowa Young Writers’ Studio Summer Program and Sewanee Young Writers Conference. Boerwinkle has earned state recognition as a member of ASMSA’s All-State Coding team as well as part of its award-winning programming and robotics teams. He is a 2023 National Merit Finalist and a U.S. Presidential Scholars Candidate.

ASMSA offers hundreds of young Arkansans an experience that combines the best parts of high school and college in a unique community of learning. It is the only school in the state to provide advanced course opportunities in STEM and the arts in an on-campus residential setting. Discover how you can engage in courses designed to challenge bright minds and grow as a student while earning more than a year of college credit.

Ignite your potential by attending one of the nation’s top public high schools!

ALEXIS CHILDS

Age: 17

Hometown: Cabot

High School: Cabot High School

Parents: Tara and Jason Childs College plans: Georgetown University

Alexis Childs was already fluent in German by the time she started high school because she spent her sixth- through eighth-grade years living in Germany. Her father, a retired member of the U.S. Air Force, was stationed in Germany, and Alexis dealt with the culture shock of moving back to Cabot by joining her school’s debate team. “It was really the most helpful thing because I got to travel right away,” she said. “I got to make friends with freshmen and upperclassmen and people from around the state.” She’d taken a casual debate class at her old school, but didn’t have any expectations. She figured she’d drop it after a semester if she didn’t like it. Four years and 50 tournaments later, she was named the 2023 Arkansas Speech and Debate Student of the Year. She said the award is a culmination of her competitive performance over the last four years, the impact she had on the state through volunteering, judging debate tournaments and mentoring young debaters. Alexis said debate is a valuable skill for students because it teaches them to think on their feet and to not just communicate with others, but to listen. “Debate in general is a great way to be exposed to so many different ideas and people with all different backgrounds,” she said. Do people ask her if she plans on being a lawyer because of her success in debate? “I get that a lot,” she said. “I actually am planning on law school at the moment.” Georgetown University has been her dream school since her 10th-grade year, but she worried that she wasn’t the ideal student the prestigious university typically accepts. “I don’t have perfect test scores or anything,” she said, modestly. “I feel like I’m surrounded by a lot of smart students.” Alexis is a National Merit Finalist, an AP Scholar with Distinction and has an Arkansas Seal of Biliteracy for German and English. She was an Arkansas Girls State junior counselor, a member of the Cabot Youth Leadership Council and she’s president of the Young Republicans club at her school. She will study international politics at her dream school in the fall. RB

BEN HOLLIS

Age: 18

Hometown: Hot Springs

High School: Lakeside High School

Parents: Doanh Doanh and Tom Hollis Jr. College plans: University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

Ben Hollis was the runner-up in the 5A state tennis singles championship his junior and sophomore years. A tennis player since he was a child, what he loves most about it is that it's not a team sport, it’s just him vs. his opponent. “Whether I win or lose it’s all on me,” he said. This year he tried to change his mindset and remember that it’s all about having fun, which allowed him to relax and just play. The championship match this year was held at his high school, and his principal excused his classmates to watch Ben play. “It’s usually a solitary sport and there’s no one else out there,” Ben said. “But for this one moment there’s like 100 students watching me play.” Ben won the state championship in front of his classmates in straight sets (6-3, 6-0). “It was truly amazing,” he said. Ben wrote in his Academic All-Stars essay that of all his high school accomplishments none means more to him than making his grandfather proud. Born and raised in Vietnam, his grandfather once told him, “Ben, you are number one,” and although Ben says he may not feel that way, he tries to make those words true in his daily actions. He’s No. 1 in his class, a National Merit Finalist, an AP Scholar with Distinction and he earned the President’s Volunteer Service Award in 2021 and 2022. He was part of the executive board for Our Promise Cancer Resources and over the last three years helped raise over $300,000. “A lot of people don’t realize that cancer patients have various needs, such as paying the electricity bill or gas cards and wigs. A lot of these needs go forgotten and we’re here to help them with that.” Ben’s grandfather has prostate cancer and he said seeing the ways that it impacted his life inspired him to help others with similar issues. Ben likes to play guitar (Smashing Pumpkins and The Strokes) and chess with his older brother and would like to be an audiobook narrator. He will study biochemistry at the University of Arkansas on a pre-med track in the fall. RB

AARON LIU

Age: 18

Hometown: Little Rock

High School: Little Rock Central High School

Parent: Jing Xu College plans: Yale University or Brown University

Aaron Liu always tries his best. That’s the way he was raised. It’s a philosophy instilled by parents that led the Little Rock Central High School senior to being the top-ranked student at his school and scoring a 36 on the ACT. “If I don’t try to a certain extent, I feel kind of guilty on the inside, because it feels like I’m not putting in all my effort and I’m just wasting the time I’m spending here,” he said. Aaron will be applying his work ethic either at Yale University or Brown University in the fall and he plans to study biochemistry. “I think it has a lot of applicability in the real world,” he said. “It allows for research and studying the natural world, which I’m pretty interested in. It opens up a lot of possibilities for new discoveries.” Aaron, who said he might want to become a doctor, has participated in a variety of extracurricular activities and was named Arkansas Quiz Bowl All Star, but it was his role in a school club that helped him grow as a leader, his counselor Kim Williams said. “Aaron is a naturally shy student, but his leadership skills have grown since becoming Mu Alpha Theta president,” she said. Aaron also enjoys playing piano, although he didn’t always like it. He says he was dragged into piano as a child but has come to enjoy it. He enjoys playing classical music, including the technically difficult pieces by Chopin, as well as songs by Coldplay and The Chainsmokers. GC

KNOX GRAHAM

Age: 18

Hometown: Springdale

High School: Har-Ber High School

Parents: Timothy and Jessica Graham

College plans: Georgetown University

Don’t be surprised if you see the name Knox Graham in the future, maybe even in the political sphere. As the two-time Team Captain of Arkansas Student Congress, the first-place winner for International Extemporaneous Speaking in state debate competitions and state chairman of Arkansas’s Teen Republicans chapter, it’s not surprising that Knox had astonishingly polished answers for any question we threw his way, including some complicated ones about growth and inequity. “When it comes to economics in our state, we need to create something out of nothing,” Knox said when asked about how to ensure economic growth across lines of income and inequity. “Economics isn’t a zero-sum game.” At Georgetown, Knox plans to study international political economy (think: an economics degree that focuses less on economic theory and more on how we practice economics across digital and international lines.). “I’ve always been fascinated with the science of how people use money, how they make decisions for themselves and how they’re incentivized to do that.” One of his teachers described him as “uncommonly motivated,” and another called him “a scholar, a gifted speaker, a talented writer, a friend, an academic and, most of all, a true leader.” And, maybe luckily for us here in Arkansas, Knox dreams of turning his talents homeward once he’s established his career path; he sees Northwest Arkansas as ripe for innovation and even more exponential growth. “Arkansas is a very vibrant place to find a job and to make a living for yourself, in part because it provides a lot of economic opportunity for yourself, and also because it’s a great place to raise your family. We have very strong cultural institutions here. Arkansas is a place where we’re very involved with each other. We care about each other.” On that note, Knox has spent some of his high school career volunteering with Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, Arkansas United and Benton County- and Washington County-based campaigns for state Senate and Congress during the 2022 election season. SS

TONY JIMENEZ

Age: 18

Hometown: Conway

High School: Conway High School

Parents: Juan and Leyla Jimenez

College plans: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sometimes school feels like a game to Tony Jimenez. And it’s a game he’s winning. From trying to see how quickly he can finish all his homework to seeing how perfectly he can perform on all his tests, Tony finds joy in his schoolwork. “It was just really fun,” he said. “In high school, it’s certainly been more stressful, but I still find joy in just sitting down and doing homework and just learning new things.” Tony has even created an online study guide for each of the 13 AP classes he has taken. The 300-page online document is so impressive that his counselor said he could sell the guides but has given it away instead. “He wants his classmates to do well on the AP test as well,” said his counselor, Cameron Jernigan. The son of a father who didn’t attend college and a mother who didn’t graduate high school, Tony is headed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a full-ride scholarship. He scored a 35 on the ACT, is ranked in the top 10 of his class of 682 and ascribes his success to “genetic” and “situational” lotteries that gave him the skills to achieve. Tony’s success in school has left him feeling in debt to those who have supported him. “I try to pay it in hard work,” he said. “I try to pay it in love. Ultimately, I am very grateful to owe it.” GC

MARIAM PARRAY

Age: 17

Hometown: Little Rock

High School: Pulaski Academy

Parents: Tariq Parray and Sameera Farooqi College plans: University of Virginia

When Mariam Parray was tutoring at Little Rock’s Mathnasium, she was drawn to a Thelonious Monk quote on the wall that said, “All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians,” not because it was pertinent to her life, but because of the contrast between her math skills — a subject where she’s always excelled — and her musical abilities as a flutist, an area where she lacked confidence. “I didn’t really understand how something that felt rigid like math could be tied to something as creative as music,” she said. While isolated at home during the pandemic her freshman year, she found a passion for music when she was able to practice purely for the sake of enjoyment without the pressure of a performance or being compared to others. Over time she learned how the fields of math and music were not only connected, but could be applied to other areas in life as well. “No matter what problems we face in what fields, we can always embed some type of creativity into our logic,” she said. “As I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to embrace this sense of being interdisciplinary.” Mariam is ranked No. 1 in her class. She is a National Merit Finalist, president of the Model UN, president of the school band, captain of the lacrosse team and co-captain of the Quiz Bowl team. A member of her school’s Amnesty program, she’s found a passion for social justice and being able to uplift others and tell their stories, she said. A prolific researcher, she was the winner of the American Foreign Service Association’s National High School Essay Contest and got to meet Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In her junior year she submitted a 42page paper to the Concord Review — the longest paper a PA student has ever submitted — about how Islam has functioned in Russia during the Russian Empire, the Soviet era and beyond. She also submitted a paper addressing the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. “I think there’s an overarching theme in my passions of understanding how people’s identities function in the world,” she said. RB

ACADEMIC ALL-STAR FINALISTS

ALLY ALHAJJAJ Benton High School

KIYA BRITT Bryant High School

RILEY BRYANT Central Arkansas Christian School

MELANIE CASTILLO Fordyce High School

BLAKE COVERT Benton High School

JACK DIGNAN Berryville High School

COLIN FISHER Guy-Perkins High School

KATHERINE FOREMAN Lakeside High School

SCOTT GOWEN Valley View High School

GAVIN HILL Bryant High School

ISAAC HUBBERD eStem High School

ALLISON HUMPHRIES Calico Rock High School

LUCY JOLLEY Joe T. Robinson High School

KACIE KOEN Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts

REESE MCCALLUM Valley View High School

HALEY PERSON Springdale High School

EMMA PRONDZINSKI Nettleton High School

IRENE RAICH Fayetteville High School

ELLA RAPER Conway High School

ZULETTE ROMERO Rogers Heritage High School

JOHN STORER The Academies at Jonesboro High School

NATHAN THURMAN Cabot High School

ETHAN TRITCH Paragould High School

CASSIDY WAIDE Haas Hall Academy at The Jones Center

TRISTAN WENDEL Fountain Lake Charter High School

WILL ZHENG Marion High School

It takes a family to find just where you belong.

Creative, adaptable, focused, resilient and determined. Is this you?

The right path feels less like a job and more like a calling. Is this you?

Doesn’t shy away from hard work with a powerful payo . Is this you?

A company with national reach that feels like a family. That’s Youth Villages.

Work for families and become part of one.

“I love helping youth and I love what I do. This isn’t work to me. This is a passion.”

– Thurmeisha White, Youth Villages employee

BATESVILLE

QUINCY BEARD

Southside Charter High School

BAUXITE

REECE ROWLAND

Bauxite High School

BEARDEN

EMMA BEARD

Bearden High School

BENTON

ALLY ALHAJJAJ

Benton High School

BLAKE COVERT

Benton High School

BENTONVILLE SHERLIN JOE

Haas Hall Academy Bentonville

KATE PEARCE

Bentonville High School

JUAN SEGURA

Haas Hall Academy Bentonville

JORDAN STEWART-MITCHELL Thaden School

DINESH VASIREDDY

Bentonville High School

HADLEY WARD Thaden School

BERRYVILLE

JACK DIGNAN

Berryville High School

ELIZABETH PEREZ

Berryville High School

BRINKLEY

JAMIAH ROBINSON

Brinkley High School

BRYANT

KIYA BRITT Bryant High School

GAVIN HILL

Bryant High School

ACADEMIC ALL-STAR NOMINEES

CABOT

ALEXIS CHILDS

Cabot High School

NATHAN THURMAN

Cabot High School

CALICO ROCK

ALLISON HUMPHRIES

Calico Rock High School

CENTER RIDGE

HARLEY ANDREWS

Nemo Vista High School

PATRICK PERRY

Nemo Vista High School

CHARLESTON

ROY HUDSON

Charleston High School

JILLIAN RACHUY

Charleston High School

CONWAY

ANTONIO JIMENEZ

Conway High School

ELLA RAPER Conway High School

CORNING

DUNCAN TYLER

Corning High School

JOSIE WOOLARD Corning High School

DANVILLE

HALLE JOHNSTON

Danville High School

FAYETTEVILLE RUKAYA ALRUBAYE

Haas Hall Academy Fayetteville

ALLYSON COLLINS

Fayetteville Virtual Academy

TAKSH PATEL

Fayetteville High School

IRENE RAICH

Fayetteville High School

NOAH RUSSELL

Fayetteville Virtual Academy

PHILIP WU

Haas Hall Fayetteville

FORDYCE

MELANIE CASTILLO

Fordyce High School

EMILY GRAVES

Fordyce High School

GRAVETTE LIDIA MORALES Gravette High School

CHRISTIAN THRAILKILL Gravette High School

GREENLAND ANDREW MCARDLE

Greenland High School

MAKYLA VAUGHAN

Greenland High School

GUY COLIN FISHER

Guy-Perkins High School

ALEXIS PASSMORE Guy-Perkins High School

HOPE KALEO ANDERSON Hope High School

CAMRON ROBINSON Hope High School

HOT SPRINGS

ROBERT BOERWINKLE

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and Arts

KATHERINE FOREMAN

Lakeside High School

JELANA GRIFFITH

Hot Springs World Class High School

WARREN HEDRICK

Hot Springs World Class High School

CLASS OF 2023 Congrats

Joe T. Robinson High

The 2022-2023 school year has been a refreshing change from the past three years, but it’s flown by like the blink of an eye. Throughout your years, you have experienced new and exciting adventures, learned many lessons and created memories that will carry you for years to come. Academic determination, dedication to extracurricular activities, and longlasting friendships have helped shape you into the young adults you are and will continue to be.

You have been through some challenges during your high school years. Each of you has endured at least one obstacle over the past four years. Those challenges shaped you into the person you are today and will continue to shape the person you will become. Always remember how strong you are for all that you have experienced.

I want to take a moment to recognize some of the many accomplishments from you, the Class of 2023, during your time at Joe T. Robinson High School.

• 70% of our Seniors will graduate with a 3.0 or higher

• National Merit Finalist - Annabelle Ridlon

• 13 seniors joined the ACT 30+ Club with a 30 or higher on the ACT test

• Tuskegee Airman Air Force ROTC ScholarshipRandall McIntosh, II

• Concert Band earned superior 1s for stage performance and an excellent rating for sight reading at ASBOA Region 1 Concert Assessment

• 3 senior musicians (Annabelle Ridlon, Parker Brasfield, and Abigail Henson) earned seats at AllState

• 2 Robinson students to ever make Wind Symphony (top tier all-state band)

• Robinson Choral Performance Assessment Region

2 earned Division 1 superior ratings in performance and sight singing and will move on to participate in the state assessment

• All State Choral - Alexis Jacques

• RHS Volleyball made it to the State Tournament

• Arkansas Governor’s School - Christian Carter, Abigail Henson, Lauryn Lewis

• Multiple championships in football, baseball, track, cross country, and girls soccer over the past four years.

• Student-athletes received high achievement for individuals in golf, wrestling and cheerleading

• Alexis McAllister placed 2nd in Humorous Interpretation at Little Rock Central High School’s Forensics Tournament

• 2 seniors won Gold in the Special Olympics

• 6 Seniors inRHS JAG swept the competition with the most wins among all schools in the state competition

• Senior Sameul Tabak placed 3rd in the state wrestling competition

• Senior Samuel Chapin and Senior Bryson “Champ” Calamese voted as All-Star Nominees

• 2 of the the top 5 players in the entire 4A-5 Conference

As you move on into adulthood, remember the lessons you learned as a student at Robinson. Know your why and set goals for yourself to attain your dreams. Make excellence your expectation in everything you do. Give 100% of yourself on a daily basis. Lastly, always remember it is a great day to be a Senator!

Dr. Jason Pickering, Principal

Maumelle High

Congratulations on being part of the 12th graduating class from Maumelle High School! As you join the ranks of over 2,700 Hornet alumni, I am proud to be a part of your journey and excited to see where life takes you from here.

This year, I encourage you to embrace the spirit of service and continue to give back to your community, even as you move into the next chapter of your life. Remember that you are more than the labels society may place upon you, and strive to be “indefinable” in the best sense of the word.

As you move forward, never forget the most important titles you hold - father, mother, spouse, friend - and let these roles guide you as you define your own story. Your words and actions have the power to build up or tear down, so choose them carefully.

I am honored to have been a part of your journey here at Maumelle High and I know you will make us proud in all that you do. l wish you well. I wish you the best life has to offer and continued blessings. Congratulations again, and go Hornets!

Mr. Jason Young, Principal

Mills University Studies High

As we reflect on this past year, we know that we have experienced tests and trials. Yet, we made it.We have overcome with discipline and morals. Yet, the best way that we overcome is through love. Love is the greatest motivation in life. Hate, anger, and revenge can drive our lives for a while, but eventually, we will run out of gas. When love fuels our lives, we have a source that never runs dry. As we encounter difficult times, we need to remember this. It can pull us through while giving us perspective and context.

Yes, we had a great year in ROTC.We had a great year in football and the Lady Comets Basketball team won more games this year than in the previous five years combined. In addition, our 11th-grade ACT Scores improved and over half the football team’s senior class signed national letters of intent to play college football. We had a golfer attend the state tournament.Last, we have sent students to Boys & Girls State.

Looking back on all of these things, we must ponder these questions: Am I ready for the real world?Can I truly say that I have invested my time well?Did I work hard when my back was against the wall?Did I serve others?

Comet Nation, there is no life worth living without generosity. Do justice and love mercy.

I want to leave us with this quote by Dr. Christopher Emdin- ”We want to create a classroom that is a microcosm of that world you want to live in and not a replication of the one we currently have.”As each of us does this, we manifest our visions and dreams in real-time.

Mr. Duane Clayton, Principal

Sylvan Hills High

The Class of ‘23 will do big things after departing the hallways of SHHS. Regardless of the obstacles you were plagued with, the Class of 2023 has been a special class. We have SEVENTY students from your class that are Honor Graduates with at least a 3.5-grade point average. You produced several Governor’s Distinguished recipients and 2 National Merit winners. For many, you have conquered private challenges we could never have predicted. You all have truly excelled in outlandish times and because of that, the Class of 2023 has cemented itself as extraordinary.

I wish you all the best in your future endeavors! Go Bears!

Tracy

Allen, Principal

Pulaski County Special School District serves nearly 12,000 students in Pulaski County covering more than 600 square miles. Across this expansive county, PCSSD boasts four high schools in three different cities -Joe T. Robinson High School and Mills University Studies High School in Little Rock, Maumelle High School in Maumelle and Sylvan Hills High School in Sherwood. As we reflect one last time on the 2022-2023 school year, we want to send a special message to our graduating seniors - the class of 2023. The following messages are from each of the high school principals.

BEN HOLLIS Lakeside High School

KACIE KOEN

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts

TRISTAN WENDEL

Fountain Lake Charter High School

JONESBORO

CLARA BAKER

The Academies at Jonesboro High School

SCOTT GOWEN Valley View High School

REESE MCCALLUM Valley View High School

EMMA PRONDZINSKI Nettleton High School

JOHN STORER

The Academies at Jonesboro High School

TYLER WHEELESS Nettleton High School

LINCOLN NGUN PAR Lincoln High School

TSIMTXHUA VANG Lincoln High School

LITTLE ROCK

EMMA GRACE COOLEY Episcopal Collegiate School

JOSHUA DIAZ Pulaski Academy

ISABEL DE LOS SANTOS

Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School

JESSICA DOSS

Little Rock Central High School

ADISON HALBERT

Little Rock Christian Academy

TYLER HASBERRY

Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High

ISAAC HUBBERD

eStem Public Charter High School

LUCY JOLLEY

Joe T. Robinson High

AARON LIU

Little Rock Central High School

SYDNEY MASSEY eStem High School

MARIAM PARRAY

Pulaski Academy

HUDSON SEAGO

Little Rock Christian Academy

ERIN STRICKLAND Mount St. Mary Academy

NICHOLAS TARINI Catholic High School for Boys

MARION

MARGARET CRAIN

Marion High School

WILL ZHENG Marion High School

MAUMELLE

TAIJAH JACKSON

Maumelle High School

MENA

KENDALL POSEY

Mena High School

ALEXANDER ROCHA

Mena High School

MONETTE

MACIE HATCH

Buffalo Island Central High School

MONTICELLO

NATHAN COOPER Drew Central High School

CADEN LANE

Drew Central High School

MOUNTAINBURG

BALDWIN KAMUI

Mountainburg High School

MOUNTAIN VIEW

ALLISON FUTRELL

Mountain View High School

CAMYN VICKERS

Mountain View High School

MT. VERNON

ADDY MEADERS

Mount Vernon Enola High School

BLAKE STEWART

Mount Vernon Enola High School

NORTH LITTLE ROCK

RILEY BRYANT

Central Arkansas Christian School

NEVAEH MCFELSON

North Little Rock High School

PARAGOULD

SKYLAR ORR

Paragould High School

ETHAN TRITCH

Paragould High School

POYEN

ANASTASIA HARRISON Poyen High School

AUSTIN WEBB Poyen High School

RISON

EMMA GREEN Rison High School

BRADEN MITCHELL Rison High School

ROGERS

ABIGAIL GIVENS

Arkansas Arts Academy

ISAAC HENSLEY

Rogers Heritage High School

ELISE LOONEY

Founders Classical Academy Rogers

OLIVIA PATTERSON

Haas Hall Academy — Rogers

ZULETTE ROMERO

Rogers Heritage High School

ADRIAN SALAZAR

Rogers High School

NOAH SCHERER

Rogers New Technology High School

CHELSEA VELASQUEZ

Rogers New Technology High School

JORDYN MCKENZIE WOODS

Rogers High School

ROSE BUD

KAMRYN BATES

Rose Bud High School

RECE HIPP

Rose Bud High School

SEARCY

GRANT LAWSON

Searcy High School

SHERWOOD

XAVIER GRAVES

Sylvan Hills High School

SILOAM SPRINGS

OLHA LOS

Siloam Springs High School

CARLOS ZAMORA

Siloam Springs High School

SPRINGDALE

MARCOS CISNEROS

Springdale High School

MARLENE DELGADO-GARCIA

Har-Ber High School

KNOX GRAHAM

Har-Ber High School

HALEY PERSON

Springdale High School

CASSIDY WAIDE

Haas Hall Academy at The Jones Center

SHERWOOD

JUANNA MORRIS

Sylvan Hills High School

WEST MEMPHIS

MAKENZIE PITTS

Academies of West Memphis

“Alexis is truly an example of what any educator desires from its students.  She’s a driven learner, incredibly capable student, and has a passion for learning that can’t be taught.  She has friends all over the state from many tournaments, events, and competitions.  It is a pleasure to have taught her these last four years.”

– Rachel Mauchline

Tips for Survivors of a Disaster or Other Traumatic Event:

MANAGING STRESS

Important Things To Know About Disasters and Other Traumatic Events

If you were involved in a disaster such as a tornado, flood, or another traumatic event like a car crash, you may be affected personally regardless of whether you were hurt or lost a loved one You can be affected just by witnessing a disaster or other traumatic event. It is common to show signs of stress after exposure to the disaster or other traumatic event, and it is important to monitor your physical and emotional health.

Possible Reactions to a Disaster or Other Traumatic Event

Try to identify your early warning signs of stress. Stress usually shows up in the areas shown below, but everyone should check for ANY unusual stress responses.

YOU MAY FEEL EMOTIONALLY: YOU MAY HAVE PHYSICAL REACTIONS, SUCH AS:

Anxious, fearful, or overwhelmed by sadness

Angry, especially if the event involved violence Guilty, even when you had no control over the event Heroic, like you can do anything

Like you have too much energy or no energy at all

Disconnected, not caring about anything or anyone Numb, unable to feel either joy or sadness

Having stomach aches or diarrhea

Having headaches or other physical pains for no clear reason

Eating too much or too little

Sweating or having chills

Getting tremors (shaking) or muscle twitches

Being jumpy or easily startled

Celebrating Arkansas Nurses

Why did you go into nursing? I went to nursing school because I had no nurses in my immediate family back then, so I thought I could make a difference helping my family members and other people with some health issue questions. What is your nursing specialty? After being a nurse in geriatric field for a long time, I always had a passion for mental health.

Why did you pick your specialty? Not many nurses want to work in mental health. For the last two years, I have noticed a lot of mental health facilities around our area had a growing need for nurses. So, I decided to join the Bridgeway to make a meaningful contribution to your community. What do you love most about being a nurse? Helping others when they are at their worst. What qualities do you find necessary to be a nurse? Good communication skills, empathy, attention to details, flexibility, time management and organization skills and self-care.

Bernetta Lowe, RN

Why did you go into nursing? I went into nursing because as a teenager I used to help my elderly grandfather with his medications and ADL. He used to call me his "nurse" and spoke it into existence.

What is your nursing specialty? I actually have two nursing specialties (psychiatric and cardiac). I worked at Jefferson Regional Medical Center for 20 years in various cardiac units. I have worked at Centers for the past 12 years, which specializes in child and adolescent psychiatry and behavioral health.

Why did you pick your specialty? Both specialties chose me. Prior to graduating from the University of Arkansas at Monticello we had a career day, and the nurse manager from JRMC's Cardiac Stepdown spoke to us and it intrigued me. Working in cardiac, there was always a new treatment, procedure or medication, and I enjoyed educating my patients. The truth about how I started working at Centers is I had credit card debt and wanted extra money. So I was working two full-time jobs for about two years because I loved the family atmosphere we have here at Centers and was proud of the difference we were making in the lives of the youth.

What do you love most about being a nurse?

The things I love about nursing are the relationships that you form with the patients and co-workers. I also love the fact that most of the time we make a difference whether it be small or big. What qualities do you find necessary to be a nurse? Compassion, empathy and truthfulness. I try to always put myself in the position of the client and treat them from that point instead of where they should be. Nothing goes further than a kind word or gesture. A smile goes a long way.

“THEY MAY FORGET YOUR NAME, BUT THEY WILL NEVER FORGET HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.”

Stephanie Montgomery-Hall has only been with Methodist Family Health for a year, but in that short amount of time, she has made a radical difference. Treating Arkansas children and youth who are abandoned, abused, neglected and struggling with psychiatric, behavioral, emotional and spiritual issues is trying at best, but Stephanie understands the necessity for patience, listening and understanding.

“I went into nursing so I could help people,” she said. “I love to help others become the best versions of themselves.”

Specializing in adolescent behavioral health, Stephanie explains she chose this career as someone who endured her own mental health struggles as a child. “I found it important to help others who were trying to navigate those waters. I live every day with the goal to help them understand that they do have a future and they can overcome their situation,” she said. “The way I look at it, if I make a difference in even one child’s life, I have done my job.”

Stephanie says the most important thing about being a nurse is demonstrating empathy and compassion for others. Her favorite thing about being a nurse is being able to help others and see them come out of the darkness of their struggle into the light of their best selves.

“Being a nurse is hard,” Stephanie said. “Sometimes, you encounter individuals who go through very difficult situations, and being able to have compassion for them and continue to work toward the ultimate goal of helping them get better, is imperative to being a good nurse.”

—Maya angelou

ACH After-Hours Clinic

Partners with community primary care clinics to offer sick visits seven days a week.

ACH Southwest Little Rock Clinic

Our staff cares for the diverse needs of patients, from well-child visits to acute illness treatments.

Arkansas Children’s is here for the everyday medical needs of your children. Whether it’s treating a fever or giving an immunization, our primary care clinics provide diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care for illnesses or injuries. We are committed to preventative care, including immunizations, physical examinations, positive newborn screens and child health maintenance.

We are shining a spotlight on a few:

ACH Pine Bluff Clinic

Southeast Arkansas families can receive care close to home with physicals, vaccines and screenings.

ACH Primary Care in Little Rock

Pediatric care includes well-child visits, immunizations, diagnosis and treatments.

UAMS NURSES AR THE FUTURE

This year, in honor of our nurses and teams, UAMS will celebrate the 2023 Nurses Week with the theme, UAMS Nurses AR the Future Planned events include a “Welcome To Work” with nursing leaders, “CNO Kick-off and Blessing of the Hands,” annual recognition awards, and self-care rejuvenation activities. UAMS will close out Nurses Week on Friday, May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday, with a tribute to honor our fallen nurses with the Arkansas Nurses Honor Guard. We thank our nurses and teams for the difference they make for our patients, families and each other every day. UAMS nurses embody excellence which is why our nurses AR the future of UAMS! If you want to make a difference, come join us! You can “live chat” with our nurse recruiter, email nurserecuitment@uams. edu, or visit our website, nurses.uams.edu, to learn even more reasons why nurses choose UAMS Nursing! Sign-on bonuses available for nurses who meet eligibility criteria for critical areas. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @UAMSNurses #ProudToBeAUAMSNurse #WorkFamilyMatters #GoNursing

“NURSES ARE THE HEART OF HEALTH CARE”

—Donna Wilk Cardillo

Flexible treatment for an unforgiving disease

The BridgeWay is more than a hospital-it’s a place of hope and recovery from substance use disorders and mental illness. With the belief that each person can change and heal, we offer a program and treatment plan unique to each patient. Our outpatient treatment represents our least restrictive and most flexible care options. Our Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) and Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) offer either day or evening schedules. These options allow patients to receive recovery-focused treatment that addresses a full range of psychiatric and addictive issues while attending to daily family and work obligations. In addition, our outpatient programs provide specialized group therapy for adults 18 and older with specific mental health or substance use disorder needs.

TOGETHER AT LAST

A FIRST LOOK AT THE NEW ARKANSAS MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS.

BY DANIEL GREAR PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

We’ve done a fair bit of reporting on the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts renovation from afar, sifting through pictures and sneaking glances as we walked or drove by MacArthur Park, but — as you might expect — getting to step inside this mammoth is another experience entirely. If you were one of the lucky ones who snagged a ticket to the grand opening before reservations filled up, you know firsthand that there’s simply too much dazzling stimuli to absorb (much less write about) in a single visit, but here are a few highlights you’ve gotta see in person:

Despite the entire facility being something of a work of art, the most arresting feature might

be the ceiling. Above the grand staircases of the massive atrium — which now intuitively unites a previously Frankensteinian facility — over 6,000 slats of differently sized plywood have been individually strung, no two pieces being parallel as they follow the elegantly undulating shape of the roof, the space between each board creating geometric patterns. According to Juliane Wolf — one of the design principals at Studio Gang, the acclaimed firm responsible for envisioning the new AMFA — the installation process involved placing a projection on the floor, which was then used to shoot lasers onto the ceiling in order to mark the hangpoints. It’s a detail like this that tempts me to say that the AMFA might be as, if not more, architecturally

STATE-OF-THE-ART: The new AMFA building — designed by Studio Gang — is so architecturally interesting that it rivals Bentonville’s Crystal Bridges.

interesting as Bentonville’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Also under this stunningly intricate vaulting, the Cultural Living Room is where I found myself most drawn to. A furniture-filled, glass-enclosed semicircle suspended over the front entrance of the building, the only stated purpose for this space is relaxation, a spot for the liminal time before or after whatever officially brought you to the museum. The Cultural Living Room perhaps errs on the sleek and bougie side at this point, prioritizing magazine-worthy vibes over maximum seating and hominess, but in time it’ll likely be broken in and feel more inviting. Through its gigantic slanted windows, you’ll find a panoramic view of Little Rock that you’ve definitely never seen before and a new appreciation for downtown structures that you’ve long grown numb to.

It’s hard not to focus on the flashiness of the building, but the art inside is just as worthy of exalting. Much like the overall design’s thrust toward giving the AMFA more cohesion, the galleries — all of which were endowed and named by Harriet and Warren Stephens in recognition of individuals and groups who were critical players in the museum’s history — have been relocated to reside in conjunction, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all the work on display and making the wandering experience that much more instinctive. My favorite part of the layout is the fact that you’re forced to walk underneath a colorful and constellatory installation by Anne Lindberg in order to find your way to “Together,” the premiere exhibition. Once inside “Together,” I rushed to the pieces I’d encountered so many times online — like “Carving Out Time, Scene 1: Morning” by LaToya M. Hobbs, “Triptych (3.20.15, 5.21.15, 6.8.15)” by Oliver Lee Jackson and "Meet You There” by Alison Elizabeth Taylor — and learned that they are far more impressively vast and far more accessibly human than I could have imagined from a distance.

BALANCING ART & PEOPLE: A Q&A WITH VICTORIA RAMIREZ

Victoria Ramirez (pictured at right) became the executive director at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in October 2019. A lifelong player in the world of museums, especially in moments of growth, she previously served as the director of both the El Paso Museum of Art and the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin as well as the education director at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

You started working at the AMFA during a pretty transitional time, when plans for the construction of a new building were already significantly underway. How was the project pitched to you? What challenges did the museum have that the improvements were designed to meet? The building really needed to do two things. It needed to be state-of-the-art. It needed to function like a 21st century art museum. It needed to be able to store, preserve and display its collection. It needed to be able to function like a 21st century art school. That’s part of who we are. We needed to have a state-of-the-art theater, lecture hall and educational spaces. The second thing is that it needed to be able to serve people and be a place that people wanted to go to. And I think we’ve achieved that with the design. It’s a beautiful building, inside and out. It’s an inspiring place to be. I think people will really feel that specialness when they come to the museum. That’s what we want museums to be, to be these unique, really nurturing places. It can’t just function; it’s got to be a magnet that draws people. And a place that people want to come back to.

Now that you’re on the other side, what’s really special about this facility? What are some unique features that you love? Oh my gosh, there’s so many. I love the fact that we’re located in a park. I love the fact that landscape architecture and the natural world is a

part of the museum experience, not only when you come to the museum, but when you’re inside. With all of our windows and glass, it really creates this sort of seamless relationship between the interior and the exterior. I love the fact that you could be driving down Ninth Street or on the south side of the park and you can peer into the museum and see what’s happening. To me, it’s almost like there are no secrets. I love the fact that when you come in, it’s very intuitive, the way that you navigate the museum. You can stand at certain points in the atrium and you can see clear through north to south. What you can also see are all the amenities of the museum: the restaurant, the store, the school, the lecture hall, the theater, the galleries and even the bathrooms. It’s not a maze.

Also, in this new building, there are a lot of open social spaces. There’s a great signature space called the Cultural Living Room, which is really going to be Little Rock’s living room. It’s a place where anyone can come in and bring their laptop, make friends or grab a drink or a coffee, before or after walking through the galleries or going to see a performance.

The last thing I think is so special about this building is that it’s really, really stunning. Every material for the floor and the walls and the ceilings and the lights was so carefully selected. We want people to realize that they’re in this kind of gift to the community when they come to the museum. When you’re in a special space where people have taken a lot of thought and care into crafting, I think people feel that.

How has programming been expanded in light of the renovations? Well, one of the strengths of this museum is our legacy programs. I’m really pleased to say that we will continue to have an art school, but we’ve also modernized it a bit. In addition to classes, we’re offering workshops, and offering expanded programs for children. We’re continuing the Children’s Theatre legacy of offering performances for young people and for families, but again it’s been modernized. One of our very first performances will be “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” which we know is near and dear to a lot of people and will just be fun and familiar. But it’s a performance that involves over 70 puppets, and puppetry has been one of our relatively new offshoots of the Children’s Theatre program. For us, theater has always been about main stage, but now it’s about playwriting and puppetry and costuming.

We’ll also have a range of programs for both children and adults. We’ll have a whole mobile audio tour that people can access through their phones. We’ll have regular tours with one of our fabulous volunteer docents, where visitors can learn more about the building and the art on view. And we’re branching out into more performing artists. In addition to some of the artist talks, we have concerts coming up. We have films that we’ll be adding to the schedule. We have a performance with Ballet Arkansas coming up. Coming to MacArthur Park will really be an opportunity to see a broad spectrum of the arts.

ARRESTING: The Cultural Living Room (bottom center) and the intricate ceiling work throughout the atrium are some of the AMFA's most striking new features.

In January, the AMFA announced that it would be partnering with the Arkansas Cinema Society and Ballet Arkansas. Could you speak to those alliances as well as any other collaborations that are on the horizon? What was really interesting about both of them is that they, like us, have a statewide commitment. All three of us as organizations have Arkansas in our names and we are committed to serving the people in this state. In talking with them, we learned that Ballet Arkansas was really interested in performances in nontraditional spaces. While we have a formal theater, they’re interested in some experimentation. Given our brand-new building, we could be that venue and backdrop for them. They certainly have gotten to know our collection a bit, and they’re looking at some works and thinking about the intersection of dance and visual arts. There’s so much overlap there. The Arkansas Cinema Society was the same way. They’re interested in expanding their programming, they’re interested in exploring multidisciplinary programming, and what the intersection of art and film looks like.

We are talking to some other organizations right now. Some of them are smaller organizations, too, because one of the things we can offer is our space. So more partnerships to come. They may not all be formal partnerships per se. Sometimes, a great collaboration for an evening can really be something very interesting. In fact, we have in July a partnership that we’re doing with a handful of other museums in our region, bringing curators and artists from throughout our Delta/Mid-South region. We’re working with Crystal Bridges, the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth. I think a lot of cultural organizations across the country realize there’s so much value in working together. When you do that, you really can oftentimes create a more lasting or impactful program than when it’s just one organization going at it on their own.

COVERING THE WALLS: A Q&A WITH THERESA BEMBNISTER

Let’s start by talking about “Together,” the lead exhibition accompanying the reopening of the AMFA. How was it dreamed up? “Together” is really about celebrating the fact that we can finally be back together with all of our guests after the museum has been closed to the public for so many years. It’s this joyous reflection on themes of togetherness. We’re dividing it up between ideas of together with friends and family (and we mean family in the broadest sense), together with community (however you want to see that word) and also together with nature.

And the works in the exhibition, some of them fall into more than one category. When you walk through the door, you’ll see some photographs by an artist named Sarah Sense. She lives in California, but she has Choctaw and Chitmacha Native American heritage. The Chitimacha reservation is in this very bayou-esque land in Louisiana and she traveled through with a boat and took a lot of photographs. Afterwards, she

Theresa Bembnister (pictured at top right) is one of three curators at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, along with Brian J. Lang and Catherine Walworth. Before joining the AMFA in 2020, Bembnister worked at the Akron Art Museum in Ohio and the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art in Manhattan, Kansas. She provided us with some inside knowledge about the exhibitions the museum is unveiling as part of its grand reopening.

THOUGHTFULLY CURATED: The premiere exhibition accompanying the reopening of the AMFA, "Together," explores themes of communion.

talked to people on the land about what their idea of this place was and she took the words and stenciled them on top of the photographs that she created. She also cut the photographs into strips and wove them using basket techniques that were handed down throughout the generations. So that work is both about nature, because she’s showing photographs of her ancestral homeland, and also about community, because she made it with the help of other people.

Another one of the new exhibitions, “Drawn to Paper,” is an assembly of pieces that exist in the AMFA’s permanent collection. Tell me about that. The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts is known for its drawing collection. We had a former director, Townsend Wolfe, who led the museum for decades. He decided in the early ’70s that he really wanted to focus the institution’s collecting activities on drawing. He thought the institution could make its mark by collecting drawings because they’re unique works of art and they’re relatively affordable compared to paintings and sculpture.

With “Drawn to Paper,” we wanted to highlight some of the best works in the collection. We have the largest collection of works by an artist named John Marin outside of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He’s known for his watercolors. They kind of hover in between abstraction and realistic depiction of things. To me, watercolor is one of the most difficult mediums because if you mess up, it’s hard to fix it. He just has this magical touch with the brush. He’ll make a mark and it just seems perfectly predetermined.

“Tears of Chiwen” by Sun Xun is the first-ever exhibition in the AMFA’s New Media Gallery. What makes it special? The New Media Gallery is what they call a black box space in the art world. It’s basically a really slender room. The walls are painted black. You go in through curtains, there’s benches and the work is projected on the wall. Picking Sun Xun’s work, which is animation based off of his incredible drawings, I thought it would create a bridge, like a way for people to approach new media that would feel somewhat comfortable and familiar. It’s also really fast-paced, and visually exciting animation. It’s a series of vignettes loosely based on the story of the chiwen dragon.

Conceptually, Sun Xun is really interested in history and culture and the ways in which information about those two things are dispersed. He was born shortly after the Cultural Revolution in China. He realized that the stories he learned in school about the Cultural Revolution in his history book were very different from what he was told by his parents. And so he grew up with this suspicion of the official, government-sanctioned story of history vs. what the oral history version of things are. “Tears of Chiwen” is from

10-5-30•SAT 10-5 2616 KAVANAUGH BLVD. 501.661.1167 SHOPBOXTURTLE.COM

2017, so it’s a little older, but it’s the first time it’s been exhibited in a museum in the United States and I think it’s really relevant to so many of the cultural conversations we’re having right now. If you think about all these debates that are happening in our state legislatures around the country about how we can and cannot talk about the history of our nation, I think Sun Xun’s work is really applicable to those conversations.

The AMFA is also debuting two installations. How is your thinking different when it comes to an installation rather than an exhibition? They’re different in that they will be up longer. Anne Lindberg’s installation will be up for three years and Natasha Bowden’s installation will be up for two years. Also, they’re site-specific in the sense that each artist traveled here and made the work specifically in response to the architecture of the building.

Natasha was here for pretty much the entire month of December. Her installation is called “Spring Song.” She makes these things that she calls blooms out of a plywood type of board. She has them CNC routed and she paints on top of them. They become these sort of flower garden scapes. They’re flat, but they’re sculptures. She layers them almost like stage scenery. She also paints the walls. If you’ve driven down or walked down Ninth Street recently, you might have noticed that on the north side of the building, there’s a really big window. It’s like the size of a billboard. Once all the curtains and the signs come down and we open up, you will be able to look through that window and see Natasha’s installation.

Anne Lindberg was here for a week in March. She works with miles of a really thick cotton string and she pulls it from wall to wall and staples it in place. Her work is installed above you so you’ll be able to walk underneath it. When light goes through it, it creates this really ethereal soft glow of the colors above you. It’s mostly this really pretty blue and green and yellow with a little bit of sherbet orange and lavender coming through. She’s really inspired by the colors of the landscape around the building.

What do we have to look forward to in the coming months and years? What I can say is that we will be showing more international artists and a more diverse roster of artists. Also, since so much of our collection is paper drawings, those all have to be switched out, because if they’re on display for too long, they’ll be damaged by the light. We will be rotating works in our permanent collection about every six months. When we use the word “permanent,” that doesn’t mean that every work is permanently going to be on display; it just means that the museum owns the work. So if you come back in six months, you’re going to see new things on the wall. I can promise that for sure.

NO SECRETS

JUDE BROTHERS GETS REAL WITH A SEARINGLY INTIMATE BREAKUP ALBUM.

BY DANIEL GREAR

NO ORDINARY BREAKUP ALBUM: Fayetteville solo artist Jude Brothers' sophomore release is the kind of record that'll make you question the efficacy of genre distinctions.

Every song on the sophomore release from Fayetteville solo artist Jude Brothers (who uses they/she pronouns) concerns the excruciating ending of a long-term, life-altering romantic and creative partnership, but it’s no typical breakup album. For starters, “render tender / blunder sunder” — out May 12 via Gar Hole Records — is the kind of record that’ll make you question the efficacy of genre distinctions. Yes, Brothers writes songs that are musically spare, centering melody and autobiography, and yes, they sing upon a bed of acoustic instrumentation, but to call them merely a singer-songwriter feels insultingly reductive. Nothing about their sound has a coffeehouse ordinariness.

Folk is probably a better place to start in describing their music, in part because the tradition is so vast and multifaceted. “What I love about folk music is it’s not made up of people who are trained to sing one particular way,” Brothers told me. “The ideal way to sing folk music is as yourself.” That said, they don’t claim sole responsibility for the idiosyncratic singing style they’ve arrived at. When you take in the vocal flourishes and acrobatics, the way their voice runs away and then returns like a creature that can’t decide if it’s wild or domesticated, it’s clear that influences far beyond the United States have left a mark on them.

In the hour and a half that I spoke with them, they made references to the critical impact of Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, Irish, Ugandan and Javanese music on their artistic development, much of which was introduced to them while they were a student at the now-defunct Santa Fe University of Art and Design, an academically loose liberal arts school that they remember as something like an endless “summer camp” where everyone was a “fucking freak in the best way possible.” Though they stayed put in New Mexico for several more years, their time at SFUAD lingers like a “fever dream” that no one else quite understands except the people

READERS CHOICE A

MAY

LIVE TRIVIA

EVERY TUESDAY AT 7:30 P.M. 1316 MAIN ST. • (501) 372-9990

they shared it with.

Their choice of accompaniment — the tense, hammer-on flutters of a makeshift tenor guitar and the wandering plucks of a Celtic harp — is also partially the product of these cultural forces, though they claim that their draw to somewhat marginalized instruments has more to do with what’s natural to them than anything else. “I haven’t found a way to be as playful with guitar music as I can be with harp and tenor,” they said. “For whatever reason, they make me feel more free. They feel more like my instruments.”

Narratively speaking, “render tender / blunder sunder” is sequenced in more or less chronological order — beginning with the relationship in a state of emergency and ending with hard-won closure after an extremely painful and humane deconstruction — but every stage of the grieving process is rendered with such allegiance to even the most ephemeral moments of emotional honesty that no discrete chapters can be found. Contradictions abound and sharply opposing sentiments co-exist, bleeding into one another and complicating the truth. Six out of nine of the songs are longer than five minutes, providing ample room for all this messiness.

“doubt / doubt!,” the record’s first track with words, starts selflessly and pragmatically, with what seems like a moment of clear-eyed recognition between two people who are settling into the realities of an aging partnership: “I don’t have to be your first choice.” The one we end up with and our fantasy lover are two separate things, Brothers seems to be suggesting.

Quickly, however, the lyrics morph into toxic self-deprecation as Brothers trades their dignity for a crumb of attention: “Hell, I don’t need to be your third choice neither/I could even be your last choice/As long as I am the one you take.” A couple of lines later, they tell us that they want to “crawl far away from all this ugly that resides in me,” planting the seed that perhaps they’re the cause of the fracturing, not their partner. But then, the stanza ends with the most vexed line of them all: “you say doubt breeds doubt breeds doubt,” a phrase they repeat over and over again until we’re not sure if it’s being said as a poetic aphorism of encouragement or to sneakily gaslight them into thinking that anyone who asks questions is the problem. Who’s the real culprit here? It’s hard to tell. Brothers doesn’t seem interested in pointing fingers, another reason this album so nimbly transcends cliches about heartbreak.

The record’s closer, “last song / upper gallinas!,” finds Brothers in a much more contemplative place, recounting a dream they had about running into their ex-partner many years down the line: “I dreamt of your golden haired baby boy/Your glistening hazels were a’blazing

with joy/On the porch of the house that you’d built on the plains/With your beautiful wife and her hair all in braids.” The song is generous and compassionate, the harp chords swirling into one another, but their message eschews simplicity. Though Brothers wishes their former lover and the family he’s found well, they don’t bury their own pain in exchange like a former version of themself might have done. “I sing for that old man, you see/Not for the young buck that he used to be,” they clarify. By focusing on a hypothetical version of him rather than redeeming his past, they remain in control of the story.

While listening to this wondrous record — a searing document that comes off as both spontaneous and carefully crafted — I wondered about how it came to be. To say that “render tender / blunder sunder” was recorded in just two days is the truth, but that misses all of the intentional work that came before, the two overdub-thick versions of the album that Brothers trashed because neither sat right. “I had been trying all these ways to get in the way of and cover up my voice or cover up the words or hide it in some way or obscure it from view and make it a little more vague,” they said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t think this music wants to be vague, I think it wants to be really direct.’”

When they were offered a house-sitting gig on 80 acres in rural New Mexico, they realized that they’d finally located the proper environment in which to capture this set of songs. They’d relocated to their hometown of Fayetteville by this point, but the state where they’d had their heart broken pulled them back in. In the days before James Lutz — a friend and audio engineer — joined them with recording gear, Brothers readied themself by living in solitude and practicing their songs on the roof. “I didn’t wear clothes for five days in a row,” they said. “I ate nothing but pomegranates. I walked around in the juniper mesa world and laid on rocks, just alone.”

Lutz set up microphones in the guest house where Brothers was staying, merely a room with a desk, fireplace, bed and a collection of half-broken instruments. “I sat a chair down on the floor and left the door open for the birds and the crickets and just played,” they said. By comparison to their first record, which was tracked in a cavernous, echoey secular worship space, “render tender / blunder sunder” is intimate and dry, almost entirely lacking in reverb, which reflects the content, the loneliness and self-reliance they’ve been fearlessly adjusting to. “I was working with more symbolism and fairytale imagery on the last album, and this one is just an honest, long look at myself,” they said. “It’s scary to do something like that, but it’s also really freeing because what else is there? I don’t have any fucking secrets.”

Arkansas PBS is proud to partner with the Arkansas Activities Association to broadcast high school state championship games statewide.

Games will be available to watch on demand the week after broadcast at youtube.com/arkansaspbs

The most up-to-date programming schedule is available at myarpbs.org/ schedule. Members with Arkansas PBS Passport can watch their favorites on demand. More information is available at myarpbs.org/passport

Never miss an update. Scan to sign up.

myarpbs.org/sports

TOPICS

Debunking

BRAVE NEW CHEF

CHEF PETER BRAVE HANDS THE KEYS TO THE KITCHEN TO BEN LINDLEY.

BY RHETT BRINKLEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

When Brave New Restaurant’s executive chef Ben Lindley dropped his spring menu in late March, Peter Brave — the restaurant’s owner and founder — was about a month into a cross-country bicycle journey along the Historic U.S. 66 Byway that began in Chicago and would end more than 2,000 miles later in Santa Monica, California. When Brave and I spoke for this story a couple of weeks earlier, he was taking a break outside of a convenience store 20 miles west of Pacific, Missouri, eating fried chicken and drinking a beer and praising the strength of his crew back home.

“I have two months to go dodge weather and sore legs because I have that much confidence in [general manag-

er] Randy [Beck], Chef Ben, my son, who’s out front along with my daughter holding down the fort,” Brave said. “I just have an incredible crew right now. I tell them the fact that they are so good, and they take such pride in what they do and they have such incredible capabilities, hell, I’m sitting here drinking beer on the side of a C-store in Missouri — what stronger vote of confidence could you get than that?”

Brave has worked in the kitchen alongside an executive chef for the past 15-plus years. When he hired Lindley in January of 2022, he ushered in a new era at Brave New, stepping out of the kitchen but not out of the restaurant — cycling across America notwithstanding.

“He’s definitely here most nights shaking hands, roast-

NEW MENU: Chef Ben Lindley's spring menu ushers in a new era at Brave New Restaurant.

NOT JUST FOR ANNIVERSARIES: Lindley's spring menu features chicken risotto, Texas wild boar and a fresh take on Brave's pine nut salmon.

ing coffee,” Lindley said. “He and I sit down at least a couple of times a week and go over what’s happening, plans on coming menus, things like that. He’s here. I don’t want anybody to think he’s selling the place and walking away.”

As for Brave’s location on the map during a recent tasting, Lindley said he had no idea.

“Before he left town he shook my hand and told me he had every bit of confidence in me, and I haven’t spoken to him since.”

Brave will turn 63 in November and while he said his current adventure was spontaneous and not part of a bucket list, he’s a believer in a “no sense in waiting” philosophy. People close to him understandably feared for his safety, with the exception of his mother, who he jokes might have picked up a secret policy on him.

Lindley, 35, is working for Brave for the third time. His first experience was at age 19, washing dishes and chopping vegetables and soaking up as much knowledge as he could. “This was my first taste of fine dining,” he said. “I already had a pretty good idea this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. This solidified it.”

Lindley’s had several restaurant jobs around Little Rock. He managed Big Whiskey’s and worked at Sticky Fingerz and the Rev Room, and he spent the four years leading up to a gig as the executive chef at Sonny Williams’ Steak Room.

Lindley said the role challenges him to maintain Brave’s vision for the restaurant while exploring his own creativity as a chef.

“In a way we’re trying to get back to what Peter started,” Lindley said. “Little bit of a new direction but at the same time kind of going back to the roots. … I’ve been doing the best I can to do it to his standards.”

Brave opened Brave New Restaurant with his ex-wife, Marie, in 1991 in Riverdale in the former Steak and Egg — a 1,750-square-foot building on Old Cantrell Road. In 2000, he moved the restaurant to its current digs in the WindRiver building at 2300 Cottondale Lane — a sprawling space with elegant dining rooms and a picturesque view of the Arkansas River and downtown Little Rock skyline, courtesy of some floorto-ceiling windows and the adjacent patio that borders the dining area. When Brave initially rented the space it was 2,950 square feet. He’s added on over the years and now boasts 5,980 total square feet, which now includes private dining rooms and offices that serve as his coffee roasting facility.

When he first opened Brave New, the staff was little more than Brave, a dishwasher, a few waiters and Marie running the front of the house. Now, he employs a crew of 40. Transitions are inevitable, he said, but it’s happening very smoothly and gradually.

Lindley said to expect the same chef-driven farm-to-table ethos, but more inclusive — that is, not just a place people consider for anniversaries, birthdays and special occasions. Lindley’s new menu features price points that are in

line with fine dining but include items priced to compete with what one might find at a chain.

“We need to diversify for a lot of reasons,” Brave said. “The thing I did initially was I wanted to take the price point of what was at Chili’s or an Applebee’s and look at some of those things and say, ‘For that kind of money you’re gonna spend there, here’s what I want to do.’ And we can do a lot better than that. Same with the smoothie at Tropical Smoothie, you get a smoothie and a wrap, you’re talking $15-$20 for lunch. Shit, I can compete with that. So it’s important that we’re not just for exclusive, special occasions. Are we good enough for that? Fuck yeah. Do we have the view and food for a special date? Yes. But there is also value there, and it’s important that it’s not lost at any time.”

This decision seems wise, especially considering the state of the fine dining industry over the last three years: a pandemic dining room shutdown, subsequent capacity restrictions, supply-and-demand issues, inflation and a declining economy. All restaurants dealt with these issues, but it’s been so hard on fine dining that some in the industry have gone so far as to question whether it’s a sustainable model at all.

“Over the course of 33 years you hear a lot of warning signs and it’s important to pay attention to them,” Brave said. “Reassessing has always been an important part of operating any kind of business. The way Brave New Restaurant operates — Facebook, Instagram, ordering on my phone — all that stuff has changed. The essence of what Brave New Restaurant is hasn’t changed in a long, long time and it’s important that we don’t lose that identity.”

One of Lindley’s dishes he created to make the dinner menu more inclusive is a grilled airline chicken breast (a boneless chicken breast with the drumette attached) with cremini mushroom risotto and Beurre Blanc. It was hands down one of my favorite bites of 2023 and it’s $25. Lindley finishes the dish with peach basil chutney, Arkansas pecans from Shady Grove and fresh basil.

If I didn’t know any better I would’ve assumed it was a $45-$50 dish.

“It’s still fine dining,” Lindley said. “It’s still high-quality ingredients, good service, good presentation.”

I recently popped in for lunch and ordered the grilled shrimp entree served over orzo pasta salad and it was my favorite lunch of the year thus far. It was $18. I routinely pay that much for salads around town.

One of Lindley’s more high-end dishes on the dinner menu is also a creative one that he admits sounds unusual. It’s a half rack of Texas wild boar ($60) that’s trimmed and butchered in-house. It’s coated with a sweet and savory raspberry rub and served with excellent sriracha mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus and a raspberry demi-glace. It’s garnished with raspberry dust.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Other highlights from the new menu include the grilled portabella mushroom salad ($29) featuring sliced portabella caps finished with an aged balsamic. The mushrooms were some of the best I’ve tasted, which is no real surprise because Brave New always does mushrooms well. Lindley said it’s comparable to a lighter version of Brave New’s excellent mushroom Wellington available in the fall. Next time you’re in for lunch, order the mushroom soup; it’s fantastic.

Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt remarked that he thought he was eating lobster after trying a healthy portion of the grilled cardamom honey glazed mahi mahi ($48) served with sweet pea long grain rice. It’s sauteed with cremini mushrooms and asparagus over a pool of blueberry cream sauce.

Lindley also made slight adjustments to some of Brave’s classic dishes. He said he’s always felt Brave’s pesto cream sauce should be served with pasta, so Brave’s original pine nut salmon ($42) is now served over penne pasta with fresh tomatoes, spinach and a pesto cream sauce.

Lindley said he values constructive criticism from front-of-house management, servers and the kitchen staff when it comes to new menu items.

“Peter especially,” he said. “I like running the new dishes as specials so I can get customer feedback from some of our regulars who have been eating Peter’s food forever. I want to make sure that they’re happy with it and that it still fits the restaurant. I’m very familiar with what Peter wants in his restaurant, so things aren’t going to be changing too much. I don’t want to scare anybody off. The walleye’s not going anywhere, the creme brulee’s not going anywhere.”

Lindley’s a confident chef, but doesn’t come

off as arrogant. Over the course of three different conversations in the last month, he always made a point to credit the strength of his co-workers and how much he’s learned working for Brave over the years. He said that every night before he leaves the restaurant he says, “Thank you, good job,” to each member of the kitchen crew. He said he still gets nervous about menu tastings and expects that to continue throughout his career. Knowing that there’s always room to grow and improve is an important quality for a chef or a professional in any field, he said.

“Something I learned from Peter a long time ago is you have to continue to learn and push yourself to get better, and that’s something I’ve kept in mind since I heard him say that when I was 19 years old. I feel like the only way I’m going to grow and get better is knowing I’m not as good as I can be.”

And while Brave knew the restaurant would be in good hands while he sips beer and cycles cross-country, he also acknowledged that they’re human and are going to make mistakes just like he does.

“One of the biggest things I had to talk with Chef Ben about was, ‘Don’t worry about getting it perfect. If it’s not perfect then, guess what, we’ll learn from it and we’ll do it differently next time.’”

And, he said, he has no intention of riding off into the sunset on two wheels.

“I’ve got an incredible crew and a really incredible customer base and it’s not a chore. I get done bussing a few tables and schmoozing with a few people and I get beer and food out of it — hell, who wouldn't want that job? I ain’t going nowhere, because why would I?”

WORKING THE LINE: Chef Ben Lindley's first experience in fine dining was working for Brave at age 19.

ROHWER REMEMBERED

THE WORLD WAR II JAPANESE INTERNMENT MUSEUM MARKS TEN YEARS OF EXCAVATING SOME DIFFICULT ARKANSAS HISTORY.

BY CORRENE SPERO PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

Following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 leading to the forced relocation of nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry to 10 relocation camps across the United States. More than 16,000 of them were imprisoned in Southeast Arkansas between 1942 and 1945. The World War II Japanese Internment Museum in McGehee shines a light on the stories of those interned at the Rohwer and Jerome relocation centers in Desha County. On Thursday, May 4, the museum commemorates its 10th anniversary with a day of events, including an appearance by former internee and activist George Takei of “Star Trek” fame.

Though the sites in Rohwer and Jerome were officially known at the time as relocation centers and commonly referred to as “internment camps,” many historians have shifted to refer to the camps as concentration or incarceration camps, as characterized by the imprisonment of people by force without the conviction of any crime and confined by barbed wire, watch towers and armed guards.

In 1945, the Rohwer Japanese American Relocation Center was officially closed by the War Relocation Authority. Nothing remains besides the hospital’s smokestack and the Rohwer Relocation Center Memorial Cemetery, now a National Historic Landmark. The stories of the people incarcerated there were left to family histories — or in some cases, never spoken of again.

A local public excavation of this period began in April 2013 when the McGehee Industrial Foundation announced the opening of the World War II Japanese American Internment Museum. “We really didn't know what to expect because this has been our first opening of a museum of this nature to show and share this part of history, and the response has been overwhelming,” said McGehee Mayor Jeff Owyoung, who has also served on the museum’s board.

Housed in the renovated McGehee Railroad Depot, the museum has hosted over 18,000 visitors from 56 countries in its 10 years. In addition to exhibits that have included artworks of family members of those incarcerated and informative and moving films, the museum hosts a rich offering of primary resources: personal photo albums, diaries and letters donated by former incarcerees and their families, which tell of life in the camps from the perspective of those who lived it. Visitors are invited to pick up the materials, leaf through their pages and become immersed in these firsthand accounts.

The centerpiece of the museum is the exhibit “Against Their Will The Japanese American Experience in World War II,” which was a catalyst for the museum’s creation and centers the experiences of Japanese Americans at the Jerome and Rohwer camps. Developed in part by the Rockefeller Foundation, “Against Their Will” debuted at

PRIMARY RESOURCES: The museum exhibits personal photo albums, diaries and letters donated by former incarcerees and their families, which tell of life in the camps from the perspective of those who lived it.

See who wins the Competition for the Best Taco in Central Arkansas!

Early Bird Tickets $35

Limited Time Only

THURSDAY, MAY 18th

Under the Stars at The Argenta Plaza from 6 to 9 pm

You’ll be in tortilla heaven tasting great tacos from many local taquerias and restaurants, including Big Whiskey’s, Cajun Trouxth, Dogtown Tavern and Santo Coyote.

VIP tickets $100

SPONSORS:

Includes catered buffet in private dining area, premium tequilas, special parking, and 5:30 early entrance.

Jimmy’s Jerk Chicken & BBQ, last year’s “Best Taco’ champion will be there to defend their title!

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT .COM

Must be 21 or older to enter; no exceptions.

Presented by Hornitos

the Arkansas Statehouse Convention Center in 2004 and was later loaned to the museum where it will be housed permanently. “The exhibit was

ung recalled. “We had an old depot that was about to fall down and we got a grant to give us the money to renovate it to be able to put up the

Visitors to the museum may also take aum’s website, narrated by George Takei. Takei was imprisoned at Rohwer with his family and has been a supporter of the museum since its -

ing ceremony and will be the featured speaker Guest panelists will include former interneesichō project, the first comprehensive listing of the names of all those who were incarcerated in the internment camps. “Williams is on the-

ung said. Owyoung also confirmed 200 guests will be making pilgrimages from California and other states for the anniversary, many of whom are family members of those incarcerated at Rohwer and Jerome. “They will come to Little Rock first and make their way down to McGehee

The ceremony will begin at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 4 and will last about an hour, after whichcation Center Memorial Cemetery historic site where two plaques erected in 1945 still stand — one dedicated to those who died while incarcer-

ated at Rohwer and the other in honor of Rohwer incarcerees who lost their lives while serving in World War II in the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated infantry regiment in U.S. military history comprised almost entirely of second-generation Japanese Americans.

The commemoration events are free and open to the public and Owyoung extends a personal invitation to one and all to “just walk on up” and join in. That evening, those making the pilgrimage from other states are invited to enjoy a bit of Southern hospitality at the McGehee Industrial Foundation’s annual barbecue and auction.

In spite of the museum’s impressive work over the past 10 years, many Arkansans remain unaware that this meaningful resource exists in our state, or that the Rohwer and Jerome camps existed on Arkansan soil. “What amazes me is when we first started working on this, nobody in McGehee even knew about it,” Owyoung said. “And it’s right here in our backyard.”

In a state with almost twice the incarceration rate of the national average, known worldwide for its legacy of slavery and racial segregation, and containing hundreds of miles of the Trail of Tears, it seems unnecessary to question the importance of a resource like the World War II Japanese American Internment Museum, but Owyoung was gracious in discussing its ongoing relevance. “The museum has opened a lot of eyes to this part of history and what the Japanese Americans went through. What they lived through is hard to imagine. We’re very proud of the museum. We believe it is really powerful.”

COMMEMORATION: At the Rohwer Relocation Center Memorial Cemetery historic site, where two plaques erected in 1945 still stand.

GOODBYE, DELTA-8

LEGISLATURE BANS ROGUE THC DESPITE PLEAS.

BY GRIFFIN COOP

SOON TO BE ILLEGAL IN ARKANSAS: Intoxicating hemp-derived Delta-8 products.

In the world of cannabis, there might not be a more confusing or complicated issue than Delta-8. For about five years now, the psychoactive substance derived from the hemp plant has fallen outside virtually any regulatory guardrails, including those of the state medical marijuana program.

The products have proliferated across the state in smoke shops, CBD stores, gas stations and over the internet in recent years without regulation or even a minimum age to buy the products over the counter. Drive down U.S. Highway 67/167 and you’ll see a billboard advertising Delta-8 gummies and other products at a shop in Searcy.

That’s about to change.

Led by Sen. Tyler Dees (R-Siloam Springs) and Rep. Jimmy Gazaway (R-Paragould), the state legislature voted to ban all Delta-8 products. Gov. Sarah Sanders signed the bill into law on April 11.

From committee room to committee room at the state Capitol, the issue generated lively debate from Delta-8 advocates and business owners who wanted to protect the products that support their bottom lines and provide what

they described as medicinal benefits to users. Business owners and advocates, including two mothers of young children, testified against banning Delta-8, saying the products have helped their children battle serious diseases.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

It all started in 2018 when Congress passed the Farm Bill, legalizing hemp production for the first time since 1937 and allowing farmers to grow the marijuana-adjacent plants as long as they had a Delta-9 THC content of 0.3% or below. Delta-9 is the THC that you normally find in marijuana, including that sold in medical marijuana dispensaries.

Hemp plants produce flowers that have nonpsychoactive cannabinoids like CBD and stalks that can be used to make a variety of products from textiles to home-building materials.

The flowers produce a little bit of Delta-8 THC and a lot of CBD, which scientifically inclined individuals figured out could be altered into Delta-8 THC, which is psychoactive and similar to marijuana.

The Farm Bill did not address Delta-8,

creating what some have seen as a loophole that has permitted psychoactive products similar to marijuana to be sold outside the state’s highly regulated legalized marijuana markets. Without regulatory oversight, there has been no age limit to buy Delta-8 products and nothing to stop the products from being marketed to children.

That wasn’t OK with Gazaway and Dees, who saw Delta-8 as a danger to children that must be addressed.

BATTLE AT THE LEDGE

It was no surprise that Delta-8 was addressed during the recent legislative session, but some wondered if the General Assembly would take the route of regulation, allowing the products to exist with some restrictions, or the route of an outright ban. Gazaway led the prohibition effort at the request of state Attorney General Tim Griffin, while Rep. Jeremiah Moore (R-Clarendon) introduced a bill for Delta-8 to be regulated by the Arkansas Tobacco Control Board.

Gazaway said in a recent phone interview he wasn’t that familiar with Delta-8 until the

When

Have

YOUR VOTE FOR THE BEST

attorney general’s office asked him to spearhead the effort in the House.

“Apparently, there had been lots of reports come in to the attorney general’s office and other places about children who have suffered adverse effects from Delta-8 and accessing these substances at convenience stores all over Arkansas,” Gazaway said.

Gazaway said there was some debate among legislators about which way to go. He and Dees each said by phone recently that they were swayed toward an outright ban of the products by the fact that Arkansans rejected recreational marijuana at the polls in November. If Arkansans wanted recreational marijuana, they concluded, they would have voted for it.

In the end, the effort to ban Delta-8 products won the day and Moore’s regulatory bill was never heard in committee.

The first went to the Senate where it passed before setting off a firestorm in the House when advocates noted that the bill would have essentially banned nonpsychoative cannabinoids like CBD, CBN and CBG. The bill was later amended to protect those products.

Delta-8 advocates testified before the House Rules Committee, saying the products have medicinal benefits and that some customers like that they didn’t need a medical marijuana card to buy them.

The bill eventually passed the House and Senate easily before being signed into law by the governor in April.

The new law includes a trigger mechanism that would go into effect if the Delta-8 ban is rejected by a court. In that case, the products would be legal but regulated, although Gazaway said he does not believe it will come to that.

“From the attorneys in the governor’s office to the attorneys in the attorney general’s office, everyone I talked to believes that the ban will be upheld by a court and the regulation piece was unnecessary,” Gazaway said.

ADVOCATES SPEAK UP

Many Delta-8 advocates spoke up during the hearings at the Capitol, including Roger Crawford, who owns CBD stores in Hot Springs and Hot Springs Village. Crawford said he already imposes a minimum age of 21 to purchase the products and lamented that he was being lumped in with some bad actors selling Delta-8 inappropriately.

“We’re wanting regulation,” he said in a recent interview. “We’ve been screaming ‘regulation’ for years. We want a 21-plus age restriction.”

After the bill passed the legislature, Crawford and his partner, Amy Willtrout, penned a letter, asking the governor to veto the bill. Crawford and Willtrout, who own the CBD stores together, said the bill would endanger businesses and

consumers.

“There is no one that wants to rid the market of the synthetic dangerous chemicals that are targeting Arkansas children and young adults more than we do,” Crawford and Willtrout said in their letter.

The pair also said the new law would lead to “bad products being relabeled and repackaged under a different name” and that the bill does not ban other synthetic forms of THC. Dangerous products will still proliferate in the state, they said.

Audrey White, one of Crawford’s customers, told the House Rules Committee that she has given her 4-year-old son, Colton, Delta-8 gummies to help with issues related to cancer treatment. Colton, who sat alongside her as she spoke, was diagnosed with a stage 4 brain tumor and was treated with chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. The treatments cause great discomfort to his gut, she said.

White balked at the drugs Colton’s doctors suggested, saying she preferred to find alternatives. Some of Colton’s doctors at Arkansas Children’s Hospital were not supportive of her interest in cannabis alternatives, she said, but others were, particularly those in the palliative care unit. The Delta-8 products have been helpful in soothing Colton’s discomfort, she said.

White said she pursued Delta-8 because she was familiar with it and because she feared medical marijuana would be too strong for her small child.

Asked what he thought of White’s comments about giving her son Delta-8 during treatment, Dees said it was important for Arkansans to follow the advice of doctors.

Gazaway was more direct.

“I was a little shocked that she admitted publicly that she gave a substance that has psychoactive properties that can be bought at a convenience store to her child who has cancer,” he said. “I thought that was not something maybe she would have wanted to have admitted publicly. There are lots of drugs that can treat cancer and relieve pain that are authorized by the FDA.”

Colton, who recently signed up for kindergarten, has made great advancements through his medical treatments and asks for Delta-8 gummies when he is uncomfortable, White said.

Despite the changes to the law, White said she would continue to find Delta-8 products in other states or over the internet to help with Colton’s discomfort.

“When you have a sick kid, you’ll do whatever it takes,” she said. “It makes me really distraught that I would have to try to find him a new product when this works so well. That’s frustrating for me after everything we’ve been through.”

Marijuana is for use by qualified patients only. Keep out of reach of children. Marijuana use during pregnancy or breastfeeding poses potential harms. Marijuana is not approved by the FDA to treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of marijuana.

MAY CANNABIS HIGHLIGHTS

SYNERGY SKIN WORX TRANSDERMAL PATCHES

Give your lungs a breather and your liver a break with our award-winning transdermal patches. Transdermal delivery bypasses your gastrointestinal tract and ensures that the active ingredients are absorbed quickly into the bloodstream. Transdermal patches are designed to give you a constant, controlled dose of cannabis into the bloodstream every hour. Our time-release formula allows you to use a patch over a 24- or 36-hour period. You do not need to remember to dose with cannabis regularly. Just put on the patch and go. Activities such as showering, working out, or swimming will not impact the patch.

Helps with pain relief, muscle inflammation, stress, and insomnia.

$13.22 ($15 with tax)

NATURAL RELIEF DISPENSARY

3107 E. Kiehl Ave. Sherwood naturalreliefdispensary.com

DONNY BURGER

Satisfy those tastebuds with Donny Burger, a powerful indica-dominant strain bred from popular cannabis strains GMO and Han Solo Burger. With a complex earthy aroma that draws in its users, Donny Burger produces uplifting and giggly effects. A physical tingle calms the body into mild sedation making this potent flower helpful in treating conditions such as anxiety, chronic pain, depression, and inflammation.

THC Percentages: 28-31%

Lineage – Genetic Background: GMO x Han Solo Burger

Indica-dominant: (60% indica, 40% sativa)

Physical and Mental Effects: Uplifting, Giggly, Relaxing

THE SOURCE 4505 W. Poplar St. Rogers thesource-mj.com

HONEY

GOOD DAY FARM honey combines the benefits of their own extracted cannabis with all-natural, local honey from K-Bee Honey in Sherwood, and Honey Hive Farms in Winfield, Missouri.

150 MC THC | DOSING SPOON INCLUDED

$75

BERNER'S BY GOOD DAY FARM

11600 Chenal Parkway

Little Rock

501-441-0944

gooddayfarmdispensary.com

BLUE JEAN BB

Settle in with the sweet Blue Jean BB. This indica bud is said to leave users feeling relaxed and calm with a euphoric smile left on the lips. The aroma can be described like a sweet blueberry sorbet topped with zesty lemon. These buds are coated with hints of blue and purple with sugary trichomes, like "tiny dancers" across the buds.

THC 16.52% (Indica)

1/8 oz. $20

BERNER'S BY GOOD DAY FARM

11600 Chenal Parkway

Little Rock

501-441-0944

gooddayfarmdispensary.com

Marijuana is for use by qualified patients only. Keep out of reach of children. Marijuana use during pregnancy or breastfeeding poses potential harms. Marijuana is not approved by the FDA to treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Do not operate a vechicle or machinery under the influence of marijuana.

MOTHER'S DAY GIFTS

For the modern boho mom!

Pamper her in the Spa City!

Calling bird lovers!

Just add fresh flowers!

1 2 3

4

1. Give her the gift (card) of relaxation. The Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa, Thermal Bathhouse and Spa, 239 Central Ave., Hot Springs, 501-609-2514, ArlingtonHotel.com

2. Handmade leather and cane webbing bag. Box Turtle, 2616 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, 501-661-1167, shopboxturtle.com

3. The perfect vase for mom. Rhea Drug, 2801 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, 501-664-4117

4. Aviary Collection of bird-inspired handmade jewelry. Bang-Up Betty, 429 Main St. (upstairs), North Little Rock, 501-291-0071, bangupbetty.com

I SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD A V8

This is the story of how my mid-life crisis landed me in the ER.

A couple of months ago, I decided I ought to be healthier. Or at least lose a few pounds, I aspired. I had done it once before when I lost 18 pounds using the revolutionary philosophy of eating better and exercising more.

I started to realize it was time to give that another try. I had gained back about half the pounds I lost and noticed that my clothes had begun to betray me. This shirt is too tight. Those pants don’t fit right. Mrs. Observer told me I was snoring more, and I noticed that I felt more tired and needed more coffee throughout the day.

Worse yet, I realized that I was 45 and would never be younger again.

So I began running on the treadmill a lot more. I started to watch what I ate, though the donuts that seem to materialize in the Arkansas Times office from thin air taunted me from the depths of their wax paper-lined boxes.

I also developed a new strategy of drinking a tiny can of V8 every morning. It’s got lots of vegetables, the label shouts. Plus anything that tastes geriatric is bound to be healthy, I figured. You can even switch to the spicy version of V8 for a little extra kick during that mid-morning snack.

Then it started.

It was like a hot, itchy fire that began on the back of my neck and spread across my hot, red face. Mrs. Observer said we needed to go to the ER immediately. I’d gotten a blotchy rash a couple of times before, but never like this. The concern in her voice made it obvious enough to me that we ought to take action.

We grabbed a seat in the waiting room as the rash

slowly disappeared. (Our concern did not.) We weren’t the only ones waiting. One lady basically told a nurse that she wanted to speak to the manager as if we were sitting in an Olive Garden. I was called back before I found out how that turned out.

Once we were summoned, now doomed to try to explain a rash that had taken up residence in the past tense, they plopped us down in a couple of chairs in the hallway rather than in a room. That was fine by me, since I figured I’d see a doctor sooner there than by waiting for a room.

It turns out it gave us a front-row seat to all the action. “Sir, we’re going to need to shave your groin,” a staff member uttered at one point. Later, a lady roaming the hallway began hollering “I’m drunk,” as she searched for the bathroom. “We know you’re drunk, ma’am,” a hospital staff member said; the job descriptions of nurses and bartenders, after all, bear a far more striking resemblance than we might imagine.

When the doctor came by, he asked me all the appropriate questions and looked me over. He was perplexed. He and I couldn’t come up with any changes in my life that would be associated with the rash and we couldn’t figure out why the thing tends to pop up around mid-morning or early afternoon. He asked me to let him know if I ever figured it out.

I went back to my life, hoping the rash wouldn’t rear its ugly, hot, red head. Begrudgingly, I continued with my diet, exercise and mid-life crisis regimen. The next day, the rash didn’t appear. It must be gone, I figured. I realized that I missed my morning V8 session, so I cracked open a spicy version of the restorative super drink and took a hearty swig — while a big ol’ rash started to spread across my face, of course.