Arkansas Times | September 2023

THE CENTRAL QUESTION WILL ARKANSAS ERASE ITS OWN HISTORY?

Take in the gemstone-hued views this fall at Top of the Rock Ozarks Heritage Preserve. Explore the Lost Canyon Cave & Nature Trail and the Cathedral of Nature and witness a colorful masterpiece in motion.

tickets available at : topoftherock . com

FEATURE

32 HISTORIC FAIL

Arkansas culture warrior politicians launch a last-minute ambush on AP African American Studies.

By Austin Bailey

9 THE FRONT

From the Farm: Patrolling the pawpaw patch. Aw, Snap!: Ballet Arkansas is on pointe.

Q&A: With Shalonda Wells of Have A Little Mercy.

Big Pic: Pulling back the curtains on virtual kitchens.

17 THE TO-DO LIST

Six Bridges Book Festival, "Pines of Rome" at the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Main Street Food Truck Festival, Arkansas Times Margarita Festival, Sylvan Esso, Format Fest and more.

25 NEWS

How slumlords prey on Arkansas’s most vulnerable.

By Mary Hennigan

71 SAVVY KIDS

Protecting student athletes from injury is a group project.

By Tricia Larson

74 CULTURE

Dangling from imaginary trash trucks with illustrator Layet Johnson.

By Daniel Grear

80 FOOD & DRINK

Barbecue is coming to Diamond Bear, thanks to Bart Likes.

By Rhett Brinkley

85 CANNABIZ

Behind the scenes at River Valley Relief.

By Griffin Coop

90 THE OBSERVER

On finding the same guy's wallet — twice.

'ANNIE LEIBOVITZ AT WORK': Musician Patti Smith is among the subjects in the acclaimed photographer's exhibit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

ON THE COVER: The Little Rock Nine monument on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol. Photo and design by Brian Chilson and Mandy Keener.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ, PATTI SMITH, ELECTRIC LADY STUDIOS , NEW YORK CITY, 2007.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST ©ANNIE LEIBOVITZ.

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ARKANSAS PBS STUDIOS · CONWAY

IS FOR

n PBS Costume Characters

n Free food and snacks for children

n Storytelling

n Entertainment on an outdoor stage Hands-on kids activities and games

n Studio Tours

n Giveaways & Prizes

n Pop-up Shop

n Face Painting

… AND SO MUCH MORE!

myarkansaspbs.org/familyday

PAWPAW PATROL

IN PURSUIT OF THE OZARK BANANA.

BY ALAN LEVERITT

As the pawpaws begin to soften and color in late August, dusk finds me on pawpaw patrol here on the farm. The raccoons will spend all year trying to pull apart my poultry wire so they can visit bloody murder upon my chickens. But late August is a special time for raccoon predation, as they plot plunder in my pawpaw patch. Last year they stole my whole crop the night before I was to pick it. They must have been carrying tow sacks. I planted my trees 10 years ago, and last summer was going to be only my second harvest, and by far my biggest. I did not get a single pawpaw.

But this year is going to be different. I check my trees every day, squeezing the fruit, looking for the first sign of softness and black mottling on the green skin. The raccoons are checking them, too. Several half-eaten pawpaws litter the ground. Pawpaws are like tomatoes: You can pick them slightly unripe, and they will continue to ripen in the kitchen, away from the raccoons.

Pawpaws are the largest edible fruit native to North America and the only subtropical fruit tree native to Arkansas. When my father was a boy, he and his friends would frequent a swimming hole in the Smackover bottoms that was bordered by pawpaw trees. People describe the flavor as a cross between a mango and a banana, or a pineapple and a banana. The pawpaw, by another name, is the Ozark banana. The texture is soft like custard, giving it yet another nickname: the custard-apple. When I tasted my first pawpaw, it was a totally new flavor, unlike anything I had ever tasted. I took some to the farmers market to let the other farmers try them. It was fun to watch their faces light up with surprise and pleasure.

Pawpaws are interesting plants. The leaves, seeds and bark contain annonacin, an insecticidal neurotoxin that makes pawpaws pest-free. This has attracted interest from organic farmers, particularly in Ohio and Kentucky where Kentucky State University has created a pawpaw breeding and research program. Annonacin has also been shown to kill cancer cells in humans and is used in licekilling shampoo. Swallowtail butterfly larvae feed on the leaves but do little overall damage.

When the fruit arrives, though, it’s a different story. By late August, the trees are heavy with fruit — me and the raccoons circling. This time I set out two live traps beneath the trees, baited with dog food. The first night, nothing, but the next morning I heard Gerta, my little brindle mutt, barking excitedly in the pawpaw patch. A surprisingly relaxed-looking raccoon lounged in the first trap. I put him and the trap in my truck bed and drove about 6 miles to where Bayou Meto crosses Batesville Pike. When I lifted the door, he shot out of the trap, scampering across the highway and into the marsh.

Initially, I’d wanted to plant a pawpaw orchard but, much like peaches, late frost often freezes pawpaw flowers and the season is ended before it begins. The small flowers are a dark maroon color and are said to have a rotted flesh smell, though I have never been able to detect any odor. They are pollinated not by bees, but by flies and beetles that are attracted to carrion. Some growers hang a drumstick on each tree on the theory that the odor will attract pollinators. A perfect tree for the Addams family.

I got my pawpaw trees from Mark Blossom at Blossom Nursery in Berryville some years ago. He often sells out, so I suggest ordering now for delivery in the spring (seedlings should not be planted when they are dormant, or about to go dormant). Pawpaws occur in the wild as understory trees growing with some shade, so new seedlings should be planted in full sun but inside a tomato cage draped with shade cloth to prevent burning from excessive UV rays. After the first year, the shade cloth can be removed and they will thrive in full sun — and will be more productive than if grown in the shade.

As the trees age, they will often sucker, sending up additional trees from the same root system. Pawpaws need to be genetically unrelated in order to pollinate, so what often appears to be a pawpaw patch is really one tree, unable to pollinate unless there is an unrelated tree nearby. One of my trees has suckered into seven trees, but there are genetically unrelated pawpaws nearby, so they have set plenty of fruit, leaving me and the raccoons on vigil.

PAWPAW POACHER: Ripe pawpaws (top) and the thieving culprit.

Ballet Arkansas dancers Brittany Harano, Leah Norwine, Layla Terrell, Kerridwyn Schanck, Sage Feldges and Meredith Loy rehearse on Main Street ahead of a season celebrating the company's 45th anniversary. Photograph by Brian Chilson.

Activities include programs about nature at night, children’s games, constellation tours, a telescopic

Special speaker Dr. Amber Staughn: “Unfolding the Universe with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope”

HAVE A LITTLE MERCY A Q&A WITH SHALONDA WELLS.

When it comes to hunger relief, there’s often more happening than meets the eye. Take Shalonda Wells, whose phone rings whenever excess donations pop up at Potluck Food Rescue — an organization that’s been battling food insecurity in Arkansas since 1991 by redirecting surplus food from restaurants and grocery stores to people in need. In fact, it was that kind of phone call that landed Wells on our radar. When Arkansas Times reporter Mary Hennigan ran into her, Wells was distributing bags of oranges and russet potatoes from a flat-bed trailer at the Auxora Arms apartment complex in Southwest Little Rock. We talked with Wells about her work with Have A Little Mercy, a mobile help center she founded in June of 2022 to provide food, hygiene supplies, clothing and gently used household items to underserved areas of Little Rock.

Tell me about your relationship with Potluck Food Rescue. Miss Sylvia works closely with me. [Sylvia Blain is the executive director of Potluck Food Rescue.] Actually, she was one resource who helped us get off the ground. When I first met Miss Blain, she listened to the vision I had for the help center, and she felt compassionate about the same things. We started getting food from her to pass out once a month, and she saw that we were out here in the community really doing the work, and so now they call us maybe twice, three times a week to pass out food.

How do you know where to go? At one point in my life, I was [living in] public housing and [on] public assistance in a lowincome project home. And that was when my children were very young. So I knew when the Lord put this on my heart, those underprivileged communities are where I wanted to start. There was a point in my life where I didn’t have transportation, when I stayed in that apartment complex, and I longed for someone like myself who would come out and give us food, clothing or household supplies. But there was no one like that. I come from a low-income family, and I was raised by my grandparents. My grandparents were very poor people. So I’m very familiar with that side of town and with the organizations that offer assistance — Helping Hands, Healing Waters [Outreach Center] and organizations like Potluck. As a young mother, I went to some of these places for assistance. I’ve had to stand in those lines myself.

I understand your grandmother inspired you to do this work, in part. My grandmother [Dorothy Mae Walton] fed a community in Sweet Home from her home. My father’s mom would cook big buffet-style family dinners every Sunday. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t have that. That was her way of keeping her family together, but she’d allow anybody in our community to call her up and she’d give them leftovers. Or sometimes people would just show up, and she would feed whoever was at her door. Some of that food she’d prepare was

received with assistance from places like The Watershed [Human and Community Development Agency], and today I partner with The Watershed. They offer donations, and when they have surplus during the holidays they’ll call me to come pick up water or food.

What does a typical pickup and distribution look like for you? The first thing I’m gonna do is wash my coolers out. I normally take two or three coolers. Then we load the trailer up on the back of the truck. Right now we don’t have refrigeration, but we’re praying for that. Then we stop and we load the coolers up with ice and then we pick up. The food is normally passed out instantly. Right when I pick it up from Potluck, I go straight to an apartment complex or I set up a pop-up “free grocery store” stand on the side of Baseline [Road]. Greater Grace [Baptist] Church on Baseline has given me permission to use their front parking lot area, and I’ve got a lot of people in the community who pick up from that location.

And you don’t make a salary from the work? No ma’am, but we pray that God gives us the mind and the education to do that one day. Miss Sylvia has become a great mentor to me, and she made it clear that if this was something I wanted to do, I’d need to do the legwork — let funders know that we are out here doing the work.

We have about five volunteers, but we’re self-funded. I’ve had one donation of $500 in December, and since then I’ve been pinching off of that for gas. I purchased the truck myself, and I purchased the trailer. I knew if I put that up front, the good Lord was going to bless us with everything we need, and he has. We get the donations from other nonprofit organizations, but also personal donors as well. A lot of people in the community donate clothes, or they’ll send me $10 on Cash App for gas.

Was there a moment or an event that first gave you the idea to pursue this kind of outreach? Yes! In 2015, me and my children started a small thrift store on Arch Street. Well, it was me, but I put them to work — they had to volunteer. Once we got it up and going, people would come but they couldn’t afford to buy the clothes. And I was like, you know, I need to do something different. I found in my heart that I didn’t like to sell to people who were in need. When I was struggling with my children in an apartment complex, I needed household supplies. I’d have enough money to buy diapers and wipes, but not Lysol or whatever I needed to run the household. I’m a mother of five and they are stairstepped — back to back — and so it was rough on me. I wish I’d had somebody like myself to help.

— Stephanie Smittle

To follow Have A Little Mercy’s work, make a donation or get involved, visit havealittlemercy.com.

BRIAN CHILSON

SHADOW KITCHENS

VIRTUAL RESTAURANTS LURK BEHIND POPULAR CENTRAL ARKANSAS CHAINS.

BY RHETT BRINKLEY

As someone who’s paid to cover Central Arkansas restaurants, I justify my time perusing apps like Bite Squad or DoorDash during moments of unbridled laziness by telling myself I’m learning important lessons about consumer behavior and recognizing trends in the local food scene. These lazy searches have turned up new and exciting restaurants I’d never heard of, like Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings, which I was surprised to learn is 2.4 miles from my house in North Little Rock.

Dumbfounded that I could miss a place that close to my house with a name like “Pasqually’s” and a “Meatball Mania” line of appetizers, I was also surprised to learn it shared the exact same address as Chuck E. Cheese's (also available on DoorDash). This led me down a rabbit hole where I found more unfamiliar eateries that mysteriously shared addresses with well-known restaurants.

There’s a name for this phenomenon: virtual restaurants. The idea has been around for the last decade, but virtual restaurants have become ubiquitous the past few years, a product of the meteoric rise of the takeout and delivery business during the pandemic and the third-party food delivery companies that made that growth possible.

Virtual kitchens exist in the shadows of established restaurants, and their menus are offered exclusively online and on third-party delivery apps. They are owned either by the restaurant’s parent company or a digital restaurant partner.

The way they’re presented feels inherently dishonest when you find out you’ve accidentally ordered from a national chain. Unless a consumer using one of the delivery apps were to Google a restaurant like “Apps All Around” or look up its address, there’s no way for them to know their food is coming directly from the kitchen at TGI Fridays. There’s a lot to unpack here, but in the meantime, and in the name of service journalism, my Arkansas Times colleagues and I tried some of these restaurants so you don’t have to.

IT’S JUST WINGS (CHILI’S)

“Killer wings, stupid prices” is the tagline for this Chili’s virtual restaurant, which opened in 2020 and offers a variety of 11 different sauces for its bone-in or boneless wings, served with signature curly fries. We ordered the eight-piece bone-in combo ($15, plus delivery fee, service fee, tax and tip) with garlic parmesan. (“Classic favorite,” the menu said.) The wings were delivered in a plastic sack displaying the It’s Just Wings logo. The chicken’s texture was soft and fatty, and the curly fries were average at best. If you want wings, and if you’re going to be DoorDashing anyway, we recommend nonvirtual Dem Dam Wingz in North Little Rock. I was left wondering if the “stupid prices” part of its tagline was meant to be interpreted literally.

LICKITY CHICKEN AND BWHIZZY’S ROCKIN' GOOD BURGER (SALTGRASS STEAK HOUSE)

Located in the kitchen of Saltgrass Steak House, Lickity Chicken’s website claims: “We’re finger-licking chicken strip experts.” To Lickity Chicken’s credit, Arkansas Times reporter Mary Hennigan was impressed with its buffalo tenders. Maybe I’m a curmudgeon, but I was again bothered by the texture. It had that soft quality that fried chicken gets after it’s been cooked and refrigerated and heated up again. The fries needed to be seasoned with something, anything.

As for BWhizzy’s, well, part of the frustration of this assignment was finding more and more virtual restaurants after I thought I'd found them all. If I had known that Saltgrass Steak House also ran a BWhizzy’s Rockin' Good Burger out of its kitchen, I would’ve ordered the Deep South burger with fried pickles and jalapeno peppers with pepper jack cheese (and whatever BWhizzy sauce is) to go along with the finger-licking Lickity Chicken strips. But I wasn’t curious enough to place a second order.

THE MELTDOWN AND THE BURGER DEN (DENNY’S)

When Arkansas Times creative director Mandy Keener told me Denny’s was operating not one but two virtual restaurants out of its West Little Rock kitchen, I was dubious. If every restaurant’s response to the oversaturated market is to go by a bunch of names, it would be total chaos. Chaos might be a fitting description for what happened when I ordered the Talkin’ Turkey Melt from The Meltdown for myself and the Wake and Bacon Burger from The Burger Den for Keener. I received a notification from DoorDash that The Meltdown order was completed before The Burger Den had started on Keener’s order. The driver texted to alert me that “the store was a clueless mess for deliveries.” My Talkin’ Turkey Melt (turkey, bacon, tomatoes, provolone and sun-dried tomato mayo) was cold, which I expected, and it was legitimately one of my least favorite bites of 2023. Keener said her burger (100% beef with hashbrowns, egg, bacon and American cheese) was dry but that the ratio of hash browns, cheese and egg was spot on. “If I was super hungover I suppose I would order it again without the beef,” she said.

OTHER RESTAURANTS ON MY VIRTUAL BUCKET LIST:

CHASE ELLIOTT’S CHICKEN TENDERS (HOOTERS)

Even celebrities are getting in on the virtual brand action. 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Chase Elliott partnered with Hooters last year to launch the Chase Elliott's Chicken Tenders virtual restaurant, available on DoorDash and delivered from Hooters’ North Little Rock McCain location.

APPS ALL AROUND AND CONVICTION KITCHEN (TGI FRIDAYS)

If you’ve ever ordered from Apps All Around or Conviction Kitchen, you’ve ordered from a local TGI Fridays. TGI Fridays announced last year that it is expanding its partnership with digital restaurant company C3 to offer more virtual brands. I called Fridays and asked: “Is this Apps All Around?” and was told, no, I’d called TGI Fridays. “We do have that, but you have to order it online,” the employee said.

MRBEAST BURGER (ON THE BORDER)

PASQUALLY’S PIZZA & WINGS (CHUCK E. CHEESE'S)

If you’re looking to rekindle the unbroken spirit of your childhood by having an adult Chuck E. Cheese's-adjacent pizza party for the office, think again. The Meatball Dunkers from the “Meatball Mania” lineup were chunks of dough stuffed with either a half or whole meatball, covered in a layer of thin cheese that had mostly cascaded down the side and congealed on a sheet of foil below. To Pasqually’s credit, the Chuck E. Cheese's sticker sealing the pizza box shut left no confusion about its origins, and the garlic-brushed crust was a nice addition that most of the Arkansas Times editorial staff enjoyed. But the thin, filmy texture of the mozzarella made me wonder if it would just dissolve in my mouth if I were to quit chewing. It certainly didn’t taste like how we remembered Chuck E. Cheese's or ShowBiz. Some of us wondered whether the food was ever palatable without the promise of playing Whac-A-Mole and Skee-Ball as soon as we were excused from the table. Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt was seen innocently enjoying a slice later that day after it had been sitting out for hours, unaware it hailed from the kitchen at Chuck E. Cheese's.

BELOVED NUMBER 15: In June, former Razorback and NFL quarterback Ryan Mallett died unexpectedly at the age of 35.

Named after celebrity YouTuber MrBeast, a virtual restaurant called MrBeast Burger, run from within On The Border’s kitchens, was in the headlines last month, and it’s not good. The Washington Post reported that Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, filed a lawsuit to end his partnership with Virtual Dining Concepts, alleging that the poor quality of the burgers was harming his reputation. Less than a week later, Variety reported that Virtual Dining Concepts and Celebrity Virtual Dining (VDC) are suing Donaldson and his Beast Investments for failing to honor contractual obligations, as well as intentional tortious interference. Variety reported damages were alleged to exceed $100 million.

BY DANIEL GREAR, OMAYA JONES AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

SYLVAN ESSO

MONDAY 9/18. THE HALL. 8 P.M. $40-$90.

Sylvan Esso’s music is probably best described as a mix of electronic and pop, but the duo sounds like pretty much no one else who traffics in keyboards and beats. Though their songs are catchy and almost danceable, the foundation of synths on which they’re constructed is modular and stuttering, as if to temper the vocal sweetness of singer Amelia Meath, who also performs with the angelic folk trio Mountain Man. My two favorites by the group are both songs about romance, yet each has a wry twist. “Die Young” comes from the perspective of someone who’s verging on bitter about falling in love because it means their plan to “leave early and so swiftly” from mortal life is being put into question. “Just Dancing” hovers above the feeling of wanting to perpetually exist in a state of early infatuation, when things are still buzzy and consequence-free.

“Let's never stop starting,” Meath sings. It’s an arrangement best negotiated on the dance floor, where there’s always a new eye to catch. DG

BRIAN KARLSSON

FORMAT FESTIVAL

FRIDAY 9/22-SUNDAY 9/24. THE MOMENTARY, BENTONVILLE. 3-DAY PASSES STARTING AT $199, OR $100 PER DAY

Last year’s inaugural Walton-backed FORMAT festival took place at the 250-acre Sugar Creek Airstrip. This year, it’s moving to the much smaller Momentary grounds in downtown Bentonville. (The only explanation given was “production challenges,” and our attempt to get more context went unanswered.) The news was delivered in June, a full three months after the bulk of the performers were announced, seriously pissing off people who’d already purchased their tickets — especially considering no refunds were offered to those whose idea of the festival experience hinged upon the sprawling, open-air locale where it was supposed to be held. Controversy aside, the lineup is still impressive, with appearances from major names like LCD Soundsystem (James Murphy, pictured here), Alanis Morissette, Leon Bridges, Modest Mouse, Jamie XX, Tash Sultana, Little Simz and Little Rock’s own Kari Faux. And a slew of lesser-known Arkansas talent including Modeling, The Misdemeanors, Pura Coco and Yuni Wa are scattered across the festival’s three days as well. In other words, if you can get over the logistics, it’s probably worth it to absorb this many great sets at once without having to leave the state. DG

‘ANNIE LEIBOVITZ AT WORK’

SATURDAY 9/16-MONDAY 1/29. CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, BENTONVILLE. $12.

What does it mean to take a picture of someone whose life revolves around being documented? This is one of the essential questions guiding the work of Annie Leibovitz, whose 50-year tenure of photographing celebrities and notable figures across every imaginable sector for outlets like Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Vogue has given the public intimate and unexpected ways of perceiving the world’s most recognizable faces and bodies. As opposed to the distant ogling we’re used to, Leibovitz strives to capture the famous and influential on their own terms. Though many of her iconic portraits from the last decade will be on display, “Annie Leibovitz at Work” will also include a new set of photos shot specifically for Crystal Bridges, making it her first-ever museum commission. After it premieres in Bentonville, the exhibition will visit museums in Charlotte, Sacramento, Nashville and Wichita. DG

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN ON TOUR , PARIS, 2016.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST ©ANNIE LEIBOVITZ.

ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: ‘PINES OF ROME’

SATURDAY 9/30-SUNDAY 10/1. ROBINSON CENTER. 7:30 P.M. SAT.; 3 P.M. SUN. $19-$92.

After a four-year nationwide search, Geoff Robson was named the sixth music director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in June. Though Robson has served as the symphony’s artistic director for the last four years, this performance (the opening show of the 2023-24 season) will mark his first time conducting since assuming the top post. The program includes pieces by Rossini, Chausson, Respighi and Florence B. Price, a composer from Little Rock who was the first Black woman to have a piece performed by a major American orchestra. Price’s “Violin Concerto No. 2” — written just a year before her unexpected death in 1953 — as well as Chausson’s “Poème” will feature violinist Jennifer Frautschi (pictured), who plays on a Stradivarius from 1722 and whose work as a soloist prompted a critic to marvel at her “breathtaking conflation of grace and grit” (Cleveland Classical). DG

ARKANSAS COMIC CON

FRIDAY 9/8-SUNDAY 9/10. STATEHOUSE CONVENTION CENTER. $25-$40 PER DAY. $80 FOR WEEKEND PASS.

The phrase ‘comic con,’ short for comic book convention, is a bit of a misnomer, but maybe everyone knows that by now. While intense enthusiasts will have their knowledge rewarded by the presence of actors, voice actors, cosplayers, writers and artists involved with their favorite comic books, cartoons and adaptations, the comic con model has evolved to include just about anything with a niche fandom. In that spirit, this year’s Arkansas Comic Con will play host to William Shatner, Christina Ricci and Jonathan Frakes (of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” fame), actors whose sci-fi-related notoriety is stronger than their connection to comics, as well as Lex Lugar, Ron Simmons and Scott Steiner, professional wrestlers with seemingly no foot in the illustrated world. Pretty much every guest in attendance will be available for autographs and photo ops, but it’ll cost you extra. DG

ALVVAYS

SATURDAY 9/9. THE MOMENTARY, BENTONVILLE. 8 P.M. $39.

In 2014, Pitchfork described the self-titled debut by Canadian indie rock band Alvvays as “the sound of pristine pop music blasted through cheap, blown-out headphones.” The pairing of sugar with disorder remains an integral part of their dreamy aesthetic, yet the release of two more excellent albums in the years since has resulted in the complete amalgamation of these two instincts. On their latest, 2022’s “Blue Rev,” noise and melody are employed with such intentionality that they never compete and only elevate one another, allowing singer Molly Rankin’s voice to soar dramatically over narrow chaos. Listen to tracks “Easy On Your Own?” and “Belinda Says,” and you’ll understand what I mean. The show’s opener — Australian singer-songwriter and critical darling Julia Jacklin — takes a quieter approach, but she’ll fit right in. DG

ELEANOR PETRY

MAIN STREET FOOD TRUCK FESTIVAL

SUNDAY 9/17. MAIN STREET, DOWNTOWN LITTLE ROCK. 11 A.M.-6 P.M. FREE; FOOD FOR PURCHASE.

Sometimes food trucks are a trial run, a sort of pipeline to brick and mortar, like in the case of El Sur, whose owners spent their first three years dishing Honduran food from the streets until they settled into the SoMa neighborhood for good. Other times, they’re a final destination, the perfect outlet for culinary wizards who know their speciality delicacies are best served in a mobile fashion. Either way, anybody who’s willing to endure the ridiculous heat of a small metal box in the Arkansas summer in order to do business must be serious about what they’re selling. This year’s festival — the 12th annual — promises over 60 food trucks as well as dozens of vendors hawking arts and crafts. DG

SIX BRIDGES BOOK FESTIVAL

MONDAY 9/25-SUNDAY 10/1. VARIOUS LOCATIONS. FREE.

On the penultimate night of CALS’ Six Bridges Book Festival, now in its 20th year of programming, authors Andrew Sean Greer (pictured) and Justin Torres will sit down together at Ron Robinson Theater. Greer won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for his novel “Less,” about a lessthan-successful gay writer approaching 50 who distracts himself from heartbreak by embarking on a ramshackle, comedic literary tour around the globe. Torres, on the other hand, employs a style that is far more serious and fractured. “We the Animals,” his debut novel, is “lit up by sudden flashes of pained insight,” according to The New York Times. A slender, semi-autobiographical set of vignettes, it centers on three boys, ages 6 to 10, who recklessly search for meaning amid the turmoil of their parents' abusive marriage. Though vastly different, both Greer and Torres explore the queerness of characters who are either too old or too young to typically be in the spotlight, making them an unexpectedly apt pairing. The festival’s presenters also include national bestsellers Rebecca Makkai and Curtis Sittenfeld, as well as Arkansas natives Kevin Brockmeier, Eli Cranor and Monica Potts. DG

ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES:

‘THE MIRROR’

TUESDAY 9/19. RIVERDALE 10 VIP CINEMA. 7 P.M.

In 2010, Iranian director Jafar Panahi was convicted of "assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic,” the culmination of a career-long conflict with the Iranian government regarding the content of his films. He was sentenced to six years in prison and banned from filmmaking for 20 years. Though he was able to skirt the jail time, the ban remains. His last several films have been made illegally, including 2011’s “This Is Not a Film,” which was famously smuggled out of the country on a thumb drive concealed within a cake. This month, the Arkansas Times Film Series will screen “The Mirror” (1997). It’s Panahi’s second feature, about a young girl with a broken arm whose mother is supposed to meet her at the bus stop after school but doesn’t show up. As she navigates her way home through the bustle of Tehran, the narrative structure of the film ruptures. The child playing Mira breaks the fourth wall, rips off her headscarf and arm cast, and declares she doesn’t want to act anymore, leaving it up to the crew to decide how to respond. OJ

CIVITELLA RANIERI

ARKANSAS TIMES BUS TO THE ARKANSAS DARK SKY FESTIVAL

SATURDAY 9/16. BEAR CREEK LOG CABINS, ST. JOE. NOON. $75.

If taking a constellation tour and hanging out with Bee Branch native/NASA astrophysicist Amber Straughn sounds like a good time to you, get in on this. The Arkansas Dark Sky Festival spans three days on Bear Creek, just south of the Buffalo National River, Sept. 14-16. It will feature “a guided naked-eye tour of the summer Milky Way,” the festival guide states, “and a ‘star party’ in which telescope volunteers from several states share views of the major planets and deep-sky objects — galaxies, open clusters, globular clusters, nebulas, stars that are dying and being born.” Daytime programming is abundant. Lodging options (which you’ll need to secure for yourself) range from primitive campsites to log cabins and the Buffalo area’s more luxurious digs; you’ll find some options under the 2023 Dark Sky Festival tab at darkskyarkansas.org. Or, make a day trip out of it and ride with the Arkansas Times crew on our bus trip from Little Rock out to Bear Creek and back on Saturday, Sept. 16. The bus departs at noon from the UAMS parking lot near the old Ray Winder Field (check in by 11:45 a.m.), and includes a box lunch plus a chat with Darrell Heath of the Central Arkansas Astronomical Society. After the festival, the bus departs at 10:30 p.m. for Little Rock. Grab a pass (and view a map of the bus load-in location) at centralarkansastickets.com. SS

ARKANSAS TIMES MARGARITA FESTIVAL

THURSDAY 9/14. ARGENTA PLAZA, NORTH LITTLE ROCK. 6 P.M. $30-$100.

The wildest Margfest is back, with music by Club 27, margs made with Milagro Tequila, sponsorship from Edwards Food Giant, Saracen Casino Resort, Charlotte Potts State Farm; and dozens of competitors vying for the Best Margarita title. Competitors include Ciao Baci, Mockingbird Bar and Taco, Arlington Resort Hotel, Mi Paella, La Terraza, WXYZ Bar, The Rail Yard, Mar y Tierra, Purple Onion, All-InA-Bowl, Brewski's and reigning champion Peppermint Hippo! Get a general admission ticket for $30 or spring for VIP status, which gets you exclusive margaritas made with Milagro Single Barrel Reserve Tequila, plus catered food from Mr. Cajun's Kitchen, the original chef at Ristorante Capeo in Argenta. Get tickets at centralarkansastickets.com.

ALL ARKANSAS CRAFT BEER, WINE & SPIRITS FESTIVAL

FRIDAY 10/6. ARGENTA PLAZA. 6 P.M. $30-$100.

Join us at Argenta Plaza for the first ever All Arkansas Craft Beer, Wine & Spirits Festival, presented by Bet Saracen and Arkansas Times and featuring a choice selection of Arkansas's own craft breweries, wineries and distilleries all in the same place! Taste brews from Lost Forty Brewing, Vino's Brewpub, SQZBX Brewery, Flyway Brewing, Point Remove Brewing, Diamond Bear Brewing, Superior Bathhouse Brewery and Norfork Brewing. Sample wines by Rusty Tractor Vineyards and The Point Winery. Try cocktails with mixers by Bloody Darn Good and Elrod's Old Fashioned, plus spirits by Rock Town Distillery and Crystal Ridge Distillery. VIP tickets are available. Get tickets at centralarkansastickets. com.

JEFF ZYLLAND / NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

BRIAN CHILSON

POP CULTURE & COMIC CONVENTION

HOT SPRINGS CONVENTION CENTER

HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, AR

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT SPA-CON.ORG

COSPLAYERS

ARTISTS

CELEBRITY CARS

ORLANDO JONES Mad TV, Drumline, Martin, A Di erent World

JANESHIA ADAMS-GINYARD Black Panther - Wakanda Forever, Black Panther

ANNABETH GISH The X Files, Mystic Pizza, Haunting of HIll House, Midnight Mass

RODGER BUMPASS Voice of Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants

Downen Creative Studios, Knightmage, Andi Serpenti, Mochi Bunny Studios

Jerry Bingham, Daniel Scott Jr, Pat Moriarity, Gustav Carlson, Chris Meeks

Rick's Sheriff Car from The Walking Dead Winnebago RV from Stranger Things

ARKANSAS’S LIVING NIGHTMARE THE STATE’S LACK OF RENTERS' RIGHTS LEAVES TENANTS IN DANGEROUS CONDITIONS.

BY MARY HENNIGAN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

Despite a roach infestation, broken windows, blooms of mold on the ceiling and a four-month gas outage, Sholanda Woods is making the most out of the place she calls home.

Woods lives at the Villas on 65th Street in Little Rock, a 224-unit apartment complex riddled with safety violations. The complex has curb appeal: vibrant blue and red painted buildings, flowering crepe myrtles and a “Now Leasing” sign staked in the yard. But just past the broken front gate, the facade crumbles.

Windows are busted, blinds are broken and the main office building is partially burned. The grounds become dangerous at night, tenants say, as gunshots rip through the air, parties rage in abandoned units and drugs are used on the premises.

Residents at the Villas on 65th have lived without a central HVAC system

since February, so they’ve faced Arkansas’s hottest summer days with single AC units haphazardly perched in their windows. Woods received two units from property management, and they barely keep the two-bedroom apartment tolerable in the scorching August heat.

At the same time, Woods has been left without working gas in her apartment for about four months. She’s microwaved water to warm her baths and traded oven-cooked meals for frozen food prepared in an electric skillet.

Woods and her 16-year-old daughter have lived in the apartment for the last four years at the subsidized price of $65 a month. A federally funded housing voucher pays for the remainder of Woods’ $650 rent, but the poor upkeep raises the question of where the funds are going. Problems can take years to resolve, and Woods is often told the onsite manager is “too busy” to talk with her.

FACADE: A colorful exterior masks problems inside the Villas on 65th: bugs, mold, no gas and broken air conditioning.

“I understand these are low-income apartments, but we should not live like this,” Woods, 45, said. Currently unemployed, Woods relies on about $900 in monthly disability funds for her and her daughter’s survival, most of which goes toward groceries, bills and rent, she said.

The on-site manager, who refused to give his name and declined to comment on the living conditions at the Villas on 65th, directed all questions to the corporate offices of Bella Asset Management, a Texasbased company that manages the property. The company’s head of operations did not reply to an interview request or questions sent through email.

Mark Jones, 27, has lived at the Villas on 65th for three years. Jones pays $715 for a two-bedroom apartment that is in a similar condition as Woods’. One small window air conditioner unit has struggled for months to keep the apartment cool. The stove sits unplugged in the kitchen, useless without gas. Mold festers on the ceiling in the bathroom. The lack of security on the grounds makes Jones fearful to live alone.

The on-site manager tries to assist tenants, Jones said, but the out-of-state corporate office provides no help. The only relief tenants have felt since losing gas is a one-time $75 discount on rent, Jones said.

“They don’t care about us out here,” Jones said.

HABITABILITY OPTIONAL

Arkansas is something of a breeding ground for bad landlords, who have earned the title “slumlords.” Renters get the short end of the stick with Arkansas’s tenant laws, often ending up stuck in substandard living conditions while owners collect a check and authorities look the other way.

Arkansas’s rental laws favor the landlord. The attorney general's website notes landlords can terminate any lease for any reason; even the best tenants can get the boot. Rentals are also generally taken “as is,” meaning the landlord is not required to fix anything before tenants move in. State law dictates that if a landlord promises to make a repair, the promise should be written in the lease and the tenant should continue to pay rent even if the repair is not made. Arkansas eviction laws also are unfriendly to tenants, and in some parts of the state, renters can face a misdemeanor charge for not paying rent. No other state criminalizes the failure to pay rent.

Every other state in the country has a “warranty of habitability” written into law, meaning landlords are required to provide certain basic necessities as part of the rental property, such as heat, power, potable water and a sanitary sewage system. Tenants’ rights groups and a few legislators have

tried for years to pass a complete warranty of habitability in Arkansas but have been consistently met with resistance.

Caleb Alexander-McKinzie, president of the nonprofit Arkansans for Stronger Communities, works to craft tenant-friendly laws in Arkansas. In 2021, the group worked with lawmakers to develop strong habitability legislation, but their effort was squashed by other legislators who deemed the bill too robust, he said. The legislature instead passed a watered down version of the bill.

The 2021 law requires rentals to provide most of the basics as other states — access to hot and cold water, electricity and a structure that provides protection from the elements — but critics say it’s the weakest law of its kind in the country.

“The law calls itself a warranty of habitability,” Alexander-McKinzie said. “But from my standpoint, you only have [some requirements] to meet the standard. If you don’t have all of it, you don’t have a warranty of habitability.”

Tenants who raise complaints about their living conditions are not protected from landlord retaliation under the law. Unlike similar laws in other states, tenants don’t have the option of withholding rent if a landlord doesn’t make repairs. In Arkansas, their only recourse is to terminate the lease early.

“They’re having to make the choice between staying quiet and living in what 49 other states would consider uninhabitable conditions or putting their family out on the street,” Alexander-McKinzie said.

It’s difficult to anecdotally compare housing conditions across state lines, Alexander-McKinzie said. Woods’ apartment, with broken smoke detectors, visible mold, holes in the walls and no gas, would likely be considered illegal in other states. Though technically, it seems to be illegal in Arkansas, too.

“Other states have their fair share of problems,” Alexander-McKinzie said. “Passing these laws will not alleviate all the problems; it’s not a panacea.”

CODE ENFORCEMENT

One of the few options for a renter with a negligent landlord, at least in Little Rock, is to call code enforcement. Residents can call 311 or submit a complaint to a neighborhood resource center to request that a code enforcement officer inspect a rental property.

Five rental inspectors service all of Little Rock, said Kevin Howard, the city’s director of housing and neighborhood programs. The city has 38 code enforcement officers total, though most are responsible for handling service calls for issues such as

A FIGHT FOR FAIRNESS: Tenant Sholanda Woods (top) and Arkansans for Stronger Communities President Caleb AlexanderMcKinzie.

NE W SPECIAL IZED

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Meeting the needs of our community

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Meeting the needs of our community women by prov iding a ca r ing, suppor t ive, st r uctu red env iron ment to help add ress past exper iences a nd

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Physicians are on the medical staff of The BridgeWay, but, with limited exceptions, are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of The BridgeWay. The facility shall not be liable for actions or treatments provided by physicians. For language assistance, disability accommodations and the nondiscrimination notice, visit our website.231468-1588 6/23

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Arkansas Times presents October Wine Down at participating restaurants, bars and wine bars throughout Central Arkansas.

OCTOBER 1 - 15

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Physicians are on the medical staff of The BridgeWay, but, with limited exceptions, are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of The BridgeWay. The facility shall not be liable for actions or treatments provided by physicians. For language assistance, disability accommodations and the nondiscrimination notice, visit our website.231468-1588 6/23

NO PLASTIC BAGS IN YOUR CART!

Was your curbside recycling cart left behind and not picked up?

If so, the reason may be the cart contained one or more plastic bags –trash bags, grocery bags, shopping bags, or even plastic wrap.

You can help get your cart picked up by following this simple rule:

overflowing trash and unkempt yards — not inspecting rentals.

Howard estimated there are about 50,000 rental units in Little Rock, a steep number for the city’s five inspectors.

“We try our best to keep up with the area, but we could always use more code officers,” Howard said. In 2022, the department received over 20,000 service calls and performed 880 rental inspections, Howard said.

The city does not do annual inspections at apartment complexes, so inspections happen on a case-by-case basis. But residents are often afraid to report code violations because of possible retaliation — if they even know the process for contacting the city — so many renters live in conditions of disrepair, silent.

The conditions at the Villas on 65th seem to violate Little Rock housing code, but Woods said she wasn’t aware of how to reach code enforcement. Jones, however, said inspectors stopped by the property in early August. Jones said no change has come from the visit so far.

Landlords are granted seven days to fix “life safety violations,” such as broken smoke detectors, gas leaks, open electrical wires and being without water or heat. If the violations persist, the city can issue a citation or eventually file a lawsuit in Little Rock Environmental Court, though the process is notoriously slow.

It’s rare for an environmental court lawsuit to have a major impact, but advocacy groups recently logged a win in a case against Big Country Chateau, a Little Rock apartment complex on Colonel Glenn Road.

After years of the case being mired

in court, a local nonprofit, Arkansas Community Organizations, worked diligently with tenants to voice issues in 2022. A group of tenants also delivered a letter to City Hall describing apartments damaged beyond repair, new or worsened health problems from living at Big Country Chateau and feeling unsafe at a complex that reported three homicides in 2022.

The Big Country Chateau case resulted in the maximum fine for its code violations, around $32,000. Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. also called for an emergency plan to relocate tenants, and city officials helped folks secure hotel rooms while searching for alternative housing options. The building is now set to be condemned, and federal lender Freddie Mac is expected to help relocate the remaining tenants.

By and large, the people stuck in unsafe living conditions are the state’s most vulnerable, said Alexander-McKinzie, the housing advocate. Housing protections, or the lack thereof, impact other quality-oflife indicators. Consider Arkansas’s high poverty rate, a lack of access to health care, the mental and physical consequences of food deserts, and the effects unstable housing can have on children’s chances of receiving a quality education or working a high-paying job in the future.

“We can see that when we measure those demographics in other states, Arkansas is at the lower end of the spectrum,” he said. “If we had better protections, we would at least be more inclined to see [Arkansas’s rankings] rise. The data proves itself. Places that encourage habitable living spaces see an increase in the benefits of that across the board.”

DISREPAIR: A shoddy front door and holes in the walls are enough to invite bugs inside.

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SEPT. 25–OCT. 1, 2023

The Six Bridges Book Festival is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Central Arkansas Library System gratefully acknowledges the support of the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau and the many other donors and partners who make this festival possible. The Junior League of Little Rock is a partner for the Little Readers Rock events.

Cooking and writing workshops plus a full day of family-friendly events. View the full schedule at SixBridgesBookFestival.org .

Christian Cooper, Better Living through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World

Jermaine Fowler, The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth

David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize Winner, Less is Lost

Maureen Corrigan, “Banned Books; Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works”—a unique program on the subject of book bannings and burnings in America and Great Britain.

Laura Freeman (illustrator), I’m an American by Darshana Khiani

ARKANSAS’S ATTACK ON AN AP AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES CLASS TEES UP SCHOLARS WITH FRESH LESSONS ON RACISM AND CENSORSHIP.

BY AUSTIN BAILEY

Arkansas public school teachers were hanging bulletin boards, filing lesson plans and otherwise armoring up for the school year ahead on the afternoon of Aug. 11, the Friday before the first day back for most students. That’s when the phone calls came in.

State officials rang educators at the six Arkansas high schools where Advanced Placement African American Studies would be on offer to let them know their plans would have to change.

During the phone call, teachers learned the Arkansas Department of Education would not count AP African American Studies toward graduation requirements, nor would it cover exam fees as it does for every other AP course. And students hoping for a bump to their grade point average would be disappointed because without state approval, the AP African American Studies class could not be graded on the 5.0 scale reserved for AP courses, education department officials said.

Those last-minute calls layered confusion

and upheaval atop the usual back-toschool stress, as educators scrambled to understand what this eleventh hour ambush to the class schedules of hundreds of Arkansas students would mean, exactly. The state sent no email and provided nothing in writing, and the education department’s website gave zero guidance to schools, leaving teachers only two days to figure it out before students took their seats.

If the goal of those Friday afternoon calls was to sow enough confusion to coerce Arkansas public schools to drop the class, it backfired.

Within a week, educators called the Arkansas Department of Education’s bluff. All six schools would keep AP African American Studies on offer, despite threats that the course might violate an executive order by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and a new state law targeting “indoctrination” and prohibited topics in public school classrooms. State education officials agreed to create a new course code for the class, freeing up districts to offer it for

“local credit” and weigh it on the elevated 5.0 scale.

Outrage blazed across social media, spurring Arkansans and civil rights advocates from around the country to pledge the cash to cover students’ exam fees.

For a moment, it looked as if the state might back down. But on Aug. 21, Sanders and Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva landed their next blow.

Teachers would be required to submit lesson plans and course materials by Sept. 8 to be inspected for evidence of indoctrination and critical race theory. “Given some of the themes included in the pilot,” Oliva’s letter stated, “including ‘intersections of identity’ and ‘resistance and resilience,’ the Department is concerned the pilot may not comply with Arkansas law, which does not permit teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT).”

EXCUSES PILE UP

The College Board, the New York-based nonprofit that administers AP exams and develops curriculum guides, has been developing an AP African American Studies class for years. The course was first piloted in 60 schools nationwide last year, including two in Arkansas: The Academies at Jonesboro High School and Little Rock Central High.

The College Board expanded its AP African American Studies pilot in the 202324 school year to roughly 16,000 students in 740 schools across 40 states and the District of Columbia. History teachers at North Little Rock High School, Jacksonville High School, North Little Rock Center for Excellence and eStem High School joined the new veterans from Central and Jonesboro over the summer to train and prepare to offer the class.

It remains a mystery why the Arkansas Department of Education waited until the Friday before school started to erase AP African American Studies from the state’s database of accepted courses, which had included the class since 2022. The department didn’t answer questions about the timeline. We know only that on the morning of Saturday, Aug. 12, the ADE sent a terse email to district curriculum administrators noting the change to the database but offering no explanation or guidance.

While he and his staff dodged questions from reporters through the weekend, the education secretary pitched a hazy set of excuses in a phone call with Little Rock School District Superintendent Jermall Wright.

Oliva falsely suggested the course would not be recognized by colleges and universities, when in fact more than 200 schools (including the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville) were already signed on to honor the course for credit. Oliva reportedly went on to claim that he didn’t think the state should offer AP courses that may not qualify for college credit. Never mind that there’s not a single AP course anywhere that comes with such a guarantee, since colleges make their own rules on which credits to accept — yet Arkansas schools continue to offer dozens of them.

Then, on Monday, Aug. 14, with public school classes already underway, the Arkansas Department of Education put out its official statement, denigrating the academic quality of AP African American Studies and suggesting its curriculum is based on ideology rather than facts and history.

“The department encourages the teaching of all American history and supports rigorous courses not based on opinions or indoctrination,” the statement said.

Oliva tried yet another excuse that afternoon, telling the Arkansas DemocratGazette that AP African American Studies lacked an “AP course audit” required by the state. The College Board confirmed to the Arkansas Times, however, that the audits are complete for all six Arkansas high schools offering the course.

A MAGA GOVERNOR AND HER FLORIDA MAN

Perhaps we should have seen it coming. Sanders issued an executive order in her early days in office requiring that all Arkansas public school curricula be scrubbed of “indoctrination” and “critical race theory,” two slippery and legally undefined terms that nevertheless possess the power to rile conservative voters. Section 16 of the LEARNS Act, Sanders' signature legislation, takes aim at supposed indoctrination and critical race theory in public schools.

Who better to scour Arkansas public school classrooms for signs of forbidden lessons than an import from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration? As a senior chancellor for the Florida Department of Education from 2017 to 2022, Oliva was part of a campaign to reject woke math books and attack school district policies deemed too accepting of gay and transgender students and staff.

As Oliva was leaving Florida to take the Arkansas job in January, DeSantis was announcing that Florida would ban AP African American Studies under a new state law called the Stop WOKE Act. DeSantis mocked the class, saying it had no

"THE PILOT MAY NOT COMPLY WITH ARKANSAS LAW, WHICH DOES NOT PERMIT TEACHING THAT WOULD INDOCRINATE STUDENTS WITH IDEOLOGIES, SUCH AS CRITICAL RACE THEORY."

FLORIDA MAN: An import from Ron DeSantis' Florida, Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva is a practiced culture warrior.

BRIAN CHILSON

educational value and claiming the College Board changed the curriculum in response to his concerns. The College Board disputed DeSantis’ claims, saying they had made changes based on feedback from educators and scholars, not Florida officials, though the group acknowledged they struggled to craft the course in a charged political climate where criticism flies at them from both sides.

While DeSantis reveled in his battle with the College Board, Arkansas’s governor kept quiet in the days after her education department nixed the course. Sanders’ spokeswoman fired her standard insults at journalists and her boss’ critics on social media. But as national media attention mounted, the governor seemed content to let her education secretary absorb the blowback. The nine members of the state Board of Education, the governorappointed body to whom Oliva reports, also remained in the background.

When Sanders did eventually speak up, she took her usual route straight out of town. The governor bypassed Arkansas media and went to Fox News instead, where she could unload her practiced and poll-tested talking points about “this propaganda leftist agenda, teaching our kids to hate America and hate one another” to a right-wing national audience.

OUTRAGE

That Sanders herself graduated from Central High but is still willing to accuse its teachers of indoctrinating students is bound to leave some fellow members of the class of 2000 confused.

But Sanders sacrificed whatever goodwill was left for her at Central High months ago during her rebuttal to President Biden’s Feb. 7 State of the Union, when she equated the Little Rock Nine’s courageous integration of the previously all-white school with her own school privatization scheme.

“I believe giving every child access to a quality education — regardless of their race or income — is the civil rights issue of our day,” Sanders said. “Tomorrow, I will unveil an education package that will be the most far-reaching, bold, conservative education reform in the country." That package turned out to be Arkansas LEARNS, the bill that included a crackdown on “indoctrination” in the classroom and a voucher program that redirects public money to pay private school tuitions.

Within a month, hundreds of Central students and alumni had signed an open letter requesting that the governor kindly keep their school’s name out of her mouth. “As much as she tries to desperately cling to the legacy of our historic institution, we, as students of Central High, unequivocally

RESIST, PERSIST: (Top) Elizabeth Eckford sits on a bus bench near Little Rock's Central High School on September 4, 1957, after she was turned away by Arkansas National Guardsmen instructed by Gov. Orval Faubus not to allow nine Black students to enter the school. (Middle) Central High NAACP chapter President Madison Tucker speaks out in March of 2023 against what she said will be a silencing of Black history under the Arkansas LEARNS bill. (Bottom) Parents and educators from across the state packed into legislative hearings on the new state law that critics say will further segregate schools and squelch academic freedom to study the history and experiences of marginalized groups.

LLOYD DINKINS/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL BRIAN CHILSON BRIAN CHILSON

reject her exploitation of our school’s achievements,” the letter said.

On March 3, more than a thousand Central High students walked out of class to protest the attacks on academic freedom and public school funding codified in Sanders’ LEARNS Act.

Sanders and her education secretary seem unbothered by charges of racism from students, Black legislators, the NAACP and national media — or even from members of the Little Rock Nine themselves.

“I think the attempts to erase history is working for the Republican Party. … They have some boogeymen that are really popular with their supporters,” Elizabeth Eckford told NBC News in response to news of Arkansas’s move to discredit AP African American Studies. Eckford, now 81, is the teenage girl wearing dark glasses in the now iconic photograph of a mob of white students shouting abuse at their Black classmates outside Central High.

Another member of the nine, Terrence Roberts, told NBC that state bans on critical race theory are “ridiculous” and applauded the high school for forging ahead with AP African American Studies. “The question is, will they be successful?” Roberts, 81, said.

Arkansas Democratic Black Caucus President Debrah Mitchell drew the obvious parallel between 1957 and today in an open letter to Oliva.

“It was almost 66 years ago that Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guardsmen to block nine Black students from entering Central High School the night before classes began,” Mitchell wrote. “This nearly midnight action by your department is eerily reminiscent of those tactics from 1957. Rather than physical barriers, this recent change has created financial and logistical obstacles for students hoping to boost their GPAs with AP college credits, and for teachers who prepared the course materials.”

Central High student Vivian Day, who took AP African American Studies last year during its first pilot phase, said the class taught her to recognize ploys like the one the state of Arkansas is using now.

“As someone who took the class last year, I know firsthand how political attacks manage to undermine the ability of students to learn valuable information about the history and culture of African Americans,” she said.

As of the date this story went to press,

it was unclear just how much pressure the state intends to exert on how Black history is taught in Arkansas schools. AP African American Studies will proceed as planned in the six pilot schools in the 2023-24 school year. But will the education department’s insistence on reviewing lesson plans and course materials limit how the course will be taught? Will other high schools around the state steer clear of offering AP African American Studies in future years, fearing they could be the next target of the Sanders administration’s scrutiny?

An Aug. 22 meeting between Sanders, Oliva and a group of Democratic lawmakers yielded no real progress. Sanders and Oliva declined to provide solid definitions or examples of the indoctrination teachers have been warned to avoid. The ongoing lack of clarity means history teachers will just have to make their best guesses to stay on the right side of nebulous legalese.

And, while a relatively small number of Arkansas students will ever take AP African American Studies, might the education department’s warnings about the dangers of critical race theory influence how American history is taught more generally? Teachers inclined to emphasize the evils of slavery, Jim Crow and ongoing systemic racism in their classes may tread more carefully now. Teachers inclined to play down or largely ignore those subjects may feel vindicated.

Meanwhile, along with educating the next generation, Central continues its dual role as a landmark of the ongoing civil rights struggle that’s landed once again at its front steps.

Robin White, superintendent of the Little Rock Central High National Historic Site, said the National Park Service’s mission is to share the school’s desegregation story in full.

“Our job is to address controversy and conflict. You can’t have change without resistance,” she said. “Controversy and conflict are at the heart of the story.”

Asked about the current situation, White chose her words carefully. “We fully support education and learning the complete and complicated history of this nation,” she said. “We cannot pick and choose what we want to learn.”

How this particular chapter ends, though, is anyone’s guess. What might a future exhibit about our current-day struggle look like? “We will have to see who falls on the right side of history,” White said.

"I THINK THE ATTEMPTS TO ERASE HISTORY IS WORKING FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY."

— ELIZABETH ECKFORD

GOOD TROUBLE: Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis spoke at a 2007 ceremony honoring the Little Rock Nine.

BRIAN CHILSON

FROM SCHOOLS TO CAREERS

PLANNING PLUS!

NURSES MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE

Nurses do much more than perform medical tasks, they make a lasting difference in someone's life. As a nurse, you offer hope to people, sometimes during the worst time of their life.

NURSES CAN ENTER THE WORKFORCE QUICKLY

Some nursing degrees can be had in less than a year, and many can be earned in two years. This can allow you to land your first job and advance your education while you work, paying your bills today while boosting your earning power tomorrow.

NURSES HAVE A HIGH LEVEL OF JOB SATISFACTION

The American Mobile Nurses Healthcare survey reported 81% of nurses were satisfied or extremely satisfied with their career choice. When asked if they would encourage others to become a nurse, 70% said "yes."

NURSES GET TO DO EXCITING WORK

Nursing is a lot of things, but dull isn’t one of them. Anything and everything can walk through the door at any moment and the variety of situations and people you encounter will keep you on your toes.

NURSING IS A RESPECTED FIELD

In Gallup surveys dating back decades, Americans routinely rank nurses in the number one position when it comes to respect for their work, honesty and ethics.

WELCOME TO NURSING

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF OTHERS.

If you’re looking at this special publication, you’ve already taken the first step toward a rewarding and enjoyable career as a nurse.

As anyone who’s done it knows, nursing is among the most challenging, emotionally draining and just plain some of the hardest work you can do. It’s also the most rewarding and the most uplifting, a true calling for those who sit at bedside, hold a patient’s hand and welcome new life into the world.

Nurses have led the world through various health crises, including war and pandemics. At each phase of history, they have been on the forefront of medical care and innovation. As a result, nurses receive more demanding training than ever before, an educational journey that continues throughout their working life.

“Throughout your career you will need to expand your knowledge and skills,” said Patricia Cowan, dean of the UAMS College of Nursing in Little Rock. “You’ll be on the front lines — and thus you will need to be diligent in protecting yourself while providing the best evidence-based care possible. Be committed to lifelong learning.”

Nurses are in higher demand than ever as existing nurses move closer to retirement. In 2020, at the outset of the pandemic, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated more than 1 in 5 nurses were age 55 or older. Between now and 2031, the field is expected to grow 6% annually, meaning there's a lot of opportunity both today and in the future for all kinds of entry-level and advanced nurses.

Here are other compelling reasons to pursue a career in this time-honored profession, as reported by nursejournal.org:

NURSES CAN CHOOSE THEIR SPECIALTY

There are more than 100 different types of nursing specialties, meaning you can customize your career according to your passion. Even if your goals change over time, there’s a role for you as a nurse.

NURSES WORK IN A STABLE INDUSTRY

Surveys show up to 85% of older adults have at least one chronic health condition, and 60% have at least two. Job security has never been higher.

NURSES RECEIVE EXCELLENT BENEFITS

The shortage of nurses has led employers to offer excellent benefits to attract and keep qualified professionals. Actual benefits packages vary, but some common perks include sign-on bonuses, paid sick time, vacation and holidays, tuition/student loan reimbursement, wellness programs and more.

NURSES HAVE MANY LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Just like any profession, nursing offers opportunities for leaders to take charge, from individual work teams and departments to the chief nursing officer in charge of nursing functions of a large hospital. Nurses are even finding their way into the boardroom and government to run health care companies or help formulate public policy.

NURSES ARE AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE TELEMEDICINE MOVEMENT

Telehealth nursing advanced greatly due to COVID, and nurses have been central to that innovation. As this technology develops, nurses will play a crucial role in the development of this new chapter in patient care.

“NURSING IS AN HONORABLE PROFESSION. IF YOU CHOOSE NURSING, YOU ARE CHOOSING TO SPEND YOUR LIFE HELPING OTHERS, USING SKILLS THAT BLEND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE WITH COMPASSION AND CARING.”

— JANICE IVERS, DEAN OF NURSING AND HEALTH SCIENCES, NATIONAL PARK COLLEGE

CHOOSE A JOB THAT CHANGES LIVES, INCLUDING YOUR OWN.

From a mission that matters, competitive pay, development opportunities, and meaningful benefits, a career at Arkansas Children’s is filled with purpose and fulfillment. Our Total Rewards program includes benefits that go above and beyond to take care of team members at work and at home!

Arkansas Children’s achieved Magnet Status from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), for nursing excellence and patient outcomes. We are nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report for 7 pediatric specialties and were recently named the Best-In-State Employer in Arkansas by Forbes.

See What’s Waiting for You. Search for openings and apply at archildrens.org/careers

LITTLE ROCK | SPRINGDALE | JONESBORO | PINE BLUFF | ROGERS

WHAT DO ALL THOSE LETTERS MEAN?

There are many different degrees and educational designations that come with nursing, so many in fact that it’s pretty easy for the newcomer to drown in alphabet soup. Here’s a snapshot of what the more common credentials are and the job tasks that come with them.

CNA — CERTIFIED NURSING ASSISTANT

Sample Duties: Clean and bathe patients; turn, reposition and transfer patients between beds and wheelchairs; measure patients’ vital signs, such as blood pressure and temperature; serve meals and help patients eat.

LPN — LICENSED PRACTICAL NURSE

Sample Duties: Monitor patients’ health by checking blood pressure, temperature, etc.; administer basic patient care, including changing bandages and inserting catheters; provide basic comfort of patients, such as helping them bathe or dress.

RN — REGISTERED NURSE

Further broken down into Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN, two-year degree) and BSN Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN, four-year degree)

Sample Duties: Assess patients’ conditions; record patients’ medical histories and symptoms; administer patients’ medicines and treatments; consult and collaborate with doctors and other health care professionals; operate and monitor medical equipment; teach patients and their families how to manage illnesses or injuries.

APRN — ADVANCED PRACTICE REGISTERED NURSE

Further broken down into Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Sample Duties: APRNs receive advanced training that allows them to work with more autonomy (lack of direct doctor supervision). Depending on specialty, APRNs may manage anesthesia for surgical procedures, provide gynecological services, deliver babies, independently manage medical treatment and make care decisions.

Source: Nurse.org; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

ANGIE LONGING

Beebe native Angie Longing has spent her career in a variety of nursing roles. Starting out at bedside, she steadily worked her way through hospital leadership roles by which she led and supported the nursing corps, enabling them to do their jobs, take a more active role in patient outcomes and confidently advocate for patients. Today, after nearly three decades in health care, she leads the nurses across the four CHI St. Vincent campuses.

What is your current role and what does your job entail?

As the chief nurse executive, I’m primarily responsible for patient care for our four campuses. In my current role, I’m not the one who provides hands-on patient care, but I did when I started my career at our Morrilton campus. I was a labor and delivery nurse, worked med-surg, worked emergency department and worked intensive care.

What is the most common “rude awakening” for new nurses?

I think the intensity, the pace, the demands on you and the demands on your family all take adjustment. The direction that we have tried to go is supporting new nurses in a different way. When I started, you went through orientation for a few weeks and then there you go. Nowadays, you have nurse residency programs that devote a good six months to a year to new nurses, pairing them with a mentor for guidance. It’s much different than it was when I started.

What skills or attributes are foundational to being a good nurse?

A nurse is someone who wants to take care of others; you have to have that in you. You have to be that person with the right combination of personality, professionalism and a compassionate heart. And for me personally, I always try to choose a positive attitude when I’m going into work or any situation I deal with. The best decision you can make in the day is your attitude.

What is empathy to you and what role does it play in being an effective nurse?

Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It is putting yourself in their shoes. It requires you to see that person as you would see yourself — and then provide understanding. You cannot assume you know what brought that person to the state they are in. Continue, even when being firm or setting boundaries, to treat that person the way you would want to be treated if it were you, as many times as you need to.

What advice would you give a new nurse as far as finding their place on the team?

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your team is there for you. It takes a while to learn — at least six months to get the basics down well and another six months to really learn your specialty. Then, when you start to feel comfortable, start thinking of ways to improve. Be bold, answer the call and be exceptional. Again it’s OK to ask questions. Never stop learning.

“COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE IS A NURSE’S PRIMARY MISSION.”

— SUSAN GATTO, DIRECTOR/PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS SCHOOL OF NURSING

MHSM, BSN, RN, NE -BC Chief Nurse Executive CHI St Vincent

“COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE IS A NURSE’S PRIMARY MISSION.”

— SUSAN GATTO, DIRECTOR/PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS SCHOOL OF NURSING

ARKANSAS HOSPITALS ALWAYS THERE,

– Hospital Medicine/ Innovation Unit UAMS Medical Center

In her role as a member of the UAMS Nursing team, Casey Sinclair operates in the blended nursing care model. Here’s what she had to say about this team-centered approach.

What is the blended care nursing model and what does it offer for nurses interested in providing bedside care?

There are plenty of opportunities for UAMS nurses to provide care at the bedside utilizing our blended nursing care model. As a licensed practical nurse, I work directly with a registered nurse during my shift to care for up to eight patients in the hospital. I have also had the opportunity to work with various registered nurses on my unit, each with different years of experience and knowledge.

What does your day look like?

A typical day of work as a licensed practical nurse consists of receiving a bedside shift report with my assigned RN. I communicate with the RN to plan how we are going to work together to process orders and complete tasks in a timely manner. I distribute the majority of medications per hospital policy, take and monitor patient vital signs and watch for any changes in our patients. I report any changes to the RN and perform basic patient care tasks, including wound care and collecting urine samples.

How does the blended nursing care model help you provide outstanding patient care?

The blended nursing care model requires us to prioritize our tasks and utilize good time management skills. I enjoy working with the RNs in this model because I can see the difference it makes to our patients. We can provide quality care and spend more time with our patients.

What has been your experience working with UAMS? What do you like about it?

The work environment at UAMS is amazing. If I have a question or need assistance, the other LPNs are always available. Our team has been helpful, nice and always willing to help. We truly have a great team on H6.

Where does your future lie in nursing? What’s next for you?

I chose to work at UAMS because I wanted to further my education, become more successful in my nursing skills, and see firsthand how the registered nurse role differs from my role as a licensed practical nurse. As a result, I am currently attending Arkansas State University Three Rivers’ RN program.

CASEY SINCLAIR LPN

H6

I am a St. Vincent Nurse.

Brett provides care for patients in the Emergency Room.

“When you join my team, you have joined a family. We support each other, teach each other and encourage each other. And if one of our family members is hurting, we all are hurting. But like all families, we work through it together!”

Join Brett and become part of our work family. Sign-on bonuses and higher pay for all RNs + increased pay for clinical ladder!

chistvincent.com/nurses

Brett Calcagno, RN Emergency Room

NURSING NEWS

A roundup of nursing news from across Arkansas.

NURSING HERO

LAURA GILLIS DPN, RN Nurse educator, University of Central Arkansas

Laura Gillis knew she wanted to be a nurse from a very young age, but it wasn’t until later in her career that she decided to become a professor and educate the next generation of Arkansas nurses.

At what age did you decide to be a nurse?

My mother said I knew when I was about 5 that I wanted to be a nurse. I even had a doll called Nancy Nurse and I just thought that was the best thing. I still have a picture of me with that doll. I loved that thing.

What inspired you at such a young age?

UA LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL OF NURSING

In June 2023 the UA Little Rock School of Nursing’s Center for Simulation Innovation (CSI) team received the Frontline Simulation Champion Excellence Award for dedication to innovation, creativity, collaboration and positive outcomes in simulation.

This prestigious international award makes CSI the only simulation program or team in Arkansas to ever be recognized for excellence by the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning.

CSI’s simulation program is one of the most exciting and engaging nursing training systems in the region. It includes a state-of-the-art 10,000-square-foot simulation hospital bursting at the seams with technology, giving students the chance to work in a variety of simulated scenarios they will encounter in the real world. These include caring for transgender clients, engaging with deaf clients in interprofessional collaborations, and learning critical thinking in high-level, multipatient critical care scenarios.

Combined, CSI students spent more than 30,000 hours in simulation training in 2022, utilizing the most advanced technology, including a $250,000 audiovisual system, virtual and augmented reality obstetric simulations and a new homegrown electronic health record with real-time chart updates.

UAMS HEALTH

The Orthopaedic & Spine Hospital at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences opened June 4, offering patients access to the latest technology and innovation. The hospital will transform how musculoskeletal health care is provided, delivered by UAMS Health's premier team of orthopaedic, spine and pain management experts.

The state-of-the-art hospital offers a 158,000-square-foot facility featuring 24 private rooms for overnight observation and inpatient stays.

In addition, there are 12 specialty clinic examination rooms for orthopaedic trauma, orthopaedic oncology and physical medicine and rehabilitation; 12 operating rooms and eight pain management clinic exam rooms; and two procedure suites.

Other amenities include an advanced imaging suite, rehabilitation therapy services, spacious waiting areas, easy access parking, a cafe and a host of modern amenities and technologies.

UAMS is proud to be recognized with Exemplar Status by the American Nurses Credentialing Center for Magnet Excellence. In each of the past two years, UAMS scored above benchmark in all service categories. As part of its commitment to providing patients with an exceptional experience, feedback is gathered following each visit, with patients asked to complete a survey and provide comments regarding specific aspects of care and care providers. Service categories include how well hospital personnel communicated, how responsive personnel was to the patient’s needs, and whether the patient felt they were treated with dignity and respect.

UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS

The Integrated Health Sciences building houses the School of Nursing, the Nabholz Center for Healthcare Simulation and the Interprofessional Teaching Center. The newly constructed 80,000-square-foot building facilitates interprofessional teaching experiences, research and health care services. The 20,000-square-foot Nabholz Center for Healthcare Simulation provides students with a high-tech, real-world environment that improves student clinical reasoning, critical thinking and confidence to make judgments and key decisions affecting patient care. These simulations allow the student to experience realistic clinical experiences that may not be available or safe enough for students to participate in otherwise.

My mom would always take me with her to visit the little old ladies at church who were shut-ins. At a young age I was comfortable around older adults with health problems. I also enjoyed taking care of sick animals, the dogs in the neighborhood. I just always enjoyed caring for other living things.

Where did you get your education?

I graduated from Harding University with my BSN. As a nurse I did med-surg, ICU, some cardiology. When I got married and started having babies, I went part time in med-surg.

How did you get inspired to shift and go into teaching?

Someone approached me and said they thought I would be a good nursing instructor. We were moving to Conway and I contacted Barbara Williams, who at the time was the nursing department chair. I became a part-time clinical instructor and did that for several years, still working part time at the bedside.

I decided I wanted to go back to school and be a full-time instructor, so at age 50 I went back and got my master’s and I finished my doctorate at age 58. I’ve been teaching in all the undergraduate and graduate classes since then.

What do you enjoy about teaching?

A lot of nursing instruction is encouraging students that, yes, you can do this. I like taking big concepts and breaking them down to where the students can understand them and then apply them. I love to see students have that “aha moment” when they go, “Yeah I see that now!”

What would you tell someone to encourage them to consider a career in education?

I would definitely say just be open to what doors can open for you. That’s the good thing about nursing. There are so many avenues that you can be an effective nurse, it doesn’t have to be at the bedside. The possibilities are just limitless and there’s so much variety you never get bored.

BECOME A NURSE. LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES. EASY AS 1-2-3

BAPTIST HEALTH COLLEGE LITTLE ROCK

Benefits of getting a nursing degree at BHCLR:

• Only 3 semesters to become an RN with prerequisites

• Hands-on instruction - highest number of clinical hours in the state, multiple hospital instruction

• Large pool of nursing instructors, mentors & advisors within the program with Masters & Doctorate education

• Christian compassion & loving environment

NEW RN GRAD HIRE AT ANY BAPTIST HEALTH HOSPITALS AS AN RN IN MED/SURGERY OR SPECIALTY AREAS

• Senior Assistance Bonus

• 12 Month Residency Program

WORK IN SPECIALTY AREAS

• Experienced RN Educator for Unit

Preceptor Charge Nurse

Assistant Nurse Manager

Case Coordination

Home Health

MedFlight Nurse

Quality Assurance

Risk Management

Utilization Review

Wound Care Nurse

• Educator/Faculty

Staff Educator

Staff Specialist Faculty at BHCLR

DNP/PhD

• Nurse Management Shift Supervisor

Nurse Manager

Assistant Director Director

• Tuition Reimbursement

• Comprehensive Benefits and 401K

• Master’s Prepared

APRN

CRNA Clinical Nurse Specialist

Surgical First Assist

To learn more about becoming a nurse for Baptist Health, visit BHCLR.edu BaptistHealthCareers.com

FOR YOU. FOR LIFE.

CHI ST. VINCENT NORTH

Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death and a leading cause of disability in the United States, and CHI’s physicians and nurses are leading the field in the treatment of this deadly disease.

CHI St. Vincent North, home of the CHI St. Vincent Arkansas Neuroscience Institute, received the American Heart Association’s Silver Plus Get With The Guidelines® — Stroke quality achievement award for its expertise in treating stroke patients. The hospital also received the American Heart Association’s Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Advanced Therapy award for reducing the time between a stroke patient’s arrival at the hospital and start of treatment, which is critical to patient survival and minimizing damage.

A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or bursts. When that happens, part of the brain cannot get the blood and oxygen it needs, causing brain cells to die. Early stroke detection and treatment are keys to improving survival, minimizing disability and accelerating recovery times.

CHI St. Vincent North also received the American Heart Association’s Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll award in recognition of its work to ensure patients with Type 2 diabetes, who might be at higher risk for complications, receive the most up-to-date, evidence-based care when hospitalized due to stroke.

CHI ST. VINCENT HOT SPRINGS

For the third straight year, CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs has received Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades’ highest rating for patient safety. Leapfrog assigns grades to all general hospitals across the country and updates those grades regularly. Three straight years of “A” grades recognizes CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs’ commitment to providing quality, compassionate care to patients and protecting them and their families from errors, injuries, accidents and infections.

The grade is the latest recognition for CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs, which has been consistently recognized for excellence in patient care. It recently received three national Women’s Choice Awards for cancer care, heart care and patient safety and has received national Magnet designation for its continued commitment to nursing excellence and its support of nurses.

CHI ST. VINCENT MORRILTON

CHI St. Vincent Morrilton was designated for the third time as a Pathway to Excellence hospital, a prestigious designation awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The designation recognizes excellent patient care and quality nursing standards, including nurses in positions of leadership and decision-making, equitable compensation and professional development opportunities.

The designation, which must be renewed every four years, is only held by a small number of hospitals worldwide. CHI St. Vincent Morrilton is the first and only hospital in Arkansas to receive Pathway to Excellence recognition.

CHI ST. VINCENT HOT SPRINGS

Cardiovascular care at CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs earned the hospital a spot on Fortune and PINC AI’s 2023 list of 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals® nationwide and among the top 10 community hospitals in the country. The list recognizes CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs’ significantly higher survival rates associated with cardiac care, including fewer readmissions and complications.

The awards join the hospital’s recent recognition for Primary Heart Attack Center, Advanced Primary Stroke Center and Total Hip and Knee Replacement certifications from The Joint Commission, the only hospital in Arkansas to be recognized in all three areas of care. It was also highlighted in the 2022 Fortune/Merative 100 Top Hospitals List.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death for all Americans, resulting in nearly 700,000 deaths and $229 billion in added costs each year. CHI’s commitment to cutting-edge care by physicians and nurses leads to significantly higher survival rates associated with cardiac care, with fewer readmissions and complications.

NURSING HERO

ELIZABETH RILEY

DNP, APRN, CPNP-AC, RNC-NIC, CNE, ANEF

Clinical Associate Professor University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Nursing

As the program director of the Master of Science in Nursing program at UAMS College of Nursing, Elizabeth Riley has literally written the book on nursing, having published more than 30 peer-reviewed research manuscripts, textbook chapters and textbooks during her career. For this and other contributions to the field of nursing education, Riley was inducted into the National League for Nursing’s Academy of Nursing Education in 2022.

You’ve not only invested in the education of others, but yourself as well. What has your training, up to the level of Doctor of Nursing Practice in Educational Leadership, taught you that has benefited you most?

I’ve always valued lifelong learning. The specific skills I’ve gained through my formal education are related to curriculum development, assessment and evaluation and accreditation standards. But as a member of the millennial generation, I can also connect with my students on the value of meaningful motivation at work, collaboration with peers and implementing technology into the classroom.

How does a Masters degree help a student in their career development and marketability as a nurse?

The new RN-MNSc program in the College of Nursing at UAMS is a program for registered nurses who are seeking to enhance their professional development and career ladder opportunities. Nurses can greatly expand their career options by completing the RN-MNSc program, which is offered in two tracks: Case Management or Nursing Administration, with or without a Nurse Educator minor track. Extra coursework ranges from 57 to 63 additional credit hours.

While all nurses have some technical demands in the modern health care workplace, what nursing roles are more tech-focused than others?

There are several technical aspects related to nursing. Such careers may include working in catheter labs, aesthetics or nursing informatics. Nursing informatics is a growing area that combines the science of nursing with information technology. Those with excellent computer and problem-solving skills can certainly use them for nursing informatics jobs in the hospital setting and with companies that program electronic medical records.

What did COVID reveal about the physical and emotional side of this profession and how are nursing programs addressing this?

During COVID-19, nurses were on the front lines and faced extreme situations in real time, meaning guidelines and policies were constantly changing for nurses and other inpatient health care providers. Stress and burnout drastically increased in 2020; it was certainly not the Year of the Nurse that we expected.

Collaboration has always been important to nurses, but COVID-19 showed us we must continue to do more mentoring and to foster and maintain self-care programs for all nurses. We were reminded just how vital mentorship really was for new nurses and nursing students alike.

ARKANSAS STATE HOSPITAL ARKANSAS STATE HOSPITAL

RN

GREAT BENEFITS

• Generous leave time

• Excellent state benefits

IS NOW HIRING RNS, LPNS & BEHAVIORAL HEALTH AIDES

IS NOW HIRING RNS, LPNS & BEHAVIORAL HEALTH AIDES

LPN

• Evening, night, & weekend differentials

• Work at Arkansas’s largest mental health hospital

BHA

JOBS IN DEMAND

SEE WHAT'S HOT IN NURSING.

Nursing has always been an in-demand profession but with the retirement of the baby boomers and the challenges of COVID, the need for nurses is even more acute. The following are some of the most in-demand specialties going today.

MENTAL HEALTH NURSE

• Description: Mental health nurses work in a variety of settings, including addiction centers and psychiatric hospitals. They may serve a range of patients from children through adults.

• Job growth (2021-2031): 6%

• Median salary (U.S.): $68,000

• Minimum education needed: RN licensure; a psychiatric nurse practitioner is one of the highest-paid nurse practitioner specialties.

NURSE MIDWIFE

• Description: Nurse midwives provide gynecological exams, family-planning services and prenatal care. They help deliver babies and assist with Cesarean sections.

• Job growth (2021-2031): 11%

• Median salary (U.S.): $115,000

• Minimum education needed: Master’s degree

CRITICAL CARE NURSE

• Description: Critical care nurses treat patients suffering from life-threatening conditions. They must master a variety of medical skills and often specialize in areas such as pediatrics, cardiology or oncology, or focus on treating a particular demographic.

• Job growth (2021-2031): 7%

• Median salary (U.S.): $77,000

• Minimum education needed: RN licensure

HIGHEST-PAID NURSING JOBS

CERTIFIED REGISTERED NURSE ANESTHETIST $195,610

GENERAL NURSE PRACTITIONER $120,680

ICU NURSE $120,243

NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE NURSE $118,586

PSYCHIATRIC NURSE PRACTITIONER $113,114

CERTIFIED NURSE MIDWIFE $112,830

CLINICAL NURSE SPECIALIST $112,267

CERTIFIED DIALYSIS NURSE

• Description: Specialize in diseases of the kidney; use dialysis machines to reproduce kidney function and combat chronic and acute renal failure.

• Job growth (2021-2031): 7%

• Median salary (U.S.): $74,000

• Minimum education needed: RN licensure

CERTIFIED NURSE CASE MANAGER

• Description: Collaborate with professionals in and outside of the medical community to develop long-term patient care plans.

• Job growth (2021-2031): 7%

• Median salary (U.S.): $74,000

• Minimum education needed: RN licensure

OPERATING ROOM NURSE

• Description: Specialize in the popular surgical nursing field. These nurses care for patients before, during and after surgery.

• Job growth (2021-2031): 6%

• Median salary (U.S.): $74,000

• Minimum education needed: RN licensure

PAIN MANAGEMENT NURSE $110,420

REGISTERED NURSE FIRST ASSIST $101,890

NURSING ADMINISTRATOR $101,340

FAMILY NURSE PRACTITIONER $98,041

GERONTOLOGICAL NURSE PRACTITIONER $90,391

NURSE EDUCATOR $82,040

INFORMATICS NURSE $79,531

Source: nursejournal.org

Source: Nurse.org

JEFFERSON REGIONAL

Become a nurse today! Apply now and embark on a rewarding nursing career that will:

■ Transforms Lives – Make a positive difference in people’s lives

■ Lead Change – Become a nursing leader and drive innovation

■ Impact Healthcare – Through research, policy development and advanced clinical practice

Visit nursing.UAMS.edu for Student Recruitment

Already a nurse and looking for the best place to practice? UAMS Nurses AR the Future!

■ Statewide opportunities for growth in many areas, clinics and hospital units

■ Nurse Patient Ratios: 1:2 ICU and 1:5 Med./ Surg. at the state’s only academic medical center

■ 50% Tuition discount (undergraduate) at UA System colleges for full-time employees

Visit nurses.UAMS.edu for Nurse Recruitment

NURSING HERO

ZENA STONE-HILL, RN Baptist Health

A nurse in Baptist Health’s Telemetry Unit, Zena Stone-Hill served during the challenging days of the pandemic. She said working on health care’s front lines under pandemic conditions forever shaped her and her fellow nurses.

How did the pandemic change the nursing vocation? In what ways are its effects still being felt by health care workers?

Nursing over the past few years has changed. Prior to COVID, nursing was pretty straightforward, being that you took care of your patient, gave them their meds and explained what was going on during the stay.

Since COVID, however, nurses have had to become the physical, mental and emotional support for patients. People were confined to their homes during quarantine, causing more spikes in depressive episodes in patients that had never had depression symptoms before. Has that situation righted itself? How are the nurses you know working differently today and what has been the

Now that COVID has died down, things are getting better. However, those mental health issues are still present. Personally, since COVID, I have altered my nursing style. My primary focus, of course, is still on the patient's health but now I am putting more focus on their emotional and mental health needs. In return I’m seeing positive physical outcomes directly related to the support and encouragement from myself and the nursing staff.

This new focus has, in turn, created a family dynamic on our unit. We like to use the phrase

Has that also impacted the nurses

Most importantly, nurses are paying more attention to their mental health. It has become crucial that nurses take breaks and find time for themselves. In this job, you give your all and it can be physically exhausting. Every nurse needs some TLC every now and then.

What is your advice for a nursing student or someone who is brand new

My biggest suggestion to any new nurse coming into the field is to find something that destresses you. Find out what that is and set aside time at least twice a week to destress

OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!

FOR NURSES, THE SKY'S THE LIMIT.

Nursing is most often thought of as a job performed in a hospital or clinic; however, that just scratches the surface on the variety of work settings nurses occupy. Here are a few you might not have thought of:

HOME HEALTH AIDE

National average salary: $35,722 per year

Primary duties: A home health aide visits patients at their homes and helps them complete daily tasks. They may assist with activities like bathing, dressing, taking medication, eating and cleaning.

COMMUNITY NURSE

National average salary: $47,735 per year

Primary duties: A community nurse serves an area by offering medical services in schools, businesses and organizations near or in a community. Their role helps people in remote locations gain access to health care.

NURSE EDUCATOR

National average salary: $59,888 per year

Primary duties: Nurse educators teach classes about nursing practices on college campuses. They can train and mentor new nurses and advocate for nursing students.

OUACHITA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL NURSE

National average salary: $60,082 per year

Primary duties: A school nurse works in an elementary school, middle school, high school, university or another educational institution to attend to students when they're sick or injured.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH NURSE

National average salary: $68,872 per year

Primary duties: Occupational health nurses visit groups and teach them about proper safety and health. They often work for large companies or manufacturers, keeping employees safe.

HOSPICE NURSE

National average salary: $83,254 per year

Primary duties: Hospice nurses specialize in endof-life care. They may travel to retirement communities or patient homes to provide pain management and end-of-life services.

MILITARY NURSE

National average salary: $90,453 per year

Primary duties: A military nurse is a U.S. Armed Forces registered nurse who cares for service members who have illnesses or injuries that prevent them from performing their duties. They may be stationed on a base or deployed into foreign duty stations.

NURSE CONSULTANT

National average salary: $94,698 per year

Primary duties: Nursing consultants use their knowledge of the nursing field to provide suggestions for improving nursing teams and training protocols. A legal nurse consultant may serve as a link between legal staff and nursing staff.

NURSING HOME ADMINISTRATOR

National average salary: $110,827 per year

Primary duties: Nursing home administrators oversee all operations within nursing homes, including hiring, organizing health care teams, creating budgets, allocating funds to various departments and overseeing marketing.

RESEARCH NURSE

National average salary: $112,445 per year

Primary duties: A research nurse oversees patients during experiments and studies, or they may work in a lab as part of a research team, collecting data and interpreting trial results.

REHABILITATION NURSE

National average salary: $116,694 per year

Primary duties: A rehabilitation nurse works with patients who experience chronic conditions and illnesses or who are recovering from a major health event. They often work on-site or in rehab centers, supporting patients by helping them adapt and improve their abilities and functions.

FLIGHT NURSE

National average salary: $126,054 per year

Primary duties: A flight nurse works with paramedics and other medical employees in the medical field aboard helicopters for emergency patient transportation. They provide care to patients before they arrive at a hospital and help stabilize them before physicians intervene.

Source: Indeed.com

NURSING CAREER PATHWAYS

HOW TO GET FROM HERE TO THERE.

Nursing is one of the most rewarding careers you can have and also one of the most diverse, with literally hundreds of medical specialties and work positions you can build your career around.

When you’re just starting out, however, nursing can be a very confusing journey. The following breakdown doesn’t cover every path, but it does illustrate some general steps you can take to get started, get credentialed and finally get to work in your new career.

GET YOUR CREDENTIAL

No matter what level of education you complete, you’re not licensed to work in nursing until you have passed your credentialing exam, the National Council Licensure Examination (or, NCLEX, as it’s commonly known). When researching schools, ask the recruiter what their graduates pass rate is on this test — the higher the number, the better the instruction.

PRO TIP:

ADOPT A MINDSET OF LIFELONG LEARNING! EVEN IF YOU DON’T GO TO GRADUATE SCHOOL, THERE ARE PLENTY OF WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS AND ENHANCE YOUR EARNING POWER IN VARIOUS MEDICAL SPECIALTIES THROUGH LICENSES AND CERTIFICATIONS. ALWAYS LOOK FOR WAYS TO IMPROVE YOURSELF; YOUR PATIENTS WILL THANK YOU.

PURSUE ADVANCED CERTIFICATION

Just like any other field, graduate degrees exist in nursing that open up new job opportunities, which typically pay more. These include Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) and, above that, Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). These degrees generally require a prerequisite, meaning in order to earn a MSN you must first hold a BSN, and to earn a DNP you usually need a MSN. Taking these advanced degrees cost additional money and take additional years of coursework, but can open career doors that a BSN or less can’t.

EARN YOUR DEGREE

No matter what type of nursing you have in mind, you’re going to need to complete a degree from a credentialed college or university. Within that, though, you have options.

PRO TIP:

TAKING CONCURRENT CREDIT CLASSES IN HIGH SCHOOL — COLLEGE CLASSES TAKEN FOR FREE OR AT GREATLY REDUCED RATES — CAN GET MANY OF YOUR COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS OUT OF THE WAY, REDUCING THE TIME AND EXPENSE OF TAKING THE EXACT SAME CLASS IN COLLEGE.

GET A JOB

A nursing license is technically the last step before interview-

ing for a job, but times being what they are, many health care organizations are aggressively recruiting new nurses while they’re still in school. This means with good grades and a little legwork, you’ll likely have a good-paying job lined up before graduation. No matter when it happens, be sure to treat the interview as something other than a formality. Just because nurses are in high demand doesn’t mean you don’t have to make the best impression possible, so prepare your answers and practice interviewing skills.

A PLACE TO LEARN, A PLACE TO WORK

Choosing the right school and employer are some of the most important decisions a nursing student can make. Many factors go into this process, from the quality of educational programs and classroom technology to on-the-job working conditions and advancement opportunities.

The organizations featured on the following pages — both educational and professional — each have their own outstanding qualities, including engaging faculty, career placement and exciting and rewarding work environments. We’re confident you will find programs and employment that’s tailor-made for you both during your educational journey and throughout your career.

Arkansas Times’ 2023 Nurses Guide has compiled the following profiles to give you, the aspiring nurse, a small taste of what these organizations offer for your education and career. We’re sure you’ll agree — Arkansas enjoys a multitude of outstanding opportunities when it comes to your journey as a nurse, with something to fit every learning style, field of study, or career aspiration.

Find your future at one of these fine institutions and take your first steps into nursing, one of the most challenging and rewarding professions there is.

BAPTIST HEALTH COLLEGE LITTLE ROCK

As one of the state’s leading institutions of higher learning in the health care space, Baptist Health College Little Rock proudly serves students and the community alike by offering high-quality instruction and producing graduates that serve the health needs of people statewide.

Offering instruction in nine critical areas of medicine, the college is a longstanding and well-respected institution, with thousands of graduates at work throughout Arkansas in a wide range of rewarding health careers.

Baptist Health College Little Rock, a part of Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, shapes the health of Arkansans by educating and mentoring health care professionals with excellence and Christian compassion.

EDUCATIONAL FOCUSES

Baptist Health College Little Rock offers nine programs of study in a variety of medical fields. Each program offers excellent opportunities with real-world experience. These include:

LPN/Paramedic ― Nurses provide and direct others in the provision of nursing care to patients in an acute care setting and a variety of other health care settings. This accelerated track is an option for paramedics and LPB/LPTNs who wish to become a nurse. Medical Laboratory Science ― Medical technologists perform tests on blood and body fluids to determine the presence or absence of disease, monitor response to treatment and aid in health maintenance.

Nuclear Medicine Technology ― Nuclear medicine technologists use small amounts of radioactive pharmaceuticals for diagnosing and treating various diseases.

Occupational Therapy Assistant ― Occupational therapy assistants help clients of all ages learn or re -

gain the skills required to function as independently as possible in self-care, work, play and leisure activities.

Patient Care Technician ― Patient care technicians work under the supervision of nurses, advanced practice personnel and physicians to provide direct patient care of basic needs, draw labs and perform electrocardiograms.

Practical Nursing ― Under the supervision of a registered nurse (RN), a licensed practical nurse provides direct patient bedside care such as personal hygiene, treatments and medication administration.

Radiography ― Radiographers are medical professionals who perform diagnostic X-ray examinations using ionizing radiation and assist physicians in the diagnosis of diseases.

Sleep Technology ― Sleep technologists are medical professionals responsible for patient care and outpatient procedures associated with the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders.

Surgical Technology ― Surgical technologists work under the supervision of a surgeon or registered nurse (RN) and anticipate the needs of the surgeon utilizing surgical equipment while providing for the needs of the patient, and serving the surgical team.

Traditional Nursing ― Nurses provide and direct others in the provision of nursing care to patients in inpatient, outpatient, clinical and community health care settings.

ADDITIONAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Baptist Health College Little Rock-School of Nursing assists students wishing to continue their education in the health sciences by maintaining a robust slate of partnerships with other institutions of higher learning in Arkansas. The college is proud to coordinate with these colleges and universities to provide seamless online options for graduates to complete a Bachelor

of Science in Nursing degree.

Partnering with Baptist Health College Little Rock in this arrangement are Arkansas Tech University, Ouachita Baptist University, University of Arkansas, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Capella University and the University of Central Arkansas. These agreements serve current and historical graduates from the BHCLR-School of Nursing program.

Other transfer partnerships exist between BHCLR-School of Practical Nursing and Arkansas Baptist College and a general education support agreement with Geneva College-Portage Division.

Baptist Health College Little Rock maintains an affiliate network with numerous schools of allied health, including Arkansas State University, Arkansas Tech University, Geneva College Portage Division, Henderson State University, Southern Arkansas University, Ouachita Baptist University, Harding University, Louisiana Tech University, Missouri Southern State University, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College and the University of Central Arkansas.

PAYING FOR SCHOOL

In order to bring higher education within reach of more students, Baptist Health College Little Rock assists students in understanding available financial aid programs. Among these are federal and private student loans and state aid programs, including the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship, as well as scholarships awarded by the Baptist Health Foundation.

Through the generosity of its many donors, the Baptist Health Foundation supports myriad scholarships for students. For specific financial aid information and application guidelines, contact the school at (501) 202-6200.

Arkansas Children's offers over 80 specialty clinics and services all dedicated to improving the lives of children. The organization strives to offer the very best in emergency medicine and acute care as well as preventative and well-child care.

The only hospital system in the state solely dedicated to caring for children, the organization has shaped the landscape of pediatric care in Arkansas for more than a century. Arkansas Children’s is driven by four core values — safety, teamwork, compassion and excellence — which inform every decision and every action, from the aggressive pursuit of zero hospital infections to treating each family with dignity, kindness and concern.

More than just a hospital treating sick kids, Arkansas Children’s system includes two hospitals, a pediatric research institute, a foundation, clinics, education and outreach, all with an unyielding commitment to making children better today and healthier tomorrow.

A WORLD OF NURSING POSSIBILITIES

Choosing a career with Arkansas Children’s gives nurses a multifaceted career path. From kidney disorders and cardiac care to pulmonary and urology to cancer and blood disorders, there’s a department that’s right for what you want to accomplish in your life as a nurse. In addition to the physical side of medicine, Arkansas Children’s also provides the Dennis Development Center which cares for children with developmental conditions that affect learning and behavior.

In addition to a wealth of medical speciality areas, Arkansas Children’s also offers a variety of work locations, including hospitals and clinics positioned across the state, allowing nurses to work closer to home. These locations include:

Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH), a pediatric hospital with a Level I Trauma Center, located in Little Rock. It is among the largest pediatric hospitals in the United States and serves children from birth to age 21. ACH is affiliated with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and is a teaching hospital with the UAMS College of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics.

ACH staff consists of more than 505 physicians, 200 residents and 4,400 support staff. The hospital includes 336 beds and offers three intensive care units on a campus spanning 36 city blocks and offering over 2 million square feet of floor space.

Arkansas Children’s Northwest (ACNW) is the region’s first and only children’s hospital and pediatric emergency room. Designed, staffed and equipped just for children, Arkansas Children’s Northwest offers families a variety of health care services and comprehensive pediatric medicine.

The hospital features 24 inpatient rooms for overnight stays; a Level IV Pediatric Trauma Center; a primary care clinic; a wide variety of sub-specialty services; and a state-of-the-art pediatric surgery unit with five operating rooms. In addition, ACNW offers a full range of ancillary and diagnostic services, child life, social work and pastoral care programs, as well as 234,000 square feet of wellness space designed to maximize children’s discovery and delight.

In addition, Arkansas Children’s operates five clinics around the state, including the ACH Jonesboro Clinic, ACH West Little Rock Clinic, ACH Southwest Little Rock Clinic, ACH Pine Bluff Clinic and Harvey Pediatrics, Operated by Arkansas Children’s in Rogers.

For nurses interested in a career in medical research, Arkansas Children’s offers the Arkansas Children's Research Institute (ACRI), a nonprofit corporation seeking to address a broad spectrum of children’s health concerns, including birth defects, diabetes-related complications and numerous childhood diseases, including asthma and cancer. Opened in May 1992, ACRI researchers annually bring in more than $21 million in grants and contracts from federal and private agencies, industry, and individual and organizational donations.

AN AWARD-WINNING PLACE TO WORK

Arkansas Children’s has won numerous awards through the years for its innovative and dynamic level of care. Some of the most prestigious recent accolades specific to nursing excellence include:

Magnet Status — Presented by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), Magnet Status is a designation recognized worldwide as the pinnacle of nursing excellence and quality patient outcomes. The designation is held by only 8% of hospitals worldwide.

Research demonstrates that Magnet recognition provides specific benefits to health care organizations and their communities, such as:

• Higher patient satisfaction with nurse communication, availability of help and receipt of discharge information;

• Lower risk of 30-day mortality and lower failure to rescue rates;

• Higher job satisfaction among nurses;

• Lower nurse reports of intentions to leave their positions.

The Beacon Award — Presented by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, the Beacon Award for Excellence recognizes unit caregivers who successfully improve patient outcomes and align practices with AACN’s six Healthy Work Environment Standards. The award spotlights exceptional patient care and healthy work environments according to criteria consistent with Magnet status, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the National Quality Healthcare Award.

Arkansas Children’s has received silver-level recognition for both its cardiovascular intensive care unit, which provides comprehensive surgical and intensive care for Arkansas children with heart disease and defects, and its pediatric intensive care unit, which cares for the state’s most critically ill and injured children. ACH is the only Arkansas health care center to receive this prestigious national award

Best Children’s Hospitals — Arkansas Children’s has been nationally ranked in seven service areas in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Children’s Hospitals list for 2023/2024. The rankings denote the best of the best in the nation. ACH was ranked in the top 45 in the U.S. for cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, nephrology, orthopedics, pulmonary and lung surgery and urology.

ARKANSAS CHILDREN'S

CHI St. Vincent is a regional health network serving central and southwest Arkansas. Serving Arkansans since 1888 with a history of many firsts, CHI St. Vincent’s networks include primary care, specialty clinics, urgent care, hospitals, home health, rehabilitation and surgery centers.

Together with more than 4,500 co-workers, 1,000 medical staff and 500 volunteers, CHI St. Vincent consistently receives praise for advancements in care. Its growing Medical Group includes more than 300 providers across almost every medical and surgical specialty.

CHI St. Vincent is part of CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit, Catholic health system dedicated to advancing health for all people. Created in February 2019 through the alignment of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health, CommonSpirit Health combines the strength and expertise of 150,000 employees, 25,000 physicians and advanced practice clinicians across 142 hospitals and more than 700 care sites in 21 states.

The health system offers a wide variety of nursing opportunities at its four hospitals and conveniently located clinics. CHI St. Vincent nurses enjoy a challenging, fulfilling career, good work-life balance, the joy of a servant ministry, comprehensive benefits, continued education opportunities, tuition reimbursement, higher starting pay with sign-on bonus for RNs and much more.

PROFESSIONAL NURSING

The nurses of CHI St. Vincent play an integral role in the organization’s ongoing efforts to provide exceptional patient care and an excellent place to work. CHI St. Vincent nurses use their professional knowledge to drive clinical practice. These passionate nurses are involved in projects such as the Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) Program Certification (Infirmary) and the Journey to ZERO CLABSI initiative (Hot Springs).

At CHI St. Vincent, the bedside nurses help design the process by which decisions are made. They are at the core of every decision that impacts bedside care. As experts, they are relied upon to help in the continual improvement of the nursing practice environment.

CHI ST. VINCENT

chistvincent.com

From a nurse’s first shift and throughout their career, CHI St. Vincent provides the opportunity to build a rewarding career supported by caring and professional team members. Teamwork is at the heart of the CHI St. Vincent culture, as together everyone accomplishes more.

“As nurses, we have a duty; it is our privilege to care for people in their greatest time of need. When they are at their worst, they choose to come to us so we can lay our healing hands on them,” said Brett Calcagno, RN. “Successful nurses stay calm and engage with their team. When problems arise, they actively bring forth ideas and try to be part of the solution. They are a focal point of strength knowing their patients are depending on them to help give them strength back.

“When you join my team, you have joined a family. We support each other, teach each other and encourage each other. And if one of our family members is hurting, we all are hurting. And like all families, we work through it together.”

A PATHWAY TO YOUR FUTURE

With the demand for nurses on the rise, CHI St. Vincent has partnered with schools across the state to offer Nursing Pathway Program Scholarship opportunities. Nursing students can earn their ADN, RN and BSN degrees at UA Little Rock, Henderson State University and National Park College with the help of CHI St. Vincent. Scholarships are awarded to qualifying students with after-graduation employment guaranteed for 24 months at a CHI St. Vincent facility.

NURSE RESIDENCY PROGRAM

CHI’s Nurse Residency Program is designed to allow residents to experience different patient care environments. Residents rotate through day and night shifts and through all units within their track, providing opportunities to learn the organizational culture, meet peers in their specialty and ultimately find the best unit/team for their future career.

This extensive one-year program features a series of learning and hands-on work experience for new nurse graduates as they transition into their first professional role as caregivers. Skills nurses learn

during the program include caring for patients with increased levels of acuity and complexity; developing leadership skills; improving patient safety and quality of care; fostering critical thinking skills; and bringing evidence-based practice to the bedside.

Sean Lindsey, RN, said the program provides outstanding learning opportunities for new graduates, helping to build confidence and ease the transition into that first job.

“New nurses can be afraid to ask questions because they think it’s going to make them look stupid, but it’s much better to ask for help than to make a mistake because you were too embarrassed to ask a question,” he said. “This program gives them the chance to ask every question possible of an experienced nurse.

“Residents also learn how to take the time to plan, which is something that really helps prevent stress. Three minutes of sitting down to plan out and think about what you need to do can save a new nurse a lot of stress and help get things off their plate.”

RESIDENCY TRACKS

Track availability varies by cohort.

LITTLE ROCK

• Perioperative Track

• Emergency Department

• Critical Care

• MedSurg

• Cardiac/Stepdown

• Behavioral Health

• Cardiac Catheterization Lab (CCL)

HOT SPRINGS

• Perioperative Track

• Emergency Department

• Critical Care

• MedSurg

• Labor, Delivery, Recovery, Post-Partum

SHERWOOD

• Perioperative Track

• Emergency Department

• Critical Care/Stepdown

• MedSurg

MORRILTON

• Emergency Department

• MedSurg

• Stepdown

The University of Central Arkansas, a four-year institution of higher learning, boasts a rich 115-year tradition of educational excellence. Through innovative and collaborative teaching, UCA ensures each student is immersed in a challenging yet supportive culture.

TRADITION OF EXCELLENCE

Founded in 1967, UCA’s School of Nursing is one of the state’s most recognized and distinguished educational institutions. Located within the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, UCA welcomed nearly 400 nursing students in 2022, including 250 bachelor’s degree (BSN) candidates; 30 RN to BSN students; and 100 combined graduate nursing students.

Classes are a healthy mix of traditional and nontraditional students, providing quality instruction to nurses wherever they may be in their personal and professional journey. The School of Nursing also goes to great lengths to make education affordable, boasting 17 named scholarships to help students achieve their dream of earning a nursing degree and serving their communities.

With a 94% graduation rate for BSN students, a 98% NCLEX-RN licensure pass rate and 100% employment rate with 12 to 18 months of graduation,

UCA continues to set the bar for innovative and challenging nursing education in Arkansas. Average starting salary for UCA nursing alums ranges from $62,400 to $84,400, depending on medical specialty. Moreover, 90% of UCA nursing students remain in Arkansas following graduation, improving the lives of patients right here at home.

EDUCATION WITH A PURPOSE

Learning is a lifelong endeavor that fosters intellectual and personal growth through critical thinking, active inquiry and creativity. The School of Nursing is committed to educating students at the undergraduate and graduate levels as leaders in the delivery of quality health care and advancement of the nursing profession.

UCA’s program begins with the quality of the faculty and their ongoing commitment to teaching/ learning, student success, scholarship and service to the community. The process of learning involves student-teacher partnerships and cooperation in meeting student and program goals.

Nursing faculty members serve as role models who guide students in developing an understanding of the discipline and in developing leadership, accountability, cultural competence, safe and ethical practice and interdisciplinary collaboration.

COMBINING ART AND SCIENCE

Professional nursing is an art and a science, grounded in general education and derived from the synthesis of empirical knowledge, aesthetics, personal knowledge and ethics. Caring and empathy are also fundamental to nursing, with the characteristics of compassion, sensitivity and the ability to connect with patients with thoughtful attention to the patient’s needs, interests and values.

UCA prepares students to meet the challenges of nursing as a professional discipline concerned with meeting the health needs of a diverse and changing society. Nurses are legally and ethically accountable to society for the integrity and outcomes of its practice, and the School of Nursing helps students meet this standard through scholarly inquiry and study, self-reflection and a variety of clinical and professional experiences.

“Nursing is not a static profession,” said Leslie Blackwell, a faculty member. “Patient situations are constantly changing. It is important that the student knows the standards of the profession, but then they must analyze a particular situation. At UCA we help students develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills necessary to make decisions regarding how to best meet the needs of the patient.”

UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS

Founded in 1927, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is a metropolitan research university that provides an accessible, quality education through flexible learning and unparalleled internship opportunities. Home to more than 8,000 students, nearly half of whom are part time or nontraditional, UA Little Rock serves individuals from a wide range of backgrounds.

Located in the capital city, UA Little Rock offers a vibrant urban environment with access to numerous professional, cultural and networking opportunities, thus enriching students’ college experience and preparing them for success in their chosen fields.

A driving force in Little Rock, the university is a major component of the city and state’s growing profile as a regional leader in research, technology, economic development and job creation.

WORLD-CLASS NURSING

The nationally ranked UA Little Rock nursing program prepares students to be skilled and compassionate nurses. The school is the largest department on campus with more than 600 current students, over 20 full-time faculty and six dedicated staff members.

Nursing program options include student to registered nurse (RN), LPN/Paramedic to registered nurse, bachelor of science in nursing and RN to bachelor’s degree programs. The school’s curriculum produces graduates who are highly regarded by employers as being well prepared and as having outstanding critical thinking and communication skills. In 2023, UA Little Rock’s nurses achieved an NCLEX-RN pass rate of 89%.

All UA Little Rock nursing program options offer the knowledge, skills and attitudes essential to the competent nurse and are taught in settings ranging from the classroom, campus skills laboratories, area hospitals, outpatient, online and other health care facilities.

STUDENT SUCCESS

The School of Nursing at UA Little Rock meets the state education requirements for the Associate of Applied Science and Bachelor of Science in Nursing Registered Nurse license in the state of Arkansas.

All courses have a faculty/student mentor pro-

gram. Students are required to meet with the faculty member following the failure of an examination; if the student is struggling with content; or if life issues are getting in the way of the student being successful.

The nursing school offers various study tools students can check out through a lending library. These resources assist with study and test-taking skills. Additional study sessions and workshops are offered outside of scheduled class times, based on student needs. Examples include documentation, pharmacology and math calculations.

The College of Business, Health and Human Services offers student success opportunities in many ways, including a licensed social worker who is available for nursing students for a variety of personal and educational needs.

CENTER FOR SIMULATION INNOVATION

The UA Little Rock Center for Simulation Innovation offers nursing students and health care professionals access to one of the most innovative simulation health care facilities in the South. Located in the UA Little Rock Pat Walker Center for Nursing Education, CSI is a 20-bed, state-of-the-art simulation hospital offering clinical learning experiences within a 9,500-squarefoot facility.

Every student will have the opportunity to experience numerous scenarios in CSI every semester of their nursing program to gain invaluable hands-on experience in patient care. CSI’s innovative approach simulates real-life experiences and allows students to grow and learn from both real and simulated patients and family members.

The UA Little Rock SON continues to invest in cutting-edge technology. Across 2020 and 2021 alone, CSI obtained nearly $400,000 in funding for a complete audiovisual system overhaul, addition of Laerdal’s newest SimBaby and addition of CAE’s Lucina AR birthing manikin. Lucina AR is the most advanced birthing manikin in the world, using augmented and virtual reality to train future nurses.

The new top-of-the-line CAE Enterprise audiovisual platform brings patient care from the bedside to the classroom. Cameras and microphones throughout CSI record student and patient interactions for both

live review and recording playback. The ability to broadcast live from the patient’s bedside to anywhere on campus completely changes the landscape of UA Little Rock’s nursing classroom and lecture experience.

AWARD-WINNING EDUCATION

University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Nursing has been repeatedly recognized by organizations within higher education, health care and the media for the quality of its programs.

U.S. News & World Report’s Best College Rankings recognized the UA Little Rock School of Nursing on its list of Best Undergraduate Nursing programs. UA Little Rock was also recognized overall as a leader in social mobility. That ranking measures a university’s success in graduating economically disadvantaged students who are less likely to finish college.

The university has also been recognized for its online programs, ranked in the top 10 nationally by Fast Degrees Online for its online curriculum that helps students earn a degree quickly and affordably. Nursing is among the curriculums where UA Little Rock students can accelerate their degree attainment online, which is especially useful for working professionals and parents with limited study time.

The Center for Simulation Innovation (CSI) has received the 2023 Frontline Simulation Champion Excellence Award from the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL), an association dedicated to advancing the science of health care simulation.

This award is given in recognition of the excellent instruction provided through CSI, as detailed in the nominations received on UA Little Rock’s behalf from peers, colleagues and others. This prestigious international award makes CSI the only simulation program or team in Arkansas to ever be recognized for excellence by the INACSL. Previous winners include the Aga Khan University School of Nursing and Midwifery in Pakistan, Duke University School of Nursing, Villanova University School of Nursing and the University of Central Florida College of Nursing.

OUACHITA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

THE MISSION

The mission of the Ouachita Nursing Department is to prepare the graduate for the role of a generalist nurse. Educational programs are built upon the liberal arts, the philosophy of Christian ideals, nursing standards and nursing ethics, while core values of faith, scholarship, growth, community, service and character are emphasized.

Students are prepared to use evidence-based research findings to provide holistic care to diverse individual clients and communities, both locally and across the globe, throughout their careers in structured and unstructured health care settings.

THE CURRICULUM

expand their career options in hospitals, health care centers and community settings.

Featured courses include advanced health assessment, health care pathophysiology, community health, transcultural nursing and leadership and management.

THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Nursing students are guided by professors with 118 years of combined nursing experience and study in OBU’s $2.2 million, 6,600-square-foot Nursing Education Center.

Ouachita’s Department of Nursing prepares students for the nation’s most trusted profession with curriculum and clinical experiences grounded in a love of God and love of learning. Students learn from and are mentored by distinguished faculty who are devoted to their intellectual and spiritual growth. OBU’s curriculum and class discussions develop students’ critical thinking, a service-oriented attitude and an appreciation for cultural diversity — all valued by both the nursing profession and Ouachita.

Graduates are well-prepared for a variety of in-demand work assignments or to advance their education further. OBU nursing alums enjoy a 92% acceptance rate in science health care graduate programs.

Ouachita offers two pathways to a bachelor of science-nursing (BSN) degree, an on-campus program and a fully online RN-to-BSN program.

The university has received initial approval from the Arkansas State Board of Nursing for a four-year, on-campus BSN program on its Arkadelphia campus. This comprehensive degree program includes coursework in a range of related academic areas including biology, chemistry, nutrition, speech pathology, Spanish, Christian studies and psychology.

Ouachita’s online RN-to-BSN nursing program allows a convenient and cost-effective way for working nurses to take their training to the next level. With entry points to the program five times a year and completion possible in nine to 12 months, RNs can quickly

A home base for nursing studies, the NEC is a simulation and teaching center featuring a clinical skills lab, five simulated hospital patient rooms, a pharmacy and several high-fidelity manikins allowing students to perfect assessment, clinical and communication skills. The center supplements the adjacent 70,000-square-foot Jones Science Center that also serves nursing students.

THE OPPORTUNITY

In addition to a rewarding career, OBU prepares students for a life of extraordinary service, providing Christ-like compassionate and holistic care to those in need. With just one additional year of study, BSN students can earn a second bachelor of arts degree, curated to equip students to follow their passion on medical missions, multicultural clinical health care and more.

Over the course of more than 100 years, Jefferson Regional Medical Center has responded dynamically to the challenges of providing excellent health care to people throughout south-central Arkansas, developing programs and services to meet increasingly complex needs. Over the years, the organization has brought cutting-edge technology to the Delta to fulfill its mission, starting with traditional X-ray technology and evolving all the way through state-of-the-art computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) today.

Jefferson Regional School of Nursing was established in 1981 and has a strong history of graduating compassionate nurses who go on to be leaders in their communities. The purpose of the school was, and continues to be, to graduate professional, competent nurses to improve the health of individuals, families and the community. The School of Nursing seeks to offer the highest quality nursing education opportunity for qualified students to meet the demand for professional nurses throughout Arkansas.

MARKET-PROVEN, OUTCOME-BASED

Jefferson Regional Medical Center School of Nursing offers an educational program designed to prepare qualified men and women of all ages to serve the nursing needs of the community and to contribute to the maintenance of high standards of health care delivery.

The Jefferson Regional Medical Center School of Nursing offers a 17-month education program that leads to an associate of applied science in nursing degree. The program is approved by the Arkansas

State Board of Nursing, certified by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education and accredited by the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools.

A high-quality education from Jefferson Regional School of Nursing is the perfect starting point for a rewarding career in health care. Leveraging the expertise of veteran teachers and combining it with cutting-edge instructional technology, students gain the knowledge they need to thrive in an ever-changing profession.

The numbers tell the story: Jefferson Regional School of Nursing enjoys an 87% retention rate among its students as well as a perfect 100% credentialing participation rate. Its graduates boast an 83% first-time pass rate on the NCLEX credentialing exam and enjoy 95% placement in the health care field.

SEAMLESS CAREER TRANSITION

With 300 available beds, Jefferson Regional serves as the major referral center for an 11-county area of South Arkansas with a patient base of approximately 220,000. A Nursing Residency Program is offered for new graduates with less than one year of experience. The medical center has a medical staff of 150 physicians representing all major specialties and has active teaching programs for medical students and residents as well as students in allied health fields. Outstanding opportunities with clinics and private practices include excellent call coverage and a strong referral base.

COMPETITIVE PAY AND BENEFITS

Jefferson Regional is the perfect setting for nurses

seeking a rewarding career. The organization offers pay and benefits on par or better than other hospitals while offering employees a small-town quality of life.

Specific benefits include:

• Sign-on bonus of $8,000 and $12,000 in qualified departments

• Flexible staffing and competitive pay plans

• Additional compensation for BSN, MSN and National Certifications

• Tuition reimbursement

• Employer-Paid CPR, PALS, NALS, ACLS

• Free membership for on-site Wellness Center

• Comprehensive benefits package

ARKANSAS TECH UNIVERSITY

Russellville |479-968-0389|atu.edu

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS FOR MEDICAL SCIENCES (UAMS)

Little Rock|501-686-7000|uams.edu

Arkansas Tech University is a small school that thinks big. Students enjoy award-winning instruction and a full suite of activities on a cozy campus that feels like home.

The Department of Nursing’s curriculum, held at both its main campus in Russellville and its technical campus in Ozark, is designed to prepare students for beginning professional responsibilities in a variety of health care settings and to provide the necessary foundations for graduate study.

ATU’s program offers undergraduate study in nursing to qualified high school graduates; graduates of diploma and associate degree programs in nursing; licensed psychiatric technician nurses; and licensed practical nurses. In addition to the on-campus program, ATU offers an RN-to-BSN completion program on the internet.

The university’s nursing faculty are leaders in their respective fields, imparting the latest skills and using the most up-to-date medical technology. Alums from the program are in high demand and are well-prepared to face the challenges of the health care marketplace, both today and into the future.

EDUCATING THE WHOLE PERSON

In addition to a world-class nursing education, Arkansas Tech University offers a variety of enrichment programs that can accentuate a nursing degree with multiple soft skills, which are invaluable in the modern workplace.

On Track is a co-curricular experience designed to enhance student development beyond the classroom setting, encourage students to network socially among peers and to include students in traditional and signature university events. The program includes various tracks, including:

ACTIVE MIND AND BODY — Assists students in understanding wellness concepts and experience activities that will help them develop habits to maintain a healthy mind and body.

ADVANCE TO CAREER — Hones students’ skills in preparation for the real world through career-focused programming.

ASPIRING LEADER — Develops foundational leadership and social skills for the ensuing years of collegiate life.

ELEVATED CITIZEN — Facilitates active citizenship for students to understand their role in the local and global community.

GLOBAL FOCUS — Exposes students to a variety of situations and topics they may encounter or be affected by as a member of a global population allowing students to become more culturally aware.

LEADER IDENTIFIED — Cultivates leadership skills and reflects on experiences to prepare for future opportunities.

UNITE — Connects students with student involvement opportunities throughout campus and helps students become more diverse leaders.

FOCUS ON FINANCES — Provides experiences to educate and assist students as they navigate financially through their college years and provide resources to prepare financially for life after college.

One of the most advanced and well-recognized names in medical care and education in Arkansas, UAMS is a cornerstone of the state’s health and wellness. The mission of UAMS is to improve the health, health care and well-being of Arkansans and of others in the region, nation and the world by:

• Educating current and future health professionals and the public;

• Providing high-quality, innovative, patient- and family-centered health care and also providing specialty expertise not routinely available in community settings; and

• Advancing knowledge in areas of human health and disease and translating and accelerating discoveries into health improvements.

UAMS MEDICAL CENTER

As Arkansas’s only academic health system, UAMS resolves to deliver dramatic and lasting health and health care improvements. Aiding in this are its statewide health system, UAMS Health; a statewide network of campuses for public education and clinical outreach; and expertise in medical specialties, population health, digital health, health informatics and translational research.

Based in Little Rock, UAMS enjoys a statewide reach thanks to eight regional campuses and a comprehensive rural hospital program, 11 KIDS FIRST program sites and other facilities.

UAMS is also dedicated to medical research, having brought in $203.1 million in total research funding across UAMS and UAMS researchers working in the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute and Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System. UAMS ranks in the top 14% of all U.S. colleges and universities in research funding from the federal government.

In addition to seeing to the physical health of Arkansans statewide, UAMS is an important economic development driver. UAMS and affiliates Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System combine for a $4.5 billion economic impact annually. Meanwhile, UAMS’ eight regional centers generate 657 jobs and $87 million annually in economic impact across the state.

UAMS COLLEGE OF NURSING

The UAMS College of Nursing is part of a wider educational program that educates various medical professionals across a variety of disciplines. In 2022, the 43-professor college welcomed 481 nursing students.

The UAMS College of Nursing, provides baccalaureate, master’s, post-graduate certificate, DNP, Nurse Anesthesia and Ph.D. programs to over 600 students. The baccalaureate degree program in nursing, master’s degree program in nursing science, Doctor of Nursing Practice program, and post-graduate APRN completion program at UAMS are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.

Nursing education prepares graduates to practice within the established professional guidelines and standards and to engage in continuous role development and revision of knowledge. The teaching/ learning process fosters intellectual and personal growth; stimulates inquiry, critical thinking, and synthesis of knowledge; and helps the individual value and pursue lifelong learning.

In addition, the College of Nursing’s Core Values promote excellence in nursing education, research and service through caring, integrity, diversity and respect, excellence, safety, teamwork and creativity. The College of Nursing embraces and practices the philosophies of cultural humility and cultural proficiency. Cultural humility and proficiency are expected standards in health care, and the combination of these philosophies advocates the practice of acceptance and affirmation.

GOOD ADVICE FROM NURSES WHO KNOW

THAT’S WHEN I KNEW

I volunteered in the hospital through middle school and high school, and this is when I knew I wanted to work in health care. I became a patient care technician in the Intensive Care Unit during nursing school. I was drawn to the complex patients, devices, critical thinking and the ability to comfort patients and families. A nurse needs to be able to be strong and compassionate for others during difficult times, and that is what I love most about being a nurse.

— Amber Westpheling, BSN, RN, CCRN ECMO Coordinator — Cardiovascular Services, UAMS Medical Center

THAT’S WHEN I KNEW

THAT’S WAs a student nurse touring the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Methodist Central Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., I watched the most amazing clinical intervention. A tiny baby on a ventilator with a very low oxygen saturation received a pencil-like chest tube, quickly inserted by the gentlest neonatologist who was assisted by a calm, older nurse. I watched as the saturation went to a normal range and all the staff took a sigh of relief. At that moment, that’s when I knew why I was led to be a nurse and, more importantly, a NICU nurse.

Rebecca P Sartini, DNP, MSNL, BSN, RNC- NIC Women and Infant’s Services, UAMS Medical Center

WHAT I'VE LEARNED

WHAT I'VE LEARNED

I'VE LEARNED

Nursing can be stressful both physically and mentally, but it is also a very rewarding career. When you see the positive outcome of patients, it feels very rewarding. It is important to identify your stressors and use effective coping skills to manage them so that stress doesn’t impact patient care.

— Josh Ok, RN CHI St. Vincent

THAT’S WHEN I KNEW

I love being able to study nursing at a Christian school because I’m not only able to have a foundation of excellent science taught to me, but I also have a foundation of Scripture so I can build my nursing career upon what I believe is true. Nursing is a calling; it’s not just a profession or an occupation. We’re not just professionals, but we’re followers of Jesus and we’re going to act that out in a professional way. As Christians we believe that we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and as nurses that’s exactly what we’re doing.

— Brooklyn Hester, BSN student, Ouachita Baptist University

WHAT

We came into nursing to care for others, but you also need to take time for yourself and provide self-care. You cannot give from an empty cup.

— Janice Ivers, Dean of Nursing & Health Sciences National Park College

For new nurse graduates getting through the first year, you must have an excellent mentor. Not specifically your preceptor, but someone who will take you under his or her wing and help you navigate a complicated system.

— Laura Hall, associate professor University of Central Arkansas

START A REWARDING CAREER

The School of Nursing at the University of Central Arkansas is committed to educating undergraduate and graduate students to become leaders in delivering quality health care and advancing the profession of nursing.

DEGREE PROGRAMS

Pre-licensure BSN

RN to BSN*

• Flat rate tuition of $295/credit hour with no additional fees

• Complete in 12 months

Master of Science in Nursing*

• Nurse Educator

• Complete in 5 semesters

• Tuition $336/credit hour

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

• BSN to DNP (Family Nurse Practitioner)

• Post-master’s DNP

Our BSN to DNP (FNP) and Post-master’s DNP graduate programs have been ranked in the top 5 most affordable in the country (NPSchools.com and OnlineU).

*100% online programs.

BEYOND HELMETS

TACKLING STUDENTATHLETE SAFETY.

BY TRICIA LARSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

August marked the start of a new academic year, but also heralded the kickoff of a sports season filled with hard-won victories and character-building losses. As eager as athletes may be to return to their sports, how do we know if they are ready to get back in the game? How do we prepare them for success and keep them healthy on the court, track and field?

According to Jim Withrow, Little Rock Hall High School’s head football coach, student-athlete safety has come a long way since he started coaching nearly 30 years ago. Today, he can easily rattle off the symptoms of concussion, dehydration and heat fatigue. Thanks to required continuing education, Withrow says coaches “know exactly what to look for and how to help someone showing signs of distress.”

Chad Burke, a sports medicine teacher and athletic trainer for the Cabot School District, agrees that safety awareness has improved over time. “We have better information in making decisions about our athletes,” Burke, who chairs the Arkansas Athletic Train-

ers’ Association’s Secondary School Athletic Trainers’ Committee, said.

“This time of the year, heat-related illnesses are at the forefront,” Burke said. To keep players safe from the heat, he uses a WetBulb Globe Temperature measurement, which is a measure of heat stress in direct sunlight. Armed with that information, Burke can make better decisions about the amount of strenuous outdoor activity athletes can safely perform — and when it’s appropriate to alter or postpone a practice.

Over at Hall High’s locker room, wall posters detail common signs of dehydration and heat illness, and during the hot summer months the players’ weights are charted before and after practice so the athletes and coaching staff know just how much fluid they’ve lost.

In case of a heat emergency, Hall's locker room is equipped with a cold tub. Cold water immersion is an effective way to rapidly reduce body temperature and is considered the primary treatment for heatstroke.

Combining sports medicine knowl-

HEADS UP: Coach Withrow at Hall High School can easily rattle off the symptoms of concussion, dehydration and heat fatigue.

edge with an ability to provide immediate care, Burke says athletic trainers play a critical role when it comes to preventing and managing head injuries. Athletic trainers are often the first responders when a head injury occurs. They assess the severity of the injury and have the authority to remove a player from play.

Now that more is known about the severity of concussions and their potentially long-lasting effects, athletic trainers are serious about educating athletes, coaches and parents, and trainers work with players to teach them proper techniques and strategies to mitigate risks.

This might include teaching athletes to avoid dangerous collisions, encouraging proper tackling and heading techniques, and promoting safe play.

If a concussion is diagnosed, Burke says they use “neurocognitive testing to assess and track the recovery process of our student-athletes” and work collaboratively with other medical professionals.

Following the state’s “return to learn” and “return to play” concussion protocols, accommodations are made for student-athletes both on the field and in the classroom.

The protocols call for a gradual and monitored recovery before a player is allowed to resume full participation in their sport. It may also call for special allowances to be made in the classroom.

Student-athletes must meet very specific physical and cognitive benchmarks and show symptom improvement before graduating through the steps. The Arkansas Activities Association, which governs interscholastic sports in the state, provides schools with the guidance and resources needed to implement the protocols, and coaches and sports medicine staff are engaged at every turn.

“We help the student-athlete maneuver through the process of recovery in both the classroom and athletics,” Burke said.

Cody Walker, athletic trainer and supervisor of sports medicine at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, says the role of athletic trainers is as much about risk reduction as it is about injury evaluation and treatment.

“We work with coaches and other staff to provide athletes with safe progression in strength and conditioning programs,” Walker said. “Performance-wise, athletic trainers may help coaches determine if athletes have weaknesses in certain movements and add in corrective exercises to address those weaknesses.”

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are common, costly and time-consuming. With the knee injury widespread among athletes, ath-

letic trainers may tailor their approach to prevention depending on the sport. Exercises that strengthen the quadriceps and hamstrings are nearly universally prescribed, but volleyball players might also be instructed in proper landing technique while soccer players are told to incorporate hip mobility exercises.

“We are trained to provide athletes with strategies to help prevent injuries before they happen,” Walker said.

Building relationships with student-athletes, especially players just entering the program, is another big part of keeping them safe. “We watch the new players for two or three weeks so we know what their baseline is,” Hall's Withrow said. “Who are these kids? What can they do? What is their pushing point?”

But before Arkansas student-athletes even begin playing, they are required to have a pre-participation physical exam (PPE) and schools are mandated to host informational parent meetings. During these meetings, parents are educated about concussions, sudden cardiac arrest, heat illness and more. The exams include a medical history questionnaire, orthopedic screening, vital signs measurement and physician evaluation.

One way athletes can prepare for the PPE and be game-ready, Withrow said, is to stay active year-round. “Offseason and summer work is crucial to maintaining health and safety.”

Walker concurred. “We like to view offseason training as the base of a pyramid and in-season training as the peak of the pyramid. In order to build a tall pyramid, you need a wide and strong base,” he said.

Walker says the offseason is also a good time for athletes to explore other sports and activities to build new skills and reduce burnout.

And whether it’s burnout or another mental health issue, both Walker and Burke acknowledged that working with players day in and day out puts them in a position to be able to recognize problems early.

“We are around our athletes on a regular basis so we get to develop working relationships in a way other health care providers may not,” Walker said.

“The number of mental health issues that we are dealing with is on the rise and it is incumbent on anyone working with children to be trained in recognizing and supporting those who may be in a crisis,” Burke said.

Ensuring student-athlete safety is a collective responsibility — one that has evolved over time. Growing awareness about the severity and lasting impact of some sports injuries has, in many cases, literally changed the game.

RISK REDUCTION: Cody Walker, athletic trainer and supervisor of sports medicine at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, aims to prevent injuries before they happen.

SAFETY OFFICER: Chad Burke, sports medicine teacher and athletic trainer for the Cabot School District.

BLUE COLLAR COMICS

A MORNING (AND AN AFTERNOON) WITH LITTLE ROCK CARTOONIST LAYET JOHNSON.

BY DANIEL GREAR

If you’ve mingled in the lobby of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre during the most recent season, or lingered as you licked an ice cream cone at Loblolly Creamery, or run your fingers across the cover of the December 2021 or December 2022 issues of the Arkansas Times, or sipped on a can of the seasonal Good Weather Cold IPA from Lost Forty Brewing, then you’ve glimpsed the exuberant work of Little Rock cartoonist Layet Johnson. But that’s just scratching the surface; his art covers so much of this city.

Within a minute of my arrival at Johnson’s Midtown home, he excuses himself so he can run upstairs and put on deodorant, leaving me grinning and twiddling my thumbs in his kitchen. (For the record, he doesn’t smell; he just seems goofy, candid and a bit scattered.) After he returns from the bathroom and offers me coffee, we settle into his studio space, a plain room that he’s outfitted with a drafting table, a desktop computer and a couple of chairs, the comfier of which he gives to me. “What was your childhood like?” I ask, as I often do at the beginning of interviews. He’s only able to get in a few words before he pauses to gauge if his answer is “relevant.”

Upon assuring him that it's my job, not his, to select which details make it into the profile, he clarifies. “I’m doing this thing,” he says. “I'm being simultaneously strategic and open. Being myself, but at the same time assessing the situation constantly to make sure everyone’s on the same page about what we’re actually doing right now.” My bag of adjectives to describe Johnson is expanding and now includes “nervous” and “analytical,” qualities I recognize in myself. A friendship is taking shape.

Once we get back on track, I learn that Johnson’s upbringing in West Little Rock was a blissful one, with much time spent in nature and among people he affectionately refers to as “crunchy.” An avid Boy Scout, he attended the Unitarian Universalist Church with his mother and father, writer Elizabeth Findley Shores and former state House of Representatives

FROM FINE ART TO FREELANCE: Layet Johnson traded the world of galleries and residencies for a steady stream of local clients.

BRIAN CHILSON

Parliamentarian Buddy Johnson. He was also influenced by the presence of his parents’ friends, many of whom were artists. “I’ve always gravitated to people who’ve had an interest in having art in and around their lives,” he says.

In 2004, he graduated a year early from Little Rock Central High and started at Hendrix College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in studio art. His undergraduate studies were serious and technique-oriented, with a focus on deepening the precision of his representational drawing, often based on photography, using mostly charcoal, pencil and paper. “For my senior show, though, I made these really large drawings on plywood. I started thinking about scale,” he says.

In the M.F.A. program at the University of Georgia, he veered into installation, sculpture, performance art and conceptual art “that dealt more with three-dimensional and four-dimensional materials.” Part of his grad school thesis exhibition involved suspending cacti from a drop ceiling that he hung himself, so as to explore unexpected sculptural forms and push the limits of the architecture of the display space. Another piece consisted of hundreds of taut bungee cords in various shades, stretched vertically and placed side by side in order to create two intersecting spectrums of color and tension.

Life after graduation, however, was less satisfying. He hopped around artist residencies in New York and North Carolina and Iowa, then moved to Brooklyn to make a dent in the art scene, but he struggled with whether the hustle was worth it. “The fine art world is so challenging,” he says. “You have to spend so much money and work so hard in the studio to have an exhibition once or twice a year.”

Johnson didn’t gel with the big city and left after only a year, but the modest confines made a critical mark on his output. “I didn’t have a studio, I had a small apartment. I only had room and time to just draw. I just had a small desk in my tiny bedroom,” he says. “Drawing became a very flexible medium for me — a really accessible, really fast, really powerful medium.”

Armed with a scanner and an Instagram account on which he started regularly posting his sketches, Johnson returned to Little Rock in 2014, where cartooning took hold as his main practice. The pivot felt good, free of the self-important pressures of the high art grind. “One really big thing I value about comics as a job is that traditionally it’s a very blue collar gig, for lack of a better term. It’s just a job,” he says. “Comics were always a lower-class thing. And I thought that was really cool. When I started doing them, I was like, ‘This is real. This is honorable. There’s a lot of dignity in this.’”

Since then, he’s supported himself with innumerable commissions for businesses and entities throughout Little Rock and beyond. Some of that work is more transactional, like the sign painting and logo design he’s done for Cha Cha

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Tea Shoppe, PK Grills, Seal Solar and Pulaski Heights Elementary School. Other times, the jobs are larger in scope, like the teeming carload of eager touring musicians he painted for The Hall, or the gleeful depiction of one-, two- and three-wheeled cyclists you can find behind the counter at Shift Modern Cyclery.

Occasionally, the assignments transform into massive undertakings, like the 40-by-17-foot mural he dreamed up for The Rep. Comprising 75 vibrant images — each hand-selected from one of the 2022-2023 season’s five shows — it’s designed to trigger the memory or imagination of theater patrons. “I read through all the scripts and would circle the objects or props that felt like they were important,” he says. “And it’s the joy of cartooning, really, to draw the quintessential version of those. My job was basically to make symbols and then inject them with life.”

When he’s not working for someone else, Johnson’s attention often drifts to longform personal projects like “Sick Day” and “Confidence,” two comic strips he’s distributed in the form of slick zines. Both are “conspiracy action stories,” according to Johnson, but the tone is mostly light and zany. His latest comic is “Pizza Therapy,” a standalone collaboration with writer Dan Gold about a man at a pizza parlor who’s trying to steal the attention of other patrons by telling absurd yarns about his love life.

Working-class as cartooning is, the medium doesn’t escape Johnson’s tendency to intellectualize. At one point during our conversation, he excitedly pulls out his phone to show me a triangular diagram by comics theorist Scott McCloud. I don’t fully understand it, but the gist is that each corner of the pyramid represents a different style of cartooning — abstract, symbol-

ic or “realistic.” Inside the diagram are dozens of iconic cartoon characters, each specifically placed to map the combined influence of each of those three forces.

I attempt to locate where Johnson’s work might fall on this continuum, but I quickly remember that pretty much every cartoon he does is different, and that a rigid aesthetic might defeat the point. “It feels really good to draw cartoons,” he says. “It feels really big. And it also feels new. It feels wide open. You can do absolutely anything you want. Comics make everything feel possible.” ***

Our interview is winding down, but Johnson has an idea. “I was kind of thinking it might be fun — because you’re a writer — to go through the dictionary and just pick out some words and give me a challenge to draw anything,” he proposes. It’s almost as if he’s treating the interview itself as a work of art, bustling with limitless pathways forward.

After some workshopping, we decide it could be interesting if he instead put together a comic strip about our time together. Two people sitting in a room for an hour and a half doesn’t exactly make for a riveting narrative, though, so Johnson suggests we go out for a meal and see what adventures come our way. I’m not hungry, but I get on board because I’m having too much fun to say no.

Moments later, we’re in Johnson’s black Volkswagen sedan, taking a circuitous route toward Gorditas Paty, a Mexican spot in Southwest Little Rock he’s been meaning to try. He points out a garbage truck with two workers hanging off

BRIAN CHILSON

AT WORK: At his home in Midtown, Layet Johnson makes progress on a collage commission for Paper Hearts Bookstore, a new business in Pettaway Square.

the back. They must be going at least 20 miles per hour, but the men dangle with ease. It’s a peculiar sight, but one that probably would’ve passed me by unnoticed without his guidance. “Can you take a photo?” he asks from behind the wheel. “I like it from a three-quarter angle. It’s the most dynamic because you’re thinking about diagonals. Maybe we can hop on the trash truck,” he says, alluding to the illustrated versions of us that he’s in the process of bringing to life.

CARTOON COUNTERPARTS: With the help of some fictionalized details, Layet Johnson dreamed up a comic strip version of his Arkansas Times interview. SEPTEMBER

When we pull into the parking lot, Johnson instantly knows where our story is headed. Next door to Gorditas Paty is El Vaquero Western Wear. “We’re gonna get cowboy boots,” he says. Or, at least, our cartoon counterparts will. Even though it’s imaginary, he insists on doing research. If I were him, I’d just putter around like a patron vaguely considering a purchase, but Johnson is braver than me.

“I’m a cartoonist,” he says to the man at the cash register as soon as we’re inside. “We’re working on a comic book where we go around town. We thought we would go get lunch because this guy Lupe — who works at the gas station near where I live — said Paty’s is the best. I remember y’all used to have boots here that have the toe that goes like this,” Johnson adds, moving his hand in the shape of a semicircle. The employee, whose name is Sal, looks a little confused, but graciously delivers the news that he doesn’t have any because that type of boot went out of style several years ago.

Over at Gorditas Paty, Johnson gets a nopales dish (he’s vegan), and I get the chicken enchiladas. The food is excellent. “Everyone could be eating peanut butter and jelly for lunch and saving money, but they want to come here because it’s enriching,” he says, glancing around the restaurant at strangers. Through his eyes, an everyday scene becomes something noteworthy.

“So what happens at the end of our comic?” Johnson says, after asking me about my life.

“Does the ending need to be consequential?” I reply.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Like, do we need to walk away changed?” I counter, half-jokingly. “Maybe we already have.”

He laughs. We come to the conclusion that there’s enough material already. When we finish eating, Johnson pays for our meal, despite my protests, with the cash I used to buy a few of his zines earlier that morning. On our way out of the restaurant, I snap a picture of the decor, thinking he might enjoy drawing the colorful paper globes strung above the tables. That detail doesn’t make it into the comic, but I’m grateful for the lesson in how to look.

FROM THE DUCK LODGE TO DIAMOND BEAR

BART LIKES AIMS TO MAKE THE RELIABLE BREWERY A BARBECUE DESTINATION FOR ARGENTA.

BY RHETT BRINKLEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

If you drove past Diamond Bear Brewery in the month of July, you might have noticed the new sign on the building’s facade reading “Ol’ Bart at Diamond Bear" and subsequently asked yourself “Who’s Ol’ Bart?”

After interviewing him, it’s easy to imagine how the Bart in question — Memphis native and Blytheville-raised Bart Likes — gained the affectionate adjective. He’s the kind of person you could meet while sitting on a barstool and talk to for hours. When I thanked him for his candor, he replied simply: “It’s the only way to be.”

Likes is the owner of Ol’ Bart Southern Eats, a Conway barbecue restaurant. A former engineer at Union Pacific, he didn’t get into the food business until tragedy struck his family 10 years ago.

“In 2013, my mom passed away from domestic violence,” he said. “She was a big cook. She was one of only a few women that worked out at Nucor-Yamato Steel in Blytheville. And she would always cook for the crews and always cook for different people, and I really never understood why.”

An avid waterfowl hunter, Likes said he began to understand his mother’s passion for food after he lost his job and was given the opportunity to cook for a large group of people while helping out at a duck lodge.

“The first time I got to cook after she passed, I figured out that that was kind of therapy for me,” he said. “I was able to use some of her recipes. That was kind of a breaking point because I was going down a dark road there for a little bit.”

Likes relished the opportunity and spent the next several years cooking at duck lodges all over the continental U.S., Canada and Mexico. “Some of the best lodges in the world,” he said.

Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Likes built a food trailer and set up shop in

Greenbrier.

“I got on that wave of food trucks. … If you could capitalize when COVID happened, you did really well for yourself,” he said.

After leaving town for another duck season, he opened Ol’ Bart Southern Eats’ first brickand-mortar location in Conway at 1220 Old Morrilton Highway.

Late last summer, when Diamond Bear was temporarily being used as a film set for the still-unreleased Dolph Lundgren/Harvey Keitel film “Hellfire,” Diamond Bear president Russ Melton was asked by a mutual friend about the possibility of partnering with another business to run the restaurant side of the brewery.

“Covid was the worst for dine-in restaurants, so afterwards when I was approached about this possibility, I was open to it,” Melton said.

Soon after, Melton made a trip to Conway to meet Likes and sample some of the barbecue at Ol’ Bart Southern Eats.

“I tell you, I was in Texas five years — the brisket [at Ol’ Bart’s] is world class. It’s phenomenal,” Melton said. Melton thought it might be a good match for the 23-year-old brewery, which has been operating its own restaurant since 2014, the same year it moved from Little Rock to its current location a few blocks north of Dickey-Stephens Park at 600 N. Broadway St. in North Little Rock.

Before partnering with Likes, Melton said the restaurant at Diamond Bear was as good as any other taproom’s in the state of Arkansas. “But I think this will take it to another level,” he said.

Likes describes his barbecue as Texas-style with Memphis love.

“I’d love to say it’s Delta-style,” he said. “Me and my business partner [Baker Aldridge] are both from the Delta of Arkansas. People in Arkansas, we’re trying to do our Arkansas-brand

OL' BART: (clockwise from left) Bart Likes; a platter of brisket, pork, sausage and sides; a new mural on Diamond Bear's storefront.

MAKEOVER: In addition to the building's new facade, 30 additional seats have been added and the dining rooms are furnished with custom booths and tabletops.

style of barbecue, and we kind of get [surrounding regional styles] mixed up in there,” Likes said.

He takes particular pride in his brisket, which is exclusively made with prime-grade beef that’s seasoned with salt and pepper and smoked with post oak wood from Texas.

“Everybody’s barbecue and thumbprint styles are different,” Likes said in a recent interview. “For Ol’ Bart, that means barbecue is our backbone, but it's not our identity.”

Ol’ Bart’s menu features barbecue staples like platters and sandwiches, but also unique offerings like the Tagged Out Sausage Flight, featuring four types of wild game sausage links: rattlesnake and rabbit, venison, wild boar and alligator.

“It’s probably my favorite dish because I got to play around with it,” Likes said. “It connects us back to the outdoor world.”

The menu also includes a wagyu beef burger, a smash burger and a veggie burger; Wisconsin cheese curds; both chicken and duck wings; and a charcuterie board.

Throughout the month of July, Likes was in Argenta working on renovating the restaurant side of Diamond Bear. Because of the strength of the crew at his Conway store, he was able to focus his energy on the new location.

In addition to the new signage on the storefront, there’s a new mural of a bull on the south side of the building. Inside, about 30 seats have been added, the bathrooms have been redone and the dining rooms are furnished with new custom booths and tabletops.

The former event space located in the back of the brewery features a second bar and will be used for catering events or when the front section fills up during regular business hours, Likes said.

One major change Likes advocated for: a full-service bar offering spirit drinks and frozen margaritas. Diamond Bear’s license already allowed for the sale of wine and spirits on the premises, as do most breweries in Arkansas located in counties that allow the sale of liquor by the glass. Melton said he didn’t have a problem with it. “Bourbon goes really good with barbecue,” he said.

Likes had a series of impromptu soft openings the first week of August after opening up the restaurant for the first time to a group of around 500 people from the Delta Waterfowl Duck Hunting Expo held at the Statehouse Convention Center the last weekend of July. He said he’s used to cooking for large crowds. “I can do barbecue for 5,000. That’s easy,” but that it would be a good opportunity for the new kitchen and bar crew to work out the kinks.

Likes said the first couple weeks at the new location have gone well despite being a grind; Likes wakes up at 4 a.m. and ends around midnight. He hopes hiring a few more employees will help lessen the load.

“When you have 10 full-time spots and 12 fulltime people, you need backups,” he said.

I asked Likes to elaborate on something he said in our first interview that he and his business partner, Baker Aldridge, weren’t supposed to make it out of their respective towns of Blytheville and Forrest City where they grew up.

“There’s good jobs in Blytheville and a lot of good folks,” Likes said. “There was a lot of feeling in the area that you’re going to go to college maybe, or you’re going to go out to the steel mills or find a factory job there in Forrest City. That’s the easiest thing for people to do. And that’s OK, but that’s not big enough for me and Baker. … We’re gonna make our thumbprint in Argenta and the goal is to franchise and grow.”

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MUMS, CLONES AND CRUNCH BERRIES

BROWSING THE STACKS AT RIVER VALLEY RELIEF'S CANNABIS LIBRARY.

BY GRIFFIN COOP PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

If Ryan Kenaga’s passion for cannabis wasn’t clear in the way he speaks about the plants and the business he oversees at River Valley Relief Cultivation, the evidence is right there on his body.

The molecular bonds for THC and CBD are tattooed on his arms.

“I’m a one-to-one ratio,” Kenaga joked, alluding to the industry standard for describing an edible that’s one part CBD, one part THC.

Kenaga’s been the president of the Fort Smith cultivator for a little more than a year, meticulously tending to medical cannabis in a facility located in an industrial park on the south side of town. There’s little enough signage that I drove past it a couple of times and eventually had to ask someone if I had found the right place.

Once inside, Kenaga asked us to don white lab coats. It’s important to prevent lint and pet hair from finding their way to the plants, he said. Employees even wear company-issued shoes that never leave the facility.

First, Kenaga showed us some of the back-

end operations that help the plants live their best lives in the 25,000 square feet of grow space. Each flower room is supported by a 9-ton air handler unit that can change the environment in a room in less than a minute. As quickly as 49 seconds, to be precise. It’s roughly the size a Holiday Inn Express might use, he said.

The air system, which uses 18 filters and UV lights to clean the air, allows Kenaga to keep the air around the plants “super clean,” which he said is important to prevent mold spores, root rot and viruses.

In addition to the air, Kenaga controls the temperature and humidity in the rooms, which vary depending on the age of the plants and what type of environment they need.

“Each one of our rooms is its own little tropical sub-environment,” he said.

Kenaga took us to the “mums and clones” room where mother plants are grown and clipped, allowing the cuttings to become plants of their own. The mother plants, known as mums, go through three or four cycles before

being retired. Using the same mums for too long “jeopardizes the lineage” of the clones, strains and genetics of the plants, so Kenaga will take a few good clones and make new mother plants out of them as the cycle goes on and on.

He even keeps a “library” of cannabis plants on hand that allows him to bring different strains into the rotation and offer more variety to the state’s medical marijuana patients.

Next, Kenaga showed us the other flower rooms where the plants are grown. In one room, the plants were green and lush. In another, the plants were nearing the end of their life cycle, their leaves yellowing. They didn’t look as happy as the others in the greener room, but this was all by design, Kenaga explained.

Throughout the plants’ lives, the River Valley team is flooding them with nutrients. As they get closer to harvest, the team flushes the nutrients out of the plants so that no impurities remain in the plant material to be used by the state’s medical marijuana patients.

At this point, Kenaga gives the plants nothing

RIVER VALLEY GREEN: Ryan Kenaga (center), president of River Valley Relief, oversees the operation of the Fort Smith cultivation facility, including 25,000 square feet of grow space.

EAT, DRINK & BE LITERARY

PUB-or-PERISH

Presented by Arkansas Times in conjunction with the CALS Six Bridges Book Festival

Attention writers, authors, poets, readers and anyone that enjoys the written word - funny, sad, true, made up, you get it! Locals and Six Bridges Book Festival attendees all welcome!

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Thursday September 28 from 6:30pm to 9pm

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but water and the leaves begin to curl up, forming what he called an “eagle claw.”

“They are starving and reaching for more nutrients but that’s what we want to happen,” he said.

In one of the flower rooms, I grabbed the Crunch Berries strain and gave it a big whiff. I took in notes of lemon and pine, and Kenaga confirmed pinene is among the terpenes in Crunch Berries.

Terpenes, among the nonpsychoactive components of the cannabis plant, are the part of cannabis farming that gets Kenaga the most excited.

“What we are here to do is farm terpenes,” he said. “The most valuable aspect of cannabis to us is terpenes and how the terpene profiles really drive the medicinal effects of said product.”

Kenaga describes River Valley as “medicinally focused” and sees patients seeking out results beyond just getting high. He aims to find cannabinoids that work with diabetes, for example, as the struggle for equitable access to insulin looms large. He’s also interested in exploring THCV, a psychoactive cannabinoid that some studies have shown to be an appetite suppressant, he said.

While Kenaga is focused on terpenes, he’s also proud that River Valley has been able to grow three strains with a THC content of 30% and some as high as 32%.

“People spend their entire careers in cannabis trying to hit 30% THC levels,” Kenaga said.

Kenaga showed us the lab where the River Valley team creates concentrates and distillates. The team takes plant material and places it into what Kenaga described as a “closed loop hydrocarbon extraction system.” The machine lowers the temperature of the plant and uses a proprietary blend of hydrocarbons to extract the “beneficial materials” from the plant. (Kenaga didn’t want to say exactly how low the temperature goes because, in his off time, he consults with other cannabis businesses out of state and charges them for such information).

The process allows Kenaga to create concentrates known as budder, badder and diamonds, which he explained are similar products made

into different consistencies. The appeal of these products is that, unlike cannabis flower, the materials can reach THC concentrations of 65%, with some materials extending into the 90% range. Flower, on the other hand, tops out in the 30% range.

Kenaga also showed us what Arkansas Times staff photographer Brian Chilson astutely described as a “weed still” like that used to make alcohol. As cannabis oil is heated and cooled, it moves along pipes that allow certain components to fall out along the way. At the end, Kenaga is left with a clear, solid substance known as THC distillate — “the pure grain alcohol of cannabis,” Kenaga said, a colorless, flavorless, odorless substance that can be added to edibles or other products with no marijuana taste or smell.

River Valley’s kitchen, which we saw next, is probably best known as the place where all of the state’s Wana gummies are made. The Colorado-based company only has one manufacturing partner in each state, meaning all of the Wana gummies sold in Arkansas are made at River Valley — and they make a lot of them. Kenaga said they produce 15,000-20,000 gummies a day and even more during the holiday season.

Since federal laws prevent cannabis from moving across state lines, the gummies can’t be shipped in from out of state. Instead, Wana provides its strict guidelines and recipes to River Valley, including testing the pH levels of the water and calibrating the scales every day.

Kenaga described Wana’s “Quick” line of products as a “cannabis happy hour.” These products have a quick onset and quick offset, he said, so the effects kick in quickly and won’t zonk someone out for the whole night. Some people like to relax with a glass of wine before making dinner for the family, and these offer a similar experience, he said.

One of River Valley’s newest products is cannabis-infused freeze-dried strawberries, which Kenaga said have been very popular since their introduction.

Finally, Kenaga told us about ArkanRaw, a cannabis oil that comes in a syringe (though cannabis folks prefer to call it an applicator).

Patients have used ArkanRaw orally, sublingually, in cooking, in making their own topical lotions and even as a topping for flower, he said.

The brown oil inside is a bit mysterious, since Kenaga hasn’t told anyone exactly how to make it, although he does have at least one person who helps with production. Kenaga developed the product himself, and he describes it as a joint venture between himself and River Valley.

ArkanRaw has a THC content of about 70%, and River Valley’s website says it is recommended for patients “medicating symptoms of terminal illnesses, conditions requiring higher dosages, or those with a higher tolerance for cannabinoids.” The product is known for relieving pain, reducing anxiety and sedating effects, and a serving is the size of “a single grain of rice,” the site says.

He said it’s made from plants grown inside the River Valley facility but declined to say much more because he said others in the cannabis industry are trying to replicate it. Despite potentially lucrative offers to license it to producers in other states, Kenaga’s been reluctant to do so, though he said he would make the leap if the right partner came along.

It’s important to Kenaga to sell the product at a reasonable price for patients who need the product for relief. He doesn’t want to see it marked up so producers can rake in more money at the patients’ expense, he said.

After we took off our white lab coats, I had to ask Kenaga about the elephant in the room. River Valley’s cultivation license has come under scrutiny in the past year as a court case has wound its way through the legal system to the state Supreme Court. Plaintiffs have argued, and a circuit judge agreed, that the state erred when it issued River Valley its cultivation license in 2020. Late last year, the Supreme Court issued an order allowing River Valley to continue operations while the case plays out, which Kenaga said could last two or three years.

Kenaga said the court case hasn’t impacted operations and that River Valley’s work is business as usual.

“The patients need their medicine,” he said.

EDIBLES AND MORE: River Valley Relief employees (at left and at right) create edibles for the Wana brand, which is produced exclusively in Arkansas by River Valley. Boxes of flower (center) sit in the vault awaiting shipment to dispensaries.

THIS MONTH'S MUST HAVES!

SEPTEMBER CANNABIS HIGHLIGHTS

LEMON BRULEE

“Lifted. Not drifted.” That’s how one patient describes Lemon Brulee, a sativa-dominant hybrid cross of the iconic Sensiburn OG x Death by Lemons, by Covert Genetics. Indeed, the strain produces uplifting, cerebral effects that promote relaxation without sedation. You’ll feel mentally stimulated, creative, and sociable, making it the perfect choice for tackling the artistic tasks on your to-do list. When it comes to flavor and aroma, the name pretty much says it all. As another patient states “I can't even begin to explain how beautifully the citrus flavor engulfs all of your taste buds on both the inhale and the exhale.” Harvest’s in-house Lemon Brulee, Clean Green Certified® and averaging 17-22% THC, is a great choice for treating appetite loss or nausea, chronic stress, depression, and chronic pain, with the added bonus of a punch of creativity. Available now while supplies last.

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SMOKIEZ GUMMIES

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HELPS WITH: Chronic Pain, Insomnia, and Stress

$44.05 per 400mg package ($50 with tax)

NATURAL RELIEF DISPENSARY

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These are not your kids' participation trophies. Box Turtle, 2616 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, 501-661-1167, shopboxturtle.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.

RETURN TO SPENDER

ON WALLETS AND SERENDIPITY.

While on a lunch break back in January, the Observer found a wallet on the sidewalk in front of the Arkansas Times office. I didn’t recognize the name or picture on the driver’s license, but once I had picked the thing up — when I could have just looked the other way — obligation took hold. I felt it was my duty to reunite it with its owner, morality getting tangled in the mundane, as it so often does. I returned to my desk burdened.

After being laughed at for asking some co-workers if I should call the nonemergency police, I caught a glimpse of someone crossing the street outside with a striking resemblance to the man I was on the lookout for. I bolted outside, my fellow editors gathered around the window to watch the wallet's homecoming moment.

The good news was he did indeed look exactly like the photo in the wallet. The bad news was that his wallet was already in its rightful place, proving that this one must belong to his doppelganger. Even so, I showed him the ID, hoping it might change his mind. He acknowledged the strange similarity in appearance, but was resolute; it wasn’t his. I had no choice but to believe him.

Next, I took to Facebook. Despite having a commonplace name, the wallet’s owner wasn’t difficult to locate, though his profile appeared entirely inactive. I sent a note to him and each of his three (!) total friends, crossing my fingers that my words wouldn’t end up in message request purgatory. Miraculously, one of them responded within a couple hours and gave me the phone number of the person I was trying to find.

The universe was taking it easy on me, requiring so little in order for me to feel like an exemplary human. It turns out the wallet’s owner worked in the same building as me. We met in the lobby, just dozens of steps from my cubicle. Appreciative

but reticent, he blamed the runaway wallet on a faulty pair of pants and was on his way.

Half a year later, I came upon another abandoned wallet. This time, it was in the very lobby where I’d returned the first one, propped up on a windowsill — presumably by someone who wanted to put it out of harm’s way but wasn’t willing to take on the full commitment of being a responsible finder. My virtue was being tested anew.

Something about the wallet — more rectangular than most — was familiar. Inside, I discovered the same driver’s license as before.

How rare is it that someone loses their wallet twice in six months? Does the kind of carelessness that leads someone to lose a wallet in the first place make them more inclined to lose it a second time? Perhaps.

But what about my role in all of this? Obviously, our physical proximity to one another factored into the equation, but it seems exceedingly improbable that I would be the one to find it both times, right? Does the fact that I’m the kind of person who attributes moral significance to wallet reconciliation make me more inclined to find wallets generally, and therefore more inclined to find this particular wallet twice? Perhaps. For all I know, this man could lose his wallet on a daily basis and I just happen to be around a small percentage of the time.

At any rate, I dug up the man’s phone number from my Facebook message archives and called him up. Our meetup was once again underwhelming, more a quick handoff than a celebration of cosmic ridiculousness. He was grateful, but if I were going to glean any greater sense of importance from the encounter, it was going to have to be self-imposed. As we walked away from each other, he cursed his pants, the same pair he’d been wearing the first time we crossed paths.

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