Indeco march 2016 by RickBaber

To wit:

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Magazine Vol. 1 No. 1, March, 2016 Published by TigerEye Publications P.O. Box 6382 Springdale, AR 72766 E: cybermouth@hotmail.com Copyright 2016, Rick Baber Magazine is electronically published quarterly, free to online subscribers, by TigerEye Publications, through ISSUU.com

Statement of Copyright: All rights reserved. Individual authors hold copyright on all materials herein. No part of this electronic magazine may be reproduced – except by ISSUU.com – without the written consent of Magazine or the author. Email requests to copy any materials, including photographs and art work, to the address shown above. Please feel free to share the publication, or unaltered excerpts from it, via social media, with credit given to Magazine and the author. Acceptance of advertising does not carry with it endorsement by the publisher. Opinions expressed by Magazine or any of its authors, do not necessarily reflect positions of our advertisers.

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A lot of gall to publish this? Page 1

Shawn Stephens asks for your VOTE for Sheriff. Page 9

“Blackout” Fiction from Kenton Adler Page 13

Profile: Teresa Burns Murphy Page 21

Jimmy Boothby’s images from the Indeco past. Page 23

Ila Clements recalls her first experience with Independence County. Page 29

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Some recollections of good times at the White River Drive-In. Rick Baber Page 33

Bret Burquest is boldly going nowhere! Page 41

Somebody’s gotta do the heavy lifting. A profile: Curtis Wainwright, BHS ‘73

ABOUT OUR COVER

Page 42

Indeco’s interview with the fascinating Beth Arnold, BHS ‘72 Page 45

Back cover: We knew him as “The Chief” Photo submitted by Lynne Mitchum Teague In Remembrance

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Crystal Croslin shot this pic of models Claire Gleghorn, Madison Denim, and Destinee Denim, taking over one of Batesville’s fire trucks. How they got access to that truck, we may never know.

Hello! And welcome to the premiere edition of Magazine – dedicated to the entertainment for, and advancement and promotion of Independence County Arkansas. This publication is a digital product, which you can read on your computer, phone, or other digital reading device. It’s FREE to the reader, and we hope to be able to continue publishing it through support from local advertisers. Depending on how it’s received, our initial intention is to publish quarterly – which will be March, June, September, and December. If things should go better than expected, we’ll start publishing it monthly. Our goal is to shine a light on the beauty of Batesville and Independence County and its people. We’ll offer stories and articles for, about and by local residents, past, present & future. Being digital, the magazine is available worldwide. So those who have moved away to the far corners of the earth (as long as they have internet) will find it as readily accessible as somebody in their living room on Boswell Street. We invite you to submit stories (including short fiction and other creative writing), articles, photographs – whatever you think folks will find interesting. We’ll publish all of it we can. We’d also appreciate it if you would share with your friends the links to our Facebook page and our Website, so we can extend this same invitation to them. And, speaking of invitations, we have invited your local politicians to submit articles explaining to you why they deserve your votes for their respective elections. Response has been lacking, but there has been some. We’ll keep doing that, and publish the materials received (by deadline) in each next issue. Keep an eye out and see who’s responding, and who is taking your vote for granted. Enjoy! 8

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Shawn Stephens Candidate for Independence County Sheriff

Hello, I am Shawn Stephens. I am running for Independence County Sheriff. I was born and raised in Independence County. I am a Volunteer Firefighter, Nationally Registered Paramedic, and currently serving as a Patrol Sergeant at the Independence County Sheriff’s Office in the Newark Metro Division. I have been involved with Emergency Service for the last 25 years. I have dedicated my life to working for the citizens of Independence County and trying to make a difference. I want to continue to work for the citizens

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of this great county as your next Independence County Sheriff. I grew up on the farm working with my mom and dad. For the past 25 years I have been in the cattle and hay business and know how to manage a business and work with a budget. I will look at the budget and use it to the best of my ability. I will look for ways to improve coverage on the street by restructuring the Sheriff’s Office. I will work to get grants to improve the equipment of the Sheriff’s Office. I want to be able in the future to restart the Narcotics Unit to help combat the drug problems in the county. I will work toward rebuilding the working relationship with all agencies inside the county. I want to make a better department for the citizens of Independence County. I will be a True Working Sheriff. I would appreciate your support and vote in the General Election. Vote Shawn Stephens for Independence County Sheriff.

Paperback. 142 pages. $9.95 TigerEye Publications View/Order from bookstore HERE Also available at

Amazon.com HERE

Gareth McAllister is a talented young bagpiper who, despite his gifts, is somewhat lacking in self-confidence, and is having a bit of trouble with a bully at school. The death of his great-grandmother precipitates a trip to Scotland where he enters into a world he did not know existed, and an adventure much larger, and more exciting than he had anticipated.

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Kenton Adler (Originally published in the Spring, 2015 edition of The Wheelbarrow - the Lyon College Literary Journal.) Those political ads drove me crazy. Every time I turned on the TV there was some goof with a fake smile telling me how hard he was ready to work to make my life better and what a horrible person his opponent was. There would be ten minutes of program and ten minutes of ads. Really annoying. Especially considering once they get into office they all answer to some big money supporters and pretty much forget about the ordinary people at home until the next campaign cycle. The few that weren’t millionaires when they got elected seem to have become millionaires by the time they ran for re-election. They sure as hell don’t represent anything I stand for. It doesn’t matter if they are Republican or Democrats. People will go right ahead and vote for ‘em though. I wonder what they’re all doing now. After everything that’s happened I almost miss the stupid commercials. But it really doesn’t matter at all now. Things started out normally enough. It was mid-November, not long after the elections and the commercials had thankfully stopped. Half the population was happy that their candidates had won.

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The other half was pissed about the outcome and griping about how the country was going to hell. They had NO idea. I was just sitting home on a Saturday afternoon watching football. It was a flawless day. We’d been enjoying a real Indian summer where there had been a frost at the beginning of the month and then the temperatures came back up into the mid-70s in the daytime. Extremely nice, plus, we had low humidity. That gave us almost a week of perfect, cloudless blue skies by day and clear views of the autumn constellations by night. It was a pleasure to walk to work and back. Just cool enough to make it crisp and invigorating in the morning and then warm in the afternoon. I almost didn’t need even a light jacket when I had gone out that morning to run a few errands. When I got back home I settled in with some chips, a bowl of guac and a beer and was sort of flipping back and forth between a couple of games when the TV went dead. I was pretty annoyed because I had really been looking forward to just spending the afternoon not doing much. I tried to get a call out on my cell phone to the cable company but I couldn’t get a signal. After I had gotten up to check the light switches I sat back down and finished the beer I was working on. The power was out to the whole house. Half an hour later I went into the kitchen to toss the bottle in the recycling bin and wash out the bowl the dip was in. I turned on the tap and there was an initial hiss and stream of water and then it quit. No power and no water. Great! I wondered for a second if I had forgotten to pay the bills, but a quick look at my checkbook showed that I had. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I figured I’d go outside and see if I could tell if the power was on at any of my 13

neighbors’ houses. It might’ve been hard to tell ordinarily, it being afternoon and no lights on, but I noticed immediately that there were cars stopped in the middle of the road just up the street and it was strangely quiet. There’s a college about a half a block from my house and usually the sound of the big industrial air conditioners on their buildings provides a constant background hum. I knew their power was out too. It was more than that. I couldn’t hear the usual sound of distant traffic coming from the busy four-lane street that was about a half-mile south. A couple of the neighbors were standing in their yards and I called out: “How ya doing, Doc?” “Okay, but I’m kinda wondering what’s goin’ on here. Do you have water at your house?” he responded as I walked across the lawn to where he was standing. “Nope, “ I said. “The power went out and then I noticed the water was off. And what’s with these cars in the middle of the road?”

I told him I would go try mine, said goodbye and walked around back to the carport. My keyless entry fob wouldn’t unlock the door and I had to use the key. When I inserted the key in the ignition and turned it, nothing happened at all. Totally dead. I checked the headlights they were useless too. No power at all, and I had just bought a new battery a few months back. I opened the hood and checked the cables and everything looked okay. Shit was getting weird. There was nothing else to do all afternoon so I spent some time looking around for flashlights and candles in case the outage went into the night. I found a flashlight but it wouldn’t work. I did have a drawer with a few candles in it and I laid them out on the kitchen counter and set a box of kitchen

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matches there with them. I eventually picked up a book and spent some time catching up on reading. I was worried about the cell not working because my girlfriend was in Rhode Island at grad school and I didn’t have a way to let her know something strange was happening. As evening approached it looked like the power wasn’t coming back on any time soon. I put some food in the bowl for the dog and I filled her water bowl with some bottled water from the pantry. There were a couple of half gallon bottles in there that I usually kept on hand for taking trips. I made a peanut butter sandwich and started to think about the stuff in the refrigerator. It would stay cool for quite a while, but if the power didn’t come back on things would begin to spoil. It started getting dark about 6:00, and that’s when I noticed the sky again. I could see green, yellow, red and purple shimmering all across the sky. It was the Aurora Borealis, but to see it this far south was highly unusual. That was when I first began wondering if we might have been hit with a Coronal Mass Ejection that had caused a major electromagnetic pulse. That would explain why the power grid was down. Maybe even why the cars had died and others wouldn’t start. There was nothing else to do so I rounded up Hildy, my black German Shepherd, and we went up to bed. She seemed warm enough curled up next to me and I was under the big down comforter. As I was falling asleep I thought we were lucky to have had the good weather lately. Cold would have made things a lot worse. Next morning the power was still out and the water was still shut off. There was no gas to the range either and I couldn’t cook so I had another peanut butter sandwich, which I embellished with grape jelly, downed a little of the bottled water and then I got dressed. I figured I’d get on my bike and ride around town a little and see what

everyone else was doing. It’s not a very big town. You can drive around the whole thing in about fifteen or twenty minutes if your car is running. Nobody’s was. All over there were cars stopped in the middle of the streets or pulled over onto lawns. People were standing around outside talking and I said hello to folks as I passed. Some waved or said hi, but some looked scared and didn’t say anything. Some people had gone to their churches. Most of those were having services outside because it was dark inside. As I rolled past I heard one minister telling his congregation that God would look after them and that they shouldn’t be afraid. I hoped he knew what he was talking about. I ran into my friend Tom after a while. He was out on his bike, too. He didn’t know what was going on either but he thought my idea about a solar flare was as good as anything. He said he’d been all over and that no one had power, water or natural gas. Even generators wouldn’t start. Some people were getting real upset. He said he’d heard from one guy that Wal-Mart was all locked up and that they wouldn’t let anybody in. We agreed that if this went on for another day or two that bad things could start happening. I rode through the middle of the college campus on the way home and I saw Dr. Davidson. I’d known him for quite a while. His degree field is Chemistry but he is also an amateur astronomer. I thought he might have some thoughts about the possibility of an EMP. I pedaled over to where he was standing outside the science building. “Hi, Jim” I said pulling up alongside him. “Morning, Cody,” he replied. “What do you make of this outage?”

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He looked up and shaded his eyes with his hand and looked as if he could see something there in the sky. “That was my first thought,” he responded. “That could take out the computers and the transmission of power across the lines, but it doesn’t seem likely that it would’ve caused cars to stop running, or generators to not work. Everything is out. I was over at the hospital this morning and they’ve already lost a couple of patients who were in ICU because they couldn’t get their emergency generators to crank up. I also heard that a couple of people had pacemakers stop working and were in serious distress. They don’t have any refrigeration there and food is going to spoil pretty soon if they can’t do something.” “Oh, shit,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about that. You just assume that they have a backup for any situation.”

No vehicles are running. I’m guessing the water pumping station is out and that’s why there is nothing coming from the taps. I haven’t seen a single airplane fly over today either. I don’t know if this is local or widespread. Do you have cell?” “Nope. Dead as a door nail.” “Mine too,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “Can’t call the police or the fire department and they couldn’t respond if I called.” We talked for a few more minutes about what it might be like if power didn’t come back. Most people have enough food of one kind or another to last a week or so, even if it’s just crackers or something. And there was plenty of wood around. I have a halfacre of trees behind my house. We could 15

build fires and cook. Water was also available. There is a little stream across the street in front of my house and it feeds into a small lake on the college property. But if no grocery stores are open, and no trucks are running that means no food for most people after a week or two at most. We live in a pretty rural area, and a lot of people have gardens and do canned goods. Lots of hunters in the area too, but that wouldn’t be enough for everybody, especially people who don’t have reserves already put aside. And any frozen meat would start going bad after a few days. We agreed that we should meet back there at the science building again on Monday and bring along a few friends and brainstorm a bit. Maybe come up with a plan of action in case this wasn’t some shortterm event. If it was an EMP it could be weeks or months before they got power restored. I spent the rest of the afternoon out back of my house with a hand saw cutting up some fallen branches. I had stacked wood left over from the previous winter, but not much in the way of kindling. There was no telling how much longer the warmer weather would last either. The wind was coming out of the southeast, and I knew that is often a sign of an approaching cold front. I wanted to be ready. Later I built a small fire in the fireplace and managed to cook a can of beans and I wrapped a potato in foil and baked it in the embers. I was wondering what I would do for Hildy when the big bag of dog food ran out. I figured I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. On Monday I had some fruit and a cold Pop Tart for breakfast. I even managed a cup of coffee. I’d made some cold press on Sunday afternoon. I was trying to be as normal as possible. I even thought about walking to my office, but it seemed silly with no electricity, no computer and no phone. Can’t sell insurance these days without all

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that. I rode over to Tom’s and we went to the college again that afternoon and met with the group that showed up with Jim. We decided to form a sort of confederacy, pool our resources and talents. We were hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I had a copy of, “The Zombie Survival Guide.” This wasn’t exactly a zombie apocalypse, but a lot of the same principles could apply to the situation we found ourselves in. Besides, it got a few laughs and we ALL needed a little of that. One thing we did agree on is that we should probably make sure we had weapons at the ready, and be prepared to defend ourselves in case the worst of human nature began to manifest itself. I have a 9 millimeter pistol that my dad left me. I also have a couple of rifles, a shotgun, several longbows and a bunch of arrows. I was never a hunter, but I like to target shoot and I’m pretty good at it. I was wearing the pistol in a shoulder holster later that evening when I took Hildy out or a walk. As we were getting down to the end of the driveway Hildy slunk down and started to growl. I hadn’t seen him, but Hildy had known he was there. He was standing in the shadows cast by a three-quarter waxing moon. I said hello and asked him what I could do for him. “Got any food?” he asked. “I haven’t ate since yesterday.” “Sorry man,” I said, “but I don’t have anything to spare. Kinda conserving what I’ve got until we know what’s going on around here.” “I’ll bet you got plenty,” he said. He took a step toward me, making the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “You got this big old house. You rich guys always got plenty and think that you don’t have to share it with nobody else.”

He took another step toward me and Hildy stood up and barked. That stopped him in his tracks. I don’t think he had realized just how big she is and that she might be something to worry about. He also hadn’t noticed that I had reached inside my jacket and brought out my pistol. “Friend,” I said quietly, “I think it would be a REAL good idea for you to walk away right now before you write a check you don’t want to cash. If I could help you I would, but this is not the time or place where that’s going to happen.” He stood there looking at me for a minute. I flipped the safety off and stood ready in case he decided to try to use that piece of pipe on me or my dog. That’s when he noticed the gun. He turned and walked away into the night. I breathed a sigh of relief and headed back up the driveway. Hildy and I just had to do without the walk. The next day I spent mostly rounding up all the scrap wood I could find around the house. There was a good bit of it in the garage in the form of old furniture and bits left over from various projects. Sally and I had done some remodeling on the place before she went off to New England and there was a good bit of stuff from some walls we had torn down. I thought that based on what had happened the night before that it would be a good idea to be ready to board up the windows that were easily accessible. I felt pretty good about working together with the folks from the college, but I also knew that there were a lot of people out there who just don’t have the luxury of having reserves of food and water, or other necessities and that they might get desperate before long. I also wished I had thought to hoard toilet paper. Another one of those little things you just don’t think about until you need it.

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I had gathered up some coffee, canned goods and the squash I had recently harvested from my little garden and taken them over to the school to meet up with the group to see what we could put together. The guy on the horse had come from Searcy. He told us that he was trying to make his way up to Springfield, Missouri to look for his family. He said it was the same there in Searcy as it was here. He also said he had heard right before he left that everything was going nuts in Little Rock. It was like what happened in New Orleans after Katrina, but on steroids.

Some had broken into grocery stores though and carried off everything that could be eaten or drunk. Then fighting started over what little bits of those things that there were. He said he’d heard that half of downtown had burned to the ground because people had started fires and there was no way to put them out when they got out of control. Groups were starting to form and they were taking what they wanted when they could find it. A lot of people don’t like living in small rural towns but those of us that do have several things going for us. One is that you know a lot of the people in town and it’s harder for that, “crowd mentality,” to develop where people go crazy and just start smashing things and stealing. It’s also good to know that you are surrounded by heavilyarmed rednecks, a lot of whom are largely off 17

the grid anyway and very self-sufficient. They create a buffer between you and marauding hoards that might already be thinking about getting out of the city and trying to make their way into the countryside to see what avails itself. We figure that some of that is going to start here too, if it hasn’t already, but nowhere near to the degree that it will in the cities. It did get cold. A front came through and brought some rain. That was good in terms of collecting fresh water, but the wind was cold behind the front and it dropped into the mid-30s that night. I built up the fire in the fireplace and Hildy and I slept in the living room. I have a warm down-filled sleeping bag and I fixed up a quilt for her to lie on. I couldn’t imagine just how people were dealing with this weather where they didn’t have fireplaces or wood readily available. I was doing all right so far. I had some canned goods and dried stuff like rice and beans in a closet under the stairs that we had designated as a tornado shelter. I’d put a machete and a hand axe in there too. So I had some food, a little water, weapons and tools. Overall I was in good shape. I snared a couple of rabbits in the woods out back and there are always a lot of squirrels around. Doves, too. I still didn’t know what was going on where Sally was though and that kept me awake thinking about what I could do to reach her. That’s the way things have been going for a couple of weeks. Still no power, no running water, no vehicles and damned little information. The Confederacy is meeting regularly and organizing. We are gathering, distilling and storing clean water. We have a pretty good plan for using the college greenhouse to get some seedlings started so we can have a small garden through the winter and a jump on something bigger and more elaborate in spring. We also set a watch schedule and agreed to team up and 18

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patrol in order to protect our interests and to look in on one another. It is still eerily quiet for the most part. There has been no sign of the military at all. No aircraft overhead either. We do see deputies from the Sheriff’s Department on a mounted patrol every couple of days. They don’t know much more than we do but they give the impression that there is still some sort of local organization. We’ve also begun to hear distant sporadic gunfire from time to time. No way of knowing if it’s people out hunting or if it’s someone defending their property or someone taking things from someone else by force. The not knowing anything is really the worst part of it. The situation hasn’t been good, but we’ve been making the best of it, really. That is until tonight. Just a little while ago I was out with Hildy and she started growling real low again. I couldn’t see anything but she was really freaked. I happened to look up and that’s when I saw the dark shape that blocked out the stars in nearly threequarters for the sky. I couldn’t hear anything, and I couldn’t tell how high up it was but it was BIG. It passed from south to north and must have been moving a lot faster than it looked like it was. Even so, it took five minutes until it was completely out of sight. I don’t know if it is part of something that might have caused the phenomenon we’ve been experiencing, or maybe some form of rescue. It occurred to me that maybe it was some new sort of campaign commercial. Could be we are in for a government unlike anything we were considering a few weeks ago. Maybe those guys that were annoying me before weren’t as bad as I thought. Nothing to do now but wait and see.

Kenton Adler is an author and musician living in Batesville, Arkansas. He has published a young adult novel, “The Silver Pipes of Tir nan Og,” a children’s book called “An Alligator In Your Yard” (with Illustrations by Jody Hughes) and a number of award winning poems that may be found in journals and anthologies as far away as Australia. Ken studied Art and Psychology at Metropolitan State University in Denver and History at The University of Arkansas. He is a veteran of the United States Navy and served as an Aerographers Mate, attaining the rank of Second Class Petty Officer. He is currently employed by Lyon College as a researcher in the Development office and plays Great Highland Bagpipe in the Lyon College Pipe Band. Kenton is married to Nancy Love and they live in an enchanted castle with a 160 lb. Irish Wolfhound named Cuchullain, a Boxer/Bull mix called Pippin and a cat named Gretzky.

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She has worked as a high school English teacher, the director of an Upward Bound Program, and a college professor. While teaching at Lyon College, she was awarded the Lamar Williamson Prize for Excellence in Teaching and was the recipient of the Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education Scholar Award for her research on violence and peacemaking in the public schools. Originally from Batesville, Arkansas, she currently lives in Fairfax, Virginia and is at work on a collection of short stories that are all set in a small Arkansas town. To read an excerpt from The Secret to Flying and learn more about her writing, visit

www.teresaburnsmurphy.com.

Teresa Burns Murphy Headshot by Martin Boutros Teresa Burns Murphy is the author of a novel, The Secret to Flying (TigerEye Publications, 2011). Her short fiction has been published in Amazing Graces: Yet Another Collection of Fiction by Washington Area Women (Paycock Press, 2012), Dreamstreets, Gargoyle Magazine, Grokking the Fullness, Southern Women's Review, The Penmen Review, THEMA, The Tower Journal, and Westview. She won the 1996 WORDS (Arkansas Literary Society) Award for Fiction, was a semi-finalist for the 2005 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel, a finalist for the 2006 Kate Braverman Short Story Prize, and a finalist for the 2009 Janice Farrell Poetry Prize.

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nostalgia

The Music Building on the old Arkansas College campus. This postcard is circa 1930s.

Old colorful photo of Spring Mill back in the 70s.

The old Batesville Bank Building on the corner of Main & Central in Batesville. This picture is from the 1940s.

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The old Batesville High School campus. It stood where Central School is now and was built in 1882 and torn down in 1961.

Workers shown during the building of Lock & Dam 1 at Batesville around 1900.

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Old Sterling Five & Dime store on the corner Main & Broad Streets in Batesville. This photo is from the 1940s.

The old Magic Mart that used to sit where JC Penney's is now on St. Louis Street. This photo is from the early 1970s.

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Spring Mill on a summer day. Notice the Esso & Coca-Cola signs.

The Water Carnivalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Batesville Showboat at the White River Stadium in the 1960s.

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A picture of the old Post Office building (Now the Carpenter Building) on Main Street. Photo is circa 1920.

If you have nostalgic or historical photos of Independence County, or the surrounding areas, consider sharing them on the pages of Magazine. Email us at TigerEyePubs@hotmail.com

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Paperback. 264 pages. $12.95 TigerEye Publications View/Order from bookstore HERE Also available at

Amazon.com HERE

After struggling through four long years of battles, wounds, marching and loneliness, Joseph comes home to find his family torn asunder. Bushwhackers have attacked his father's home, leaving death behind and his sister kidnapped. Then he continues on to find Sarah. It quickly becomes clear that the war is far from over for Joseph.

by Ila M. Clements Many years ago I made my very first visit to Arkansas. I was a newlywed to an Arkansas boy and he was taking me to his home to meet his parents in Batesville. To say the least I was excited on that trip up from Florida, but a bit sad because I knew that in a few days I would be dropping my new husband off at the airport and he would fly away to the Philippine Islands and I would return to the Florida Keys alone. Two things happened on this trip. One I can and will tell you about that I can now laugh about. The other, well, a whole different reaction. I know now that we were somewhere between Bald Knob and Batesville, in our little red VW that my husband had named â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sherbie,â&#x20AC;? and he had been making me nervous with stories of the Ozarks and Arkansas. I, of course, was believing all he said and getting very nervous. Hill country was brand new to me. The expanse of flat lands and the ocean had been my whole life. Anyway, as we drove along, we pulled out to pass a car and as we went by, I glanced over and whoa! Staring at me out of his window was the perfect picture of what I thought an Ozark guy looked like. Here was this tall, pointed black felt hat and beneath it were two little dark piercing eyes beneath huge busy brows, with a long curling black mustache and pointy beard on his chest. I let out a yelp! John began to laugh at me and then I broke out in hives; HUGE lumps all over my body and itching like crazy. Until I reached his home in Batesville and met his mom, I did not calm down. magazine

Yes, now I look back on that day and laugh. Three days later, a Saturday, I believe it was, John’s mom and dad and the two of us decided to go for a ride. We took his dad’s car, John driving, and went up toward Cushman, stopping at Spring Mill. The mill was a new experience for me. I took some pictures all around and then made some of John with his mom and dad. We then all returned to the car and started back toward Batesville. About two or more miles down the road I realized my purse was gone! Here was the thing; I had EVERY penny we owned in that purse, other than maybe ten dollars John had in his wallet. It was a little over $500.00. I was terrified. John was to fly out of Little Rock the next day with ten dollars in his pocket? I was to drive to Key West, Florida with no money, no driver’s license? I was frightened. We quickly turned the car around and went back to Spring Mill, as I remember I had placed my purse on the trunk of the car to make the pictures and forgot and left it there. It was not to be found at the Mill, so three of us divided, Johns dad drove the car, and we took both sides of the road and began to walk. And walk we did for over a mile before they gave up. By then I was not frightened, I was devastated. We got back in the car and John suggested we report it to the Batesville Police, so that was our next stop. I remember a deputy sitting behind a desk. John told him what had happened. He asked, “What’s your name Ma’am? I told him and had to say my Military ID card had my new last name but my driver’s license had my former name. Then he asked how much money was in the purse and I told him as best I could. He then leaned back, pulled open the drawer in front of him and pulled out my purse! I almost fainted! There it was, in my hands. The deputy asked that I check it, and I did, and every single thing I knew to be in there was still in there, so we began to ask how it got there? We were told that a trucker and his son had brought it in about half an hour earlier and turned 30

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it in. He also told us the man was disabled and could not work. He and his son had come down their drive to the highway and turned to come to Batesville and the boy saw the purse on the ground. They stopped, picked it up and brought it directly to the Police Station! We gave our thanks there at the station and turned and immediately drove back toward Spring Mill and approximately one mile from Spring Mill, saw the drive that came out on the highway, right on a big curve. We realized that’s where my purse finally slid off the trunk! We turned and drove up to his house and John and I went to the door. The boy answered but called his dad. We thanked him profusely and tried to pay him and quickly learned that was an absolute “no, no!” In fact, it appeared to insult the man. I remember he told us that very well could have been his wife’s purse, or his wallet and his hope that if that happened, someone would just do as he did and turn it in. Were we thankful? You bet we were and I received my first real introduction to folks of Independence County. Now, I have lived here for nearly sixteen years and have found the most good and friendly, helpful people of anywhere I ever lived. And yes, I have lived in many, many places. I would recommend this beautiful county to any and all I know should they be looking for a place to retire. We feel safe, peaceful and loved. But more than that, very Blessed. *

Ila M. Clements See her profile in this edition of

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I spent many years in Florida and the Florida Keys. My first husband and I Lobster fished in the lower keys until he passed away. I continued that hard life for some time after that, a widow with a young daughter. I waited tables there and met people like Susan Hayward and several others. I also spent twenty years in Central Florida watching the launches of the Space Craft’s including seeing the one explode in the air. Something one doesn’t forget. Now our home is in Independence County, Batesville, actually. I still push to write stories that I believe will be enjoyed by all those who give them a try.

- Ila

Ila M. Clements To date, I have written and have published eight novels. I write fiction that comes from memories of not just myself, but my grandparents and people I grew up with on the coast of North Carolina. Writing has always been a joyful experience for me and I write for people to be able to relax and enjoy a good simple read. My books aren’t political, but I do write about love, deception, fear, murder, family, hard times and good times. I cover it all. I was born and grew up on the extreme coast of North Carolina on Pamlico Sound behind the Outer Banks. It holds a beauty all its own and is home to many wonderful people.

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Paperback; 158 pages $9.95 Order HERE From TigerEye Publications

also available at Amazon.com “Insanely funny short stories from and of the Baby Boomer Generation”

Includes: Dinner with WT Ode to a Silver Screen The Great Ice Capades of 1971 The Bus for Smackover Leaves in 15 Minutes 120 Minutes in Hell & more! Reviews: "... I think it is almost certain to become a collector’s item..." -- Amy H. Peterson "A smooth blend of wit, irreverence, nostalgia, and whimsy..." -- Jennifer Koplitz "W.T. serves up a mixture of stories and poems guaranteed to satisfy anyone hungry for homespun humor and charm." -- Hannah Hanszen

.. a full, barbecue buffet of good readin' -- Amy H. Peterson Rick Baber is a man of vision; vision not of the future but a vision of the past. -Jacqueline Anastasia

Clumps of flowering weeds had grown up above the tall grass. The speakers had been removed by speculative investor/thieves, but the white posts stood erect - giving the place the look of some neglected military cemetery. The small building near the center had been boarded up, as if there remained something inside that needed to be protected, and the sight of the weathered and shredding plywood added to the ghostly feeling that came over me as I stood there before this relic. From the pile of garbage behind me dashed a ragged old tomcat, and I watched him scamper all the way down front, beyond the dilapidated playground equipment where, majestically, stood the screen. To me, on that breezy late-Spring afternoon, it appeared as an enormous granite monument. Ad, although it was relatively un-blemished, in my mind's eye I could see the words carved there. "Rest in Peace". You could call it fate that took me there, but it was nothing more than the call of nature, really. I had missed the last service station on the way out of town, and decided the abandoned drive-in theater was probably the most private place around. Until I got there I didn't know how right I was.

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Driving through the ticket booth without having to stop and fish my pockets for money, even after all these years, didn't feel quite right. I almost felt an obligation to my own heritage to misplace my trunk key and lie to the suspicious gum-smacking apparition, blowing bubbles behind the open window. "Just me and her. No. No beer in the trunk. No people either. Sure, you could look, but it's my dad's car and I only have the ignition key." It was eerie. I was no more than a hundred yards from the hot catalytic converters on the neoncolored economy cars buzzing up and down the highway, and I was proceeding slowly into 1969. When I stepped out of the car and that breeze blew back my hair, it brought back a flood of memories, which I only then realized were going to be unique to only two or three generations of people. Of all the humans who have ever inhabited this planet, and, probably, all of those who will come along, only two or three generations of Americans - if they were to stand where I was standing - would share this empty, nostalgic, bittersweet feeling. I thought about my son. What lifetime memories could he develop living in the Information Age? What wild, adventurous stories would he have to tell his children and grandchildren about some packaged entertainment that he brought home and plugged into a little box beside his television? Or some numbers he punched into his remote control that brought the latest video releases to him via the miracle of fiber-optic cable? In this life, we have the moment, and the memories. And the memories last a lot longer. Mine take me back to the trunk of a 1967 Ford that belonged to my friend Duke's father's used car lot. I “came of age” in a small town in north central Arkansas. The drive-in theater was as much a part of the lives of teenagers as bell bottoms and rock ‘n roll. In small towns there’s always one kid who gets to drive before everybody else his age. Since Duke’s dad owned a car lot, he was that kid. As early as the eighth grade, Duke would manage to come up with some big LTD or something similar nearly every weekend. We’d all chip in for gas and ride around town until we had just enough fuel left 34

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to make it out the highway to the White River Drive-In Theater, and get everybody home afterwards. Nobody got to drive but Duke, and we never gave him too much trouble about that. We considered ourselves lucky just to be included in one of the few gangs our age who didn’t have to be chauffeured by our parents. Of the five of us, only Chris had an older sibling, and she wasn’t about to share her own car time with a bunch of rowdy Jr. High kids. The most important thing was that the car was functioning. That meant making personal sacrifices if funds were short. Since Duke was the driver, and Karla and Teresa were of the feminine persuasion, Chris and I usually had to fork up our money to buy the bulk of the gas, leaving us without the cost of admission to the theater. That’s why we had an LTD instead of a Beetle - major trunk space. Across the highway, and a quarter of a mile back, was a café that always closed before dark. That parking lot was always where the switch was made. Duke would pull up there and order us to hand over our money and get in the trunk. One of us would always suggest that one guy and one girl should ride back there together, but Duke insisted that the girls didn’t need to be back there getting dirty. I think he just enjoyed being seen pulling into the drive-in with two good looking and popular chicks in the car. At the time, there were no real romantic relationships between any of us. It wasn’t because any of us wouldn’t be receptive to one, it was simply that none of us knew how to go about getting such a thing started. Later on, my relationship with Teresa developed into a boy/girl sort of thing, and we started going out on some real dates. But for now, we were just five buddies in search of adventure.

I don’t know exactly what came over him. Usually, we would pull the trunk lid down from the inside, and hold it there, without actually closing it, so we could let ourselves out when the car stopped inside the theater. This time, Duke insisted that we lock the deck lid down completely – citing as his reason the light inside that might come on at the

ticket booth and lead to our discovery. Both of us were slightly on the claustrophobic side, and argued against such unusual measures for about half an hour at the café, but surrendered in the face of the alternative – going home. Everything at the ticket booth went smoothly, although I had to hold my hand over Chris’ mouth to keep him from giving us away with his giggling. From our dark hiding place we felt the big car gliding over the humps between the parking rows. Karla and Teresa, acting upon that melodramatic, mother-like concern that is so common among young teenage girls, leaned up to the back seat to ask if we were O.K. This seemed like something we could somehow use to strengthen the growing bond between ourselves and the girls. Sympathy for our heroic and death-defying efforts. We didn’t answer. “Duke!” Karla yelled, “They’re not saying anything!” There was a touch of genuine panic in her voice that made us feel ... wanted. I could picture that stern look on his face. Never looking back for fear that someone would notice that he was in the driver’s seat alone, and two girls were in the back, talking to the seat. He growled in a low voice. We could hear every word. “Be quiet! They just can’t hear you through that seat.” They continued, softly calling to us. We, bastards that we were, did not answer. Teresa was, without doubt, the most grown-up of all of us. About the time we felt the car roll to a stop she took on that authoritative tone that we had all grown to recognize as a sign that she was tired of our foolishness and we had better shape up. “Rick…Chris…are you guys okay?” Duke was still up there making shushing noises at them, telling them that we could not hear them. Chris moaned, as if he had just come out of a coma or something. “Let us out. We can’t breathe!” Karla’s voice grew louder. “Let them out, Duke. They can’t breathe!” “Rick!” I could hear Teresa commanding me to answer her. “I think he’s passed out.” Chris moaned back a reply for me as he laid his hand on my shoulder as a signal that he would field this one. It was hard to keep from laughing out loud as we could feel the tension mounting inside the car.

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“Rick!” she repeated, “Answer me!” This time neither of us said anything. There was a moment of pure silence, and then outright panic by the girls. Karla was crying, and Teresa was demanding that Duke open the trunk. He was talking to them like a dad does to overanxious children, sternly advising them that, if they didn’t be quiet, he would have to take them home. He wanted to wait until the cartoon started, so nobody would notice him letting us out of the trunk. He informed the girls that there was more than enough air back there for us to breathe for several hours. When he said that, they did quiet down, but we could still hear them, sobbing quietly. We began to get the impression that maybe he wasn’t going to let us out for a while. Chris decided to make the best of a bad situation. He removed the bottle of Bali Hai from the pocket of his army jacket, took a swig, and then lit a cigarette as he passed the bottle over to me. Then I fired up a Marlboro and we proceeded to have our own quiet little party in the dark. After several minutes, we could hear that the girls had turned their concern for our welfare into indignation that we were playing such a cruel joke on them. They began saying things like “Let’s just let them stay back there,” that brought us back to the reality that we were imprisoned in that trunk, and the possibility did exist that we could suffocate.

We put the cigarettes out, but there was no way for the smoke to escape. I don’t know to his day whether or not he was pulling my leg, but Chris sounded deadly serious when he spoke. “Do you smell gas?” I didn’t feel like this was the proper place or time to indulge in conversation with him as to the feasibility of smelling gasoline in a place that was so full of cigarette smoke. And I did know that there was plenty of gasoline near us, because I had spent my ticket money to put it there. “FIRE!” I began screaming at the top of my lungs. Chris joined me. Then the girls, screaming 35

frantically at Duke to let us out. Over all the voices I could hear his. “Shuttup! Goddammit, shuttup!” I’ll take this damn car out of here and back it into a brick wall!” But we continued screaming, and the girls continued screaming and crying. Duke started the car, and we could hear them pleading with him to open the trunk. He quieted down, and tried again to convince them that we were only pulling their chains. It sounded as if they might have been going for it. The total darkness was shattered again by the flickering of Chris’ lighter when he lit up two more cigarettes and handed me one. He kept the lighter burning as he fumbled around underneath him and came up with a tire tool. “Hold this,” he said, handing me the burning lighter. Before I could say anything, he took the tire tool and broke out the taillights from the inside. “What the hell is going on back there?” Duke was sounding as if he might actually be getting angry enough to back into that wall. About that time both of the girls apparently saw the smoke boiling out the holes that had been the tail lamp lenses and let out blood-curdling screams. We felt the left side of the car rise as Duke jumped out, and heard the crunching sound of him running across the pea gravel to the back. Then the sound of him fumbling through his keys. When the trunk opened a huge cloud of smoke boiled from it and Duke had to back up and fan it from his face before he could see us. By that time our heads had popped up through the cloud – laughing.

Duke looked down at the shattered red plastic in the gravel. Before he could say anything the manager appeared through the crowd and advised that he was going to call the cops if we didn’t leave immediately. We did. It was quite a while before we got a ride back there with Duke.

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Then, there was "People Packer Night." That's where you can get everybody in (or on) your car into the Drive-In for two bucks. Bruce Kelly had something like a '58 Plymouth. One night we set the record with, I think, 38 people. Of course, we cheated. While the guy was counting the kids coming off of and out of the car, the ones who had already been counted slipped around to the other side and came back through again. It was a pretty funny stunt, which won us some menial prize, as I recall, but, when we all piled back on the Plymouth to ride the rest of the way in -over those humps between rows - Bruce drug the oil pan off the car. So we only got to pull that one once. A little later, the Drive-In was one of the places spent exploring with the girl who would become my wife. And her little brother. It was a dirty trick, but her mom (who had obviously been there a few times in her younger years) sent him with us nearly every time we tripped up and let her know where we were going. Bad as that was, it was no insurmountable obstacle for a thinking man such as myself. A couple of extra railroad cars shoveled out at the rock quarry earned me a few extra bucks every week. Those dollars were readily handed to Terry once the Mustang was parked, and he would disappear to the concession stand -usually for the night. For years I believed I had outsmarted him and his mother, but when I became an older man I realized that the kid was more clever than I, and probably made enough money off of me to retire several years before I do. I remembered one of the few times we got to go there on a real double date. About half way through the movie this guy came flying across the hood of my car, after being punched by another guy. Chris and I jumped out to avenge my Mustang's honor. Becky, who never could stomach physical violence, promptly opened the car door and puked before so much as another punch could be thrown. Nobody wanted to take the chance of being knocked down into that stuff, and whatever else was about to occur from the chain-reaction when we started getting whiffs of it, so the conflict ended there and then. After her oral eruption, however, not much hanky panky occurred that evening either.

Be that as it may, standing there as I did nearly a quarter of a century later, I had to wonder how big a part the old drive-in theater played in what became of our lives. If we hadn't gotten to know each other there, would we have made it to the altar, and survived these twenty-five years together? Probably. But it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. The other people? They went on to make lives of their own, as people do. Like the drive-in, some of them have since vanished from this world. But, for me at least, every rusty white post rising from the gravel represents one of them, and a good time we shared.

Rick Baber is a 1973 graduate of Batesville High School, where he was an editorialist for “The Spirit of the Pioneer” under the tutelage of the legendary Juanita Felts. His college experience consisted of one year studying journalism at Arkansas College (now Lyon College) before embarking on a career of no careers. Rick penned “Into Focus,” a column in the Batesville Guard, for a number of years; and published his first book, “Dinner with WT,” in 2000. In 2010, he founded TigerEye Publications, an “indie” publisher of paperback books and digital magazines, including “Indeco” and “Question Mark.” Today, he lives with his bride, Becky Price Baber, in lovely Springdale (aka Chickendale), Arkansas.

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Paperback. 136 pages. $8.95 TigerEye Publications View/Order from bookstore HERE Also available at

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No. You’ve never read anything quite like this. Seemingly unrelated short stories about various characters merge with a bank robbery where Jesus is helping negotiate for the hostages. Aliens, street people, hookers, time travel … pretty much everything – including two modern teenage boys dropped from a spaceship into a cornfield in Batesville, Arkansas, 1972.

Boldly going nowhere … expeditions. He became convinced he was on the trail of lost treasure. Warren Getler, a former Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, has teamed with Brewer to create the book titled SHADOW OF THE SENTINEL which reveals the mystery of the Knights of the Golden Circle and their involvement in a vast Civil War era conspiracy. The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret society formed in 1854 by sympathizers of Southern causes, dedicated to supporting pro-slavery policies and promoting the conquest of Mexico. It was created directly out of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and linked to the highest circles of American Freemasons. Bret Burquest

KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE Bob Brewer was born and raised in western Arkansas. As a youngster, his great-uncle introduced him to a mystery that included wilderness paths, hidden symbols, carvings on trees and rocks, and the topography of certain areas. The old man was the keeper of some sort of secret knowledge that he kept to himself.

During the Civil War, KGC operatives amassed huge quantities of gold and silver through clandestine raids. The caches were hidden in various secret locations, particularly in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, marked by a trail of complicated KGC ciphers. The accumulation of riches continued after the end of the Civil War in anticipation of a second war. Operations ceased in 1922 and the caches were sealed for good.

He returned to Arkansas and began to explore the mystery of his childhood.

Getler and Brewer claim that the infamous outlaw Jesse James, a member of the KGC who turned over much of his ill-gotten gain to the cause, wasn’t actually killed in 1882 by Bob Ford as reported.

Over the next 25 years, he interviewed oldtimers, researched documents, studied old maps, made alliances and went on

A fellow named Charlie Bigelow who resembled Jesse James had been robbing banks using Jesse’s name. Supposedly, Jesse

Brewer went off to a career in the Navy and retired in 1977.

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killed him and hired a prostitute to pose as Mrs. Jesse James to officially identify the body. Others who identified the body were all relatives or members of Quantrill’s Raiders, Jesse’s former comrades. The real Jesse James then changed his name to J. Frank Dalton (his mother’s maiden name was Dalton) and continued his nefarious life as Chief of the Inner Sanctum of the Knights of the Golden Circle. According to the book titled JESSE JAMES WAS ONE OF HIS NAMES by Jesse James III (the grandson) and Del Schroeder, Jesse James was indeed a prominent member of the KGC and hid large quantities of stolen riches in various locations on behalf of the secret society. In addition, John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated President Lincoln, was also a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle and didn’t die as history tells us either. Booth was smuggled by the Confederate underground to Texas where he became a bartender by the name of John St. Helen. In the 1870s, he began telling folks about his past. When members of the KGC found out, they decided to silence him. Booth fled to Enid, Oklahoma, under the name of David George but was eventually tracked down by Jesse James and William Lincoln (a distant cousin of Abraham Lincoln who had spent 14 years searching for the real Booth). James and Lincoln then tricked Booth to drink a glass of arsenic-laced lemonade. James subsequently arranged to have Booth’s mummified body exhibited on a national carnival tour.

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In her book titled THIS ONE MAD ACT, John Wilkes Booth’s granddaughter, Iola Forrester Booth, reveals that her grandfather had belonged to the Knights of the Golden Circle and had not been killed in Baltimore as reported in history, but rather had escaped capture through the aid of fraternal brothers. The Supreme Headquarters for the Knights of the Golden Circle was 814 Fatherland Drive in Nashville, Tennessee. This was the home of Dr. Sylvester Frank James, older brother of Jesse James and high-ranking member of the KGC. Years later it became the Dixie Tabernacle, the original home of the Grand Olde Opry. As conspiracies go, it’s a whopper. But then again, it’s so bizarre it’s probably true.

I originally wrote this piece as a newspaper column in February of 2004. Not long after publication, a man from Tennessee and a woman from Mississippi, neither of whom knew each other, each sent me detailed messages confirming the authenticity of this story, claiming it had been passed down within their respective families. ___________ Quote for the Day – "Never expect a handout." Jesse James

Bret Burquest is the author of 11 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and where time stands still.

Profile

Curtis Wainwright Batesville High School Class of 1973 If you “Google” Curtis Wainwright, you won’t find anything about his antics with Mike Keeling and Dennis Ford, involving chickens and police cars at Tommy’s Kingburger in the early 70s. And that’s a shame. You won’t find anything about his scoop-&-score fumble recovery off the defensive line. You probably won’t even come across the story of that road trip to visit Craig Smith out in California right after graduation, with Brad Slaughter and Duke Ball; or the other, crazier trip there, looking for off-shore work, driving Bill Milum’s ’65 Chevy. But that’s OK. It’s way more fun to hear him tell those stories anyway. What you will find, first, is a 1:15 video of him winning first place in the M3A Super Heavyweight Division of the 2014 USAPL Masters Nationals – lifting heavy things. First, a 610-pound squat; then a 402 pound bench press; then a 551 pound deadlift. Oh, and it should be mentioned, he’s doing this at the age of 60. Next there’s a 5:43 video of him lifting at the 2011 USAPL Masters in Atlanta, where the text mentions “Wainwright won another national title in Atlanta…” and “Curtis Wainwright is a multi-time world and national champion.” And that, he is. About this time in 2014, Curtis was busy setting three American records at the Alabama State Powerlifting Championships

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in Mobile, and getting the competition’s “Best Overall Lifter” award. Just another day at the office. Mark Inabinett wrote a news story about that competition in 2014, offering this quote from Curtis:

"I've been competing since about 2002 or 2003," Wainwright said, "but I've been working out for 37 years. I guess I always wanted to be a powerlifter. I wanted to be a strong old boy, you know? "There's a person that lives inside of everybody. In most people, they never express it. They just kind of live with it. People that like to lift weights, lift heavy weights, they have that person that lives inside of them. You just never get enough of it, you never want to quit, you never want to give up because there's just that constant challenge, that constant desire to do better, to be better, to be stronger. Honest to goodness, most everybody who powerlifts is expressing that inner self." That’s profound, given Batesville High School’s motto: “A Pioneer Never Quits.” His passion has taken him all over the world, proving that. Curtis spent a career as a Lab Specialist at Chevron in Alabama. He and his lovely wife, Leslie, live in Saraland. They have two children, Savanna and “Big Jon,” and two grandchildren – Madalyn (age 5) and Ryden (age 3).

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CherryPicd.com

Profile A brief interview with the unsinkable Beth Arnold

An award-winning journalist, Beth Arnold has written for Rolling Stone, GQ, InStyle, Self, American Way, Premiere, Mirabella, Salon.com, Vogue.com, Marco Polo literary journal, and many other magazines, newspapers, and media outlets. She was a finalist for a Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe (for a novel) and a semi-finalist for a Nicholl Fellowship (for a screenplay) through the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

President her senior year. She was involved with Future Business Leaders of America, attended Girls’ State, received scholastic letters; a cheerleader her sophomore and junior years … just stuff like that. It didn’t take somebody who could ace one of Moorene Newton’s trig classes to see that Beth was going places.

Yes. And she is a 1972 graduate of Batesville High School, where, among many other pursuits, she served on the Student Council – as the Student Body

I produced the website for my husband James Morgan’s book, Chasing Matisse, for which I was also an early blogger recording my point of view of our incredible

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Beth, tell us a little about your life after your Pioneer days.

journey following the path of artist Henri Matisse throughout France, Corsica, and Morocco—chasing art, artists, a creative life, and a fresh way to see the world through our own eyes. This was a stunning experience despite all the obstacles we had to overcome, and there were plenty. But I believe in dreams and making them come true. I believe in authenticity, being true to yourself, and following your heart and path. Our path took us to Paris, where we lived for eight of our 10 years in France. There I produced a very popular blog, “Letter from Paris” (click on BethArnold.com) and was named by one website “the second most influential Twitterer in Paris.” In addition to my own blog, I was an early contributor to HuffingtonPost.com. But after being such an enthusiastic warrior in the digital revolution, I eventually found myself addicted to the Internet and went to Greece for a self-imposed “Internet rehab.” It was a relief to not be online, and on an island in Greece? It was incredible. The result was a book called 28 days without the internet. I’m also working on a nonfiction book about my family and loss called Picking the Bones. As far as my education goes, I was a college hopper. Starting at Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), I then went to Hendrix College and from there to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. I have a Master of Social Work (MSW), which I got at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and I was a therapist in a community mental health center and a consultant early in my career. I have played 46

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all the roles we women graciously (or not) are given—daughter, granddaughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, aunt. The list never ends. What are some of those roles you play, and how do you do it? I created and directed my family’s life, which also included juggling my own work as a writer and artist and being my husband’s muse. Women’s issues and tolerance have always been high on my interest list. I am a human antenna because I'm so intuitive, and a part of me is naturally Gracie Allen-ish. I am a lover of music and dancing. I’m a great cook and a giver of memorable parties. I have style and eclectic good taste. I thrive on art and greatly admire artists in all areas, people who live their lives with integrity and stand up for what they believe in, and those who express themselves creatively. I’m a fearless traveler and love being thrown into new situations and cultures. I am endlessly fascinated by all kinds of people, and I write about culture, politics, people, life, and travel. I like working in many formats, from blogging to books, podcasts to screenplays. What about your politics? My political training started early and on the ground, when as a small child I handed out cards on election days for my yellow-dogDemocrat father’s favorite candidates. Democratic politics were an essential part of my home training and family life, and I

received more of my political education on Capitol Hill where I worked for the late Arkansas Senator John McClellan (during Watergate) as well as from my uncle who was a powerful lobbyist. Paris, though. Really? What’s next? I adored living in Paris, the most beautiful city in the world. It was absolutely divine. Since I’ve been back in the U.S., I’ve been working on a startup with my daughter, Blair Graves, who conceived this brilliant idea for gift giving. Choosing gifts for friends and family is hard for everyone. On our cool site, CherryPicd.com, people can sign up and create lists for the gifts they’d love to get—and connect to their friends and families (who have also signed up) to see the delicious items they long for and desire. Voila! We can all give and receive our hearts’ desires. It’s a win-win for everyone. Giving gifts that our dear ones love will bring us all closer together. We’re still working on the site—but go sign up now! You can sign up at cherrypicd.com here. Follow Beth on Instagram at @BethArnold99. On Twitter: @BethArnold and also at @ExilesReturn and @28dayNoInternet. Connect with her author’s page on Facebook at Beth Arnold.

Profiles Do you know an interesting or accomplished person with a connection to Independence County? Perhaps, someone who lived here in the past and went on to parts unknown, chasing dreams, doing the cool things we’d all like to do? Maybe somebody who still lives here, making a difference in the lives of others? Or someone who has passed on, who you think should be remembered to our readers? Write the story! Send it to TigerEyePubs@hotmail.com . If you don’t fancy yourself as a writer, just send us as much information as you can, and we’ll try to find somebody to write the story for you! And, if you’ve got pictures, that would be all the cooler – as long as it’s legal for us to publish them. Give it a shot!

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