Arkansas Times - December 07, 2017 by Arkansas Times

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COMMENT

Again President Reagan used to say, “There you go again,” so here we go again. Our Republican-dominated Congress is reforming our tax code much like Congress did back in Reagan’s day. Those of us who actually remember Reagan know that Reagan was a really wobblyheaded, senile old actor who often replied, “Well … (wobble, wobble) … er … uh … ” and sometimes confused reality with movie fiction. Under Reagan’s lack of leadership, congressional spending got so out of control Reagan became the first U.S. president to budget for over a trillion dollars. To make matters worse, Reagan’s Republicans reformed the federal tax code to benefit rich folks. The first cuts were made in 1981. The second cuts were in the 1986 Tax Reform Act. These tax laws resulted in the worst stock market crash in history, remembered as Black Monday. Republicans like to blame Iranian Silkworm missiles, but the TRA was passed Oct. 22, 1986, and the crash happened all around the globe only a year later Oct. 19, 1987. When the dust settled, Reagan had destroyed the American economy, and his successor, George H.W. Bush, suffered the consequences in defeat at the hands of Bill Clinton, the only president to balance the federal budget four years in a row. Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, cut taxes twice and caused the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. So, here we go again making the same Republican mistakes. We just love to suffer. Gene Mason Jacksonville

Sober Trump Lyndon Johnson drank a quart of bourbon every day. Everett Dirksen sipped champagne all day long. Nixon mixed booze and pills. FDR, Tip O’Neill, Teddy Kennedy, Wilbur Mills: They were all alcoholics, but they got things done. Social Security, civil rights legislation, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act — they somehow managed to move the ball down the field despite the fact that they were drunk while doing it. Trump doesn’t drink, and I’m beginning to think that might be the problem. Perhaps we need to feed him a bottle of Wild Turkey and a six-pack of PBR every day. We just can’t continue to have him staggering around the White House sober. The 4

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

country might not be able to survive much more of that. David Rose Hot Springs

From the web

In response to a Dec. 5 Arkansas Blog post on the approval of a new security plan for the Ten Commandments monument that was shattered the day it was originally installed by a man driving Fine review of the redone Clinton a Dodge Dart. The new plan will have the [Presidential Center] restaurant. But I monument in the center with bollards urge you not to encourage the chef to — thick posts — flanking it on each side: add more salt. Most chefs over-salt. We With a little bit of sanding, that can add more but we cannot remove it. could look a whole lot more like a penis. Howard J. Barnhard Vanessa Roland In response to a Dec. 4 Arkansas

Hold the salt

Blog post discussing an interview with the CEO of Dollar General, Todd Vasos. The chain targets people who make less than $40,000; Vasos said “the economy is continuing to create more of our core customer.”: I was in a Dollar Store this morning. I needed antibacterial hand wash and I had three options. I could drive 5-10 minutes to the local Dollar Store and spend $2 for the name brand I use. I could drive 30 minutes to the nearest Walmart and pay $3, or I could go to the local grocery store or drug store and pay around $4. The same scenario applies to other name-brand laundry supplies, paper towels and household products. There is a Family Dollar and a Dollar General in our rural town of 2,500. Both are always busy. There are two Dollar Stores within 10 miles and another one 19 miles away. If you take the Pottsville exit off of Interstate 40, the only lights you will see for several miles will be from the isolated Dollar Store located there. I’m in our local store often. I know the manager and most of the employees well enough to ask about their families and their lives. It’s an older building but always very clean and the shelves are well stocked. I realized that certain people attached a stigma to shopping at the Dollar Store when I ran into a wealthy lady in our local store and she immediately went into defense mode and offered a lengthy explanation as to why an emergency necessitated her being in “that store.” The store manager overheard and winked at me behind the lady’s back when I said, “Hey, I’m in here all the time.” These stores fill a need in rural areas, not only for bargains on name-brand items but even more so on generic brands. As mentioned previously, not everyone has transportation to travel to the nearest Walmart, 30 minutes to an hour from most places in this county. The Dollar General CEO is right on target with his assessment of the situation. It’s a sign of the times we are in. mountaingirl

In response to a Dec. 4 Arkansas Blog post on the hiring of Hunter Yurachek away from the University of Houston to be the new athletic director for the University of Arkansas: Oh, great. Took me three years to learn how to pronounce Bielema. Now it’s Yurachek. Durango

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WEEK THAT WAS

Tweet of the week “TaxReform means delivering relief to the American people. Studies show it will raise incomes and wages and grow the economy. Arkansans deserve to keep more of their own and this bill will let them. …” — Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas (@JohnBoozman) regurgitating party talking points that are at best, wishful thinking, and, at worst, dishonest. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation have found that, by 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while those earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut, The New York Times reported.

and, in turn, install Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton to head the CIA, The New York Times reported last week. Commentators have noted, among other lowlights, Cotton’s refusal to accept reporting about Russian election meddling and his defense of waterboarding as factors that would make him particularly ill-suited for the job.

New AD The University of Arkansas has hired Hunter Yurachek, 49, away from the University of Houston to be athletic director at $850,000 a year on a five-year contract. Before Houston, Yurachek, a Richmond, Va., native, headed the Coastal Carolina athletic department.

Big money to flow Cotton to CIA? The Trump administration is expected to force out Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, replace him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo 6

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ARKANSAS TIMES

Bret Bielema will receive $11.8 million for the three years remaining on his football coaching contract at Arkansas, ESPN has reported. The money would be paid in monthly installments. It would be reduced by future earnings. Add this to the buyout for Jeff

Long, the fired athletic director, and potential buyouts for Bielema’s staff of assistants (still employed) and you’re talking potential payouts of up to $19 million to settle contract guarantees. It would be money from the income stream of the athletic department and Razorback Foundation, fattened by TV and marketing revenue and private contributions, not tax dollars.

Probation company lawsuit dismissed U.S. District Judge James Moody has dismissed a lawsuit by The Justice

Network, a for-profit Memphis outfit that lost a long-running and lucrative probation services arrangement in Craighead County after the election of new judges. We featured Craighead County District Judges Tommy Fowler and David Boling as Arkansas Times Visionaries for cleaning the judicial house of The Justice Network. The company’s probation services meant fines and fees and a cycle of debt for many misdemeanor offenders. The judges came up with a stopgap amnesty program: They entered new probation orders, allowed offenders to reset payment plans and deleted The Justice Network while forgiving court costs and fees. The Justice Network sued in federal court to recoup fees it lost. It said its contract overrode the judges. Moody said the judges were personally immune from lawsuit because they were acting in their official capacity. He also dismissed the claim against Craighead County and the cities of Bay, Bono, Brookland, Caraway, Cash, Egypt, Lake City and Monette. He said the judges were state employees and no liability could be stretched to the cities and county.

OPINION

In black and white

he men and women who patrol Little Rock in black and white vehicles tell a story in black and

white. In a city that is about 50 percent black and brown, the police force is about 30 percent black. Only 20 percent of the white officers live in the city of Little Rock. The majority of black officers, about 60 percent, live in the city. The white-dominated Fraternal Order of Police chapter has blamed the city’s crime problem and schools for the preference of so many white officers for other cities. The word “schools” is, for many, a code. Little Rock schools are about 15 percent white and poor. Police Chief Kenton Buckner is black, but he’s an authoritarian viewed with distrust by the Little Rock Black Police Officers Association. His idea of community policing is to step up traffic stops in the inner city. An inner city anti-crime group rankles Chief Buckner as well,

with its criticism of communitypolice relations. Last week, that group was working with Russ Racop, a blogger on MAX BRANTLEY government topics maxbrantley@arktimes.com and a candidate for the City Board, to expose a Facebook comment by a member of the current crop of Little Rock police recruits, a white officer from Cabot. “Go night night nigga,” was the caption for his photo of a sleeping fellow soldier posted in 2013. The Black Police Officers want the recruit fired. The recruit who posted the photo said, through a lawyer, that he had only quoted a line from comedian Kevin Hart. He said the sleeping friend had seen it and had no problem. That sounds like a reasonable explanation — as well as another reminder that white people should resist using racial epithets

as black people do among themselves. Less persuasive from the FOP lawyer’s defense was his citation of the use of the N-word by a black recruit in Facebook dialogue with HIS friends. Racop also dug up more social media commentary by another white police officer. He wrote on Facebook that the city is a “craphole” thanks to liberal policymakers such as Mayor Mark Stodola, whom he blamed for making Little Rock a “sanctuary city.” (The Little Rock police force doesn’t run immigration checks on every brown resident who reports a crime for the good reason that this discourages police cooperation.) This particular cop is also anti-Muslim, to the point that he seemed to suggest genocide as a solution. His support for neo-Confederate causes was benign by comparison. Complaints have now been filed about this officer. It’s difficult territory. Cops are entitled to opinions. And government has restrictions on what steps it can take against those who express opinions, however odious. Whatever the outcome, it’s evident

that race is a city problem and a problem among people hired to keep the peace. In a way, I welcome the openly bigoted. Who knows how many others of his thinking we’ve hired? I’m reminded again of the crazy incentive — free cars — given to 188 officers to commute to homes outside tLittle Rock, not to mention the no-strings $5,000 recruit bonus. I’m not ready to join those who believe we should have a police residency requirement in Little Rock, but I think all incentives should be based on residency, not serve as a disincentive to city residency. If I’m black, brown or Muslim it wouldn’t make me feel warm all over to be stopped by a cop in a black and white vehicle driven home to some white-flight community every night. Missing to date in Little Rock: leadership doing anything about the problem. Instead they make it worse, by aiding destruction of the city school district by N.orthwest Arkansas billionaires and by neighborhood-ravaging freeway expansion designed to get Cabot workers out of this craphole faster every night.

those claims. Anyone is free to believe that sharply reducing the taxes of businessmen— both corporations ERNEST and businesses that DUMAS pass through profits to the owners—will cause a burst of economic growth that will reach down to workers and the unemployed, although there is no modern history of that happening. It happens that there is one simple way to measure the truthfulness of the claims: how it affects Trump himself. “This is going to cost me a fortune,” Trump said in Missouri last week. “This is not good for me.” No one can be sure of the effect on Trump’s fortunes, because he has refused to authorize release of any of his tax returns, and he has suggested that he will fire the independent counsel if he subpoenas the IRS for his returns. But we know enough from the single leak of three pages of his 2005 tax return and his financial reporting as a presidential candidate to figure out how the major provisions of the tax bills generally should affect his business. Lifting the deduction for state and local income and property taxes, which are high in New York state, might cost him some money if

he pays any state and local income taxes now. Beyond that, it’s hard to see where he would be hurt. All the loopholes that help developers and big real-estate owners escape taxes remain intact and many more were created before both the House and Senate finally passed their bills. Let’s look at the major provisions of the bills. The highest marginal rate on corporations is lowered from 35 to 20 percent. That will mean huge payouts to shareholders. By his own claims, Trump is a major shareholder in U.S. corporations. Seventy percent of corporations already pay no federal income tax after availing themselves of all the credits and deductions. Most businesses are pass-through entities such as partnerships, sole proprietorships and limited liability companies, which are assessed under the individual income-tax laws. The top nominal rate of 39.6 percent will fall to 29.6 percent. Far from simplifying the tax code, the Senate bill was larded up with new credits. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the Republican economist who ran the Congressional Budget Office and now heads the conservative think tank American Action Forum, said commercial real estate — the bulk of Trump’s empire — lost nothing in the tax rewrites and, in fact, got even more breaks in the Senate bill, like a shorter depreciation schedule.

Also, rental income, royalty payments and licensing fees, which became giant sources of wealth for Trump after he began renting the Trump name to hotel developers and manufacturers all over the world, get particularly favorable treatment under the new pass-through tax rates. Trump’s financial summary shows income from more than 500 pass-through entities. The most egregious loophole that benefited developers like Trump, that for carried interest, will remain virtually untouched. Trump brags that he is “the king of debt” because his businesses have been highly leveraged by borrowing and interest. The House and Senate bills limit businesses’ tax exemptions for the interest paid — unless the interest is for “any real property trade or business.” Read: Trump enterprises. The leaked three pages of Trump’s 2005 return shows that most of the meager tax he paid was required by the alternative minimum tax, which was enacted to make rich tax dodgers pay something. The Republicans seek to repeal or reduce that tax. Repeal of the 100-year-old estate tax, which taxes the unrealized and untaxed capital gains and other inheritance assets when they exceed $10 million for a couple, will hurt Trump or his heirs exactly how? But he begs you to feel his pain. Millions will.

Tax lies

f Aristotle’s famous principle can be stretched from the theater of art to the theater of politics, we may soon discover whether the Republican tax cuts will challenge the public’s “willing suspension of disbelief.” Will people accept the fiction that the tax cuts will widely help ordinary wage and salary earners and not mainly the very wealthy, as ancient theater goers accepted obvious fiction over reality in order to experience Aristotle’s catharsis and purification? But let’s leave the Greeks out of this, and fake philosophers, too, as Donald J. Trump might tweet. Independent tax analysts with the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation applied each section of the Senate and House tax bills to the IRS’ vast trove of data from 140 million individual tax filers and 1.4 million corporations and concluded that the great bulk of tax relief by 2027 would go to the richest corporations and individuals and that both the bills would add at least a trillion dollars to the national budget deficit while ultimately making millions in the middle class worse off. Polls show that most Americans don’t believe the hype that none of that will happen and that tax cuts favor the middle class, but 60 percent of those who identify themselves as Republicans do believe

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Cats and dogs

THE UNIQUE NEIGHBORHOODS OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS

Full of interesting voices and colorful portraits of 17 Little Rock and North Little Rock neighborhoods, this book gives an intimate, block-by-block, native’s view of the place more than 250,000 Arkansans call home. Created from interviews with residents and largely written by writers who actually live in the neighborhoods they’re writing about, the book features over 90 full color photos by Little Rock photographer Brian Chilson.

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’ve always been leery of people who about when they dislike animals. To my wife and me, sit with their eyes a house without dog hair in the cor- half-closed, lookners and a cat perched on the windowsill ing all smug and is as barren as a highway rest stop. We’re inscrutable? down to three dogs and two cats, the Basically nothGENE smallest menagerie we’ve had for years. i n g , b e c a u s e LYONS Anyway, if you’re a clean freak, you’re they’re just too a freak. Full stop. I’m also uneasy with dumb. people who call domestic animals “fur However, this definition of animal babies.” It’s insulting to their dignity. Also, intelligence strikes me as both reductive individuals who call themselves exclu- and presumptuous. It would also come sively “dog people” or “cat people” simply as a surprise to Albert, who finds outwitlack imaginative sympathy. ting dogs — particularly Daisy the basset Readers are hereby instructed to hound — not much of a strain. adopt these views as their own. At age 12 weeks, Albert was introMe, I also like living among cows and duced to our aggressive Great Pyrenees/ horses, and I miss mine terribly since Anatolian mix Maggie. She shoved her we’ve moved back to town. Recently I muzzle in his face, and — an unusual visited the farm where Stella the cow fellow from the start — he jumped on lives now. When I called, she left the her head. herd and ambled to the gate. I’m sure Maggie thought it was the best thing she was hoping the guy who’d fed her for that ever happened, and adopted him eight years had returned with a bucket for life. Years later, they remain devoted. of grain, but though I didn’t, she let me Albert grew up well protected. We called scratch her ears. Stella was never much him “The Orange Dog,” because of the for petting, so it was a small honor. company he kept and because he came Anyway, those are my qualifications running when called — sometimes from for commenting about an article purport- a quarter mile away. ing to measure the intelligence of dogs However, he also killed every mouse and cats by counting the neurons in the in the barn, and the neighbors’ too. In “gray matter” of their brains. Published in Little Rock he hunts rats. I don’t know the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy, about the richness of Albert’s internal the study by Vanderbilt University Pro- mental state, but he’s extremely good fessor Suzana Herculano-Houzel found at being a cat. that “dogs have about 530 million cortiHere in town, both cats frequently cal neurons while cats have about 250 accompany me and the big dogs on million.” our afternoon walk through the woods Ergo dogs are roughly twice as smart behind the School for the Blind — sprintas cats. Or, in the words of the professor ing ahead, lurking in the tall grass, pounc(who self-identifies as “100 percent a ing and rubbing around our legs. dog person”), “our findings mean to me Martin’s more of a homebody. We call that dogs have the biological capability him “The Sleep Aide.” of doing much more complex and flexThen there’s Jesse, a Great Pyrenees ible things with their lives than cats can.” — large livestock-protecting dogs bred True, you don’t see many cats herd- for centuries to exercise independent ing sheep; seeing-eye cats are rare. But judgment and courage. So they’re hard then we didn’t adopt our two orange to train. They don’t retrieve, herd, trail tabbies Albert and Martin for their SAT game or point birds. Maybe they come scores. Also, after I broke several ribs in when you call, maybe not if they’re busy. a fall from a horse last year, it was Albert People they like in their aloof way; chilwho turned himself from an outdoor to dren they love. an indoor cat and sat by me for weeks. Just don’t mess with anything they’re The dogs appeared not to notice. guarding. Herculano-Houzel believes that the On a country outing, my wife once “absolute number of neurons an animal inadvertently walked between a mama has, especially in the cerebral cortex, cow and her newborn calf. She lowered determines the richness of their inter- her head and charged. It may have been a nal mental state.” bluff, but we’ll never know. Jesse was on If true, this would solve a mystery that her in a flash. That cow wanted no part of has puzzled philosophers from ancient him. It was over before I knew it started. Egypt to the crazy cat lady down the Sometimes, see, only a big dog will block: What exactly are cats thinking do.

SEPTEMBER 11-27, 2015 (501) 378-0405 | TheRep.org

Cities’ future

ichard Florida’s 2002 book “The portation issues Rise of the Creative Class” was have made daily one of the most important her- life increasingly alds of life in this century. In it, Florida arduous. Finally, argued that those cities that were most the “success” of successful in luring “creative workers” cities has created JAY who “engage in creative problem- a sharp contrast BARTH solving, drawing on complex bodies of with a less hopeknowledge to solve specific problems” ful rural life that set the stage for the would be the places that thrived eco- rise of Trumpist nationalism. nomically. From passage of expansive To his credit, Florida does not simply anti-discrimination laws and omnipres- throw up his hands about the problems ent Wi-Fi to a bevy of restaurants with that his original vision helped perpetulocally sourced food, the strategies that ate. Instead, in “The New Urban Cricities could implement to enhance the sis,” he presents an array of proposals real and perceived quality of life for to guide cities in maximizing the bensuch workers would push those cit- efits of the creative class while showing ies to the front of the line. In contrast, awareness of their risks: those communities that resisted social • Ensuring affordable rental options change and held on to traditional eco- remain available across the city; nomic development practices, such as • Paying as much attention to turning stadium projects and corporate welfare, service jobs into middle-class careers as would atrophy. to continuing to recruit creative-class From Austin to San Diego, an array opportunities; of cities embraced Florida’s perspective • Investing in infrastructure that creand produced a great renaissance of the ates quality of life along with other projAmerican city in the George W. Bush ects that benefit lower-income families; and Obama eras. High-tech workers • Preventing segregation by discourmoved back into the urban cores, keep- aging the creation of creative enclaves; ing downtown areas lively after work • Creating structure so that all neighhours and ushering in approaches such borhoods maintain a political voice. as multimodal transportation. HowWhere does that leave Little Rock ever, despite the energy and wealth as it prepares for a 2018 election that that are now fundamental attributes promises to focus on what kind of future of many cities across the United States it will have? First, it does seem that (and in other First World countries), many of the initial promises of a crea darker side to urban regeneration ative-class focused economy remain has emerged. very much alive in a place that remains In “The New Urban Crisis” pub- affordable. Many who have been priced lished earlier this year, Florida returns out of places like Austin could be with a decidedly different take on the attracted to a city like Little Rock. While state of the city. Now, Florida contends Little Rock was slow to center its energy that the most successful cities have on a creative class-oriented economic become the victims of their own suc- development, most now recognize that cess during this era of urban rebirth. an economically vibrant Greater Little Cities like San Francisco have become Rock will be brought about through so expensive that a combination of three high-tech entrepreneurialism. things has occurred: increased and deep Just as important, however, is the set inequality between a new urban bour- of lessons from Florida’s latest analysis. geoisie and the urban poor; many work- Any such success in developing a booming class and poor families pushed out ing creative economy will be underto suburbs typically ill-prepared to deal mined if the city’s historic segregation with an economically disadvantaged is only enhanced by it, if no hope for a citizenry; and the middle-class and the middle-class future can be seen in the younger creative types who fuel the neighborhoods to the east of Interstate city’s energy no longer able to afford life 30 and south of I-630, if investments are in the city. Additionally, because of the not made in a smart public transportafact that the creative class tends to con- tion system and in truly affordable housgregate in certain areas of the city, seg- ing, and if fundamental governmental regation has become even more deeply reform that makes all neighborhoods entrenched in all but a handful of these feel as though they have a voice in the cities. In numerous cities — with Austin city’s future is not adopted. These other as perhaps the best example — trans- questions are just as important.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

o regrettably borrow from Bon to skirt accountability for whatever Jovi (and Lord knows I’m not go- decision is soon to be made. After all, ing to cite him much here), Ar- Long’s three hires for the position — kansas is halfway there in filling two Bobby Petrino, John major athletic department vacancies, L. Smith and Bielema and at least as of the time of this writing, — were all disasters livin’ on a prayer to plug the remaining for varying reasons. void. There is so much Jeff Long’s successor as athletic scuttlebutt now director was announced Monday, and about Chad Mor- BEAU WILCOX it’s Hunter Yurachek, a name that wasn’t ris and Brent Vennecessarily on anyone’s radar. Granted, ables and Mike Norvell, what with the rumor mill about the head athletic the absurd Gus Malzahn power-play administrator job churns at a snail’s pace, episode in the rearview, that it does and at a lower profile, than the football make some sense if Yurachek is influcoaching position. But Yurachek’s short encing this, as he knows about Mor( just shy of three years) tenure in the ris and Norvell from being a Group of same capacity at the University of Hous- Five AD, and he can see the virtue of ton, plus a four-year run in the AD chair bringing in a talented coordinator like at Coastal Carolina prior thereto, didn’t Venables because Tom Herman put in exactly signal him as a favorite. two great years as the Cougars’ football Whatever swayed those in charge coach after being Ohio State’s offensive about Yurachek, it’s evident that he’s of coordinator. (Note: Yurachek did not the go-getter mold. At 49, he enters the hire Herman, as he was brought on to job just a tick older than Long was when replace Mack Rhoades in the spring he took the reins of the department in of 2015.) 2007, but with undeniably impressive As for this football coaching vacancy, credentials. He also, to be clear, is every it remains to be seen if Arkansas is going bit as foreign as Long was to the rigors to take a stab at a defensive whiz like of big-dollar, bigger-expectation per- Venables, or an up-tempo offensive formance that the Southeastern Confer- mind like Norvell or Morris. There’s a ence demands. Yurachek is, ironically, bit of a belief, I guess, that Arkansas’s cut from a very similar cloth to the one only way to genuinely compete in this from which Long came: He’s a Virginian, hellish league is to try to outscore oppowhereas Long was reared in Ohio, and nents. That was the reason Petrino was his professional ledger has found him plucked away from the NFL, because his climbing the ladder all over the map, but brand of football was exciting and comonly sporadically in the Southern states. pletely counterculture in this smashAnd he’s walking into a minefield, mouth state. Norvell and Morris both, fiscally and otherwise. With a bloated being coordinators of substantial acuexpansion to Reynolds Razorback Sta- men at big schools before getting their dium ongoing, and growing discontent head coaching shots at Memphis and over the state of the football program SMU, respectively, would bring that that occupies it, Yurachek faces a chal- same brand, with less abrasiveness and lenge even more daunting than the one perhaps a more approachable recruitLong endured when he was tabbed to ing philosophy. supplant Frank Broyles a decade ago. But let this be Pearls’ desperate advoLong’s tenure ended in mid-November cacy for a guy like Venables, too, who largely because the cash cow he had is an unquestioned titan as a longtime nurtured was not performing, due to defensive coordinator at two major proa flyer he took on a coaching hire that grams, first Oklahoma and then Clemmay have been made as much on sen- son. He lost a little luster while in Nortiment as it was on performance. Bret man because the Sooners’ wide-open Bielema wasn’t a bad hire despite all the offense led them into a lot of shootouts, revisionist history outpouring now: His but he’s a two-time Broyles Award final68-24 record in seven years at Wisconsin ist (and winner in 2016) for the work made him, by far, the most accomplished he’s done in Death Valley the past few major college coach that the University seasons. And here is the real quandary: of Arkansas has ever poached for the job. It seems like finding a gifted offensive Yurachek may be having some input playcaller these days is pretty easy, but on who’s replacing Bielema, but to be finding a bright defensive guy is a rare honest, he may be better off being able thing.

THE OBSERVER

We are where you are.

NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

he day this issue hits the streets child’s father. The job is not over, of this week is Junior’s 18th birth- course, not until they lay The Observer day, if you can believe it. The Ob- in the clay, but you get what we mean. server surely can’t. All the long years If you don’t, maybe you will somewe’ve known that baby and boy and day. As we learned soon after Junior now man have slipped past in less time, — born on the bayou, in Lafayette it seemed, than it takes to wipe a tear General Hospital, way down in south from the cheek. Louisiana — came home, they don’t If you’ve watched this space for the give you an instruction manual on past 16 years or so, you’ve seen that child your way out the door of the matergrow up before your eyes, or at least in nity ward. All you’ve got is that grand your imagination. The Observer, who old standby: The Best You Damn Well often goes to the well of our own expe- Can. That is what we have tried to do. rience when we’re hurting for an offer- When he turned 13, The Observer wrote ing to leave on the altar of Great God of him a clumsy poem to mark the occaAll Journalists Phil D. Hole, has often sion. It still applies. Happy birthday, fallen back on Junior’s trials, turmoil Sam. You make your old man proud and tribulations to gin up column inches every day. over the years. Fatherhood — which we I am no poet came to with a nervousness and sense But I will write one for you, because of apprehension that still hasn’t fled — you have suffered me: has been good for Yours Truly, at least Where is the child I knew? career-wise. Whose cry I wept and blubbered over His Dear Pa both envies him and Until a nurse took my elbow and ushfears for him here on the doorstep of ered me out? adulthood, for the same reason: The Who I once held cupped in both my road in front of him is so much longer hands at this point than it is for his old man, All of you in one place for the only so full of bends and long straightaways, time in your life? so much intrigue and sorrow, days and Time has replaced you, cell by cell nights full of … who can say? We have Made you taller than me at that age, tried, in our clumsy way, to instill in him Taller, nearly, than my own father both the things we wish we’d known ever was and the hard lessons visited upon us: Mist on your cheekbones telling me that women are no more or less strong, The clock is always sweeping toward capable, fragile or ethical than men; daylight. that he should never be ashamed of a When you remember me someday work shirt, but value a nice suit even Separated by distance and eventufor occasions other than weddings and ally more, funerals; that out of every 10 people, Don’t remember me in my failures regardless of gender, orientation, reliA thought worse than the grave gion, cash flow or color, there will be a That longer death of having the best solid 10 percent you can count on and of me forgotten. 30 percent with all the brains God gave Instead, remember me as I remember a ferret; lefty-loosey, righty-tighty; that my own father: he should save his apologies for when he In dusk, in firelight, at the darkest ebb truly screws up and his attempts at jus- of the eclipse tifying bad behavior for God; that money Walking in steep and treacherous can’t buy happiness, but it can buy him places time to find it; that he should take care Surefooted enough that I can rememof his teeth, feet and back, because when ber they’re kaput, he’ll miss them. Every time I ever saw him stumble What a thing it has been to be that And save himself from gravity.

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DRIVERS PLEASE BE AWARE, IT’S ARKANSAS STATE LAW: USE OF BICYCLES OR ANIMALS

Every person riding a bicycle or an animal, or driving any animal drawing a vehicle upon a highway, shall have all the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle, except those provisions of this act which by their nature can have no applicability.

OVERTAKING A BICYCLE

The driver of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle proceeding in the same direction on a roadway shall exercise due care and pass to the left at a safe distance of not less than three feet (3’) and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken bicycle.

AND CYCLISTS, PLEASE REMEMBER...

Your bike is a vehicle on the road just like any other vehicle and you must also obey traffic laws— use turning and slowing hand signals, ride on right and yield to traffic as if driving. Be sure to establish eye contact with drivers. Remain visible and predictable at all times.

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

CANNABIZ

Grow date set

he five applicants who will be last week’s Cannabiz column. offered licenses by the state to DiPippa said the 227 dispensary cultivate medical marijuana will applications should be ready for tabube announced on Feb. 27 by the state lation in late April. Medical Marijuana Commission. DiPippa also advised the commisDepartment of Finance and Author- sion to make known those who will be ity lawyer Joel DiPippa told the com- offered dispensary licenses all at one mission at its meeting last week in the time, rather than zone by zone. (There Alcoholic Beverage Control conference are eight zones.) State law says that no room that the members of the board one may own more than one dispensary; will get “depersonalized” applications — by considering all zones at once, the applications with names removed — for commission will avoid running afoul cultivator licenses on Dec. 15 and can of that law, DiPippa said. begin their scoring of the applications The board also agreed to allow applithen. DiPippa suggested the commis- cations from persons whose felony backsion score the 95 applications by Feb. 1, ground checks were delayed through no but Commissioner Dr. Carlos Roman fault of their own and caused them to said that would not give him enough miss an application deadline. time to do a good job, and commission Chairwoman Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman A Little Rock-based financial tech agreed. While the applications are 25 company has announced a partnership pages, most have hundreds of pages of that will provide electronic payments attachments. and banking services to the medical canThe commission settled on 4:30 p.m. nabis industry in Arkansas. In a press Feb. 20 as a deadline to score the appli- release, MediPays said their “closedcations, at which point ABC staff will loop, cashless payment system” will tabulate the scores to determine the be available to patients and cannabistop five scorers. Those top five will be related businesses statewide, allowing announced at a meeting of the commis- transactions by and between patients, sion on Feb. 27. Should there be a tie for dispensaries, cannabis cultivators and fourth place, the commissioners will be cannabis processors. asked to independently re-review the “Banking has been a difficult issue for tied applications. marijuana-related businesses nationThose who are not chosen will be wide, with most being forced to transact refunded $7,500, half their application all in cash,” MediPays co-founder and fee. CEO Brian Bauer said in the release. DiPippa informed the board that “We’ll provide these businesses with once the board is provided the 95 access to the bank accounts and finan“depersonalized” cultivation applica- cial services from which they are now tions, another set will be redacted and generally excluded, and give patients given to the press. DiPippa said the a secure, cashless way to transact. The redacted applications, while they would MediPays platform will also allow businot reveal Social Security or banking nesses to pay bills and vendors, maninformation, would include applicant age company payroll electronically, and names. Roman objected, saying public provides financial data and reporting to release of names to the media would stakeholders and regulators.” compromise the anonymity of the appliAs has been common in behind-thecants and possibly confer an advantage scenes discussions of how to extend on some of the competitors. DiPippa, banking services to the medical canwho said he’d had 80 requests for the nabis industry in the state, the finanapplications under the state Freedom cial institution with which MediPays is of Information Act, responded that he partnering remains undisclosed. Bankwas still looking into case law on how ing in other states where medical and to comply with the FOI. recreational marijuana is legal has been After the meeting, however, DiPippa touch and go over the years, with many cited to media representatives a portion banks refusing to get involved because of the FOIA law that says the public may of marijuana’s classification by the fedbe denied information that may give a eral government as a narcotic, along competitive advantage. So it appears the with the federal drug trafficking and public will not know who has applied for money laundering statutes that could a cultivator license until Feb. 27, which be applicable if the federal agencies contradicts what the Times published in decide to press the issue.

PRESENTS

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arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

Arkansas Reporter

THE

View to a new neighborhood If a park is promised, developer will build. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

umbledow n houses a nd a on collaboration with the Little Rock keeping with the design of the Stifft homeless ca mp occupy a Parks and Recreation Department. Station-Hillcrest tunnels, “to look like secluded rav ine sout h of Baxter has incorporated Capitol they’ve been there for 100 years.” He Markham Street, just west of the View Holdings LLC with two silent said the design of the neighborhood state Capitol. The area, Park and partners for the potential development will be such that residents won’t be Schiller streets on the east and west and West Third and West Second streets on t he nor t h and south, is a triangle of land far below grade of Markham and dead ending at a berm running along the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Drive into t h is forgot ten area of the city — its drainage bad and street upkeep negligible — in the morning and you might see a man doing his best imitation of Alice Cooper emerge from the woods. He may be ca r r y ing a sword. It’s that k i nd of place, A PARK, A PLAN: Baxter’s aerial illustration of his Capitol View East development plans. where the sloping topography from the higher Capital View neighborhood bottoms of what he may name East Capitol able to tell “where the park begins and out. Where attention from the city has View. Capitol Holdings has purchased their land ends.” also petered out. 33 parcels in the neighborhood, for Ba xter env isions a r ust ic But when Jason Baxter looks at this a total of $185,000. Most are east of amphitheater carved from the natural neglected little spit of land, he sees a Park Street. bowl on the northeast edge of the city park, a bike path and a number Baxter says he’ll bring to the table ravine, facing east. He’s even spoken of what he calls “boutique homes” the donation of 11 parcels to a nonprofit to a sculptor about creating a work in landscaping that plays up, rather established by the parks department for the new city park that would be than ignores, a little stream — Rose to create the 4- to 6-acre park. commissioned by the residents. Creek — that borders the area. He’d He’ll also work with the city to build “This whole area is ripe for being like to develop here, but it all depends stone-lined drainage infrastructure in revitalized,” Baxter said in a recent 14

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

interview. To be realized, the plan needs several things to happen: Parks would have to convince the city that a partnership with Baxter would leverage the dollars the department has available to it. Ideally, there would be greater access by way of a new road that would connect to Markham at a stoplight where there is a cul-desac at grade now. “Capitol View/ St i f f t St a t ion would embrace a park in that part of the world ,” M a rk Webre, deput y director of park operations, said. Pa rk ’s m a s t er plan envisions a trail loop around t he c it y t h at would connect with the River Trail and provide routes within the city to connect the nor th a nd south loops. The cit y ha s built a s eg ment of the Rose Creek Trail in Capitol View, but it is only two blocks. Building the trail to pass beneath the Markham Street bridge presents several engineering difficulties, but Webre, like Baxter, is unafraid to envision a great trail system even when dollars are scarce. (One mile of trail costs “very roughly” $500,000, Webre said.) Playing into whatever optimism exists is work by Moses Tucker real

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estate agents Matthew Beachboard and Eric Nelson on behalf of several owners of land north of Markham on the west side of the railroad tracks, where the Rose Creek trail would continue on its way to the River Trail. Beachboard and Nelson are working with the landowners to develop the property into residential and commercial lots, and Baxter believes development would create more incentive for the city to build a new, traffic-controlled intersection on Markham to link properties north and south. Baxter said he first learned from Capitol View residents that the property along Rose Creek was planned for a park and trail, and he then went to city officials to confirm that. He said he wasn’t sold on developing the area, however, until he met Chuck Flink of ALTA Planning in Durham, N.C., a company Baxter described as a “highend trail builder.” Baxter said Flink proved that greenbelts rejuvenate neighborhoods with the company’s development of the Razorback Trail that links Fayetteville to Bella Vista as proof. (ALTA has also done a feasibility study for the Southwest Trail Corridor that would connect Pulaski County with Saline and Garland counties. The counties recently received federal dollars for an engineering study.) Baxter does not own all the parcels that would line the city park; three family trusts and other owners hold parcels sprinkled throughout the neighborhood. Baxter is in negotiation to buy a 34th parcel, he said. The city owns one parcel, donated by former Mayor Jim Dailey. Should the city somehow decide to fund a park along Rose Creek, Baxter would build 22 houses on the parcels he owns. They would be around 1,200 square feet and sell between $195,000 and $210,000. Baxter plans to use concrete structural panels rather than stick-built framing — “they make mold a non-issue” — and help block out sound from nearby trains. There would also be shared outdoor greenspace for gatherings, a trend in pocket neighborhood development. He estimates the project cost at between $4 million and $6 million.

THE

Inconsequential News Quiz:

BIG Blesser of Two Evils PICTURE

Edition

Play at home, while twisting your ethics into a pretzel for political purposes! 1) Tully Borland, a professor at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, recently published an opinion piece in the far-right journal The Federalist in which he offered his opinions on Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. Which of the following was included in the piece? A) That Moore’s practice of dating girls as young as 14 when Moore, now 70, was in his 30s was common back then, and had “some merit,” because if a couple wants a large family, “the wife must start raising kids when she is young.” B) That a high school yearbook signed by Moore in 1977 and produced by a woman who has accused Moore of trying to sexually assault her when she was 16 “appears to have been doctored.” C) That even if the accusations against Moore are true — which include allegations that Moore attempted to sexually assault a 16-year-old, touched a 14-year-old’s breasts and genitals and guided her hand to his crotch, and was watched like a hawk at a local mall and high school sporting events because he kept hitting on underage girls — Moore is still “a lesser of two evils” who Christian voters can support while not compromising their faith or integrity, because Moore’s opponent supports abortion rights. D) All of the above. 2) Borland and Ouachita Baptist University later released a statement related to Borland’s writing in The Federalist. Which of the following was included in the statement? A) That, as with last weekend’s tweet in which President Trump apparently admitted to the impeachable offense of obstruction of justice, the article was actually authored by Convenient Scapegoat Lawyer No. 11. B) That a planned campus visit by contestants with the Miss Teen Arkansas Pageant had been unexpectedly canceled. C) That OBU doesn’t “condone sexual assault,” along with a statement in which Borland struck a blow for Christian decency by saying he believes pedophilia “is contrary to biblical truth and my personal values.” D) That if you ever find it necessary to make a public statement clarifying that pedophilia is contrary to your personal values, you probably have a pretty screwed set of personal values. 3) A new, $460 million shallow water combat ship will be commissioned by the U.S. Navy in Buffalo, N.Y., on Dec. 17. What’s the name of the ship? A) The U.S.S. What We Bought Instead Of Building 300 New High Schools. B) The U.S.S. Deficit. C) The U.S.S. George W. Bush (nicknamed “The Mighty Dumbass”). D) The U.S.S. Little Rock. 4) Some big news for cannabis growers in Arkansas is scheduled for Feb. 27. What is it? A) The Little Rock stop of Cheech and Chong’s national “Marijuana Won’t Actually Turn You Into an Iguana” tour. B) Announcement of the applicants who scored highest in the competition to be awarded one of the state’s five cannabis cultivation licenses. C) A second attempt, overseen by representatives of the Guinness Book of World Records and sponsored by Zig Zag, to roll a bus-sized hooter on the Walmart parking lot in Rose City. D) The moment when the thousands of pounds of marijuana seed needed to begin cannabis cultivation in Arkansas magically appears in the state without breaking federal law. 5) Prosecutors in Bentonville recently dropped all charges in a 2015 murder case that received national attention. What was unique about the case? A) Shockingly, Breitbart and Infowars reported that neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton were involved in the death, even though it happened in Arkansas. B) Prosecutors had sought electronic records from the accused’s Amazon Echo device, apparently hoping the gadget had picked up sounds of a struggle. C) Death by chocolate. D) Prosecutors alleged the victim was literally bored to death during a screening of a Scandinavian art house film. Answers: D, C, D, B, B

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arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

The art of giving Walton Family to provide $120 million for UA school. By Leslie Newell Peacock

$2 million to programs to be offered at tions totaling $750,000 to the University Arkansas Children’s Northwest. of Arkansas at Fort Smith. Kaaren Biggs and Packaging SpeDenise Henderson of Hot Springs cialties Inc. of Fayetteville gave $2 mil- pledged $600,000 to the University of lion to Arkansas Children’s Northwest. A Arkansas. conference space will be named for the Jerry and Kay Brewer of FayetteBiggs family and PSI. ville pledged $500,000 to create the The Arkansas Forestry Associa- Brewer Family Entrepreneurship Hub, tion’s Log A Load for Kids gave Arkansas and their son and daughter-in-law, Clete Children’s Hospital $575,000, as part of and Tammy Brewer, will give another its $2 million pledge to the emergency $100,000. department. The Ryan Gibson Foundation is Barbara A. Tyson and Tyson Foods giving $500,000 to fund the precision made a gift of $1.5 million to the David medicine program at Arkansas Chiland Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas dren’s Hospital. The gift was a challenge Oral and Visual History in the J. William response to a gift by Haskell Dickinson Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the Trinity Foundation pledge of $1 to create the KATV, Channel 7, Preser- million for the program. vation Project. The Nabholz Charitable FoundaFadil Bayyari and family of Spring- tion donated $450,000 to Arkansas Childale gave $1 million to support the con- dren’s Hospital to provide scholarships struction of Arkansas Children’s Hospital for nursing education. Northwest. The family respite area will Ben and Janet Hyneman of Jones-

ealth care for children and pro- Hodges said in a press release announcgrams at universities got a boost ing the gift. “In a lot of ways,” Hulen from Arkansas’s philanthro- said, “what were really taking on is the pists this year, but nothing compares to land grant mission of the university … the single $120 million gift from the Wal- and that will not just facilitate art. It’s ton Family Foundation to create a School not just about art.” Hulen says the art of Art at the University of Arkansas. school will reach out to students across The foundation’s pledge, to be made the state who might not even be considover five years, is the largest gift to an ering college. American university to establish an art The gift will also bolster the economy school, the university said in announcing surrounding the cultural corridor in the the donation, made in August. northwest region of the state that CrysAlso in the arts philanthropy picture, tal Bridges Museum of American Art the Windgate Charitable Foundation of and the future arts project The MomenSiloam Springs, which donated $20 mil- tary anchor, Hulen said. “If you look at lion to UA Little Rock to build its new any arts community — Providence [R.I.], visual arts building, which will open in Kansas City, Richmond [Va.] — it’s the January, made a $15 million gift to Crys- art schools who have a lot to do with the tal Bridges Museum of American Art to rising economy.” endow the Windgate Educational ExcelHulen said over 80 million people lence through the Arts fund. have clicked on the link to the gift from Arkansas Children’s Hospital’s cam- the university’s webpage. She expects paign to raise funds for the $427.7 mil- recruiting for the 26 new faculty posilion Northwest Arkansas campus has tions will not be difficult. A director for continued apace with foundation and the school should be hired by spring. individual giving for the hospital, which “I’m just really hopeful this whole will open in spring 2018 on Interstate 49 region will be transformed for the visual in Springdale on land donated by Robin and performing arts,” she said. and Gary George and Cathy and David Theater is also getting a shot in the Evans and their families. The hospital arm, thanks to the Walton Family Founwill have 24 inpatient beds, a 24-hour dation’s pledged of a total of $12.5 milpediatric Emergency Department, an lion in two grants to TheatreSquared for outpatient clinic, Angel One helipad and construction of its new 50,000-square- CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL NORTHWEST: To open in Springdale in 2018, thanks to diagnostic services. foot theater in Fayetteville. The founda- numerous philanthropic gifts. Jeannie Hulen, interim director of the tion also made a grant of $1.8 million for be named for the Bayyari family. boro committed $375,000 in 2016 to creSchool of Art, with Blake Rickman of the programming. The city of Fayetteville The Schmieding Foundation of ate the Janet and Ben Hyneman LeadUA advancement office and Dean Todd has pledged $3.1 million to the theater. Springdale donated $1 million to Arkan- ership Endowment at the University of Shields, worked on a proposal for the The Arkansas Times’ philanthropy sas Children’s Hospital Northwest, earn- Arkansas. School of Art over two years. The uni- honor roll includes these significant ing naming rights for the occupational The Bradbury Family Foundation versity’s obligation will be to double its donors announced since December 2016: and physical therapy gym. donated $300,000 to Arkansas State programming dollars over the next five The estate of Jim and Wanda Lee Tyson Foods chairman John Tyson University to endow the Bradbury Free years, from $3.2 million to $6.7 million. donated $3.69 million to Arkansas State pledged an additional $1 million to the Enterprise Scholars Program, which will The Walton gift will provide $10 mil- University to endow chairs, scholarships, Don Tyson Center for Agricultural Stud- provide six scholarships every year to lion for renovation of the university’s art gallery support and student life. ies, named for the company’s founder. business students. Edward Durrell Stone Fine Arts Center J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. The Tyson family and Tyson Foods proAaron and Jaye Marshall of Fayetteand $110 million into an endowment, to of Lowell gave $2.75 million to the Uni- vided $5 million for construction of the ville gave $250,000 to Arkansas Chilbe distributed at 4 percent of available versity of Arkansas to create the J.B. center; John Tyson’s gift will go to fur- dren’s Northwest. funds yearly. Hunt Innovation Center of Excellence nishings. Les and Leslie Carnine pledged Hulen said the proposal was based to advance supply chain management The Leonard Johnson Trust is giv- $250,000 to the University of Arkanon “what we think we can do and are efficiency. ing $1 million to Arkansas Children’s sas’s College of Education and Health able to do and what we do really well but Ted and Leslie Belden of Fayette- Northwest. The diagnostic center will Professions. don’t have funding to do better.” Already, ville made a $2 million planned gift to be named for Kathleen Johnson. Vicki and Gary Jech of Springdale she said, the UA has a solid arts faculty the University of Arkansas to support Joanie and Jon Dyer contributed donated $250,000 to Arkansas Children’s foundation and graduate programs. faculty, students and athletics. $1 million to the construction of Arkan- Northwest. A waiting area will be named “Now, we’ll be able to establish that on The Massey Family Charitable sas Children’s Hospital Northwest. The for the Jech family. a grander scale,” she said. Foundation committed $2 million to emergency department will be named Hogs for Hope, an organization of With the Walton gift, the university the University of Arkansas’s Advance after the Dyer family. students at the University of Arkansas at will be a “model for inclusion and diver- Arkansas scholarship initiative. The estate of former Fort Smith City Fayetteville, pledged $250,000 to Arkansity,” UA Foundation President Kaneaster The Endeavor Foundation gave Administrator Ray Gosack made dona- sas Children’s Northwest. 16

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Serve NWA Giving Laundry Love. By David Koon

DAVID KOON

n a recent Friday night, nine years, coordinates Serve NWA’s Westwood Center Laundromat, Laundry Love initiative. Martin said tucked away off the main drag that part of the issue with homeless in Rogers, was full of people talking, outreach in the area has always been laughing and eating a buffet-style dinner while a gaggle of kids darted among the big coin-operated washers and dryers, their clothes a colorful, sudsy whirl inside. Though some of those in attendance were volunteers, marked by white aprons stuffed with quarters to run the washers and dryers, most of them were there to do something a lot of us take for granted: to wash and dry a few loads of clothes. The monthly Laundry Love events in Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville are one of several initiatives of the Northwest Arkansas group Serve NWA, a nonprofit that grew from The Cobblestone Project founded in 2008. The events allow homeless and low-income residents to take care of a necessity that’s often overlooked by other charities, but that can quickly add up to a sizable expense. The largest washers at the Westwood Center Laundromat, for example, cost $5 in quarters to wash a double-size load, plus more for the dryer. Serve NWA also hosts a monthly “Art In The Park” event in Fayetteville and get-togethers to assemble and distribute packs of basic hygiene products. A clean, safe camp for the homeless is another Serve NWA goal: With its New Beginnings Community project, the nonprofit hopes to establish a permanent camp for the homeless at a site on 19th Street in Fayetteville. Serve NWA is taking a “housing first” approach to homelessness by giving people safe “microshelters” before working on sobriety, drug treatment and mental health issues that may have contributed to the person’s homelessness. The proposed camp would host up to 25 people, and would that people don’t think of poverty include a fenced perimeter, running and homelessness when they think of water and bathrooms. Residents Northwest Arkansas, even though the would be allowed to stay there for up 2017 Community and Family Institute to 180 days. The Fayetteville Planning Homeless Report estimates there were Commission unanimously approved a more than 2,900 homeless people in permit for the camp Nov. 13. The plan Benton and Washington counties, a next goes before the Fayetteville City figure that has jumped 20 percent in Council for final approval. only two years. “When you think of Ch r i s t ie M a r t i n , who h a s Benton County, you think of Walmart volunteered with Serve NWA for and the [Walmart] supplier community

and a lot of wealth,” Martin said. “So it’s staggering, the numbers hidden in the woodwork. It’s really evident when you really start looking at the schools, the number of children who are food insecure, and things like that.” Martin said the Laundry Love initiative, which costs around $500 in quarters per event (soap and other products are donated by Gain laundry detergent), restores dignity to the people it serves, whether they’re

homeless or just looking to save money for necessities like food, medicine or clothing. “There’s a confidence that comes with being able to present yourself in a way that makes you feel good and makes you feel more connected with those around you,” she said. “Having clean clothes helps you to feel confident about yourself, and that stretches into other parts of life.” Betsy Clark, a Rogers resident who

suffers from multiple sclerosis and who lost her home during the last recession, has been coming to the Laundry Love event for nine months. She called the ability to do half her monthly washing for free “a godsend.” “It’s really been helpful. Terribly helpful. Awesome,” she said. “I can’t always afford to do laundry. … Clean clothes are an important thing in life, so it’s nice to have that. It’s something that you don’t realize you need until you don’t have ‘SOMETHING YOU it. You have $5 a DON’T REALIZE load for laundry YOU NEED UNTIL and then a couple YOU DON’T HAVE dollars for the IT’: Betsy Clark dryer, that’s a big says Serve NWA’s Laundry Love deal, especially to has been “terribly low income and helpful.” disabled people.” N e a r b y , Jonat ha n a nd Ca rla Escoba r were wa sh ing clothes while their children, Xzavier and Hazel, played nearby. Jonathan Escobar said they learned about the program after coming to the laundromat to do their wash. With growing kids and no washer or dryer at home, Escobar said, the laundry can really pile up, leading to a big expense at the laundromat. “It saves us money for other things around the house — groceries or stuff that we need, stuff that the kids need for school,” he said. “I like this program. It helps a lot of people out and helps keep them from struggling. We’re trying to make it a thing for us to spread the love and the word to people who can’t wash at their house.” In her time coming to the event, Betsy Clark said, she’s come to think of some of the volunteers and other participants she sees and eats with there every month as her brothers and sisters. Even after she gets her apartment in coming months, she said, she’ll likely come back as a volunteer, or to do a load of laundry every once in a while. “I very blessed. I feel a blessing for every one of them,” she said. “Having clean clothes is important. I watched ‘Little House on the Prairie!’ I can’t imagine bathing once a month. It’s the same with washing clothes. You have to have clean underwear at least! You might be in a wreck, like your mother said.” For more information about its initiatives to help homeless or low income people in Northwest Arkansas, or to donate to or volunteer with Serve NWA, visit its website at serveNWA. org. arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

What the 990s tell us Grantmaking foundation assets, giving

esides other announced gifts, the state’s top grantmaking foundations revealed total grantmaking for 2016 on their 990 nonprofit tax returns. What follows is an overview of those foundations, their total assets and grant totals.

The Walton Family Foundation

The Walton Family Foundation, headquartered in Bentonville, makes grants in three major areas: K-12 education, including public charter school startups; environmental causes; and “home region” gifts, which go largely to the Delta and Northwest Arkansas. The foundation now has assets approaching $4 billion — $3,783,627,318 to be precise — and made $439.1 million in grants. Of those grants, $48.6 million went to “home region” projects, benefiting Northwest Arkansas and the Delta; $190.9 million went to K-12 education; $83.2 million went to environmental concerns, especially ocean conservation; and $131.7 million to “special projects” across the country. The foundation has committed over $1 billion over five years to its education reform program. The largest grant to an Arkansas nonprofit reported on the foundation’s 2016 990 tax return was $10.8 million for the Bentonville/Bella Vista Trailblazers Association Inc., reflecting the thirdgeneration Walton family’s interest in biking and hiking trails in the region. The foundation provided another $10.2 million grant to the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville. Other multimillion-dollar grants went to eStem Charter Schools Inc. ($4.9 million), Arkansas Children’s Hospital ($3 million), Camp War Eagle ($5.9 million), the University of Arkansas ($2.3 million), KIPP Delta schools ($2 million), the Northwest Arkansas Community College Foundation ($4.9 million), the Northwest Arkansas Council Foundation ($2.1 million), and TheatreSquared ($2.1 million). The foundation gives millions to charter school education. The foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals except those from public charter school developers. (For more information, go to waltonfamilyfoundation.org.)

The Walton Charitable Support Foundation 18

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The Walton family’s charitable support foundation supports the Arkansas Community Foundation and several universities. In 2016, the foundation had total assets of $675.9 million. Its total grantmaking of $38.8 million included a grant of $31.8 million to the ACF, grants of $2.4 million each to John Brown University in Siloam Springs and the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, and $2 million to Harding University in Searcy. The foundation does not accept unsolicited requests.

The Arkansas Community Foundation

The ACF primarily manages funds for donors wishing to make charitable gifts without having to establish and run a foundation. Most grants are donor-directed. The ACF also awards grants directly from its own foundation. Nonprofits may apply for grants directly to the foundation for its Giving Tree grants, which support a broad range of causes; Arkansas Black Hall of Fame grants, which serve African-American and other minority communities; Arkansas Delta Endowment for Building Community grants; and Bridge Fund grants for education and the promotion of the study of Arkansas history. It has 27 affiliates across Arkansas. For 2016, the ACF had total assets of $278.9 million and oversaw grants totaling $16.9 million.

The Windgate Charitable Foundation Inc.

Windgate, in Siloam Springs, makes grants to institutions that teach art and contemporary crafts and to Christian higher education, primarily John Brown University. Windgate is second only to the Walton Family Foundation in grants made to Arkansas institutions. At the end of 2016, Windgate had total assets of $235.5 million and its 2016 grants totaled $54.8 million. Its multimillion-dollar grants went to UA Little Rock (several grants totaling $9.9 million, the lion’s share for the new visual arts building that will open next year); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville ($5 million); John Brown University ($3.1 million); and the Arkansas Arts Center ($2 million for its expansion and renovation and

another $200,000 for salaries and operating expenses). The Windgate 2016 tax report also reports grants approved for 2017 payout: $15 million to the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education; $5 million for the Arkansas Arts Center; $10 million for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; $2 million for Hendrix College; and nearly $2 million for UA Little Rock. Deadlines to submit grant proposals are March 1, July 1 and Oct. 1. Requests should be sent to Windgate Charitable Foundation, P.O. Box 826, Siloam Springs, AR, 72761-0826. Call 479-524-9829 for more information.

The Endeavor Foundation

This Springdale foundation was created with proceeds from the sales of two hospitals. The foundation’s mission is to ensure “that all residents of Northwest Arkansas are mentally and physically healthy, safe, and economically and socially stable.” For 2016, the foundation reported total assets of $156 million and $9.3 million in grants. Its largest grant was $2 million for Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The foundation initiates its grantmaking.

The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation

The WRF, in Little Rock, created by the Winthrop Rockefeller Trust, makes grants to charities that work to reduce poverty, increase educational opportunities and graduation rates, and improve economic mobility in Arkansas, all part of its Move the Needle plan. It has been instrumental in the creation of several nonprofits that benefit life in Arkansas, including the Arkansas Community Foundation and Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. For 2016, the foundation reported total assets of $129.7 million and grants totaling $3.5 million. Among the grants were several worth more than $1 million to the ACF, and $500,000 to Uplift America. Nonprofits and schools in Arkansas may apply; find instructions at wrfoundation. org. The 2016 990 form for the Winthrop Rockefeller Trust, which supports the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, was unavailable at press time. In 2015, the foundation reported net assets of $112.2 million and grants of $5.8 million. Of that total, $5.6 million went to operations for the Rockefeller Institute.

The Ross Foundation

This Arkadelphia foundation, established by Jane and Esther Ross,

makes health and education grants primarily in Clark County. For 2 016 , t he f ou nd at ion reported $95.7 million in fair market value and $359,391 in cash grants. Its major grant recipient is the Arkadelphia Promise program, which awards college scholarships to graduating high school seniors in Arkadelphia; the program received a grant of $351,684 in 2016. Information on how to apply for a grant is on the foundation’s website, rossfoundation.us.

The Charles A. Frueauff Foundation

The Frueauff Foundation, named for its founder, a New York lawyer, awards grants in the areas of education, human services and health in several states. Information on how to apply for a grant can be found at frueauff.org. For 2016, the foundation reported $108 million in net assets and $4.8 million in grants.

The Jones Trust

Created by Northwest Arkansas trucking magnate Harvey and Bernice Jones of Springdale, the Jones Trust supports the Jones Family Center and the Center for Nonprofits. For 2016, the trust reported total assets of $59.6 million and grantmaking of $655,364, all of which went to the Jones Family Center. The Jones Trust directs its giving.

The Murphy Foundation

The Murphy Foundation of El Dorado, founded in 1959, which provides scholarships to every college-bound high school senior in El Dorado, as well as gifts to nonprofits working in a variety of areas and schools, provided $1.3 million in 2016 to the El Dorado Festivals and Events nonprofit to create the Murphy Arts District, which launched this year with a concert by big-name entertainers like Brad Paisley, Smokey Robinson and Ludacris. For 2 016 , t he f ou nd at ion reported $46.2 million in total assets and a total of $3 million in grants, including $554,428 in scholarship gifts.

The Schmieding Foundation

Founded in 1999 in Springdale, the Schmieding Foundation funds the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ Schmieding Center for Senior Health and Education and numerous other charities benefiting children and adults in Washington, Benton and Pulaski counties. For 2016, the foundation had assets of

KFSM, CH. 5

BREAKING GROUND: A Walton Foundation grant helped build a new biking/hiking trail in Bella Vista.

$36.8 million and paid $4.4 million in grants. Its major gift in 2016 was $768,794 to the UAMS Foundation. The foundation takes grant requests; deadlines are March 31 and Sept. 15. For more information, call 479-751-8639.

The Pat and Willard Walker Charitable Foundation

The Walker Foundation was founded in 2004 in Fayetteville and funds charitable, religious, scientific, literary and educational projects. Find application information at walkerfoundation.org. The 2016 990 was not available at press time. In 2015, the foundation reported net assets of $35.3 million and made grants totaling $3.5 million. Its major gifts in 2015 included $1.5 million to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, $726,000 to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and $402,000 to Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

The Horace C. Cabe Foundation

The founder of the Gurdon Lumber Co. established this foundation in 1992. The foundation prefers to fund capital projects with specific needs within a defined time frame. The foundation board of directors initiates grants, but all inquiries are provided to the board; contact the foundation at 903-794-2223. For 2016 , t he f ou nd at ion reported $31.4 million in total assets and $1.5 million in grants. The foundation’s six-figure grants went again to Wildwood Park for the Arts ($175,000) and the Baptist Health Foundation ($161,700).

The Tyson Family Foundation Inc.

The late Tyson Foods CEO Don Tyson

established the family foundation in 1970. It provides funds to the Jones Trust in Springdale and scholarship grants to colleges and universities. For 2016, the foundation reported assets of $25.8 million and grants of $3 million, including $1.4 million for scholarships.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation

This Las Vegas-headquartered foundation, created by the founder of Donrey Media Group to benefit projects in Arkansas, Nevada and Oklahoma, is spending down its corpus and making its final grants. Its fair market value in 2016 was $37.2 million and $24.5 million in charitable cash grants. Its 2016 giving in Arkansas included two grants worth $9.4 million to replicate the Schmieding Home Caregiver Training Program throughout Arkansas; $1 million to the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville; $500,000 to the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith; $250,000 to the University of Arkansas Foundation; $250,000 for the Fayetteville Public Education Foundation Inc.; and $100,000 to renovate the pool and cabana at the YMCA of Warren and Bradley County Inc.

Stella Boyle Smith Charitable Trust

The late Stella Boyle Smith’s longtime support for the arts carries on through the trust she created. In 2016, the trust reported total assets of $16.4 million and grants of $466,816. Larger gifts from the trust went to the Sculpture at the River Market nonprofit; Carti Foundation; the University of Arkansas Foundation; the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, which Smith helped found; and Arkansas Children’s Hospital. arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

Women and Children First Helping break away from abuse. By Jacob Rosenberg reaching out. “Loss for words,” Beverly said — sweeping the air in front of her with one hand — when asked about what it would’ve been like to leave an abusive household without the shelter. “You would just never see people break the cycle [of abuse],” she said, “if you didn’t have the shelter or the police or these organizations to help you.

the other part is that it gives them the support system and the resources to get the next part of their life.” Some women, Beverly said, struggle to rebuild their lives and go back to their abusive husbands. It’s complicated, she said, the emotional turmoil and demands of leaving. But, the shelter always welcomes people back. “Once you enter these

You’re basically like fish out of water.” After staying in a hotel the shelter provided, Beverly began living with other women in the home, taking her children — she also has a son — along with her. It was hard, she said, living there and changing her habits to fit a group environment — you can’t ever leave the dishes for the next morning, she said. But, the benefits were almost beyond measure: counseling sessions throughout the week, help raising her children, help for women in everything from balancing a checkbook to creating a resume. McGraw was blunt on this point, too: “I’m not going to tell you it’s roses to stay in the shelter … but

doors it’s a sisterhood for life. No matter the amount of time you’ve left or it’s your 10th time coming back here: It’s a sisterhood for life.” It’s crucial to have a community that understands this complexity, she said. “I think the most important thing in this situation is that you know you’re not alone,” Beverly said. “And you have others that will help you, elevate you, praise you; give you the strength to say, ‘OK, there are 24 hours in the day, you’ve got one more second. And then, keep going, another day will come.’ And you keep going on.” Beverly spent two to three months in the shelter before moving out. She stayed

within the organization’s programming for another year, getting more support. But, it did not end there. “Since then, I’ve stayed in contact with my sister,” she said, clarifying that her “sister” is a staff member. “I call her my sister; I’ve adopted her. … She’s my big sister.” She calls for advice and support. The shelter helps her with housing. It connected the children with counseling. “We’re available,” McGraw said of Women and Children First’s services. “Everybody knows they can come back to our shelter for additional support services as long as they need.” This has helped with both her material and mental transformation, the kind that is necessary after abuse, Beverly said. You have to “learn to love yourself,” she said, BRIAN CHILSON

or years, a woman this writer willcall Beverly thought the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband was explainable. “Ah, he’s under stress. Ah, it’s work,” she remembers telling herself. “He’s going to cool down. Everything’s going to be all right.” But when Beverly’s daughter told a relative that her father had abused her and Beverly heard about it, a switch flipped in her mind. “That opened up the door for me to leave,” she said. Beverly saw the abuse not from her own perspective — as someone who had grown up in a home where abuse had been normalized and kids “walked on eggshells” to avoid a man’s rage — but from her daughter’s. “And once you start seeing certain things, it’s like, these are not just typical ‘I’m under stress’ type of things,’ ” she said. Beverly called IT’S NOT ALL the police to report ROSES: To stay at the violence with- the shelter, director out any real plan; Angela McGraw she just needed to says, but women get out. “The first will get the support they need to move thing you’re thinkon. ing is, ‘I don’t have any money, where am I going to start?’ ” she said. Beverly had a job but was not the main breadwinner. Soon all the particular concerns of a normal life that she’d built presented themselves: How am I going to find an apartment? How am I going to keep my job? How will I help my kids get through this? “Your whole foundation of what you’ve built is just taken away,” she said. “Unless you walk in those same particular shoes, you have no idea. It’s so easy for people to say: ‘If it was me, I would’ve done this, I would’ve done that.’ But, you have no idea.” Beverly had to choose not only to leave her husband, she said, but to start a new life. After Beverly left home, police connected her with Women and Children First, a Little Rock nonprofit that advocates on behalf of and shelters women and children escaping abusive relationships. While each story of abuse is specific, abuse itself is common, said Angela McGraw, executive director of the agency. In Arkansas, one in three women and one in four men have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner, McGraw says, and one out of three girls under the age of 18 will be physically assaulted. “Those are pretty high statistics,” she says. Perhaps more staggering: 97 percent of abused women never go to a shelter like Women and Children First. Some of this, McGraw says, is because they use social networks, but much is also due to lack of knowledge of resources and fear of

and even forgive. “I forgave my husband,” Beverly said. “You have to learn to forgive that person that has done the worst thing in the world; and that will release whatever hold he has on you.” But, she still struggles, even now, with how to view herself. “Then you have to learn how to forgive yourself,” she told me, which she’s still working on. “As a woman you carry so much; it’s just harder. Even now I forgive him for what he did, but I still have to forgive myself.” To donate to Women and Children f ] First, visit wcfarkansas.org. To reach the hotline, call 800-332-4443.

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families

years since, the state has added only $3 As a 4-year-old, “Pixie” was “a social million more, though AACF advocated butterfly,” Curry said. for a $20 million increase to meet the “She loved people, and she was one increase in expenses over time. of the happiest children I’ve ever seen AACF “is a huge cheerleader for to be so severely affected,” Curry said. ABC,” said Karla Curry, who runs the “Every child in this building … could Making the case for better health, education nonprofit Friendship Community Care call her by name and they wanted her for preschoolers in Bryant. “They have there. They took care of her, but not as and more. worked so hard to make sure we have a mother-child relationship. She was quality preschool services.” AACF, their friend. Just to see them embracBy Leslie Newell Peacock which offers free training in how to ing her that way … they wanted her to he benefits to people that most Another example of AACF’s work, advocate to nonprofits, has helped her be included. … nonprofits deliver is easy to in education: With the Arkansas Early agency “make sure we know what is “I think that’s one of the best things grasp: Arkansas Foodbank deliv- Childhood Association and grass roots going on so we can be active and let our about ABC period … . those children ers meals, Our House shelters people support, Arkansas Advocates has voice be heard.” are learning life skills every day that getting their lives back on track, The pushed for needed funds for Arkansas So, though a gift to AACF would not they will use for the rest of their lives.” Van takes care of the homeless, the Cen- Better Chance, the pre-K program oper- go directly to Friendship Community Debbie Mays operates Bright Beginters for Youth and Families takes in nings, a Siloam Springs pre-K program ‘PIXIE’: Beloved at children to help them with behavioral funded by ABC, in her home. Mays, who Friendship Community issues. You can get clothing, escape an was also just named overall winner of Care, which gets ABC abusive home, learn to read, get help the Southern Early Childhood Family dollars. kicking a drug habit. So when you write Engagement competition, said Arkansas a check to Women and Children First, Advocates has “fought hard for us with for example, you know that money will the legislators” to increase funding so have an immediate, tangible effect on classrooms can keep staff trained and the workings of the shelter. paid at a rate that encourages them to What might be harder to picture is stay with the program. the work of advocacy groups — orgaHuddleston said AACF is working nizations that don’t deliver services now to keep ABC funding at a level that directly but work hard to make sure quality isn’t lost, though he’d like to that their need is known and addressed. see it increased enough to expand the These groups could use your charitable Care, it would relay number of classrooms. Its popularity dollars, too. the needs of the facil- in Siloam Springs is clear: There are Arkansas Advocates for Children ity and others in the 27 people on the waiting list for Bright and Families has been in business for program to those who Beginnings’ 11 openings. 40 years, using data-driven campaigns hold the state’s purse Geania Dickey, who worked with to bring better health, fairer taxation, strings: the legislature. Arkansas Advocates to get ABC started education and juvenile justice to perIn the case of Friend- and who is a consultant in its partnersuade people in power to act on behalf ship Community Care, ship with the education initiative Forof the good of the state. Such dollars those needs are special: ward Arkansas, said that what AACF allow AACF to lobby on behalf of such Curry’s classrooms for does really well is “listening to the peothings as ARKids First, the health care 3- to 4-year-olds inte- ple they’re trying to help. They don’t creprogram for children in low-income grate children who are ate their own agenda: It’s based on hearfamilies that the agency helped bring typical in their devel- ing from people with needs first-hand.” to fruition. opment with students Dickey also said Arkansas Advocates AACF’s philanthropic support comes with disabilities. “Kids “will do nothing without solid evidence. largely in the form of grants from founlearn really well from I respect that. If I tout Arkansas Advodations such as the Winthrop Rocktheir peers,” Curry said. cates’ data, I don’t worry about it being efeller Foundation, which is working “The little children with absolutely accurate.” with AACF on its Arkansas Campaign disabilities learn a lot Arkansas Advocates also serves as a for Grade-Level Reading, and out-of- ated by the state Department of Edu- from typically developing children, and hub of sorts to connect people working state organizations like the Annie E. cation since 1990. The ABC budget to typical children learn to be accepting. in different areas with common conCasey Foundation, which collects Kids prepare low-income 3- and 4-year-olds They’re not scared just because the child cerns. “Because with little kids,” Dickey Count data; the Alliance for Early Suc- for kindergarten was a negligible $10 is different or is in a wheelchair or has said, “we know education and health go cess, for quality pre-K; and the Kellogg million until 2003; Gov. Mike Hukabee an assistant. They learn we are just as hand in hand, so maybe I’m in a converFoundation. at one point proposed even that sum be much the same as we are different, and sation with them and they inform me But you can’t lobby with grant money, cut, by 66 percent. But protests at the a community spirit is built.” That’s the of another group. They’re a conduit of and Rich Huddleston, AACF director, Capitol stopped that proposal, and the kind of spirit in which children thrive information.” would like to have the spending flex- legislature raised the tax on beer to keep and become ready for kindergarten. ibility that individual gifts provide. “It’s ABC afloat. In 2003, the state Supreme Curry talked about “Pixie,” a child at To support the work of Arkansas Advoan uphill battle” to raise such dollars, he Court’s Lakeview decision on equitable the Bryant center who has Rett’s syn- cates, go to the agency’s home page, aradsaid, because “not everyone gets what school funding increased ABC money drome, a genetic and eventually fatal vocates.org, where there is a donate tab. advocacy is about.” Arkansas Advocates’ by a factor of 10, and AACF and the neurological condition that robs a child The website provides links to its research annual Soup Sunday is its largest fund- Invest Early Coalition worked to boost of the ability to use her muscles in move- and issues and the Annie E. Casey Founraiser from individual donors. that to $110 million by 2007. In the 10 ment and speech and causes seizures. dation Kids Count data for Arkansas.

arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

Goods for the greater good Ferncliff offers deeply discounted construction and home supplies to nonprofits.

ecently, a church in Atkins paid about $600 for nearly $6,000 worth of flooring, doors and other construction and home supplies to fix up a residence owned by the church. Camp Mitchell, Heifer Ranch and Family Home of Little Rock were able to redo their bedrooms with new Tempur-Pedic mattresses, which retail for around $1,200, for only $95 per bed. That bargain shopping happened in a 10,000-square-foot warehouse 10 miles west of Little Rock where, as part of its outreach ministry, Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center has launched a marketplace of goods available at deep discounts to nonprofits and churches. The new program, Sharing the Goods, is a partnership with Good360, a n A lexa ndria , Va ., cha ritable organization that has distributed $9 billion in goods to more than 6 million people around the world since it was founded in 1983. Good360’s model is one its leaders have described as “mutualism,” as opposed to altruism. In exchange for significant tax write-offs, corporations such as The Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond make large-scale donations to Good360 of products that, perhaps because they were overstocked or returned, might otherwise end up in landfills. Good360 then makes the items available to nonprofits, which can purchase them at deep discounts to help further their missions. Fe r n c l i f f i s a C om mu n it y Redistribution Partner of Good360 — one of only 30 in the U.S. and the only one in Arkansas — which means that it’s set up to receive truckload-sized shipments from Good360 corporate donors and make those goods available to nonprofits for purchase. Ferncliff prices its inventory at discounts of 75 percent or more. “We want it to be a bargain for the nonprofit or church, and we also want to charge enough that we’re not taking money from the camp [to operate Sharing the Goods],” said David Gill, director of outreach and mission engagement at Ferncliff. 22

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRANDON MARKIN

By Lindsey Millar, Arkansas Nonprofit News Network

partners, including The Home Depot, Tuesday Morning and Pottery Barn. Whatever the stores want to get rid of, Ferncliff takes, per its Good360 agreement. “If they call, we pick it up,” Gill said. “It could be 26 bathtubs. We take it and smile. The next load might be Martha Stewart cubbies. Or we got 400 doormats one time.” Gill retired as executive director

The inventory is available to browse at sharingthegoods.org. Any nonprofit, in Arkansas or elsewhere, can fill out an application form on the website to become a member of Sharing the Goods and purchase items online, which must be picked up from the warehouse within three days. Ferncliff is the exclusive recipient of product donations of a number of Central Arkansas outlets of Good360

of Ferncliff in January. He spent 20 years heading the 1,200-acre camp, which the Presby terian Church founded in 1936. In addition to holding summer camp, the facility hosts corporate retreats and this year opened a nature preschool. In 2005, through a grant from Presbyterian Women, Ferncliff built its warehouse to serve as a Disaster Assistance Center in partnership with Church

World Service and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. It’s one of only two warehouses in the country that receive and distribute Church World Service Gift of the Heart kits, which include such items as school and hygiene supplies. Sharing the Goods takes up about 3,000 square feet of the warehouse, with the balance occupied by the Gift of the Heart kits and a woodshop, where a group of retired handymen called ‘REWIRE, NOT the Over the Hill RETIRE’: That was Gang build things David Gill’s plan after retiring as for Ferncliff and executive director other nonprofits of Ferncliff. Now, (a n applicat ion as director of form is at ferncliff. outreach, he’s o r g /o u t r e a c h / helping other nonprofits through pr og r a m s/over Ferncliff’s Sharing the-hill-gang). the Goods program. Managing Sharing the Goods allowed Gill to “rewire instead of retire,” he said. He appreciates the entrepreneurial aspect of the program and is working to figure out the logistics of managing inventory. Forty nonprofits have joined the program since it launched in late summer. The more that join, the better Ferncliff will have a sense of what sort of goods it should be looking for from the truckloads it can purchase through Good360, he said. David Gill’s son Joel, who took over as executive director of the camp earlier this year, described the ideal arrangement of Sharing the Goods as a sort of co-op, where Ferncliff is a buyer for nonprofits. “That’s a way for us to extend our mission of creating positive change in the world and for them to extend their mission as well,” Joel Gill said. Ferncliff has budgeted about $25,000 for the program in its startup year and so far it’s about breaking even, David Gill said. “We’re just trying to figure this out and not lose our shirt,” he said. But that doesn’t mean they don’t see growth potential. They’ve already had plans drawn up to expand the warehouse, and they believe the way the program benefits not just Ferncliff but potentially all Arkansas nonprofits could appeal to grantmaking foundations. This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. Find out more at arknews.org.

arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

REPORTER

Waiting game

State still waiting on federal approval for Medicaid changes. BY DAVID RAMSEY ARKANSAS NONPROFIT NEWS NETWORK

the unique features of Arkansas Works and how the proposed reforms are consistent with providing the states with more flexibility and the ability to restrain the growth of the

BRIAN CHILSON

lready at least a month behind reforms under Arkansas Works will schedule on implementing a continue.” series of proposed changes At least some federal officials are to the state’s Medicaid expansion reportedly leery of the state’s request program, Arkansas Works, Governor to limit Medicaid expansion eligibility. Hutchinson still has received no word on the federal approval he needs to move forward. Recently, Hutchinson met with federal officials to plead his case. “I have personally visited with numerous Administration off icials making the case for Arkansas’ innovative Medicaid waiver request that would continue the reform efforts to control costs and to put into place work and responsibility requirements,” Hutchinson said in an email. “These meetings have been productive.” In June, the state submitted a request to the Trump administration for a series of alterations, including work requirements and a change in eligibility that would remove tens of thousands of Arkansans from the rolls. Hutchinson has consistently said that he is confident that the changes will be approved, but has expressed some anxiety in recent months about the timeline. The original target start date of Jan. 1 is no longer a possibility, state officials say. The Department of Human Services told the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network last month that in order to initiate the necessary alterations in program infrastructure, it would need 60 days to implement the changes once the state receives federal approval. In early November, a spokesperson for the governor said that Hutchinson was optimistic about receiving an answer by Nov. 7. With no response more t ha n t h ree week s later, Hutchinson said that he still believes his efforts are on course. “The timeline for the response to the waiver may be delayed because of the resignation of former [federal Health and Human Services] Secretary Price and the fact that the new Secretary Asked specifically whether he had has not yet been confirmed by the concerns that this provision might Senate,” Hutchinson wrote by email. be in jeopardy, the governor did not “While the final waiver decision has respond directly, but wrote that in all not yet been made, I am confident that of his meetings with federal officials, we are on the right track and that the “the Administration has recognized

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

Medicaid budget — both federally and in the state.” More than 300,000 Arkansans are currently covered under the Medicaid expansion, which provides health insurance to adults who make less

than 138 percent of the federal poverty level (that’s around $16,500 for an individual or $34,000 for a family of four). The federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides most of the funding for states that have chosen to STILL OPTIMISTIC: expand Medicaid. Hutchinson says Arkansas opted he thinks the to do so in 2014, Trump administration will approve during the Gov. the changes to Mike Beebe Medicaid the state administration, has proposed, but v i a a u n iq ue there is reason to approach t hen believe not all of the state’s plan will k now n a s t he be approved. private option, which used Medicaid funds to purchase private health care plans for eligible low-income Arkansans. Hutchinson kept this policy — which he re-branded Arkansas Works — in place, but received federal approval for a new waiver of Medicaid rules to implement a few changes last year, including imposing small premiums on certain beneficiaries. Th e e le c t io n o f P r e s ide n t Trump opened the possibility for additional changes that the Obama administration would not approve. In June, the state submitted a request for a series of amendments to the Arkansas Works waiver. The most dramatic alterations would reduce the number of Arkansans eligible for the program and impose work requirements on most beneficiaries who remain. Enrollment would be limited to those who make less than 100 percent of the federal poverty level (that’s around $12,000 for an individual or $24,500 for a family of four). According to the DHS, that means around 61,000 current beneficiaries — those who make between 100 and 138 percent of the FPL — would be removed from the program. They would then be eligible for either employer-sponsored health insurance or federa lly subsidized private coverage on the ACA marketplace. Among remaining beneficiaries, those between the ages of 18-49

would be required to work 80 hours money for state budgets. States chip per month; if they were not working, in for a small percentage of the costs they would have to participate in of Medicaid expansion; if the 100-138 job training programs or certain population moves out of Medicaid, approved volu nte er ac t iv it ies. states would no longer be on the hook Beneficiaries would have to be in for that contribution. That would save compliance for nine months out of more than $60 million over four years the year or they would be removed for Arkansas, according to estimates from the program for the duration from the DHS. Other states will likely of the year. Beneficiaries 50 or older come calling for the same deal if would not be subject to the work Hutchinson’s proposal is approved. requirement; exemptions would be That includes some blue states, too: available for others who met certain In September, Massachusetts asked criteria, such as caring for dependent for a similar waiver amendment for children. partial expansion. These two headline amendments The polit ics for t he Tr ump — work requirements and limiting administration are complex as it eligibility to 100 percent of the federal weighs the possibility of opening the poverty level — were lines in the sand door to partial expansion. On the one that the Obama administration was hand, partial expansion might be seen unwilling to approve. The Trump as a conservative win that reverses the ad m i n i s t r at ion , however, h a s Obama administration’s guidance and signaled that it would allow states reduces the eligibility for Medicaid greater leeway to use waivers to make expansion. However, granting partial conservative alterations to Medicaid expansion might lead to more states expansion. expanding Medicaid, which could be Most obser vers believe t hat viewed as a win for Obamacare that approval for the state’s request for President Trump is loathe to grant. work requirements is a sure thing, Granting partial expansion would but it’s less clear whether the Trump also lead to higher numbers of people administration will go along with in the ACA marketplaces, which could Hutchinson’s proposed reduction in likewise be construed as news that eligibility. Politico reported in October helps the optics of the health care law that Seema Verma, who directs the that Trump remains eager to repeal. federal Centers for Medicare and It’s not just political symbolism Medicaid Services, wrote a draft t hat m ig ht wor r y t he T r u mp memo that summarized options but administ rat ion. The budgeta r y did not make a recommendation on implications of transitions to partial the issue of “partial expansion” — expansion are complicated, but in limiting Medicaid expansion coverage general federal officials may have to 100 percent of the federal poverty reason to fear that a large group level rather than 138 percent as of states making this switch will prescribed by the ACA, as Arkansas increase federal costs. With no state now proposes to do. Politico, citing contribution, the cost of subsidizing two unnamed sources, reported that coverage for people in the 100-38 the memo included objections from population who moved to the ACA some White House staffers expressing marketplace would fall entirely on the “reservations about granting such federal government (the beneficiaries expansions and letting states tap themselves would also typically be into Obamacare’s generous federal on the hook for more costs if moved funding boost.” from Medicaid to the marketplace). One challenge for the Trump The potential impact on the federal adm inist rat ion in a na lyzing budget would be somewhat muted in Hutchinson’s partial expansion Arkansas. Because of the state’s unique proposal is the possibility of setting a “private option” approach — Medicaid precedent that other states may want covers this population by purchasing to follow. Red states that have thus private plans on the ACA marketplace far declined to expand Medicaid may — the shift in Arkansas would involve be motivated to do so if they too can who pays for the coverage, but the acquire a waiver to limit eligibility to plans themselves would be the same. the poverty line. Meanwhile, current But in other piggyback states, such expansion states could also have as Massachusetts, the coverage an interest in piggybacking on the itself would be more expensive Arkansas proposal in order to save under partial expansion, because

the 100-138 population would move awaits word on the partial expansion from Medicaid plans to private question. The projected savings are plans. Those private plans typically not baked into the state budget for this cost significantly more, potentially fiscal year, which runs through the leading to dramatic cost increases end of June. But the budget picture overall if the same levels of coverage moving forward will be substantially are maintained. Meanwhile, if red altered depending on whether or not states that have thus far resisted the tens of millions in projected state Medicaid expansion decide to move savings from the eligibility change forward because of a new option for are forthcoming. In January, the partial expansion, that would also governor will present his proposed increase federal costs. budget for the next fiscal year to Given the complications of setting the legislature; it will only include a precedent for partial expansion, it is savings from the change in Medicaid notable that Hutchinson emphasized eligibility if federal approval has been t hat “ t he Ad m i n ist rat ion ha s received at that time. recognized the unique features of The reduction in eligibility is also a Arkansas Works.” Those “unique key part of Hutchinson’s argument for features” could be part of one possible the continuation of Arkansas Works, pitch to the Trump administration: which has faced frequent challenges The governor could make the case to from conservative opponents in the narrowly tailor federal approval to legislature. In the last two legislative partial expansion only in Arkansas, fiscal sessions, the program narrowly without setting up a domino effect for survived uphill battles to secure other states. Because the peculiarities the appropriation to continue the of the private option create different program. The political future of the policy and budgetary implications, state’s Medicaid expansion program perhaps the Trump administration has teetered in doubt since the day it could give the OK to Arkansas without was passed; if the federal government opening the floodgates in other states. turns down Hutchinson’s request, the This would likely be possible reauthorization fight is likely to heat strictly as a legal matter, said Nicholas up once again. Bagley, a University of Michigan If the federal government does law professor who has written on approve the state’s request, advocates partial expansion, but it would create for beneficiaries warn that the state’s major political headaches for the working poor will end up paying the administration. price. “Our greatest concern is that “It’s true that Arkansas is unusual,” tens of thousands of Arkansans will Bagley said. “Maybe it’s so unusual become uninsured because they are that CMS could approve a partial no longer eligible for Arkansas Works, expansion for Arkansas and no other unable to afford other coverage, or state. But if that’s the approach CMS simply fall through the cracks because takes, the agency will have to fend of the constant policy changes,” said off angry state policymakers and Marquita Little, health policy director federal legislators who will argue for Arkansas Advocates for Children that Arkansas has been given special and Families. treatment. The claim that Arkansas The governor’s proposal is more is different won’t placate them. And popular among those who oppose CMS needs those policymakers the Medicaid expansion altogether. and legislators to achieve lots of “Americans for Prosperity Arkansas its goals. The agency will worry — ha s a lways opposed Medica id rightly — about ticking them off.” expansion, but the waivers represent As for whether another state might strong steps in the right direction,” be ticked off enough to file a lawsuit, said Ryan Norris, state director for Bagley said, “A lawsuit probably the advocacy group. “That said, we wouldn’t go anywhere: All the courts continue to believe the state should will ask is whether the agency had a wind down the program entirely.” reasonable basis for distinguishing Arkansas from another state. And This reporting is courtesy of the since Arkansas is genuinely unusual, Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an the agency should be able to meet independent, nonpartisan news project that burden.” dedicated to producing journalism that The politica l a nd budgeta r y matters to Arkansans. Find out more stakes are high for Hutchinson as he at arknews.org.

arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

UA Little Rock Children International Flying under the radar, the youth development organization reaches more children and youth in Little Rock than any other. By Lindsey Millar

anywhere else for college. Looking forward, Children International is working to add partnerships and increase its programming to better serve the 2,700 students currently enrolled, while also planning to nearly double the number of students in the program within five years. The employment piece of Children International’s mission is new and will keep students up to age 24 involved in the program. Davis and company are still trying to BRANDON MARKIN

student who has already enrolled in the program is eligible, too, regardless of where she goes to school. Because of that connection, the 2,700 students enrolled in Children International represent nearly 10 percent of students in the district and come from 46 of the 48 LRSD schools. The program targets kids who qualify for free and reduced lunch. “The idea of being poor has such a bad connotation,” Davis said. Many of the families in Children International

aija Brown credits UA Little obscuring its profile, Children InternaRock Children International tional does very little programming out for helping her become the of its small headquarters on the campus first person in her family to attend col- of UA Little Rock. Instead, it operates lege. Without the guidance of Children almost entirely through more than 30 International, Brown figures she would local partnerships — with schools, combe a high school dropout and pregnant. munity centers and other nonprofits. Instead, she’s a sophomore at UA Little Thanks to its reliance on partnerRock double-majoring in political sci- ships, Children International doesn’t ence and sign language interpretation “have to continue to reinvent the wheel,” on a full four-year Chancellor’s Leader- executive director Ryan Davis said. ship Corp. scholarship. “We don’t have to be content experts Children International’s mission is on everything. We set these strategic for every child to graduate from its pro- objectives and then seek out people and gram healthy, educated, employable and organizations who are established at empowered to break the cycle of pov- doing these things.” For example, Chilerty. For Brown, that’s meant everything dren International partners with the from receiving regular dental screenings Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance on a and assembling care packages and gift healthy eating initiative called Cookbags as part of a community service ing Matters, which Children Internaproject with the Salvation Army to par- tional can take into schools, community ticipating in peer-to-peer group “real centers or the Hillary Rodham Clinton talks,” where teens talked about issues Children’s Library. “A big part of our they might not be comfortable asking thrust is assisting these disparate orgatheir parents about, like sex. “It was nizations,” Davis said. all about getting teens really educated In 2000, Children International on themselves,” Brown said of the “real began to work on one of its biggest talks.” As a member of the Children collaborations, and one with perhaps International Student Council, Brown the biggest impact: It assembled a Denorganized a fashion show called Respect tal Health Action Team that included My S.W.A.G. (self-aware at a glance) on Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the the UA Little Rock campus that pro- Arkansas Department of Health, the moted body positivity. She credits Chil- state Department of Human Services, dren International for helping develop Delta Dental Plan of Arkansas, Heart FIRST IN FAMILY TO ATTEND COLLEGE: Kaija Brown credits Children International for her leadership skills and prepare her of Arkansas United Way, the Little Rock putting her on a path to success. for the real world. School District, the National Children’s For an organization that serves more Oral Health Foundation, UA Pulaski young people than any other child devel- Technical College and the University whose incomes hover around the fed- develop programming to meet that aim. opment agency in Central Arkansas, of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. In eral poverty level ($24,600 for a family Children International would also like UA Little Rock Children International 2005, that partnership opened the of four) don’t think of themselves as to have a large space of its own to serve seems to fly under the radar. That prob- Future Smiles Dental Clinic at Wake- poor, he said. So Children International large groups of students at once. Partably owes in part to its unique makeup: field Elementary. It’s the only dental talks in terms of working to overcome a nerships will always be integral to its It’s a partnership between UA Little clinic in a public school in Arkansas, and “poverty of opportunity,” Davis said. One mission, Davis said, but the autonomy of Rock and Children International, an to date, it’s provided almost 37,000 den- way Children International tries to help a space of its own would help Children international nonprofit based in Kansas tal screenings, toothbrush kits and oral overcome that barrier is by bringing its International more effectively grow and City working to end poverty around the instructions to LRSD students. kids, many of whom live within walking serve more children, youths and young world. Children International, founded Kids who attend Bale, Stephens or distance from UA Little Rock, onto cam- adults. in 1936, once operated a number of agen- Wakefield elementary schools in the pus for programming. That influenced cies throughout the U.S., but the Little LRSD are eligible to enroll in Children Brown. “We spent so much time in the To give, visit ualr.edu/children or mail Rock outpost, which opened almost 25 International (Franklin and Wilson, [Engineering and Information Technol- a check to UA Little Rock Children Interyears ago, is now the humanitarian agen- which the LRSD closed this year, once ogy] building, I was familiar with being national, 2510 Fair Park Blvd., Little Rock, cy’s only domestic site. Perhaps further fed into the program). A sibling of a on campus,” she said. She didn’t apply AR 72204.

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

Submission Deadline:

January 1st, 2018 Acts must be able to perform minium of 30 minutes of original material with live instrumentation. To Enter: Send streaming Facebook, ReverbNation, Bandcamp or Soundcloud links to showcase@arktimes.com and include the following: 1. Band Name 2. Hometown 3. Date Band was Formed 4. Age Range of Members (All ages welcome) 5. Contact Person 6. Phone 7. Email All musical styles are welcome.

arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

Arts Entertainment Love isn’t measured AND

The Rep goes minimalist with a romantic ‘Magi.’ BY HEATHER STEADHAM

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

JOHN DAVID PITTMAN

ccording to Maggie-Kate Coleman, lyricist for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s original musical “The Gift of the Magi,” it is not uncommon for new musicals to be in development for five years or more. Imagine, then, the daunting task of mounting such an undertaking in less than one. But that’s exactly what The Rep, under the direction of John Miller-Stephany, has done. Using O. Henry’s famous short story of love and sacrifice, Jeffrey Hatcher (in his 90s, a dead-ringer for Sigmund Freud) has written a solid book, and composer Andrew Cooke’s versatility — from sweeping romantic ballads to quirky tango-inspired comic tunes — will have you pleasantly humming along without even realizing it. The play is centered on Jim and Della, a poor newlywed couple who have promised not to buy each other anything for their first Christmas together. Jesse Carrey-Beaver and Laura Sudduth portray these young lovers with an engaging innocence, and their vocal talents and dance skills are impressive. Only two other characters exist in this activate-your-imagination interpretation, appropriately dubbed “Wise Man” and “Wise Woman.” These two (played by Michael Keyloun and Sandy York) also portray the supporting cast, requiring them to change costumes, on average, every two and a half minutes. Keyloun’s and York’s chameleonic act is positively awe-inspiring; with each new iteration, they give their characters different accents, different mannerisms, different souls. Mike Nichols’ set is delightful and appropriate to the nature of the show. Miller-Stephany and Hatcher intended to engage the audience’s fancy as much as possible, and the set’s series of platforms and stairs allow for interesting visual levels of performance without creating too literal an interpretation

‘HOW MANY INCHES?’: Laura Sudduth’s “engaging innocence” is at the center of The Rep’s new production, an original take on the classic O. Henry tale of love and sacrifice.

of space. On stage right, a collage of window panes hangs midair, with lights behind changing from a homey yellow candlelight to a more industrial white light, depending on what the scene calls for. The effect of gently falling snow is created with a cascade of tiny, soft white lights. There are a few hiccups, though, any discussion of which should come with the following caveat: This reviewer attended “The Gift of the Magi” on its

final preview night, and the show was subject to changes from the director right up until opening night. While the first song, “Sunrise, Stanton Street,” is playful and conveys the guilelessness of young lovers, the repeated lyric passed back and forth (“Mrs. Jones!” “Mr. Jones!”) becomes, toward the end, a bit tedious. And while the actors are great dancers, some of the choreography seems forced (they do an odd shoulder tick and head cock

during “The Tick-Tock Song” that does, indeed, seem like a tic). And, with the last line of one of the songs being “Giving is what Christmas is about,” the couple seems so fixated on just buying something for their significant other that it borders on materialism, making the characters — at least initially — a bit difficult to like. After all, the original O. Henry story is not so much about his watch and her hair, or the chain and the combs, but about loving someone so much you’re willing to sacrifice what’s important to you in service to them. Fortunately, with a twist at the end worthy of O. Henry himself, we do finally get to see that sacrifice — and what that sacrifice can mean years down the road. For those paying attention throughout, the twist pays off double, explaining some of the most prosaic details from earlier in the show. Kudos to playwright Hatcher. The finale, in which the actors musically proclaim “Love isn’t measured by what we buy,” was great and days after the show this writer found herself singing the refrain from the song “An Exchange,” which Della and the Wise Woman sing when negotiating just how much hair Della is going to sell. “The Gift of the Magi” runs through Dec. 24; Beer Night with Stone’s Throw Brewery is Dec. 7, starting at 6 p.m. The sign-interpreted performance is at 7 p.m. Dec. 13, a raffle to support The Rep’s Education Scholarship Fund will be held at the 7 p.m. Dec. 19 performance, and an after-party is set for Dec. 23. Curtain times on some nights will allow theatergoers to also see “The Santaland Diaries,” the humorous oneman show about a jaded departmentstore elf written by David Sedaris, on the same evening as “Magi.” “The Santaland Diaries,” which will be performed in the Black Box Theatre in the Rep Annex on Main Street, opens Friday, Dec. 8.

ROCK CANDY Check out the Times’ A&E blog arktimes.com

A&E NEWS LITTLE ROCK NATIVE and Hendrix College graduate Ashlie Atkinson is to join the cast of the next Spike Lee film, “Black Klansman,” a biopic about a black detective in Colorado Springs, Colo., who climbed the ranks of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter (not to be confused with the 1966 film of the same name). The film’s cast includes John David Washington (Denzel Washington’s son) as the titular Ron Stallworth, Adam Driver as a Jewish undercover police officer and Atkinson as Connie Kendrickson. Jordan Peele (“Get Out,” “Key & Peele”) co-produces the film, which is based on Stallworth’s biography. Atkinson’s breakout role as Helen in playwright Neil Labute’s “Fat Pig” earned her a Theater World Award in 2005 and led to a host of roles in theater, film and television: Spike Lee’s “Inside Man,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Us & Them,” “30 Rock” and “Bored to Death,” among others. For further proof of Atkinson’s wit and panache, revisit the Arkansas Times 2013 Inquizator interview with the actor, in which she pens a haiku, sends a letter to herself from the future and tells us what Denzel smells like. IN OTHER ARKANSAS-ISH film news, “Blaze,” the Ethan Hawke feature film about Malvern native Blaze Foley, is bound for the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 in the American drama category. Foley, the so-called “duct tape Messiah” who wrote “Clay Pigeons” and “If I Could Only Fly” and who inspired Lucinda Williams’ song “Drunken Angel,” is played by Little Rock native Ben Dickey. Dickey is a former member of Shake Ray Turbine and made his solo musical debut on Max Recordings with “Sexy Birds & Salt Water Classics” in 2016, for which Hawke directed two music videos. Alia Shawkat stars as Sybil Rosen, longtime lover of Foley’s and author of the memoir “Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley,” the book on which “Blaze” is based. THE ARKANSAS TIMES is accepting submissions for the 2018 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase. Original material in any musical style is welcome. Send streaming links (Bandcamp, Youtube, Soundcloud, Facebook, etc.) of your band performing to showcase@arktimes.com and include the following information: band name, hometown, date the band was formed, age range of members (all ages are welcome) and a contact person’s name, email address and phone number.

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arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE, LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK AND STEPHEN KOCH

FRIDAY 12/8

2ND FRIDAY ART NIGHT

5-8 p.m., galleries downtown. Free.

CANDISE KOLA

The Historic Arkansas Museum gets people in the holiday mood this December gallery stroll with its “13th ever Nog-off,” a contest to see who can make the most delicious and inebriating combination of whiskey, cream and eggs and live to tell the tale, or at least to vote on the best. There’s art, too! Before you start seeing double, check out the galleries for work by Daniella Napolitano, Carmen Alexandria Thompson and 19th century artists, the latter work purchased through HAM’s Gala Fund. The Butler Center, not to be outdone, will take visitors by the paint brush and send them off with winter-themed art work they’ve made themselves while listening to Christmas in Space with Chris and Karen (and yes, there’s art to see, including the Arkansas Pastel

Society’s national exhibition and more.) Photographer Margo Duvall has an exhibition of photographs at the Cox Creative Center next door. The Old State House’s 2nd Friday attraction is “Twang Darkly,” which is not the ominous sound of a banjo coming from the riverside but a group of musicians who play on homemade instruments, in conjunction with the exhibition “True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley.” Head south for more art and festivities at Gallery 221, McLeod Fine Art, Bella Vita and club Sway, which is hosting its “Antigallery Xmas Edition.” Mariposa Gallery on Capitol, Nexus Coffee on President Clinton Avenue and the Copper Grill are also 2nd Friday participants on the free trolley route that will transport you — nogged perhaps — between venues. LNP

EN ESTE MOMENTO: Chilean vocalist and composer Claudia Acuña joins percussionist Chembo Corniel, flautist Nestor Torres, pianist Elio Villa Franca, bassist Richardo Rodriguez, and drummer Diego Lopez for an evening at South on Main as part of Oxford American’s Jazz Series.

THURSDAY 12/7

LATIN JAZZ ALL-STARS

8 p.m. South on Main. $30-$46.

Here’s the bad news. Superstar trombonist Steve Turre unexpectedly bowed out of this show, as well as the ensemble’s appearance at Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center scheduled for the following night. The good news? The rest of the Latin Jazz All-Stars are on — including the debonaire Puerto Rican jazz flautist Nestor Torres — and they brought in a hell of a pinch hitter, Claudia Acuña. Acuña, a Chilean-born songwriter and arranger, has a warm, fluid delivery and a sense of her own place within the ensemble that belies stereotypes about vocalists. Saxophonist and bandleader Branford Marsalis said of her, “Claudia has great instincts, and is one singer who is actually a musician — one of us.” For a sense of how purely and seamlessly she weaves her line into the texture of a combo (and how colorful the Spanish language can sound when she does it), check out the video recording of Acuña singing “Tulum” at Teatro Municipal de Santiago in 2007, a song she wrote seaside on the Yucatan Peninsula. Acuña or Torres — either way, this show was bound to be a stunner, but if we know anything about jazz musicians, it’s that they thrive on the unexpected, right? Expect to be mesmerized. SS

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

‘START WITH THE SOUL’: Alvin Youngblood Hart returns to the White Water Tavern Friday night.

FRIDAY 12/8

ALVIN YOUNGBLOOD HART

9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $10.

The world could use more musicians like Alvin Youngblood Hart. An Oakland native by way of Mississippi, he’s often lumped into the blues genre, but AYH seems more a seeker of knowledge, a musical pilgrim willing on a Friday night to share his journey with congregants of the White Water Tavern for 10-buck tithes, a church where the balcony has

pool tables. Here we have a man who can credibly participate in a tribute to jug band hokum kings the Mississippi Sheiks while also paying respects to such unrespected 1970s fuzz bands as the Flamin’ Groovies and Black Oak Arkansas. “I have a great disdain for genre segregation,” AYH explains in a simple declarative style evocative of more modern translations of the New Testament. “I try to avoid that practice.” Preach on, Mr. Hart. Preach on. SK

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 12/7

J. FUSCO

DRAGON LIGHTS: Tianyu Arts & Culture brings an elaborate Chinese lantern installation to the Arkansas State Fairgrounds.

FRIDAY 12/8-SUNDAY 1/14

ARKANSAS CHINESE LANTERN FESTIVAL

5:30 p.m.-10 p.m. daily. Arkansas State Fairgrounds. $10-$15.

This outdoor walk-through experience with colorful lights, acrobats and crafts at the State Fairgrounds appears so impressive it could capture everyone from the toddler set to the stoner set. The festival ups the ante with a 200-foot-long dragon and a lantern pagoda three stories high. If you still have retina function after the more than 30 lantern displays, check out the folk dance and acrobatic show, where

jars will be balanced, plates will be spun and faces will be changed (?! Don’t get too close, apparently.). Wind down with the handicraft showcase displaying calligraphy, wire weaving and such — and, why yes they do have these crafts available for purchase. When having strangers/family in your house for the holidays becomes just too much of a good thing, you’ve always got the Arkansas Chinese Lantern Festival. Even on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. SK

FRIDAY 12/8

CHRISTMAS WITH THE ANNIE MOSES BAND

7:30 p.m. Maumelle Performing Arts Center, 100 Victory Lane. $25-$35.

Six Juilliard-trained siblings dress up in gorgeous formal wear and play lily-white, unshakably wholesome renditions of Yuletide fare, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “O Holy Night” with harp and cello and viola. That’s mostly what you need to know about the Annie Moses Band, and maybe that their collaboration was inspired not only by their fieldhand great-grandmother — for whom the band is named — but by a divine vision the siblings’ mother, Robin,

received in college, as she told the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club:” “We had some Suzuki violinists that came and played in our music survey class. There was a little-bitty girl from Asia, and she was so tiny and cute. She had a violin. … God spoke to me at that point and said, ‘When you have a little girl, they should do that.’ ” Well, they did, only with mandolin and electric guitar, and maybe you don’t necessarily need to agree with the biblically rigorous tenets extolled on the band’s website under the sub-tab “Exceptional Living” to dig their sound. SS

Businesses in the South Main area stay open late for SoMa Open House, 5:30 p.m-7:30 p.m., which includes the Bernice Garden Tree Lighting, with carolers from Washington Elementary, Forest Heights STEM Academy and Dunbar Middle School. Little Rock native and lyric soprano Leslie Darwin O’Brien sings for the benefit of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and the Central Arkansas Library System for “Latitude: An Evening of Stories and Song” at the Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $100. The Little Rock Wind Symphony and guest soprano Mary Winston Smith present a concert of holiday favorites, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” 7:30 p.m., Second Presbyterian Church, 600 Pleasant Valley Drive, $12-$15. Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville hosts a high-flying show from the Martial Artists and Acrobats of Tianjin, 7:30 p.m., $14-$35. Collin Moulton delivers stand-up comedy to The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $8-$12. All That Remains brings Massachusetts metal riffs to George’s Majestic Lounge in Fayetteville, 8 p.m., $18-$20. Jocko kicks off the evening with a set at Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m., free, and later, Mayday by Midnight performs, 9 p.m., $5.

FRIDAY 12/8 Ballet Arkansas opens its annual production of “The Nutcracker” with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., Robinson Center Performance Hall, $23-$73. CosmOcean brings its funk-forward grooves to Four Quarter Bar for the annual Toys for Tots Party, 7:30 p.m., free admission with the donation of a toy. Steve Boyster kicks off the weekend with a happy hour set at Cajun’s, 5:30 p.m., free. The Big Dam Horns perform at Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $8. The Community Theater of Jacksonville performs Joe Landry’s “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,” 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., Jacksonville Community Center, $10-$15. Tyler Kinchen & The Right Pieces return to South on Main with Ponchatoula R&B vibes, 9 p.m., $15. Gospel vocalist Erica Campbell performs at El Dorado’s Griffin Music Hall, $25. Local celebs take the microphone for the benefit of Youth Home at 103.7 “The Buzz” FM’s Christmas Celebrity Karaoke at Verizon Arena, 6 p.m., $23-$43.

SATURDAY 12/9 The infectious and perfectly blended pop refrains of Repeat Repeat return to Maxine’s in Hot Springs, with New Motto and the ethereal, shapeshiftCONTINUED ON PAGE 33

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arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE, LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK AND STEPHEN KOCH

FRIDAY 12/8

SABINE VALLEY

7:30 p.m. Vino’s. $8.

As the two Johns of They Might Be Giants sang, “Youth culture killed my dog.” It was commentary, John Flansburgh said in a 1985 interview with Spin Magazine, on the exclusionary nature of culture clubs: “It isn’t about whether we feel we’re on the inside track or the outside

track. It’s about the horrible feeling you get from other people telling you you’re on the outside track. That’s the whole point of ‘scene’ — all these things are meant to make people feel bad. That’s the problem.” I think it’s maybe some notion of “scene” that keeps lots of us in our respective comfort zones when it comes to entertainment venues, keeping the thirtysomethings from, say, attending

an all-ages show at Vino’s. If you’re steamrolling six-second excerpt at the feelin’ froggy about venturing out of top of the band’s Facebook page, and that safety net, this is a pretty sure the band summons angst in the track bet. Sabine Valley is comprised of four “The Temple” that makes me wanna musicians, two of whom are students break out L7’s “Smell the Magic” and at eSTEM High School — drummer everything I own by The Breeders. Will Caig, guitarists Oliver Lorgen and They’re joined by Elliott Solis and Mayra Velazquez, and vocalist Favi the Vilonia-based Wild Yam, a metal Alba — with smart lyrics and a fiercely quintet whose biography states, “Our energetic, steamrolling sound. Alba goal is to be as wild as a yam can be.” can wail, as you learn in the span of the SS

at the Savoy” without contempt or innuendo. Tunes that might otherwise get dropped off the set list in favor of cutesy, twee takes on Bon Jovi or Radiohead stick around. In fact, as far as I can tell, “I Just Called To Say I Love You” is the most contemporary song on the Bob Boyd Sounds playlist, and where other vintage jazz acts might have skimped on the swing

era’s affinity for (or appropriation of, depending on whom you ask) Latin American rhythmic structures, the quartet has a spot for “Samba de Orfeo” or “Watch What Happens.” There’s another thing, too; it’s not even accurate to describe Boyd’s work as “vintage;” after all, dude was born in the Dust Bowl era. Boyd is the genuine article, a childhood pianist

FRIDAY 12/8

BOB BOYD SOUNDS

8 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. Free.

JOSHUA BLACK WILKINS

How sparse are our experiences of the American Songbook these days, let alone unironic ones, and how thankful we probably ought to be for the archival tendencies of artists like Nellie McKay and our own Bob Boyd, who preserve and interpret tunes like “Pennies From Heaven” and “Stompin’

who got his teaching career started at Rosen Music Studios and ended up founding the Boyd Music Center, a store and school that he ran for 38 years. He’s an incredibly charming and witty performer who’s been doing it since 1955, and here’s your chance to see a true Arkansas treasure at work. SS

‘C’MON C’MERE’: Blues guitarist Patrick Sweany plays an early Sunday show at the White Water Tavern.

SUNDAY 12/10

PATRICK SWEANY

6 p.m. White Water Tavern. $10.

Everyone knows the blues is all right; it’s even a song refrain. It’s a safe bet there are more blues practitioners in the world right now than at any of the historical times that blues music was at a popular commercial peak. Rarer are the acts that can pull blues out of its amber preserves, where most prefer it confined, and attempt to scratch a new groove in an old 78 rpm record. That’s Patrick Sweany. A White Water Tavern veteran, in town for an early Sunday show, Sweany seems to prefer his blues hill-country style. But your typical groover wouldn’t notice such mundane detail, so well blended is the Sweany sound with the funky country of Bobby Charles and The Band. The Ohio native’s not going to beat you over the head with genre. Sweany doesn’t wear old timey clothes, his amp doesn’t look like an old radio, and he didn’t buy his guitar just ’cause it looked beat up. This is music informed by the blues, and information is power. SK

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

IN BRIEF, CONT.

THE OBSESSED

9 p.m. White Water Tavern.

If you’re in bad need of an antidote to silver bells and the saccharine strains of “Jingle Bell Rock,” I can recommend no salve more healing than the doom metal riffs of Scott “Wino” Weinrich and The Obsessed. The band started up under the name Warhorse around the time of the United States Bicentennial, and has since released intermittent but potent records in the neighborhood of Sabbath, full of demented but catchy rock refrains, some of which leaned heavily on the band’s context as a Washington, D.C., outfit: “Does the pope shit in the wood? He might be damned/hoarding all his ill-got goods with Uncle Sam.” The Obsessed in its current formation, a Wino-fronted trio with bassist Reid Raley and drummer/vocalist Brian Constantino, returns to the White Water Tavern for some holiday metal cheer; think less “Sleigh Ride” and “All I Want for Christmas,” more “Tombstone Highway” and “Concrete Cancer.” SS

TUESDAY 12/12

LUCIE’S PLACE HOLIDAY PARTY

6 p.m. Lucie’s Place, 300 S. Spring St., suite 715. $5 donation or wish list item.

In just a few short years, Penelope Poppers and her crew at Lucie’s Place have made thousands of patient, deliberate moves whose sum equates to a major impact on the lives of displaced and homeless LGBT young adults in Little Rock. The organization operates out of this spot on Spring Street, a three-room dropin day center, and is on the cusp of opening and outfitting a second transitional home elsewhere for its clients. To that end, Lucie’s Place is inviting folks to drop in for some Lost Forty beer and check out the work they do, and to lend a hand to the housewarming effort by donating something from the Lucie’s Place Amazon wish list; things that, in the words at the top of the inventory list say, “help folks feel more human and get back on their feet,” like underwear, socks, sheets, combs and a lockbox to keep personal items. Or, if your pockets are a little deeper, you could gift the new house a bed frame, a coffee maker for the new shelter’s kitchen or a Chromebook for Lucie’s Place folks to study and to fill out job applications. And, if you can’t go to this particular drop-in shindig but wanna support the work Lucie’s Place does, check out Yoga in the Rock’s “Om for the Holidays” at Capitol View Studio, an all-levels, no-experience-required 90-minute yoga class led by Samantha Harrington; the $15 entry fee ($20 at the door) benefits Lucie’s Place. Oh, and there will be live music from The Admires and John Burnette, which should definitely help you relax, breathe and reach your way into that downward dog. SS

QC:

Live: 1.875" x 5.25"

CW: PO:

PM:

AE:

AD:

CD:

CHEER YOUR TEAM, AS A TEAM.

MUST INITIAL FOR APPROVAL

MONDAY 12/11

Trim: 2.125" x 5.5 Bleed: none"

Thanks to AETN, you can stop trying to pause that video of “Classical Gas” at just the right moment to take note of Tommy Emmanuel’s finger placement and just enjoy the man himself, in person, as part of his “Classics & Christmas” tour. The Australian guitar god seems to have no wrong answers when it comes to the question of how many strings on a guitar may be plucked at once and how expressively the guitar can function as a percussion instrument. Chet Atkins, his mentor, called him “fearless,” and his recording career of nearly 40 years testifies to that attitude. Tightrope walkers typically have but one taut wire to navigate; Emmanuel does his daredevil act with six. See aetnfoundation.org for tickets. SS

Closing Date: 9/11/2017

7:30 p.m. Reynolds Performance Hall. $30-$50.

Publication: Arkansas Times

TOMMY EMMANUEL

Brand: Bud Light Generic NFL Job/Order #: 298160 Operator: cs Item #: PBL2017169

MONDAY 12/11

ing sounds of Landrest, 9 p.m. The Tyrannosaurus Chicken-enhanced Ben PRINT Miller Band entertains with Travis Kish at Kings Live Music in Conway, 8:30 p.m., $5. Torch the Beast, Guilty and Us on Fire make for a heavy bill at Vino’s, 8 p.m., $7. Join the young professionals of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s 601 Club for the Toddy Trolley and brewery stops along the 2nd Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Pub Crawl, beginning at The Rep Annex (518 Main St.), 3 p.m., $10, call 387-0405 to RSVP. Arkansas Circus Arts and Bespoke Studio showcase local circus performers, photographers, musicians and other makers with Signature Art Series, 2211 Cantrell Road, 9 p.m., $12-$15. Top of the Rock Chorus, Acapella Rising and the Crystal Chimes Chorus entertain with “Dear Santa, I Can Explain,” 3 p.m., Pulaski Technical College’s Center for Humanities and Arts, and also 3 p.m. Sun., Woodlands Auditorium, Hot Springs Village, $10-$20, tickets at arkansasacapella.com. The 5th Annual Christmas Karaoke throwdown at Stickyz benefits The Van, 8 p.m., $10. Aaron Kamm & The One Drops brings their reggae-forward jams to Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m., $10. Phil Vassar and Kellie Pickler entertain with a country take on Christmas classics at Murphy Arts District’s Griffin Music Hall in El Dorado, 8 p.m., $35-$45.

SUNDAY 12/10 The River City Men’s Chorus kicks off its “Holiday! 2017” program with a 3 p.m. concert at Second Presbyterian Church, to be repeated 7 p.m. Mon. and Thu., free. Celtic ensemble Danú celebrates Irish heritage with “A Christmas Gathering: Féile na Nollag,” 7 p.m., Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, $18-$30. Mike Lewis signs his book “Calling the Wild,” a history of Arkansas duck calls, at WordsWorth Books, 4-5:30 p.m.

TUESDAY 12/12 Go absorb the stellar and often structure-bending songwriting of Cory Branan at the White Water Tavern, 8:30 p.m., $10. Country superstar LeAnn Rimes performs at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville for “This Is Christmas,” 7 p.m., $45-$75.

WEDNESDAY 12/13 Revolution Taco & Tequila Lounge continues its month-long Best Christmas Song Karaoke Competition, 8 p.m. It’s “Fam-O-Lee Back to the Country Jamboree” with a concert at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville from Robert Earl Keen, 7 p.m., $25$55. The Joint Venture, an improv comedy group, takes the stage at The Joint Theater & Coffeehouse, 8 p.m., $8. Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

HANAROO SUSHI BAR, owned by restaurateur Chang Yu for many years at 205 W. Capitol Ave., closed at that location the day before Thanksgiving and plans to open Thursday or Friday in the former home of Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co. at 215 Center St. (Three Fold moved to 611 S. Main St.) Hanaroo’s vast menu includes more than 50 sushi rolls, but expect new ones to be added, perhaps made with jalapenos, server Trinity Luccetta says. Menu favorites include the T.N.T. roll of tuna, yellowtail and salmon and the bento boxes, particularly the Tuna Tataki. Hours are 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and dinner from 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. weekdays and 5-9:30 p.m. Saturdays. The Southern Gourmasian, at 219 W. Capitol Ave., is also moving, but has not announced where. THE HEIGHTS CORNER Market began offering prepared dinners by chef Amanda Denys in November. Check its Facebook page for what’s available in the coolers; the market also sells preprepared sandwiches and will make sandwiches to order. DIXIE CAFE, THE home-cooking restaurant chain based in Little Rock, closed all 17 of its locations at the end of business Wednesday. The chain has 14 Dixie Cafes in Arkansas and Tennessee and three Delta Cafes in Oklahoma. The company, once a perennial award winner in the country-cooking category of the Arkansas Times’ annual restaurant contest, grew out of the Black-eyed Pea chain. The restaurants had roots stretching back 35 years. In a prepared statement, the company explained the closure: “It’s a very difficult operating environment for full-service, family-oriented restaurants. We have seen declining sales combined with increasing costs that has made this difficult decision necessary.” PROFESSIONAL WINNERS OF the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center’s sixth annual “Say It Ain’t Say’s” sweet potato pie contest Sunday named by a panel of celebrity judges were Kelli Marks of Cathead’s Diner, first place for her “Perfectly Purple Pie,” and Anne Woods of Honey Pies, second place for her “Bubba’s Sweet Potato Meringue Pie.” The crowd gave the People’s Choice Award to Dana Yarbough-Fluker for her “Scrumptious Sweet Potato Pie,” and she also won second place in the amateur division. First place in the amateur division was Delores Morris (amateur, “The One by Dee). The event celebrates Arkansas’s “Sweet Potato Pie King,” Robert “Say” McIntosh, who for many years was Black Santa to the city’s children, and African-American foodways. 34

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

STICK-TO-YOUR-RIBS DISH: The Smoked Bone-In Pork Chop, slathered in a bourbon-honey reduction.

Breadwinners Dinner at Boulevard dazzles.

ounger diners, we have observed, made a hearty appetizer. Three types eschew the stodgy for the of sausage — French herb, sweet comfortable but refined, going Italian and a sausage of the day (ours for restaurants with modern decor and happened to be boudin) — come halved capable chefs. One destination for them: and served with cornichons and two Boulevard Bistro & Bar. mustards, sweet stone-ground and a On a recent Saturday night, Boulevard tangy Dijon. The boudin was loose, a — the restaurant attached to Boulevard spicy mix of fluffy rice and sausage. The Bread Co. — had an upbeat but laid- sweet mustard worked well in tandem, back holiday buzz. There was good knocking out some of the heat. We were energy in the place: It was crowded too late for the sweet Italian, so we got a enough to let you know you might be double-dose of the French herb. Fine by onto something yet quiet enough to us. It was an explosion of earthy flavor talk without shouting. We were seated with strong notes of thyme. This more without a wait. dense sausage went well with the Dijon. One might start off, as we did, with an The menu offers a range of things to Old Fashioned ($10.50) from the cocktail eat at varying levels of sophistication menu. This version had muddled and price. There are dinner salads, cherries and a slice of orange at the sandwiches and a few entrees. bottom that provided a fruity base for Everything fits on the front of a 11-bythe whiskey, bitters and sugar. 17 sheet, signaling a couple of things: The House Sausage Board ($12) The menu changes often enough that

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fancy, bound ones might be a pain, and better to have a few solid offerings than a sprawling selection of “meh.” We also ordered the Smoked Bone-In Pork Chop ($19), a tender, slightly smoky chop that came with white wine risotto and butter-basted mushrooms. The star of the dish was the honey-bourbon reduction, a thick amber sauce that made the dish sing. Perfectly suited for a fall/winter menu, this was a wonderful, stick-to-your-ribs dish. The Steak Frites ($28) was another winner. The 12-ounce ribeye was simply seasoned, probably not much more than salt and pepper. The cut of meat did most of the work. It was fatty in all the right ways, tender, and the white wineshallot butter on top gave an extra burst of flavor. The fries were outstanding, perfectly crisp with just the right amount of salt. The seasoned arugula that came with it could just as well have been an afterthought but it wasn’t: justwilted, peppery and a welcomed break from the meat and potatoes. All of our food was stellar: well thought out and executed. Also worth

BELLY UP

Make Your New Year's Special.

Check out the Times’ food blog, Eat Arkansas arktimes.com

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DOE’S KNOWS HOLIDAY PARTIES

Lunch: Mon- Fri 11am-2pm Dinner: Mon-Thur 5:30-9:30pm • Fri & Sat 5:30-10pm FULL BAR & PRIVATE PARTY ROOM 1023 West Markham • Downtown Little Rock 501-376-1195 • www.doeseatplace.net

Beauty and the Beast

ARKANSAS FESTIVAL BALLET PRESENTS STEAK FRITES: The 12-ounce ribeye needed only salt and pepper.

Boulevard Bistro & Bar 1920 N. Grant St. 501-663-5951 boulevardbread.com Quick bite

Boulevard has great coffee and pastries for the morning crowd. Its breakfast sandwich rivals any in town. The real star of the Sunday brunch menu is the Fried Chicken and Grits ($13). You get a sunny-side-up egg, a fried chicken breast and stone-ground grits. There’s a dollop of pickled giardiniera on top. It’s a real winner.

Hours

7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.

Other info

Full bar, credit cards accepted.

mentioning: The service here was outstanding. Our waitress very patiently answered our myriad questions and always appeared at the appropriate time. The wine list was brief, but well curated: We saw very good wines not offered by a lot of restaurants in town. Our Louis Haller Edelzwicker ($9) paired well with everything (think of a

great Riesling). The Elouan Pinot Noir ($10) was a solid match for the steak. With Boulevard’s reputation, we knew we’d be getting something good, but were still pleasantly surprised. This is a great place for a date night, a celebration or just a night out with the family. One visit will put Boulevard near the top of your go-to list.

At the Arkansas Children’s Theater May 18-20, 2018 Tickets on sale now! It’s a show for all ages, and now through the end of the year, adult tickets are $10 off… Just in time for Christmas! Visit arkansasdance.org or call 501-227-5320 for more information. GET TICKETS AT CENTRALARKANSASTICKETS.COM arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

MOVIE REVIEW

A SMALL TOWN SIMMERS: Frances McDormand channels her Coen brothers roots in Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

On edge, all the time

‘Three Billboards’ nails the 2017 zeitgiest. BY SAM EIFLING

ecades from now, we’ll try to explain to our dead ends, while Dixon sets out to threaten the grievgrandkids what it was like to live in the shit- ing mother. But Mildred, a tough cuss even before her showy year 2017. Everyone was on edge, all daughter was killed, gives as good as she gets, a deterthe time, we’ll say. There was a pervasive sense that mination forged in part living through an abusive marjustice was an outdated notion, where the institutions riage with her now-ex, another cop (Chris Cooper). charged with keeping you safe were incompetent or in Shooting in the worn hills and quaint streets of decay, that rape and corruption had been normalized, small-town North Carolina, writer/director Martin and that if you didn’t go into the street to raise hell McDonagh (“In Bruges,” “Seven Psychopaths”) manabout it, nothing was going to change. And without aged to build a tiny universe without any wasted breath invoking the name “Trump” or mentioning Twitter or or ignored roles. Behind the desk at the police station cable news or the FBI or Russian collusion, you could is where-have-I-seen-that-guy character actor Zelishow the kiddos the thoroughly impressive “Three jko Ivanek, getting laughs from lines that could’ve Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” It’s an unlikely been mere wallpaper. Samara Weaving has all of 10 candidate to nail the zeitgeist, but there we have it. lines as the spacey 19-year-old bombshell girlfriend The three billboards in question are furious mis- of Mildred’s ex-husband, and almost steals the entire sives from Mildred (Frances McDormand), the mother film with just those. Peter Dinklage, the notable New of a teenager who was raped and murdered, aimed at Jersey-born Lannister, hasn’t quite got the mid-Amerrattling a small-town police department and its chief ican accent down, but he does create some sympa(Woody Harrelson) into action. The police — notably, thetic moments as a longshot suitor for Mildred. Lucas a hotheaded thug cop named Dixon (Sam Rockwell) Hedges (as Mildred’s son) and Caleb Landry Jones (as — take instant offense at the suggestion that they’re the billboard ad man) also have the sort of roles that slacking. The chief tries explaining the investigation’s could’ve been rote. Instead, you come to look forward 36

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

to pretty much every character in the film appearing in a scene, no small feat in any film. Seeing McDormand — veteran of such Coen brothers’ movies as “Fargo,” “Raising Arizona” and “Burn After Reading” — gives the immediate impression of a Coens film, as does seeing perpetual Coens collaborator Carter Burwell’s name on the soundtrack. McDonagh is clearly striving for something in the Coens’ vein: an American vision at once over-the-top and yet realistic enough to explain America as a place of simmering violence and anger waiting to explode. But he tempers it with genuine tenderness. A reading beyond the titular billboards will point to three other written notes in the film that get closer to the heart of the film. They’re all profane, patient and emotionally generous. You’ll just have to wait for them. The touch and tone across seemingly dissonant themes are absolutely first-rate, and the result is a movie with uncommon emotional breadth and depth. Pitting his protagonist against small-town Missouri cops lets McDonagh evoke a clash of power and race and class and force that hints at (but never speaks) the names Ferguson or Michael Brown. If you live in this country — especially in the middle of it — you’ll just pick up on these themes without even thinking they’re particularly strange. “Three Billboards” captures a piece of predominantly white, rural America as a deeply dark comedy. You’ll laugh throughout, and then wonder when, exactly, your sense of humor got so morbid.

The most radiant show of the season Sissy’s Log Cabin Mazza Show December 8-9 | 10 am – 6 pm

1825 N Grant St, Little Rock, AR 72207 | (501) 663-0066 HOLIDAY HOURS: Monday - Saturday: 10 am – 6 pm ㈀㄀䔀⸀ 䴀愀爀欀栀愀洀匀琀⸀Ⰰ 匀琀攀⸀ ㈀ Ⰰ 䰀椀琀琀氀攀刀漀挀欀Ⰰ 䄀刀㜀㈀㈀㄀

Sunday: 1 pm – 5 pm | SissysLogCabin.com

䔀洀愀椀氀㨀愀渀椀琀爀愀䀀愀爀欀琀椀洀攀猀⸀挀漀洀

arktimes.com DECEMBER 07 2017

Holiday Gift Guide Holiday Season is Coming Up! Visit these local retailers to gear up for the holiday season of gift-giving.

Get the good kind of freeze

this holiday! Freeze, Pour, Enjoy the Sparq Vodka Shooter Set with soapstone shooters to keep the chill in your Vodka. Available at Box Turtle.

Shop Krebs Brothers Restaurant Store and pick up the

Razor super-sized griddle grill by Blue Rhino for $327.95. It’s perfect for camping, tailgating or just spending quality time in your own backyard. It cooks up to 57 burgers at a time!

perfect host gift

Colonial has the for the holidays: the Gift Pack of Scotch Whiskies. The pack includes 4- 100 ml bottles of the following: Glenmorangie Original 10 Year Old, Glenmorangie Lasanta Sherry Cask Finished 12 Year Old, Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban Port Cask Finished 12 Year Old, and Glenmorangie The Nectar D’Or Sauternes Cask Finished 12 Year Old, all for $27.99.

New designs by local artist Julie Holt

KNIFE SALE!

BUY 1 GET 1 KNIFE SALE HALF OFF

BUY 1 GET 1

HALF OFF

Going Now through Dec 24 23rd. NOWonTHROUGH DEC.

M-F 10-6 • SAT 10-5 • SUN 12-5 2616 KAVANAUGH BLVD. LITTLE ROCK 501.661.1167 • WWW.SHOPBOXTURTLE.COM 38

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

BEST GIFT SHOP

(501) 687-1331 4310 Landers Road, NLR M-F 8-5 Sat. 9-5

2017 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

For the duck enthusiast in your life:

in Calling the Wild: The History of Arkansas Duck Calls -- A Legacy of Craftsmanship and Rich Hunting Tradition, Arkansas duck call collector and author Mike Lewis chronicles the history of Arkansas duck call making and profiles over fifty renowned call makers. Available at Wordsworth Books. Get your copy signed by Mike this Sunday, December 10th 4:00-5:30.

Tis the season to shop Little Rock’s independent bookstore for: Books Literary gifts Gift certificates Free gift wrapping available

Stop in today!

WORDSWORTH BOOKSTORE

5920 R St • Heights (501) 663-9198 • Mon - Sat 10-6; Sun 12-5

TUES - SAT, 12-6PM 1525 MERRILL DR. LITTLE ROCK 501-228-0063 WWW.ICM-INC.ORG.

HOMEMADE DOG TREATS ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT arktimes.com arktimes.com DECEMBER DECEMBER 07, 07 2017

2017 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

Bella Vita has a ton of handmade,

arm candy

in all customizable price ranges. If you just can’t decide because they’re all great, buy multiples and wear them layered like this look.

these specials:

Head to Warehouse Liquor for Moët & Chandon for $38.99 (regular price $64.99), Hendricks Gin ½ gallon for $54.99 (regular price $62.99), and Tullamore D.E.W. ½ gallon for $35.99 (regular price $39.99).

THE GIFT OF “DRY” HUMOR

Plus other styles that put the “ha” in hand towels. 1523 Rebsamen Park Rd | Riverdale Design District | Little Rock, AR 501-663-0460 | 10:00–5:30 Mon–Fri;10:00–4:00 Sat | cynthiaeastfabrics.com 40

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

This Saturday, Dec. 9, Friends of Central Arkansas Libraries (FOCAL) members have the

opportunity for after-hours shopping at River Market Books & Gifts from 5:30-7 p.m. Members can also tour the Main Library basement, where the used book sales are held, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. Memberships are available online (cals.org/focal) and at the door. There will be Stone’s Throw beer, wine from O’Looney’s, cookies, cheese dip, coffee, hot chocolate and more. Contact FOCAL Coordinator Christopher Beaumont at cbeaumont@cals.org for more event info!

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT arktimes.com arktimes.com DECEMBER DECEMBER 30, 07 2017

2017 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

One of a Kind Gifts for All 523 S. Louisiana (In the Lafayette building)

www.bellavitajewelry.net

Cheers to the holidays!

Jingle All the Way !

Find festive barware and tableware at Rhea Drug now—great for your own parties or for host gifts.

Rhea Drug Store

A Traditional Pharmacy

with eclectic Gifts. Since 1922

2801 Kavanaugh Little Rock 501.663.4131

‘TIS THE SEASON

FOR WINGS AND CHEER

TIS THE SEASON

FOR WINGS AND CHEER SPREAD THE CHEER WITH B-DUBS® TAKEOUT AND LEAVE THE COOKING TO US. Call or visit today and get your holiday party menu order placed.

675 Amity Rd Conway, AR 72032 501-205-1940

WITH A HOLIDAY PARTY AT B-DUBS OR SPREAD THE CHEER WITH TAKEOUT

14800 Cantrell Rd Little Rock, AR 72223 501-868-5279

DECEMBER 07, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

4600 Silvercreek Dr. Sherwood, AR 72120 501-819-0192

all-natural homemade dog treats

Stuff your dog’s holiday stocking with made by chefs with special needs! The purpose behind Biscuits is to help those with disabilities gain competitive employment. ICM clients help bake and package our biscuits, as well as greet and assist customers. This provides them the opportunity to not only enjoy customized employment, but also to experience community integration and enhance their life skills.

Warning: if you give anyone

Buffalo Wild Wings holiday gift cards for Secret Santa, prepare for those people to become your new best friends. So if you’re okay with having swarms of best friends who love you more than their dogs, then go ahead, buy $25 dollars’ worth of select gift cards. Each will earn you a $5 bonus reward for all the best friends you now have. Buffalo Wild Wings. Wings. Beer. Sports. For a limited time, while supplies last. Restrictions apply. For terms and conditions, visit buffalowildwings.com.

2017 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE These customized baskets from Southern Table are the perfect gift for the people on your list who are impossible to buy for. Know a chef? A barbecuer? A cheese and wine lover? Need that perfect hostess gift? All you have to do is give your budget, explain a little bit about your recipient, and the owners of Southern Table will make the perfect customized gift for you! They also have pre-made baskets available for a quick grab-and-go. And, even better, it’s Arkansas Made and you’ll be supporting LOCAL.

Your favorite wines have arrived at your neighborhood grocer, Edwards Food Giant at Tanglewood! They have them all… Grab dinner and drinks this week at Edwards Food Giant.

Dazzle anyone on your shopping

list with locally made jewelry from the extensive selection at Stifft Station Gifts.

Holiday Magic you can enjoy at any age!

Shop Cynthia East for those on your Christmas list and grab this magic wand, which brings the magic of the holiday season to life for you and your family.

BUY IT! BELLA VITA JEWELRY 523 S Louisiana St., #175 396.9146 bellavitajewelry.net

COLONIAL WINES & SPIRITS 11200 W Markham St. 223.3120 colonialwineshop.com

BOX TURTLE 2616 Kavanaugh Blvd. 661.1167 shopboxturtle.com

CYNTHIA EAST FABRICS 1523 Rebsamen Park Rd. 663.0460 cynthiaeastfabrics.com

BUFFALO WILD WINGS Little Rock, 868.5279 Conway, 205.1940 Sherwood, 819.0192

EDWARDS FOOD GIANT 7507 Cantrell Rd. 614.3477 other locations statewide edwardsfoodgiant.com

CALS BUTLER CENTER FOR ARKANSAS STUDIES 401 PRESIDENT CLINTON AVE. 320.5700 www.butlercenter.org/art

KREBS BROTHERS RESTAURANT STORE 4310 Landers Rd. NLR 687.1331 krebsbrothers.com

RHEA DRUG STORE 2801 Kavanaugh Blvd. 663.4131 SOUTHERN TABLE 323 S Cross St. 379.9111 southerntablefoods.com STIFFT STATION GIFTS 3009 W Markham St. 725.0209 stifftstationgifts.com WAREHOUSE LIQUOR MARKET 1007 Main St. 374.0410 & 860 E Broadway St, NLR 501.374.2405 ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT arktimes.com arktimes.com DECEMBER DECEMBER 07, 07 2017

ALSO IN THE ARTS

THEATER

FINE ART, HISTORY EXHIBITS

“A Fertle Holiday.” The Main Thing’s rapid-fire holiday musical comedy about a “trouble-ridden holiday reunion in the tiny town of Dumpster, Arkansas.” 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., through Jan. 13. $24. The Joint Theater & Coffeehouse. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-372-0205.

MAJOR VENUES

“Almost, Maine.” The Weekend Theater’s production of John Cariani’s holiday love story. 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. through Dec. 16, with additional performances at 2:30 p.m. Dec. 10 and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 14. $12-$16. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-374-3761. “Meet Me in St. Louis.” The Studio Theatre’s staged version of the MGM classic film. 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2:30 p.m. Sun., through Dec. 17. $20-$25. 320 W. 7th St. 501-374-2615. “Harvey.” Murry’s Dinner Playhouse presents Jeff Bailey in Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about an invisible rabbit. 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat., dinner at 6 p.m.; 12:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. Sun., dinner at 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. through Dec. 31. $15-$37. 6323 Colonel Glenn Road. 501562-3131. “The Gift of the Magi.” Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s premiere of the O. Henry classic as a musical. 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sun., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., through Dec. 24. See therep.org for additional performances. $30-$65. 601 Main St. 501-378-0405. “Santaland Diaries.” Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s take on David Sedaris’ irreverent holiday roast, various times through Dec. 24. Performances staggered to coincide with “The Gift of the Magi.” See therep. org for tickets and showtimes. $30-$65. 518 Main St. 501-378-0405. “It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.” TheaterSquared stages Joe Landry’s adaptation of the Frank Capra film classic. 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., through Dec. 31. $10-$40. Walton Arts Center’s Studio Theater, 495 W. Dickson St. 479-443-5600.

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “49th Collectors Show and Sale,” works from New York galleries, through Jan. 7; “The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design,” through December; “The Faking of the Russian Avant-Garde: A Tale of Two Markets,” lecture by James Butterwick, 5 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. talk, tour of “Collectors Show” after, Dec. 7, free to members, $5 nonmembers; “Feed Your Mind Friday,” art-making activity with Museum School instructor Jann Greenland, noon Dec. 8; “Drawing Chairs with the Drawing Chair,” sketch session in the “Art of Seating” gallery, 1-3 p.m. Dec. 10; “The Art of Architecture,” with StudioMain, 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. lecture Dec. 12. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARTS CENTER OF THE OZARKS, Springdale: “Artists INC,” through Dec. 20. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Paint & Take Holiday Art,” guided painting of winter-themed pieces, music by Christmas in Space with Chris and Karen, 5-8 p.m. Dec. 8, 2nd Friday Art Night; “Reflections in Pastel,” the Arkansas Pastel Society’s national exhibition, through Feb. 24; “Bret Aaker: Conatus,” Loft Gallery, through Jan. 27; “The Art of Injustice,” Paul Faris’ photographs of Japanese incarceration at Rohwer, through Dec. 30. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 President Clinton Ave.: “Mandela: The Journey to Ubuntu,” photographs by Matthew Willman and recreation of Mandela’s cell, through Feb. 19, 2018; “Art of Africa: One Continent, Limitless Vision,” pieces from the Clinton Presidential Center’s

archives as well as from President Clinton’s own personal collection, through Feb. 12, 2018; permanent exhibits on the Clinton administration. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 adults, $8 seniors, retired military and college students, $6 youth 6-17, free to active military and children under 6, President Clinton’s birthday. 3744242. CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way, Bentonville: Lecture by photographer Carrie Mae Weems, 7-8 p.m. Dec. 8, “Stuart Davis: In Full Swing,” nearly 100 works by the modernist jazz-influenced painter, through Jan. 1; “Native North America,” indigenous art, through Jan. 7, 2018; “Not to Scale: Highlights from the Fly’s Eye Dome Archive,” drawings and models of Fuller’s geodesic dome, through March 2018; American masterworks spanning four centuries in the permanent collection. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun., closed Tue. 479-418-5700. ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main St.: “The Power of Plastics: Reshaping Midcentury Fashion,” plastic handbags from Anita Davis’ collection, through Jan. 7; “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags,” permanent exhibit. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. $10, $8 for students, seniors and military. 916-9022. FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave.: “Bonfire,” 21 environmentally focused works by textile artist Barbara Cade, through Feb. 8, 2018; “Momoyo Torimitsu: Somehow, I Don’t Feel Comfortable,” giant inflatable bunnies, through December. 18. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479-784-2787. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. 3rd St.: “13th Ever Nog-off,” eggnog contest, with live music, 5-8 p.m. Dec. 8, 2nd Friday Art Night; “Body/Ecology: Daniella Napolitano and Carmen Alexandria Thompson,” through Jan. 7; “Hidden Treasure: Selected Gala Fund Purchases,” including portraiture by Henry Byrd, work by Thomas Hart Benton, watercolors by Jacob Semiatin and more, through Jan. 8; “Gordon and Wenonah Fay Holl: Col-

lecting a Legacy,” through Feb. 4, 2018. Ticketed tours of renovated and replicated 19th century structures from original city, guided Monday and Tuesday on the hour, self-guided Wednesday through Sunday, $2.50 adults, $1 under 18, free to 65 and over. (Galleries free.) 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, 503 E. 9th St. (MacArthur Park): “Waging Modern Warfare”; “Gen. Wesley Clark”; “Vietnam, America’s Conflict”; “Undaunted Courage, Proven Loyalty: Japanese American Soldiers in World War II. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602. MATT McLEOD FINE ART, 108 W. 6th St.: Work in all media by Arkansas and outof-state artists. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays, 725-8508. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 9th and Broadway: Museum of African-American entrepreneurship and work by African-American artists. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 683-3593. MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: Interactive science exhibits and activities for children and teenagers. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 ages 1-12, free to members and children under 1. 396-7050. OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham St. “Twang Darkly,” musicians on homemade instruments, 5-8 p.m. Dec. 8, 2nd Friday Art Night; “Cabinet of Curiosities: Treasures from the University of Arkansas Museum Collection”; “True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley,” musical instruments, through 2017; “First Families: Mingling of Politics and Culture” permanent exhibit including first ladies’ gowns. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. TOLTEC MOUNDS STATE PARK, U.S. Hwy. 165, England: Major prehistoric Indian site with visitors’ center and museum. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., closed Mon. $4 for adults, $3 for ages 6-12, $14 for family. 961-9442. CONTINUED ON PAGE 46

WORLD PREMIERE MUSICAL GEM ABOUT THE TRUE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

THE

GIFT

OF THE MAGI a new musical by JEFFREY HATCHER, ANDREW COOKE and MAGGIE-KATE COLEMAN directed by JOHN MILLER-STEPHANY

ARKANSAS REPERTORY THEATRE 44

DECEMBER 07, 2017

NOV. 29 — DEC. 24

(501) 378-0405 | TheRep.org

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