Architects of Being: Louise Nevelson and Esphyr Slobodkina i s supported in part by the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Alan DuBois Fund for Contemporary Craft, Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, Anita Davis, and the Jewish Federation of Arkansas. This exhibition is organized by the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.
ARKANSAS MEDICAL DENTAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION THE FLOWERS AND RASBERRY FAMILIES OF CLEON AURELIUS
HONOREE
LOTTIE SHACKELFORD FRIENDS & FAMILY OF GARBO & ARCHIE HEANE, III, M.D. FRIENDS & FAMILY OF CLEON AURELIUS A. FLOWERS, SR., M.D.
C. BANGERT THE TAYLOR LATIMOR AGENCY
SR.,
ELECTRIC COOPERATIVES OF ARKANSAS LITTLE ROCK REGIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SCHOOL OF LAW
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH HEARNE MEDICAL
PEBBLE FAGAN & FRIENDS LYON COLLEGE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRATIC BLACK CAUCUS
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS
WAYNE EDWARDS AUTO PARTS AND SERVICE
NANCY FOMBY - HENDRIX RANEY HALL GROUP
NORTH LITTLE ROCK MAYORS OFFICE
HONOREE
A. FLOWERS,
M.D.
NOVEMEBER 2025
FEATURES
29 PUBLIC FUNDS, PRIVATE GRIPES
The LEARNS vouchers that dedicate taxpayer dollars to private school tuition and homeschool fees are creating new political and social divides. By Austin Gelder and Elizabeth Cline
36 KEEPING SCORES ON SCHOOL VOUCHERS
Facts, spin and convenient omissions in the state’s annual report on Year 2 of the program. By Benjamin Hardy
40 MARCH MADNESS
Dancing! Twirling! Music! Excitement! Can we finally give high school marching bands their due? Photos by Brian Chilson
9 THE FRONT
From the Publisher: Football is forever. Q&A: Saddle up with Black cowgirl Paris Wilburd.
In Memoriam: Miss Major, trans icon. Big Pic: It’s a word search! Are you game?
17 THE TO-DO LIST
Funkadelic in Fayetteville, undersung artist Kuimeaux at HAM, Willie Watson at White Water Tavern, James McMurtry at AMFA and more.
24 NEWS & POLITICS
A Lonoke County dad who killed the man accused of molesting his daughter is running for sheriff. By Matt Campbell
ON THE COVER: Tyler Holliman trumpets another victory for Little Rock’s Parkview High School football team. The school’s marching band, known as The Nation, is also a winner. Photo by Brian Chilson.
FALLEN HERO: Renowned documentarian Brent Renaud captures scenes from a bombing in Ukraine. Renaud, an Arkansan, was killed in the conflict.
56 CULTURE FULL MOON OVER CONWAY
Conway’s Full Moon Records moonlights as a concert venue, bringing alternative music back to town. By Milo Strain
REMEMBERING BRENT RENAUD
Arkansas journalist Brent Renaud died in pursuit of truthtelling. A new HBO documentary shores up his legacy. By Sam Eifling
64 FOOD & DRINK
People afflicted with a tickborne illness that puts them off beef and pork are digging in on emu protein instead. An Arkansas farmer is here to supply it. By Phillip Powell
74 THE
OBSERVER
Waiting tables can be a gas.
WHERE CARING SUPPORTS
PUBLISHER Alan Leveritt
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Austin Gelder
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mandy Keener
MANAGING EDITOR Benjamin Hardy
PRINT EDITOR Daniel Grear
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Matt Campbell
AGRI AND ENVIRONMENT REPORTER Phillip Powell
REPORTER Milo Strain
RACIAL EQUITY REPORTER Arielle Robinson
VIBE CHECKER Stephanie Smittle
EDITOR EMERITUS Max Brantley
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Mara Leveritt
PHOTOGRAPHER Brian Chilson
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Bob Edwards
ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR Mike Spain
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Katie Hassell
DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING/ SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS PUBLISHER Brooke Wallace
ARKANSAS TIMES (ISSN 0164-6273) is published each month by Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, 201 East Markham Street, Suite 150, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72201, phone (501) 3752985. Periodical postage paid at Little Rock, Arkansas, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ARKANSAS TIMES, 201 EAST MARKHAM STREET, SUITE 150, Little Rock, AR, 72201. Subscription prices are $60 for one year. For subscriber service call (501) 375-2985. Current single-copy price is $5, free in Pulaski County. Single issues are available by mail at $5.00 each, postage paid. Payment must accompany all orders. Reproduction or use in whole or in part of the contents without the written consent of the publishers is prohibited. Manuscripts and artwork will not be returned or acknowledged unless sufficient return postage and a self-addressed stamped envelope are included. All materials are handled with due care; however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for care and safe return of unsolicited materials. All letters sent to ARKANSAS TIMES will be treated as intended for publication and are subject to ARKANSAS TIMES’ unrestricted right to edit or to comment editorially.
SURVIVING HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL MADE EVERYTHING ELSE A BREEZE.
BY ALAN LEVERITT
Iwas the fourth chair drummer in the Jefferson Davis Junior High School Marching Rebel Band back in the ’60s when, at 15, I decided to reinvent myself.
My father had been a remarkable athlete at Arkansas A&M (now the University of Arkansas at Monticello) back in the ’30s. I desperately wanted to follow him into football glory, but my mother was having none of it. So I was in the band.
At Jeff Davis, a boy had to be ready to fight. In fact, it would help if he loved to fight. While my mother had tried to protect me from injury on the football field, I was probably at more physical risk as a band member. In the eyes of the bullies, music marked you as a weakling and a target. I hated that place. So I decided to go out for football the next year at North Little Rock High School, one of Arkansas’s biggest schools with a storied football program. For a 16-year-old boy from my town, it was just a small step below the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Football would mold me, make me bigger and stronger than the bullies, I decided. But I learned quickly that the bullies would have to wait. First, I had to survive football.
That summer, along with more than 100 other rising 10th graders, I showed up in the 100-plus degree heat for August two-a-days. We started every morning from 7-11 a.m., then we were back again from 4 p.m. until you couldn’t see the ball. That morning, Coach Stephens told us to look around. By our senior year, he said, four out of five of us would have quit.
I was certainly a prospect. I had never worn cleats and by the first week my arches had completely fallen, sending daggers of pain though my feet every time I pushed off. I didn’t know how to hit or how to block. I didn’t even know the warm-up exercises. Everyone else had played in junior high, and very quickly I was relegated to being a live tackling dummy or holding one for the more talented players to hit.
My father, who had been a physical therapist at Walter Reed Hospital during the Second World War, took to meeting me at home for lunch, greeting me with encouraging words and a tub full of very hot water. My
body was so sore and bruised that he would have to lower me in and lift me out of the tub, then massage my aching muscles. After a couple of weeks of this, one day he said, “Alan, you have given this a really good try. Maybe this is not for you.”
My father was trying to give me an honorable way out, and to this day I love him for it. I watched so many fathers forcing and berating their sons back onto the field, trying to live out their own athletic dreams through their boys.
My definition of success was simply not to quit. Even when I broke my hand during tackling drills, I showed up every day wearing the cast. One of the coaches told me to quit and take study hall. I kept showing up.
Everyone plays and coaches football for their own reasons. It is certainly a career for the coaches, and it makes sense that they often put their time into the players who will make them successful. But many of them lose sight of their less talented players who are there for equally important reasons, be it to overcome adversity, build confidence or to build their bodies. The very worst thing for
those less talented players — including me — was to be ignored.
Enter Eldon Hawley, a Little All-American from Forrest City, who came on as our defensive line coach. In an interview many years later, Hawley said, “Back then we coached pretty physical.” That was the only moment I would have described him as understated. Almost 60 years later, I think I still carry his multiple footprints on my butt. He would scream in your ear, slap your helmet until your ears rang, and bounce up and down the line on all fours, alternatively cajoling or threatening, always at the top of his lungs. I was not only the smallest man on the team, but also one of the slowest. But I would do anything Coach Hawley said and, for the first time in over a year, it felt like someone knew I was there. I knew he knew because when I screwed up, he would come over and push me to the ground and stand over me, screaming my offense, then give me a hand up and put me back in the line to do it over. Unlike many coaches, Hawley would give back to a player as much as that player would put out, regardless of talent. He was incredibly demanding and, in the process, built confidence and character in his players. I started the Arkansas Times right out of college, and a few years into it, I wrote Coach Hawley a letter thanking him for the attention he gave me. I finally started my senior year, but I wasn’t going to win any championships. Coach Hawley did it because he was building young men as well as players.
The news is full of CTE deaths among retired NFL players, and even in the South, parents are pulling their kids out of schoolboy football in fear of injuries. But for me, looking back over a long life, it was the most important thing I ever did. The year after I graduated, I tried to hitchhike to Chile on $150 and I would probably have made it but for the Darién Gap. It never occurred to me I might fail. I had already survived Coach Hawley. Three years later, I started the Arkansas Times on $200 and drove a cab at night to make ends meet. I could do anything because I had spent three years with a man who believed in me.
BALLER: A young Alan Leveritt takes the field.
SADDLE UP
A Q&A WITH PARIS WILBURD, COWGIRL CHAMPION.
At just 16 years old, Sylvan Hills High School junior Paris Wilburd has already achieved what other dedicated cowboys and cowgirls have only dreamed of. In September, she was named the Ladies Barrel Racing Champion and the National All Around Cowgirl at the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo championship, beating out adults in the only African American touring rodeo association in the country. Wilburd, who also runs track and plays volleyball, won several events at the contest in 2023 and 2024 as well. Since beginning to rodeo at age 6, the Arkansas teen has been awarded tens of thousands of dollars and hopes to one day be the first Black woman to compete in the National Finals Rodeo. The Arkansas Times spoke with Wilburd at her home in Cabot, where she talked about her successes, what it means to be a cowgirl and the racial realities of rodeoing.
When did you first start riding horses? I started riding horses when I was 6 years old. None of my family actually rodeos. I was out on a trail ride and after that, I got on my horse by myself, and after that I just fell in love with horses and I’ve always wanted to be on one.
WHAT MUSIC HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING TO LATELY?
GloRilla, SZA and Daniel Caesar.
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR FUN?
When did you start doing rodeo and what events do you compete in? I actually was one of my trainer’s fastest kids to start rodeo competition. It typically takes around a year or longer to start competing in rodeo, but it only took me a few months to start after I started riding. I’m an adrenaline junkie and I really love competition. I love to win, that’s why I do so many sports. My favorite [rodeo event], of course, is the ladies barrel racing, but I also compete in ladies steer undecorating, ladies pole bending and goat tying. Ladies steer undecorating is like the girl’s version of bulldogging, so we line up in the roping box and we have a hazer on one side, which is another person on a horse, and then one on the other side. And once we nod our head, we run straight out the chute and we try to get the tape off the back of the steer as fast as we can, and whoever does it the fastest wins. Pole bending has six poles set up, and you run down, you weave through each pole, you weave through again and you run back out, and whoever runs the fastest wins. And then goat tying is you run and hang off your horse and you step off, you flank the goat, tie three of his legs and whoever does it the fastest wins.
I like shopping or just driving around or hanging out with friends.
ADVICE FOR OTHER BLACK GIRLS WHO ARE YOUNGER THAN YOU?
Never give up and don’t let anyone tear you down.
and then she had a baby, and she’s actually blind in both eyes now. And then I have a pony named Rosie. She was my first-ever horse. And that pony was the craziest horse I have ever been on. She would go up on two feet in the alleyway and just take off. If I didn’t have that pony, I don’t think I’d be as good as I am today. She really made me an aggressive rider. She’s the reason I can get on any horse and just jump right on it all the time.
Are there any barriers you have had to face as a young Black girl doing horseback riding and/or competing? I would definitely say when I first started competing, I had no clue about Black rodeos. I was always competing at white rodeos. And, of course, I was a little girl, so I wasn’t really thinking about it and, of course, I came across some jealousy, but even when I did get to Black rodeo at like 12 years old, they were [still] really jealous of me. I wouldn’t necessarily say no one really liked me, but you can tell when someone is throwing shade or just snide comments, which never really bothered me. If people are hating on me, it just pushes me to do better. I’ve never let it just bring me down. I’ve always just let it build me up.
Black cowboys and cowgirls have existed for generations, despite people in the U.S. often associating cowboys with being white men. How does it feel to be keeping this legacy and longstanding tradition among Black people in the South alive? To me it feels really good because I love representing for Black people. Even outside of rodeo, outside of track, outside of volleyball, just how I carry myself is representing other Black people. I always try to be a good person, be nice to everyone, carry myself really well and get straight to business with all my events. So it feels really good knowing that I’m doing a good job representing Black people at a young age.
What are your long-term goals when it comes to competing and/or horseback riding? I want to be the first African American to compete in the ladies barrel racing at the National Finals Rodeo. There hasn’t been a Black woman to compete there yet, so I really want to compete there. And I also want to win there.
Tell me a little bit about your horses. My main horse is Fugly. He came from North Platte, Nebraska, and the lady that we bought him from named him Fugly, so it was too late for us to change his name. He’s Cremello with blue eyes and that’s the horse that I just won my titles on. But I have another mare named J.Lo. We actually named her J.Lo. because of the singer — she has a big butt. I won my very first title on her, the junior barrel racing title, and she was actually blind in her left eye when I won that title,
Would you consider yourself a cowgirl? I consider myself a cowgirl, but outside of rodeo, if I never told anyone that I rodeo, they would never guess I rodeo’d. Because at school or just in general, I’m always in athletic wear and Jordans and I just dress like any other athlete, but then when I’m at rodeo I always have jeans and hay boots on. But I consider myself a cowgirl. I feel like anybody can be a cowgirl, but what it means to me is you’re outdoors, you are with your farm, your barn, you love animals, you’re always out, you have a really big responsibility. Cowgirls don’t just come with dressing up as a cowgirl. —Arielle Robinson
2026 READERS CHOICE AWARDS
Nominations go through November 8. The finalists will be notified and they go head to head in the finals round, starting November 17! Winners will be announced in our February 2026 issue.
FAREWELL TO MISS MAJOR
TRAILBLAZING
TRANS
ACTIVIST AND UNLIKELY LITTLE ROCK RESIDENT
MISS MAJOR GRIFFIN-GRACY DIED IN OCTOBER. HER LIFE WAS A CAREENING HISTORY LESSON IN OPPRESSION AND DEFIANCE. BY DANIEL GREAR
Transgender elder, activist and icon Miss Major Griffin-Gracy died Oct. 13 at her home in Little Rock. She had been in hospice care after being hospitalized with sepsis and a blood clot, Them magazine reported in early October. According to a statement from the House of GG, the retreat center for trans people of color that she ran here in Arkansas, Miss Major was 78.
“Her enduring legacy is a testament to her resilience, activism and dedication to creating safe spaces for Black trans communities and all trans people,” the press release says. “We are eternally grateful for Miss Major’s life, her contributions and how deeply she poured into those she loved.”
Born in the 1940s in Chicago — there’s some uncertainty about her exact birth year — Miss Major dedicated her life to fearlessly advocating on behalf of trans people and other oppressed groups. She participated in the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, worked for the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center in San Francisco and served as the first executive director of the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project in San Francisco. She endured incarceration, police brutality and countless other injustices during her decades of activism on the East and West coasts.
Miss Major moved to Little Rock in 2016. She said she was charmed by the city during a visit for a screening of “MAJOR!,” a 2015 documentary about her life.
“They showed the movie downtown. I left there and was just walking around the area and I noticed how wide the streets were. I remember thinking, ‘Well, my Cadillac would really be fine on these roads,’ so I came here,” she said in an interview with the Arkansas Times for a profile we published in 2023. “[Living in the South is] a little strange. But the thing about it is: The people here give me the respect that I’m due for who I am.”
Despite suffering a stroke in 2019, Miss Major remained committed to the cause, specifically through her work with the House of GG, a retreat center she founded in West Little Rock where she hosted trans people in need of respite.
“It’s a chance to get away, get yourself together and then go back and give ’em hell,” she told the Times. “It’s for Black trans people, male or female. On occasion, white people get to come out. But primarily it’s for Black people because we don’t have a lot of places to go, especially ones that have a relaxing atmosphere. It’s rush, rush, rush.”
Miss Major is survived by her partner, Beck Witt Major, and her sons Asiah, Christopher and Jonathon.
INDELIBLE: Miss Major at her Little Rock home in 2023.
BRIAN CHILSON
IT’S TIME FOR A WORD SEARCH
DUMPSTER-DIVING THROUGH THE SEASON’S NEWS HEADLINES IS PUZZLING STUFF.
It’s late in the year and early in the presidential term, and searching for meaning in the cluttered dystopian landscape of current events circa 2025 is, frankly, pretty exhausting work. Might we suggest you search for some words instead? Spot as many answers from our recent headlines (and beyond) as you can, preferably while guzzling enough Busch Light to inspire a legal name change.
Thanks to a marketing campaign for Busch Light’s camo-colored cans, Arkansans stand to win 19 years of free beer, so long as they’re willing to legally change their name to ______.
An HBO documentary released in late October depicts the life and work of Brent ______, the Arkansas filmmaker who was killed in March 2022 while covering the Russia-Ukraine war.
Fervor is a fleeting thing in the world of football, and the University of Arkansas fired head hog Sam ______ following a devastating loss to Notre Dame in September.
At a September press conference in Little Rock, Sen. Tom Cotton and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan ______ advocated for letting prisons jam contraband cellphones.
Drag legend ______ Jones, longstanding proprietor of Little Rock gay nightclub Discovery, died Sept. 29.
For the first time in 30 years, the Junior League’s annual shopping bazaar, ______ ______, will not return to the Little Rock social calendar.
Among the pledges in the Clinton Foundation’s new $30 million investment toward a “sustainable energy district” in downtown Little Rock: infrastructure for charging ______ vehicles.
A multi-panel memorial eulogizing conservative activist Charlie ______ went up in the second-floor rotunda of the Arkansas State Capitol in September. Absent from the memorial: quotes from the deceased himself.
Unfortunately for fans of perfectly-named civil servants, Arkansas’s Commissioner of State Lands, Tommy ______, is term-limited. Current Secretary of State Cole Jester is running to replace him.
The ______ Theatre, a group that’s been staging shows in Central Arkansas since 2014, shuttered its Seventh Street venue in early October, citing fundraising challenges.
If he manages to fend off his five Democratic challengers in 2026, U.S. Senator ______ ______ will serve his third term in the Senate.
Among the hundreds of ______ coffeehouses slated for closure across the country were locations in North Little Rock, Jacksonville, Paragould and Jonesboro.
A biography released by the University of Arkansas Press this summer details the tumultuous life of poet Frank ______, of whom Lucinda Williams sang in the song “Pineola.”
After lawmakers declined to fund Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ would-be prison in ______ County, Sheriff Johnny Crocker reported that ICE agents had visited the site in September, prompting speculation about the governor’s aspirations for the billion-dollar facility.
Little Rock City Director Lance Hines proposed a resolution calling for Ward 2 Director ______ Richardson to step down after missing more than a year of meetings due to health complications.
Books and a baguette, anyone? The Central Arkansas Library System’s newly renovated Main Library includes a satellite location for ______ Bread Co.
Saturday, November 29
LET THE FEAST BEGIN!
PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC WITH GEORGE CLINTON
TUESDAY 11/25. OZARK MUSIC HALL, FAYETTEVILLE. 7 P.M. $55.
Somewhere in the vast pantheon of Afrofuturism, geographically past the library where Octavia Butler sits as the matriarch of speculative fiction and, chronologically, several hours after Sun Ra concludes a free jazz symphony of cosmic proportions, you could place George Clinton and ParliamentFunkadelic in the backyard somewhere, soundtracking the afterparty. Blending real-deal funk with extraterrestrial plot lines and technicolor stage costumes for decades in various iterations, Clinton’s revolving collective is somehow both perennially zany and perpetually dead-serious, infusing a socially conscious and politically savvy ethos into tunes with titles like “Bop Gun (Endangered Species)” and “Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop).” Here at Fayetteville’s Ozark Music Hall (known formerly as JJ’s Live), George and Co. hold court. If for some reason Nov. 25 is on the doomsday soothsayers’ list as a potential date for the world to end, being at this concert would be an absolutely ideal way to go out. Get tickets at ozarkmusichall.com. SS
BY DANIEL GREAR, STEPHANIE SMITTLE, ARIELLE ROBINSON, BENJAMIN HARDY AND OMAYA JONES
CLAREMONT
TRIO
THURSDAY 11/6. ST. LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 7:30 P.M. $25.
The history of musical collaborators who share DNA is long and often illustrious — The Carter Family, The Jackson 5, K-Ci & JoJo, The Beach Boys, Haim, Alvin and the Chipmunks. So it is with twins Emily and Julia Bruskin, two-thirds of the acclaimed Claremont Trio, dreamed up in 1999 while the sisters were still in school. A quarter-century later, the Bruskins, along with a pianist — the dynamic Sophiko Simsive, currently — have been interpreting chamber trio repertoire old and new, and to great effect, utilizing “the kind of fresh approach that keeps chamber music alive,” wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer. Here, as part of the Chamber Music Society of Little Rock’s concert season, Simsive and the Bruskins offer Maurice Ravel’s beguiling Piano Trio in A Minor, which Ravel finished in a frenzy — “with the sureness and lucidity of a madman,” he wrote to a pupil — ahead of his enlistment in the French Army in 1914. Paired with the Ravel are Beethoven’s Piano Trio No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 1, No. 1 and a piece called “Soliloquy,” written in 1997 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Shulamit Ran. Get tickets at chambermusiclr.com. SS
TWEN
THURSDAY 11/20. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 8 P.M. $15-$18.
When you spend most of the year on the road anyway, what does it actually mean to be from somewhere? I would guess that’s a question frequently pondered by the indie rock outfit Twen, who during the pandemic decided to do away with a permanent address after years-long stints in Boston and Nashville. Lightly psychedelic, reverb-obsessed and anchored by hooky riffs and melodies, the van-dwelling band led by singer Jane Fitzsimmons and multi-instrumentalist Ian Jones “encapsulates many things about being young, like the freedom of seemingly infinite choices, tempered by rough socioeconomic conditions that make any of those choices seem hard to reach,” according to Nashville Scene. If you like Tame Impala or Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Twen might just be your new favorite band. Their third album, “Fate Euphoric,” comes out Nov. 5, just in time for this show at the White Water Tavern, where the duo will be joined by Athens, Georgia’s Monsoon and Little Rock’s Buckshot Princess. Get tickets at whitewatertavern.com. DG
JAMES MCMURTRY
THURSDAY 11/13. ARKANSAS MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 7:30 P.M. $45-$50.
Losing a parent means losing the archival record on what makes you you. No one knows the raw substrate of your childhood, the deep lore, like the person who raised you — when they go, a piece of you goes, too. That’s the loss I hear in the chorus of “Pinocchio in Vegas,” a track on Texas singer-songwriter James McMurtry’s new album. “Who were my grandmother’s friends? / Used to play bridge every Tuesday at 10 / Who were the neighbors next door? / When I was still crawlin’ on the floor.” The questions go unanswered until the song’s final line brings it home: “I can’t call you up and ask you anymore.” McMurtry’s father — Larry McMurtry, author of “Lonesome Dove” and “The Last Picture Show” — died in 2021, and the title track on the new album, “The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy,” was inspired by a recurring dementia-fueled hallucination that visited him toward the end of his life. It’s a defiant bluesy stomp from the perspective of a mind regressing toward childhood; no pity or condescension here. “Hey — somebody lied to me,” goes the chorus, paranoid and confused. I played the album for my own mom recently, who has Alzheimer’s. She couldn’t understand the lyrics, but she took to the music immediately. “I’m in love with this guy,” she told me with conviction after 30 seconds. I kind of am, too. McMurtry is one of the best songwriters in the country. See him if you can. Get tickets at arkmfa.org. BH
What does it take for art to transcend the grave? For starters, the work needs to be good, with the potential to resonate beyond the confines of its maker’s life. But more importantly, the work needs cheerleaders, true believers who are willing to doggedly go to bat for an artist in their absence. Little Rock native Dwight “Kuimeaux” Drennan, who received regional recognition during his lifetime but never found commercial success, has both of these factors working in his favor. After Drennan’s death in 2022, a group of his friends banded together to dream up “The Kuimeaux Project,” a website devoted to the preservation of his drawings and paintings. An exhibition opening on 2nd Friday Art Night at the Historic Arkansas Museum is another step in the group’s efforts to keep his work alive. Described in a press release as “bold, busy and intense,” Kuimeaux’s pieces frequently depicted Southern vistas and cityscapes in a manner that wondrously straddles fantasy and realism, nostalgia and grit. The exhibition will be on display in the Worthen Arkansas Made Gallery until spring 2027. Find an archive of Kuimeaux’s art — as well as more than a dozen videos offering insight into his process — at kuimeauxart.com. DG
At the outset of Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty” (1988) — “a painful, enormously moving drama,” according to Roger Ebert — the Pope family is living in Florida City, Florida, when Danny (River Phoenix) sees what he believes to be FBI agents. He alerts his parents and they’re quickly out of town, never to return home, forced even to abandon their dog. It’s a life that Danny, soon to be a high school senior, is used to. Once countercultural activists who years ago participated in the bombing of a napalm factory, his mother and father have been on the run ever since, dragging Danny and his younger brother from city to city. After relocating to New Jersey, a teacher recognizes Danny’s talent as a pianist and encourages him to apply to Juilliard. He also falls in love with the teacher’s daughter, Lorna (Martha Plimpton). Suddenly, Danny’s hopes and dreams are incompatible with the fugitive lifestyle he’s inherited, leaving him at a crossroads. Get tickets at riverdale10.com. OJ
WILLIE WATSON
SATURDAY 11/8. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 8 P.M. $25$30.
Just when I think I’ve heard every kind of voice there is to hear, a singer like Willie Watson comes along and sets me straight. On the spectrum from mangled to mellifluous, Watson lands somewhere just left of center, occupying a place that rings mighty authentic and rarely performative. A longtime member of Old Crow Medicine Show — the “Wagon Wheel”singing folk band he co-founded in the late ’90s — Watson went solo in 2011. Following the release of two collections of mostly traditional songs that prompted PopMatters to opine that “no one’s a better interpreter of authentic folk music today than Watson,” he finally released his first solo record of original material in 2024. Flush with understated fiddle, harmonica and banjo, the resulting self-titled album is “brimming with beauty and confidence,” according to NPR. Appalachian folk singer and social media sensation Gabrielle Hope is set to open. Get tickets at whitewatertavern.com. DG
LEGACIES & LUNCH: ‘AMERICAN INDIANS IN ARKANSAS BASEBALL’
WEDNESDAY 11/5. UA LITTLE ROCK DOWNTOWN. NOON. FREE
How much do you know about the history of Native Americans and their participation in Arkansas minor league baseball? If, like many, the answer is “next to nothing,” archivist Erin Fehr is headed to UA Little Rock Downtown to tell you all about how American Indians from tribes such as the Potawatomi — indigenous to the Great Plains, Great Lakes and upper Mississippi River regions — and the Pawnee — indigenous to the Great Plains area — helped cruise the Little Rock Travelers to a Southern League championship win in 1920. Fehr, who is of Yup’ik heritage and who serves as the assistant director of UALR’s Sequoyah National Research Center, will also speak about the influence of off-reservation boarding schools and World War I on Indigenous peoples’ relationship to baseball. Attendees are expected to bring their own lunches, but drinks and cookies will be provided. This is a hybrid program and will be offered both in person and on Zoom. RSVP at events.cals.org. AR
‘SAY
IT
AIN’T
SAY’S’ SWEET POTATO PIE CONTEST
SUNDAY 11/9. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER. 1 P.M. FREE.
The only thing better than one of your mother’s sweet potato pies is several of your mother’s sweet potato pies. Taste the delicious fall treat in abundance at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center’s 12th annual “Say It Ain’t Say’s” Sweet Potato Pie Contest. Named for the late Robert “Say” McIntosh, an outspoken Little Rock activist and restaurant owner known for his own famous sweet potato pies who died in 2023, this event will allow visitors to sample pies from a plethora of local bakers — and cast a vote for their favorite — all while enjoying live music and celebrating the holiday vibrations in the air. “Say It Ain’t Say’s” is free, but everyone who attends is expected to bring a new, unopened toy to support the Robert “Say” McIntosh Stop the Violence Toy Drive, which carries on the tradition of giftgiving that McIntosh started decades ago. AR
VOTE FOR THE VIGILANTE?
A LONOKE COUNTY DAD ACCUSED OF SHOOTING HIS DAUGHTER’S ALLEGED MOLESTER AIMS TO TAKE THE LAW INTO HIS OWN HANDS YET AGAIN, THIS TIME IN AN OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS COUNTY SHERIFF.
BY MATT CAMPBELL
There are myriad ways a person might react when faced with a murder charge. One could hire an attorney and go into hiding, steadfastly avoiding the press and the public eye ahead of a trial. On the other hand, the accused might take to the airwaves, loudly singing the song of his innocence to any outlet that will listen.
A third, less frequently used option? Run for sheriff against the sheriff whose department arrested you.
That’s the route chosen by Aaron Spencer, the Lonoke County man arrested in October 2024 for allegedly shooting and killing 67-year-old Michael Fosler after discovering him with Spencer’s missing daughter, then 13 years old.
It’s a bold strategy that just might pay off; Spencer has become something of a cult hero for killing Fosler, and it’s not inconceivable he could ride his newfound notoriety into office. There’s just one wrinkle: He may not be eligible to be sheriff by the time the election gets here. In January, Spencer is going on trial for second-degree murder, and a felony conviction is a bar to holding office in Arkansas.
In a video posted in early October on Facebook announcing his candidacy for Lonoke County’s top law enforcement position, Spencer described himself as “the father who acted to protect his daughter when the system failed him” and “a husband, a combat veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, a contractor and a farmer.” He said he has “seen firsthand the failures in law enforcement and in our circuit court,” and he could no longer
sit by silently.
“This campaign isn’t about me,” Spencer said. “It’s about every parent, every neighbor, every family who deserves to feel safe in their homes and safe in their community. It’s about restoring trust, where neighbors know law enforcement is on their side and families know they will not be left alone in a moment of need.”
Spencer was arrested last fall and charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Fosler. The story quickly gained local and national attention due to Fosler’s alleged prior relationship with Spencer’s daughter.
According to court records, Fosler had been arrested in July 2024 and charged with 43 counts including sexual assault of a minor, internet stalking of a child, and possession of child pornography, some or all of which related to a relationship between Fosler and Spencer’s daughter. Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore released Fosler on bond.
Just after 1 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2024, according to records obtained by the Arkansas Times, Spencer called 911 to report his daughter missing. Spencer told police he’d been awakened by his dog barking, went to his daughter’s room to check on her, and saw she was gone. He said he suspected she was with Fosler.
The arrest affidavit says Spencer went to look for his daughter and Fosler after calling 911. A short time later, 911 dispatch got a second call from Spencer, who said he had located his daughter and the “man who kidnapped his daughter,” but that Fosler was
“dead on the side of the road” and that Spencer “had no choice.”
The affidavit contains Spencer’s recounting of how the deadly interaction unfolded. Spencer saw Fosler’s white Ford F-150 turn onto Arkansas Highway 236 East, toward Fosler’s home. He turned around and chased after Fosler’s vehicle, flashing his lights and honking his horn to get Fosler to pull over. When the two vehicles arrived at an intersection, Spencer rammed his truck into the rear of Fosler’s, sending the F-150 into a ditch. The affidavit continues:
“Spencer then stated that he exited his vehicle with his firearm in hand and ordered Fosler out of his vehicle and to lay down in the ditch. Spencer stated that he observed his daughter trying to exit the passenger side of the vehicle, but it appeared that Fosler had grabbed her and stopped her from getting out. Spencer then stated that Fosler exited his vehicle and had something in his hand, but [Spencer] did not know what it was. Spencer stated that Fosler then lunged toward him, saying ‘fuck you.’ Spencer stated that he then opened fire on Fosler, emptying his weapon before jumping on top of [Fosler] and pistol whipping him. Spencer then stated that he got his daughter out of the vehicle and returned to his truck where he reloaded his weapon and called 911.”
Spencer posted a $150,000 bond and was released from the Lonoke County Jail the following day. In late November, prosecutors charged him with second-degree murder and commission of a felony with a firearm. That same day, Spencer’s attorneys, Erin Cassinel-
SEEKING JUSTICE: Aaron Spencer said he has “seen firsthand the failures in law enforcement and in our circuit court,” and he could no longer sit by silently.
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Hillcrest Designer Jewelry, a local gem led by owner Eric Coleman, is the “Face of Designer Jewelry” in Little Rock. With over 40 years of experience, Eric, a graduate gemologist from the Gemological Institute of America, brings unparalleled expertise to every facet of the business. Since opening in 2011, he and his wife, Cathy, who now manages the front of the store, have cultivated a full-service establishment offering everything from top designer brands to bespoke custom creations and meticulous repairs. Their commitment to the Hillcrest community, a vibrant hub of creative entrepreneurs, shines through their unique selection and dedicated customer service. This family-run business, occasionally assisted by their son, Cross, makes jewelry dreams a reality, rooted in decades of passion and skill.
The Face of Hillcrest Designer Jewelry.
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SCHOOL VOUCHER CONFIDENTIAL
YES, THE OTHER PARENTS ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU.
BY AUSTIN GELDER AND ELIZABETH CLINE ILLUSTRATIONS BY KASTEN SEARLESS
People in bad suits droning on in stale wood-paneled rooms — the milieu for most state government decision-making — might appeal to a certain subset, but it bores most people numb. Once the fallout of those decisions makes its way to our kids, though, nerve endings start to jangle.
Such is the case with the Arkansas LEARNS Act, a conservative heartthrob of a law that gives homeschool and private school families around $7,000 per student this school year toward tuition and other expenses. Dressed up as patriotic-sounding “Education Freedom Accounts” — EFAs for short — these outlays for students who opt out of public schools in exchange for something more bespoke are what most people refer to simply as school vouchers.
Policy wonks and lobbyists mixed it up
plenty over the voucher plan in 2023 as LEARNS barreled through the Arkansas Capitol at record speed. But most parents were understandably too busy at the time to worry much with a concept that might, or might not, affect them at a future date.
Now, that future is here. The vouchers are open to any and all Arkansas K-12 students for the first time this school year, meaning every parent or guardian of a school-aged child potentially has a choice to make. And every Arkansas taxpayer has money in the game. The state is expected to shell out an estimated $326 million for vouchers in 2025-26. That spending comes on top of funding for traditional public schools, which state government is constitutionally bound to maintain, even as it now directs public dollars and resources to nonpublic schools.
Now that the voucher issue has moved beyond the hands of politicians and into the hands of parents, we wanted to know what real people really thought. Who’s using these vouchers, and why? Who’s still out there singing the praises of their neighborhood schools and traditional public education? And what happens when family and friends find they’re on opposing sides of the debate?
Trip-wired with the taboos of politics, religion, race and class, these conversations can make your palms sweat. So we offered parents anonymity in exchange for their candor on the good, the bad and the ugly of Arkansas’s school voucher experiment.
These accounts have been edited for length and clarity and to protect the anonymity of the families involved.
CONFLICTED CENTRAL ARKANSAS PARENT OF TWO, WITH ONE IN PUBLIC SCHOOL AND ONE IN PRIVATE SCHOOL WITH A VOUCHER
Vouchers didn’t play any role in our decision to send a child to private school. That said, we ended up taking the voucher. Ethically, I wrestled with, “Should I turn it down?” But if I say no to the money, it will just go to fund a prison or buy a new podium or whatever. Vouchers are horrible public policy that will potentially be the death knell of public education. They’re already wrecking the state budget, depriving funding to vital services. But it’s not like if I didn’t take the money it would go into public schools.
I’m hurting public schools by removing my child, making it that much harder for public schools to run overhead. I feel way more guilty about that than I do about taking the voucher money.
My concern over private schools has always been around class and race, not education. My talking point forever was that I will not do private school unless my kid has a serious learning disability. That did not come to pass. My bright younger kid [now in a private school] is pretty well-rounded and excited to learn, but is not a self-directed learner. The older sibling very much is, and did fine in public middle school.
For everybody, middle school is a little bit of a wasteland. And our experience in public school has been very hit or miss. We’ve had very disengaged teachers and some excellent teachers. We spent several years just doing worksheets and art. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It just kind of hurts your heart.
The youngest was in a classroom last year filled with a lot of kids who were super disruptive. There were complaints like, “We can’t do anything because everybody’s wilding out all the time.”
The tolerance for that may differ from kid to kid, too. The older kid doesn’t care, thinks it’s funny, can go in the zone and do the work.
It was a contentious decision in the house, but I think the biggest thing was we felt that the younger child needed more educational support, with teachers who are really engaged. Everyone we talked to [about the private school] said that would be the case. There’s a lot more homework, but that’s also a nice way to check in all the time to make sure the kid’s getting it. There’s not really a punitive side. If they mess up, they get to fix their work. We like the smaller class size.
But I give myself a hard time about it all the time. The politics of this make me sick. I can’t explain that to my child, who toured the school and loved it and really wanted to go.
The class stuff is icky. I hear, “So and so has a BMW SUV,” or “I saw a new G-Wagon today.” There’s a lot of talking about where people go on fall break. There’s clearly a lot of privilege and wealth. There’s way more talk about material stuff.
VOUCHER-OPPOSING LITTLE ROCK
PARENT OF TWO WHO STILL BELIEVES IN THE COMMON GOOD
When I first heard about the vouchers, I did not think — and still do not think — that they serve public schools I was a volunteer on the campaign against the LEARNS Act. Public education is a bedrock pillar of a democratic society. When we talk about, you know, liberty and equality for all, public education is one of the ways that we try to have equality in the sense that no matter what your back ground is in terms of adverse childhood events and socioeconomic status. I think the whole premise of vouchers is wrong. I’m fine with people choosing private schools or homeschooling. I just don’t think they should be allowed to tap into public funds to pay for that.
So many students need extra supports and wrap-around services, and that’s where funding needs to go instead of vouchers, because when people talk about the failing public schools, which is a false narrative, they’re talking about test scores and school ratings and things that we know track with parent income and socioeconomic status. When parents of means take their students out of public schools and homeschool them, or send them to private school, this just leaves situations where students who have the most needs are in the public schools. This leads to the public schools’ reputation being tarnished even further.
My kids go to Central High School. I will say I follow the Little Rock School District board meetings, and I’ve definitely seen the board struggling to figure out what to do with the lack of funds, including consolidating schools, closing schools, changing positions, and making decisions that they would not have to make if the funding were back to, let’s say, the rate it had been.
I have an acquaintance who took a voucher and is sending his child to private school. I was collecting signatures on the attempt to undo LEARNS, and I asked them to sign, and they said, “Well, we support the vouchers. We really need the money. It’s really going to help us send our kid to private school.” What I can say is I have a lot less respect for that person now, because I think it’s making a decision of putting self first and not thinking about the greater good.
The people who are able to take advantage of the vouchers are people of means, because it doesn’t pay the full tuition at many locations. People taking the vouchers were already going to be sending their kids to private school anyway.
At my job and in my volunteer work, I avoid conversations with people who I think might support vouchers generally. This is sort of selfish, but I prefer not to know. It would be something that would cause me to lose respect for them. I would just generally prefer not to know that they think it’s OK to really advantage individual children over the common good of all children.
PARENT
WITH TWO CHILDREN IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, STRUGGLING TO FIND SAFE CONVERSATION TOPICS WITH VOUCHER-CLAIMING FRIENDS
We’re inundated with the idea that there is always something better and the grass is always greener. Middle school is just frustrating for everybody. But we have all this marketing and political messaging and, you know, social stuff with peers who are choosing private schools, and it’s like, I can’t objectively look at it and say it’s any better.
Like, if I look at the academic side, if I look at the pros and cons on social issues and risks and all sorts of things, it’s not objectively better. But I think we’re in a moment of peak parental guilt over everything, and specifically education. There’s this feeling that if you’re not 1,000% tuned in with exactly what’s going on with your kid’s education at all times that you’re just like a terrible parent. And so combine that with the fact that middle school, generally, is frustrating, and your kid is going through this time where they have to learn and grow and adjust, it’s all very unpleasant, uncomfortable. It’s easy to kind of fall into the idea that, “Oh, there must be some other solution. Something else must be better.” And so I’m constantly in this spiral of parental guilt. Are we doing the right thing? Are we not?
If I’m being realistic, I didn’t actually have a very good educational experience in pretty crappy public schools. I turned out fine, and I think socially and culturally and for who I am as a person, and identity-wise, it was very good and very important. So I have kind of a little bit of a different perspective that it’s gonna be OK. But that may be out of touch with the moment we are in. Why do we get the impression that maybe it’s easier for our private school peer parents? And I think it drills down to a recognition in private schools that those are your customers, and there is a level of customer service. It seems easier in a way, with smaller classes or communicating to teachers, or social problems or whatever behavioral problems at school. It just seems like it would be so much simpler. But I talked to parents who have their kids in private school, and that’s not the response I get. It’s just different problems. Instead of it being a fight in the hallway, it’s mean girls and bullying over friends and clothes.
I think there is a pretty clear distinction, though, between understanding families doing their best to navigate a situation or a system, and creating policy. I still have strong feelings about what policy should be, but understanding and knowing families and what they’re dealing with makes me somewhat less judgmental about people who are choosing to use the vouchers. At the same time, I do have situations where it kind of illustrates, “Oh, you were just looking for a reason to leave. This is not actually about something bad that is happening at the public school.”
I have a group of friends and we’ve been regularly getting together for 15-plus years now on about a monthly basis. We were all at each other’s weddings, and we were all there for the births of each other’s babies and all that stuff. And it has gotten awkward. We have parents who have their kids now in private school and are even taking vouchers. Do we just not talk about some of this stuff, or do we try to talk about it in a way that is respectful but we disagree? There have been times that I’ve avoided going to dinners to avoid the conflict.
For us, the question is, are you going to be part of a community, or are you going to separate yourself? Are you going to figure out some way to run away from a situation that you find uncomfortable so that you can ignore it? How many times do we have to learn that running away from problems in education doesn’t actually solve the problem? Whether it is white flight in the ’60s and ’70s, or whether it is moving to private schools, or whether it is school choice and shifting from one district to another, at the end of the day, we are just allowing kids who can to move out of areas experiencing whatever the problem is. Whether we’re talking about poverty or crime, all of a sudden, out of sight, out of mind, and we don’t have to deal with that problem. But it doesn’t actually fix any of it, right?
If you choose to pull your kid out of a diverse, good academic public school to go to a less diverse, more sheltered, not-quite-as-great-academically private school, which is, quite frankly, the dynamic we have with Central and Episcopal — if we look at the actual academics, Central is outperforming in terms of National Merit Scholars and AP classes and all those kind of things — well, what are you really paying for? What are you choosing?
I think this is one area where, just in the last five to 10 years, we are having to realize that our perception of how the world is and how other people are and how society works and all that stuff is just not holding up in the face of self-interest and being willing to not care about other people.
PERRY
COUNTY HOMESCHOOL MOTHER OF FOUR WHO SAYS VOUCHERS ARE A GAME CHANGER
I’ve homeschooled all four of my kids (ages 9, 12, 16 and 18) since kindergarten, other than one semester when my son went to public school because I was struggling with teaching him in third grade. I pulled him after a semester because I quickly realized they were just letting his subpar work pass after they did a learning disability screening test on him. After pulling him, I had him tested and found out he has multiple learning disabilities (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and ADHD). It was tough, in the beginning, trying to find resources to help him because most of them are quite expensive. Luckily, I have managed over the years to find enough to get him reading at an acceptable level. He’s now doing well and in ninth grade.
Our family has always been pretty low on the income scale. Our kids have been on Medicaid since they were born. Other than some part-time work occasionally for me, we are a one-income house. We felt it was worth the sacrifices we’ve had to make for me to stay home with the kids. We also have a small homestead, so the kids and I take care of the animals and garden as well.
Every year up until this one has been a struggle when it came to their education. I would spend countless hours scouring the internet for the cheapest curriculums that I thought would be adequate. I made the decision to take the EFA [voucher] funds this year even though I understand the stance of many in the homeschool community that this could be a “slippery
slope” to more government oversight. The chance was worth it to, for once, be able to choose what curriculums I believed would be best for each child instead of basing my decisions on what we could afford. It’s only been a couple of months now, but my kids are already enjoying educational opportunities that we could never have provided for them without the program. They were each able to get their own workbooks for each subject instead of having to wait for me to make copies each time because we could only afford to buy one to reuse. My son has a curriculum that is specifically geared toward students with learning disabilities. My three girls are so excited to be taking violin lessons. I was able to enroll my son in an online computer science course that was completely out of reach for us. And being able to get them a new computer to replace the terribly slow Chromebook with the busted screen that they were using last year was amazing.
I know there has also been talk as far as how long they will be able to sustain this program financially with so many students. I know for those using the program to help pay for private schools, they will be using the entire amount each year, but for homeschoolers, I can’t see that happening. I know for our family personally, we will probably use about half the amount each child will be allotted this year. And if the program is still available next year, we would be using even less of it because we wouldn’t need the same technology purchases that we are making this year.
I do understand many of the issues people have with the program, but for our family, it has been an enormous blessing. I also know many families with kids with learning disabilities that are finally being able to get their kids the assistance they need to be able to succeed.
MIDDLE-CLASS PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS, TURNED AWAY BY PRIVATE SCHOOLS
I support the intent of the voucher program. It’s a wonderful idea in theory to give all children, regardless of income or learning differences, a chance at a better educational environment. But in practice, I think it’s excluding the very families these vouchers were meant to help.
We qualified for the voucher early in the spring of 2024 because my husband is a first responder. [Children of first responders were among the limited groups allowed to claim vouchers in the first two years of the program, before it opened up to all students in August 2025.] We’re a middle-class family. We’re small business owners, white, and by most measures doing fine, but we are not in the income bracket that can easily absorb full private school tuition.
We had planned to use the voucher to send our daughter to a private school because she is bright, but she also has dyslexia and ADHD. We were looking for a smaller class size and more one-onone teaching to help her focus. Our hope was that the voucher would cover roughly half of the tuition, and that we would make up the rest.
We toured [a private school], but our admissions experience there was surprisingly disheartening. I own my own company and was coming directly from work, and I arrived wearing my uniform shirt with my business name on it. The administrator seemed to make assumptions about our financial situation based solely on what I was wearing.
She mentioned that “generous parents” had donated significant
sums to the school, and then looked at my shirt and said, “You know, there are government vouchers available,” implying that we wouldn’t be able to pay tuition otherwise. I didn’t respond because, although the comment was incredibly distasteful, she wasn’t far off on her assessment. She also criticized us for supposedly not providing “everyday support” for my daughter’s dyslexia, despite the fact that my daughter has received consistent specialized outside tutoring and accommodations since she was 5. The overall tone was judgmental and dismissive.
Then, during my daughter’s shadow day at the school, she was left unsupervised to wander the halls. Shortly afterward, we received an email stating that she “would not be a good fit” at their school. So even with the voucher, we were not allowed to attend the school.
I also reached out to admissions at several other private schools and discovered that many schools have increased their tuition since the voucher program began. It seems that some schools are aware that their current families now qualify for vouchers and have adjusted tuition accordingly, effectively absorbing the voucher benefit rather than expanding access. In practice, this means families who could already afford private education are now getting discounted tuition, while families like ours are still priced out.
ANTI-VOUCHER PULASKI
COUNTY MOM OF TWO WHO SUSPECTS PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE PAYING THE PRICE
Going to school isn’t as easy as it was when I was a kid. I didn’t know anyone personally who attended a private school. I attended the school that I was zoned for in a working-class, blue-collar town.
I have never considered sending my children to a private school, even with a $7,000 [voucher]. I am a parent of two PCSSD [Pulaski County Special School District] public school kiddos. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but the last two years since the start of LEARNS, we have experienced the greatest bus driver shortage ever. It’s causing elementary schools to call off all field trips, and high school athletes are having to figure out how to make it to games. That’s not the only issue we’re seeing. The educators are no longer teaching the kids to learn; they’re teaching the kids strategies to test high on the standardized test to avoid being an “F” school. I know from talking to a school board member how financially strapped our school is, and they are having to pick and choose which projects to take on. Is it directly LEARNS-related? I don’t know for sure, but it would seem that if there was additional funding to ensure these drivers were properly compensated and supported (with an aide on every bus), it wouldn’t be an issue?
When I first heard of the LEARNS Act, I was terrified of what it would do after experiencing what public charter schools have taken from area public schools. Prior to attending PCSSD, we attended a public charter school for two years. We believed that it would provide our kids with a better education. Boy, were we wrong. We watched crazy high turnover, met “teachers” who weren’t even licensed and didn’t have to be. That’s when we decided to return to public schools.
I want our public schools to be what they used to be. I feel that we are just one more crappy law or act away from crashing our public schools. Many are old and in disrepair. I fear that at this current trajectory, public schools won’t be able to maintain their existence. I am fortunate enough to use my voice and stand up for my kids, but so many cannot, and the underrepresented communities will continue
Of course, I want my children to have a superior education, which I feel they are getting at public schools. I also want my kids to be exposed to diversity, be free thinkers and have the opportunity to be a part of their actual community.
SALINE COUNTY MOM USING A VOUCHER TO HOMESCHOOL
HER AUTISTIC SON, BUT WITH PLANS TO RETURN TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
I live in Saline County, and I have one child in public school and one child who is autistic. For our autistic son, we chose full-time applied behavior analysis [ABA] therapy and homeschool. We did apply for vouchers and got approved for him.
We had our autistic son in a self-contained special education [SPED] classroom in public school at first, but he wasn’t getting the support he needed. The issue I had centered on the district’s rushed decision to create a new SPED classroom, and I don’t really think they vetted the appropriate teacher for the classroom, and our son was regressing.
That’s when we decided to pursue ABA therapy in addition to his other therapies to help him regain those interpersonal skills. I also want to mention that ABA isn’t currently allowed in public school settings, which also played a factor in our decision. We basically had to choose homeschool and ABA or public school and traditional therapies. We applied for the vouchers because we wanted to have access to all the resources, tools and programs possible since we were making a big change.
I honestly haven’t seen or heard very much pushback about vouchers in the Bryant School District. The school my oldest attends got an “A” rating on their ATLAS testing, and they had maxed out on student registration this school year.
Overall, it’s a great public school district, and eventually we will be transitioning my autistic son back to public schools. The school has also since gotten a new, more tenured SPED teacher, who I think will provide the structure my son was lacking before.
I didn’t really attach a feeling toward getting a voucher, because it was going to be beneficial for my special needs child. For me, it just came down to access to resources for my child, who needed an alternative option rather than just a difference in private vs. public schools.
CAREER PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATOR WHO FEARS THE FUTURE
I’ve worked in every size school district there is, down to a tiny little district that graduates 30 kids a year. Urban, suburban, rural. I have been a strong public schools proponent my whole career. My parents were both public school teachers. I’ve seen a continued degradation of our schools, both in financing them and in the public perception. I’ve watched, over my career, that decrease in support of public schools. We weathered COVID, but I don’t know if we’ll weather vouchers.
Early on in my career, we did what we could to support and protect our public schools, no matter what. Things started changing especially with COVID, with what school boards were doing with masks. Moms for Liberty [a conservative group that opposed mask mandates in schools] and book banning really ramped up. I thought with COVID ending the tide would turn, that they’d say, “Oh gosh, thanks so much for being there for the kids.” But in fact the majority was, “Wow, we’re really not for these public schools, they’re indoctrinating.” I think that’s where the tide turned.
You already can’t throw a rock without hitting a charter school, then the voucher part is layered on top of that. Charters were siphoning some students off, but not to the extent of vouchers. The cherry on top of this terrible, terrible sundae is the federal government cutting Title I [financial assistance to school districts that serve children from low-income families]. Schools are having to decide, should we have a four-day week to save on buses and electricity? Everybody’s cutting positions, resources, programs.
I have friends who shocked me by taking vouchers and putting their kids in private schools. They said our schools are getting too big and too out of control. But they’re really not. There are different incidents in different places, but seriously? If we’re taking the best-behaved students out, we’re leaving behind the students who don’t have that option to go somewhere else. Maybe they’re less inclined academically or behaviorally.
Private schools don’t have buses. You’ve got to be able to drive them there. If I don’t have transportation, I’m going public. So we’re segregating by class. And if we continue to take away the resources that make our schools successful, how are we going to make them successful?
Strong public schools educate everybody. I think the real underlying impetus is that we don’t want everybody to have an education. Having a Black president didn’t help. Because in truth, you do lose power. If you’re allowing everyone access to school or the ballot, it does make people who’ve been in power so long, the white males, that makes them feel like they’re being challenged. So they make these scapegoats and say, they’re taking our jobs, our health care. Strong public schools save democracies, and that may be a piece of it, too. To me, it’s just about power.
CENTRAL ARKANSAS PRIVATE SCHOOL MOM WHO USES VOUCHERS BUT DOESN’T WANT ANYONE TO KNOW
We are using vouchers, and I’m kind of embarrassed by it ... I don’t really want anyone to know. I would love for my kids to go to public school, but they were not getting a great education there. Our public school went from a “B” school to a “D” school in the time my daughter was there. Once we knew about the lower ranking, I couldn’t send our son to that. Our daughter is now thriving at our private school.
Now, I don’t think people who can truly afford private school should be able to use vouchers. There are parents now who are getting them that don’t really need it. If we were not getting the voucher, I don’t think we would be able to send both of them to private school. We’d have to choose.
Another thing I do like about the school is that you have to volunteer 20 hours per family, and it makes me feel like a community instead of at our public school, where I didn’t know anybody!
My optimistic mind thinks the pendulum will swing. We’ll have midterms, hopefully, and they will vastly show this is not the trajectory we want to be on for the state, the county, the school board or the nation. Conway’s recent school board elections give me hope for that. They just elected, historically, three Black members to the school board. That gives me hope that people can look around and say, “Oh, we real ly didn’t want it to be like this.”
RURAL MOM WITH ONE CHILD IN PUBLIC SCHOOL AND ONE CHILD IN HOMESCHOOL WITH A VOUCHER
This is our first year using this LEARNS EFA [voucher] program with my second-grade homeschooler. I think this program is fair. It’s about time my child’s funds do not go to a school she will never go to or benefit from. Instead, it has greatly enriched her year. We have been able to add outside-of-the-home art classes and horseback riding lessons and buy many supplies and curriculum I wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. So far we have spent about $1,500 of the allotted $1,600 for this quarter on things she would otherwise not get. We got the iBrick kit for her to have hands-on STEM learning while building little Lego models that move. We have added subjects we couldn’t afford to add to our math and language curriculum with The Good and the Beautiful [homeschool curriculum].
We greatly appreciate this program. Without it we would still homeschool, but we appreciate that now we get some of that tax money back. The only downside so far is the state’s EFA approval department seems greatly understaffed and approvals and reimbursements to use those funds take two-plus weeks. But again, we will wait patiently because we appreciate it.
We had negative experiences with my oldest in the local school and we won’t put the youngest through all of that.
We did look for private schools and were interested in the Christian school in Cabot. But they only do elementary school, so then we would have to find another school at middle school and start over. If that school had been a complete program to graduation we would have started there.
[My older child] is an IEP kid and they have done a very poor job with him. [IEPs, or Individualized Education Programs, are special services and supports provided to meet the unique needs of students with disabilities.] I have had to fight very hard and even get a lawyer to get any help. He is reading several years behind, he is failing most of his classes. I had to ask several years for them to re-test him and they come back and try to say nothing is wrong. So I have had a really hard time getting them to give correct services to my son. The
school is failing our kids, and the district where we are is supposed to be one of the best. They are not.
I really want my son pulled out to homeschool but he is not because his schooling is much more complex and he wants to be with his friends. My second-grader has passed him in spelling and will in reading soon, unfortunately for him. They wait until the kids are so far behind to even qualify them for service that they then do not provide. It’s a joke. At least that’s been our experience.
My son often complains he only gets broken chairs at school. They had a roof leaking so bad it fell down on a teacher and water and dirt and mold went all over her. I think it’s disgusting how much money goes to sports but the walls and ceiling are rotting away.
The public school parents don’t want to associate with the homeschool parents and they just can’t understand why we would make that decision. There is ridicule from them. Some moms are even appalled that we wouldn’t support what they feel is such a great school system. I wish it was great for us. The truth is the school hides the strug gle of those IEP kids and the bullied and that doesn’t help us. It’s almost patriotism that they seem to feel we have anymore but instead of toward country it’s toward the school.
We moved specifically to this district from out of state because we heard it was the best. If this is Arkansas’s best, we have big problems. We never had issues like this in the old state and heavily blue area we lived in (we are conservatives). Knowing all that I have said, I bet if the public knew, more of them would be looking into EFA vouchers. I hope the vouchers stay.
NORTH LITTLE ROCK VOUCHER OPPONENT WHO FUDGED THE FAMILY’S ADDRESS TO GET INTO A BETTER SCHOOL ZONE
We have been using my mom’s address to get our daughter into a better public school than we are zoned for. What she’s zoned for is like an “F” on everything, and the one that we’re sending her to, which is less than a mile from us, is an “A” on everything. She is an above-average student, so she is thriving there. We don’t use vouchers, but I’m already abusing the system. We all do what we have to do to get our kids into what we feel like is a good school. The difference is, I’m not taking money from other kids, right — or I don’t think I am?
I’m also judgy about charter schools getting public schools’ money but not being held to the same standards. Those schools have
less accountability and reporting, so it’s harder for me to get information from them. I don’t like that. And if the charter schools were held to the same standard as public, I think I’d be a lot more amenable to exploring that as an option and to feeling more comfortable with it in our current system. But as it stands, it feels like they’re just taking money from the public schools, and then the public schools have less money.
There are a lot of parents who feel like the middle school in North Little Rock is really shitty, and so they will pull their kids out of public schools before they get to middle school. They’ll put them into charter or private schools, at least to skip the middle school.
My kid is already experiencing a lot of her friends leaving the public school system. So for us, the impact is purely social. One of her best girlfriends moved out of the district, and her bestie since kindergarten is also potentially leaving.
A HANDOUT, NOT A HAND UP
THE
STATE’S YEAR 2 VOUCHER REPORT SHOWS JUST 12% OF PARTICIPANTS ATTENDED PUBLIC SCHOOL THE YEAR BEFORE. MOST WERE ALREADY IN PRIVATE SCHOOL OR HOMESCHOOLED.
BY BENJAMIN HARDY
This August, the school voucher program created by Gov. Sarah Sanders’ Arkansas LEARNS Act in 2023 finally took full effect. In the first two school years under LEARNS, vouchers were limited just to certain groups of kids and capped at a fairly small number. Now, in Year 3, the program is open to every K-12 student in the state, and enrollment has exploded to more than 50,000.
Sanders and other supporters of vouchers say that number shows demand is strong. In their telling, Arkansans are hungry for school choice and vouchers are a lifeline for families desperate to escape failing public schools.
Voucher opponents say the money goes mostly to families who weren’t in the public school system to begin with. Private school families tend to be higher income. And be-
cause the Arkansas program is open to everyone, regardless of how wealthy they are, it puts money in the pockets of many households that could already afford private school.
Every private school and homeschool family in Arkansas is now eligible to get a taxpayer-funded voucher worth roughly $7,000 per student for tuition, fees, supplies and other expenses. Why wouldn’t they sign up?
We don’t yet know how many current voucher students left a public school for private school or homeschooling instead. But we now know those figures for Year 2 — the 2024-25 school year — because the Arkansas Department of Education released its annual report on the program Oct. 3. It shows that just one of every eight voucher participants in Year 2 was enrolled in a public school the
year before.
In Year 1 of Arkansas’s program, the 202324 school year, only 18% of participants were enrolled in public school the previous year. That’s according to the state’s last annual report, released by the education department in October 2024.
Now the official numbers for Year 2 are in, and they show the percentage of students using vouchers to leave public schools went down from Year 1. Total participation in 202425 was 14,256. Just 12% of those students had been enrolled in a public school in 2023-24. The new report says 25% of students accepting vouchers in 2024-25 had gone to private school the year before, while 17% had been homeschooled, 10% had been in pre-K, and 3% didn’t attend school.
‘FREEDOM ACCOUNTS’ FOR ALL: The voucher program is championed by Gov. Sarah Sanders (left) and her education secretary, Jacob Oliva (right), who visited this Little Rock School District elementary classroom in August with Sen. Tom Cotton (center right) and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
BRIAN CHILSON
What about the remaining 33% — the largest group? The report published in October says these students “did not have a previous school listed on their application.” What does that mean?
WHO WOULDN’T WANT $7K?
:This revised version of a chart from the Year 2 report shows where 2024-25 voucher students went to school in the 202324 school year. The largest group, shown in light blue, were Year 1 voucher students who returned to the program in Year 2.
After the report came out, we looked for clarification from the researchers who put it together, a team of professors and grad students at the University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform. It turns out the renewal application for returning voucher students simply didn’t include a question about their prior school. There were about 5,500 participants in Year 1, and the vast majority — 90%, according to last year’s report — re-upped in Year 2.
“As a result, those students’ records appear as null in the Year 2 data,” associate professor Josh McGee wrote the Arkansas Times in an email. “The ‘Did Not List’ category captures these students who continued in the program from Year 1 to Year 2, not missing information from new applicants. We will update the label in the report to read ‘Retained From Year 1’ to make that label clearer.” To their credit, the UA team swiftly made the change and the revised version is now available online.
This is important because it more than doubles the percentage of students who attended private school the prior year. A student who participated in the voucher program in Year 1 went to a private school in 2023-24 by definition; vouchers weren’t available to homeschoolers until Year 2. That implies a total of 58% of Year 2 participants went to private school the year before.
Add that to the percentages for homeschool, pre-K and those who were not in school, and a total 88% of Year 2 voucher students didn’t attend a public school the year before. If the point of LEARNS vouchers is to help families escape bad public schools, they’re not working yet.
Asked whether that interpretation of the numbers was correct, McGee acknowledged that 58% of 2024-25 participants did in fact attend private school in 2023-24. “However, that does not capture the percentage that
would have attended private school absent the EFA program,” he added. (The vouchers are officially called “Education Freedom Accounts,” or EFAs.)
That’s fair enough: Some of those Year 1 participants originally came from public school back in 2022-23, the year before the voucher program began. The UA researchers don’t want to just know who was in public school the year before; they want to know who would have been in a public school had the voucher program not existed, a group of students they call “switchers.” For them, the crucial question is: How many families changed from public school to private school solely because of a voucher? That group includes students who moved from public to private in Year 1 and continued in the program in Year 2. (Switchers also include some percentage of kids who entered kindergarten in Year 2, voucher in hand. Some of them were surely bound for private school or homeschool anyway, but some likely would have attended public school instead if the vouchers had not been available.)
For research purposes, then, it may make sense to treat the Year 1 students differently than other private school students. But intentionally or not, the graph appears to have sown confusion on the critical issue of where voucher students are coming from.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which published a lengthy story about the Year 2 report when it first came out, did not look into this question at all. The newspaper simply said, “One quarter of students who received an account for the 2024-25 school year reported attending a private school during the 2023-
24 school year.”
As for the missing 33% of students, the Democrat-Gazette said, without further explanation, “One third of students who participated in the accounts program in the 2024-25 school year did not list a previous school on their account application.”
(The Democrat-Gazette appears to now avoid the word “voucher” in its stories about LEARNS and its “Education Freedom Accounts”; the paper calls the vouchers “accounts” for short.)
The newspaper also quoted the director of the Reform Alliance, a pro-voucher group, who said the percentages in the report — the original version, that is — should dispel the “common misconception” that the program is only used by students in a private school. “The report shows there’s little data for that claim,” she told the Democrat-Gazette. That might be true if one were to take the 25% figure at face value and ignore the onethird of students with no school listed, as the Democrat-Gazette did. But it’s not accurate.
MORE INFORMATION, BUT NOT ENOUGH
The Year 2 annual report shows the voucher program changed significantly from its first year to its second year. The enrollment cap doubled to more than 14,000, new groups of students became eligible for a voucher, and vouchers could be used for homeschool expenses.
As expected, the Year 2 report says very little about the families and students participating in the program. How many are lower-income? Are they rural or urban? What counties do they come from? What’s the breakdown by race and ethnicity? How many speak English as a second language?
All this information and more is reported by public schools, but the voucher report doesn’t include any of it. (This spring, a voucher-skeptical Republican lawmaker sponsored legislation that would have required participating private schools to publish the same information required of public
participants. First-time kindergarteners also made up a significant portion of the participants (27%). Students of active duty or military reserve parents represented 16% of the participants. Figure 2:
LAST YEAR’S NUMBERS: This chart from the state’s report breaks down voucher participation by eligibility criteria in Year 2, the 2024-25 school year. The program is now open to every K-12 student in Arkansas.
Students with Disabilities
Eligible for Kindergarten
Active-Duty/Military Reserve
Succeed Program Foster Care
D- or F-Rated Public Schools
schools, but the bill went nowhere.)
Still, the Year 2 report gives far more information than the Year 1 report, which was released in fall 2024. Most notably, it includes numbers on academic performance, including assessment percentiles for math and English Language Arts (ELA) for each school. On average, the report says, voucher recipients scored at the 57th percentile in math and the 59th percentile in ELA on nationally norm-referenced tests, which are standardized tests that compare individual performance to a large, representative group.
The problem is that participating private schools don’t have to use the same test as Arkansas public schools — or one another. The report lists 17 different assessments used by private schools and says how many voucher students statewide completed each one, along with percentile rankings.
The top three are standardized tests that are widely used across the U.S. — the NWEA Measure of Academic Progress (MAP), the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT-10), which is not to be confused with the SAT used for college admissions. About 8,800 voucher students, or more than half of the total in Year 2, took one of those three tests. Only about 300 students in four private schools took the ATLAS, which is Arkansas’s new statewide assessment for public schools.
An appendix at the end of the report gives school-by-school percentile ranks for math and ELA. Note, though, that students even dwithin the same school might take different
tests. “These averages are calculated across all assessments administered within the school,” McGee said. “National percentile ranks are a common metric that allow for aggregation across test instrument.”
As for the assessment numbers themselves, we will leave it up to the experts to determine how to interpret them and whether there’s a meaningful comparison to be drawn to Arkansas public school students. There may be little use in trying, given the two groups are taking entirely different tests and the voucher program itself is so new. (It’s not surprising that private school students on the whole would perform fairly well on a standardized test, considering they’re more likely to come from households with engaged parents with more resources. Kids from more well-off homes tend to have a built-in academic head start. And, again, the majority of voucher recipients in Year 2 were already in private schools.)
Research on voucher programs in other states suggests mixed academic results, to put it mildly. According to Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University who’s written extensively about vouchers, large-scale programs have performed dismally. But we’ll have to wait and see in Arkansas.
McGee, the UA researcher, said the team hopes to develop a rigorous means of comparing ATLAS test results to the commonly used exams in private schools in future years.
“That process would allow us to place ATLAS scores on the same scale as other tests so that
student performance can be compared more directly. … It’s too early to say exactly when those comparisons will be available, but we’re hopeful that we can make progress during the current school year,” he said.
That raises the question of why the state simply doesn’t require private schools participating in the voucher program to use ATLAS, or whatever test du jour is required of public schools. (ATLAS, which was adopted in 2024, is Arkansas’s third standardized testing regime within the past decade; the state previously used the ACT Aspire, and before that, a test called PARCC.) Instead of devising ways to compare scores from multiple tests, why not simply have all students take the same test in the first place? But so far, pro-voucher lawmakers have shut down efforts to establish a single test as the standard. McGee also said his team plans to track the performance of “switcher” students over time.
“The University of Arkansas research team is working toward a comprehensive evaluation of the EFA program’s impact on student outcomes, including academic performance,” he said. “A key part of this work will involve identifying a reasonable comparison group for EFA participants. Students who switched from public schools into the EFA program are especially important for this analysis because their prior public school test score histories provide a reasonable means for constructing a baseline and a solid counterfactual.”
WHO’S GETTING VOUCHERS? AND WHAT’S THE COST?
The voucher program in Year 2 was capped at roughly 14,000 students and was open only to certain groups. They included new kindergartners, students with disabilities, kids in foster care or experiencing homelessness, children of parents in the military or law enforcement, and students who attended a public school with a “D” or “F” rating — another nod to the idea that the voucher program is crafted to help families “trapped” in failing schools.
The largest eligibility group, 36%, were students with disabilities. (Voucher critics note that “disability” is an extremely broad term in the school world and includes many high-functioning children with relatively minor issues.) Another 27% were eligible for kindergarten. And 16% were from military families — a big jump from Year 1, when just 4% were from this category.
As in Year 1, the percentage who claimed
eligibility due to attending a D- or F-rated public school in Year 2 was vanishingly small — just 3% of the total.
Most Year 2 students used their voucher to attend a private school: 10,834, or 76% of the total. The other 3,422 were homeschooled, the report says.
Nine out of 10 students who got a voucher in Year 2 came back to the program in Year 3, and most of them didn’t switch to a new school. Participating private schools on average retained 84% of their voucher students from Year 2 to Year 3, the report says. It provides retention percentages for each school. It also includes a list of all 126 private schools participating in the program, along with their total enrollment and the percentage of enrolled students who received vouchers.
The five largest recipients of voucher funds were the same as they were in Year 1: Little Rock Christian Academy, Shiloh Christian School (Springdale), Central Arkansas Christian Schools (North Little Rock), Pulaski Academy (Little Rock) and Episcopal Collegiate School (Little Rock).
The report provides a high-level summary of expenditures under the program, which totaled around $84.5 million in Year 2. More than $68 million of that, or 81%, was for private school tuition and fees. The rest mostly went to homeschool families for categories including curriculum, tutoring, supplies and enrichment activities authorized under the LEARNS Act. An appendix at the end of the report — which takes up more than half of the document’s 92 total pages — lists the amount paid to each vendor in Year 2. It includes hundreds of vendors, from big retailers like Best Buy ($1,385,177 spent in Year 2) to a homeschool company called the “Ron Paul Curriculum” ($425 spent in Year 2).
It’s good the state education department has released these vendor expenditures, though it’s hard to make sense of what’s going on. “Supplies” could mean anything from pencils and notebooks to new laptop computers. “Enrichment” is a broad category that includes lessons in art and music, gymnastics, martial arts, horseback riding and much more. As a footnote in that section of the report mentions in passing, the Legislature limited the use of voucher funds for extracurricular activities this spring, in part because of public blowback.
One major omission from this section of the report: tuition and fee schedules for participating private schools, and how they’ve changed over time. Arkansas Advocate reporter Antoinette Grajeda has published such a list, painstakingly compiled from individual documents FOIA’d from the education department. (It’s available for free online at
the Advocate’s website.) But the department itself never has, despite the fact that tuition increases can price lower-income families out of a given school, as well as drive up overall program costs. Seven thousand dollars is a lot of money, but it is far less than the annual tuition at many private schools, including the top five schools by voucher student enrollment listed above.
Arkansas spent a total of $93.8 million on the voucher program in Year 2, but the report downplays the cost to taxpayers. It frames the
INSTEAD OF DEVISING WAYS TO COMPARE SCORES FROM MULTIPLE TESTS, WHY NOT SIMPLY
HAVE ALL STUDENTS — PUBLIC AND PRIVATE — TAKE THE SAME TEST IN THE FIRST PLACE?
voucher program as “fiscally modest relative to the state’s K–12 budget,” even though “program costs are projected to reach about $277 million” in Year 3.
Even that figure is much too low: The Democrat-Gazette reported recently on education department emails that say the program could cost more than $326 million for the current school year. That’s no surprise to anyone who’s been watching enrollment balloon over the course of 2025.
The report notes that the per-student cost of a voucher “is lower than the state funding that would have been directed to a public school for the same student.” This is true: A
voucher is typically worth up to 90% of the previous school year’s “foundation funding,” a baseline sum the state sends to public school districts for each student they enroll. Foundation funding in the current school year is $7,771, so most vouchers will cost the state $6,994 each. (A handful of students get vouchers worth the full foundation funding amount — these are kids who previously received a Succeed Scholarship, an earlier, smaller voucher program for students with disabilities that was subsumed into the new Education Freedom Account program when LEARNS became law.)
In other words, a student who switches from public to private school does in fact save the state some amount of money. But there are two big caveats. First, the flipside of a savings to the state is a financial hit to public schools. Losing students means schools receive less foundation funding and other per-pupil funding, eroding their budgets over time.
Second, it’s worth emphasizing again that the vast majority of voucher recipients so far are not “switchers.” When a private school or homeschool student whose costs were previously paid out of pocket begins receiving a taxpayer-subsidized voucher, that’s a brandnew cost to the state. When 50,000 students receive vouchers, that’s a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The “savings” from switchers mitigates that new cost somewhat, but only somewhat. How much depends, again, on the number of switchers.
This gets especially tricky when it comes to kindergarteners who receive vouchers because it’s unclear whether those kids would have gone to private or public school had the voucher program not existed. The report says about 27% of Year 2 participants were first-time kindergarteners. Of those, the UA researchers estimate that roughly 30% would have otherwise enrolled in a public school. Based on that assumption, the report estimates the potential budget offset from switchers in Year 2 was between $12 million and $22 million. If that’s true, the net cost of the program for the 2024-25 school year would be between $72 million and $82 million.
McGee said the figures remain estimates. The budgetary impact is delayed, in part because school districts receive a special stream of temporary “declining enrollment” funding to offset the cost of losing students.
“These are potential savings and not realized savings,” he said. “As more data become available and we improve data linkages, we will refine and strengthen these estimates in future reports.”
FIELD NOTES
HERE’S TO THE UNDERDOGS IN THE MARCHING BAND. PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON
GREETINGS FROM WHITE COUNTY: An evening with the Bald Knob High School marching band.
Ahigh school football game without a marching band is like a movie without a soundtrack; you can show your audience all the guts and glory and struggle and triumph in the world, but it just won’t feel the same without the music. That pantheon of tunes, curated by band directors to amp up the anticipation at fourth-quarter crunch time or to taunt the opposition after a fumble, leans heavily on the classic rock radio canon, introducing new generations to the likes of “Crazy Train,” “Smoke on the Water,” “Seven Nation Army” and “Eye of the Tiger.”
Here, staff photographer Brian Chilson turns his lens on
those misfit musical brigades in pep stands, who make themselves an indispensable part of autumn in Arkansas even as they squint at their mouthpieces, tinker with their octave keys and assemble themselves into carefully choreographed patterns on the field at halftime like human dots in a 100-yardlong Lite Brite. Pictured are members of the marching bands for the Arkansas High School Razorbacks in Texarkana, the Patriots at Little Rock’s Parkview Arts & Science Magnet High School, the Marshall High School Bobcats, the El Dorado High School Wildcats, the Bald Knob High School Bulldogs and the Maumelle High School Hornets. —Stephanie Smittle
THE OTHER RAZORBACKS: Graysen Narens (drum major, left), Indyia Lewis (dancer, center) and Lillian Corbin
right) get the crowd amped for the Arkansas High School Razorbacks of Texarkana.
(flute,
EL DORADO PRIDE: Emma Borosvskis (keyboard, left) and Andre Harper (tuba, right) shine in the El Dorado High School marching band. It takes players of both music and football to put on a full Friday night field show.
SEARCY COUNTY STYLE: Caleb Mainord (bass drum, right) and Mason Still (saxophone, bottom left) embody the joyful nonchalance carried by members of the Marshall High School marching band.
BOBCAT FEVER: Austin Cutchin (drum major, left), Gavin Miguet (tenor drums, top right) and Ally Kate Rodtnick (piccolo, bottom right) march with the Maumelle High School band.
PARKVIEW NATION: The Parkview band keeps it lively in the stands. Opposite page, clockwise from the top: Parkview Patriettes take center stage at the halftime show; trombonist Christian Johnson walks the line; drummer Bryson Sanders leads the charge; and Alondria Brown, a member of the Twirling Elite, sparkles.
The Retirement Guide
Retirement in Arkansas isn’t about slowing down — it’s about designing the life you want next.
From filling prescriptions at a trusted hometown pharmacy to navigating Medicare with guidance you can actually understand — including fraud-prevention resources — the support systems in this state are built to help retirees live well with confidence. In this year’s Arkansas Times Retirement Guide, we highlight the services, strategies, and local experts that make Arkansas one of the most livable — and affordable — places to enjoy your next chapter.
AR SENIOR MEDICARE PATROL
The Arkansas Senior Medicare Patrol (AR SMP) is here to empower and assist Medicare beneficiaries, their families, and caregivers to prevent, detect, and report healthcare fraud, errors and abuse through outreach, counseling, and education. The AR SMP is a grant-funded project of the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
THEIR WORK IS IN THREE MAIN AREAS:
1. Conduct Outreach and Education
2. Engage Volunteers
3. Receive Beneficiary Complaints
The AR SMP project is 100% funded by Grant #90MPPG0088 of the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents are those of the author(s) and dot not necessarily represent the official view of, nor endorsement by, ACL/HHS, or the U.S. government. 1-866-726-2916 insurance.arkansas.gov/SMP
*You can call from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week.
“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
—Abraham Lincoln
Patrol (AR SMP) is here to empower and families, and caregivers to prevent, errors and abuse through outreach, SMP is a grant-funded project of the Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health
AREAS:
Arkansas is ranked as ONE OF THE BEST states for retirees due to its affordability. The average retirement age is 62. The average life expectancy is 75.40 years, resulting in an average retirement period of 13.4 years. DID YOU KNOW?
FRAUD!
1-866-726-2916
insurance.arkansas.gov/SMP
LOCAL SOURCES
Senior Medicare Patrols (SMPs) empower and assist Medicare beneficiaries, their families, and caregivers to prevent, detect, and report health care fraud, errors, and abuse through outreach, counseling, and education. This program was developed to help you understand more about health care fraud. 1-866-726-2916, AID.Insurance.SMP@arkansas.gov
of the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents are those of the nor endorsement by, ACL/HHS, or the U.S. government.
Alzheimer’s Arkansas is an independent, nonprofit organization. We offer free educational and respite programs, personalized support, printed resources, support groups (in person and online), and financial assistance to family caregivers across the state of Arkansas. Our focus is to support the journey our caregivers face each and every day as they care for loved ones with dementia or chronic illness.
Step into Rhea Drug, a true Little Rock icon that has served the Hillcrest community since 1922. This historic pharmacy isn’t just a place to fill prescriptions; it’s a living piece of neighborhood history. For over a century, Rhea Drug has been a trusted cornerstone, adapting through the decades while maintaining its dedication to personal service. Can’t get out to get your prescriptions? No problem. We have FREE delivery service available every day. Just call today to get started. 2801 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, 501-663-4131
Sources: Population estimates: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2024 Population Estimates, as reported by the Arkansas Economic Development Institute (AEDI), provided the data for the senior population percentage and median age in 2024.
Money Matters
Review your income sources — Social Security, pensions, savings, investments. (SSA.gov)
Make a monthly budget for housing, food, healthcare, and leisure. (AARP Retirement Planning)
Decide when to start taking Social Security benefits, as timing affects monthly payments. (SSA.gov)
Pay down high-interest debt and maintain an emergency fund. (AARP Retirement Planning)
Health & Coverage
Enroll in Medicare on time and explore supplemental plans. (Medicare.gov)
Review prescription needs and establish a relationship with a trusted pharmacy. (AARP Health)
Learn about fraud prevention programs, like Senior Medicare Patrol. (SMP Resource)
Legal & Life Planning
Update your will, beneficiaries, and power of attorney. (Nolo Legal Guides)
Consider your living situation — stay put, downsize, or relocate. (AARP Livable Communities)
Plan how you’ll spend your time — volunteering, hobbies, travel, or part-time work. (National Institute on Retirement Security)
LOOKING FOR GROOVES
ONCE JUST A SMALL VINYL RECORD STORE, FULL MOON RECORDS IN CONWAY IS NOW A THRIVING HUB FOR THE LOCAL MUSIC SCENE.
BY MILO STRAIN PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON
ALT REVIVAL: Little Rock band Time Well Wasted takes the stage at Full Moon Records, an all-ages venue that’s bringing alternative music back to Conway.
Conway, a city with a large population of young people thanks to its three colleges, has long struggled to provide its youthful residents with a permanent place for local, live music. The city has several art galleries, both on and off college campuses, and a monthly art walk, but for years has sorely lacked a place where people can gather and see a show that isn’t a country act at a bar.
Enter Full Moon Records, a vinyl record store that doubles as an all-ages, DIY music venue on the weekends and has become the nexus of a burgeoning local music scene.
Full Moon Records began in early 2021 as a series of humble pop-up shops around Central Arkansas, where owner Justin Dunn would temporarily set up shelves of records for people to flip through, before moving into a permanent location on downtown Conway’s Front Street later that year.
The unassuming building, which was previously the home of a dry-cleaning business and a shortlived food truck park, hides a treasure trove of records, CDs and cassettes to trawl through. Band T-shirts and posters line the walls, tacked up above dozens of shelves and carts full of albums. Most eye-catching, though, is the large stage at the end of the room.
It didn’t always look this way. When Dunn opened the store, it took up only a fraction of the building. A temporary wall hid most of the structure, which needed extensive renovations when Dunn moved in.
Dunn previously worked in industrial refrigeration, picking up albums when he’d travel for work and building out his collection. He started Full Moon Records with no experience outside of buying and selling records online as a hobbyist.
“I started collecting, and I got my first record player, and then two weeks later, I bought, like, 2,000 records, probably more than that, and I’ve been collecting since,” Dunn said.
When he decided to open a store, Dunn started buying in bulk by the thousands, taking on full collections from people liquidating.
“I opened up with 1,000 records in the main room and probably 3-5,000 in reserve,” Dunn said. “I think we ate through that in the first six months and it’s been a struggle to stay stocked.”
The store ended two musical droughts that had persisted in Conway. As far as we know, Full Moon Records is the city’s first record store. (If any of our readers know otherwise, please let us know.) Before Full Moon Records opened, Conway vinyl enthusiasts had to travel to Little Rock if they didn’t want to pick through flea market bins for records.
The majority of Full Moon Records inventory is used vinyl, which Dunn said makes up most of his sales. There’s no shortage of new records, though. Dunn regularly puts out fresh pressings and Full Moon Records participates in Record Store Day, a semi-annual celebration of independent record
stores and physical media with hundreds of special vinyl and CD releases from both established and up-and-coming artists. (The next Record Store Day is this month on Black Friday.)
The college town had also been without a dedicated space for alternative music to flourish since Sound Stage, an all-ages venue that hosted many punk and metal shows, closed in 2013. The Oak Street location it once occupied — where bands including Rwake, Pallbearer and Lucero once graced the stage — is now a Jackson Hewitt tax service.
After Sound Stage closed, bands and musicians hailing from the Faulkner County area gravitated to Little Rock, with its larger music scene and more robust circuit of venues amenable to diverse and extreme genres, and the Conway music ecosystem was reduced to a handful of bars booking mostly standard-fare country and blues acts. Local rock bands see stage time here and there at places like King’s Live Music and Bear’s Den, but if you wanted to hear anything that veered too far from the mainstream, you had to go to Little Rock or look for a house show — which are often shut down by police.
Dunn didn’t envision Full Moon Records as a music venue, though. That came later, after some convincing from local acts looking for a place to perform.
“I was trying to think of more ideas to integrate the community, get more sales and stuff. So I started doing vendor markets outside the property,” Dunn said.
Dunn hosted the first vendor market in May 2022. Sycamore, a local Conway band, asked to perform at the next one in June.
“I was like, ‘I can’t pay you. I can’t do anything like that. I don’t know how many people are gonna be here, like, I have no idea.’ And they refused to take no as an answer,” Dunn said.
Sycamore, along with Central Arkansas indie rockers Sonic Fuzz, played the vendor market in June, setting up shop on a gravel lot behind the building.
The shows gained momentum from there and eventually overtook the markets as Full Moon’s secondary revenue stream.
Sonic Fuzz, there at the beginning, has continued to play at Full Moon Records in the years since, most recently in August, and its members have seen firsthand how the shows have grown. The second time they played Full Moon Records, Sonic Fuzz set up their equipment inside the store on the floor in front of a wall mural, vocalist and guitarist Dalton Pabst told the Arkansas Times. By the third time, Dunn had built a small stage.
“Since then, he’s kept pushing that stage further and further back, just because of the sheer volume of people that have started coming to the shows,” Pabst said. “He’s essentially got the roof up on stilts at this point. He’s taken out all of the walls.”
The crowd at Full Moon Records leans on the
younger side. Despite a yearly dip in attendance over the summer, when most of the college-aged attendees thin out, the shows have been consistently growing, Dunn said.
“The college kids are starting to figure us out,” Dunn said.
Sonic Fuzz was playing its first shows in 2022 and has since performed across Arkansas and states beyond, but they and other local acts keep returning to Full Moon Records.
Pabst said Full Moon Records has a more intimate feel than other spots in Conway.
“There’s a certain crowd that goes to Full Moon often. You meet people, you make connections and friends,” Pabst said. “We’re pretty cool with Justin and a lot of other bands that have played there. It’s just comfortable.”
Sonic Fuzz bassist Jacob Straub said Dunn is extremely supportive of newer bands.
“It’s pretty common to see bands made up completely of teenagers playing there along with some more established people,” Straub said.
Pabst added that a lot of bands’ first shows have been at Full Moon Records. It’s a place where they can get the first-show jitters out of the way and find the confidence to branch out to other places, he said.
Dunn goes out of his way to make space for new bands to perform at Full Moon Records. For most of 2025, he’s dedicated the first Friday of every month entirely to lineups of new bands performing for the first time, a tradition dubbed “New Blood” shows.
“Those always turn out pretty well,” Dunn said. “I don’t think I’ve had a bad new blood show.”
In October, the new blood consisted of Seximage, a shoegazey band from Clinton; Purple Lyte, a solo artist from Greenbrier; Ten Dollar Men, a southern rock band from Little Rock; and Shade, a hard rock quartet out of Little Rock. The show was bumped to Saturday that month, though, to make room for a larger engagement.
The day before, Thoughts on Bowling, a Midwest emo band from Northwest Arkansas, had a gig at Full Moon Records supported by the Florida-based emo band Dear Cincinnati and Georgia-based musician Adjust the Sails. Dunn said a crowd of about 170 people attended.
“The energy was insane,” Dunn said. “People were crowdsurfing. It was a good show.”
In late 2023, Full Moon Records ventured into the realm of music labels with Full Moon Sessions. Dunn collaborated with Jonesboro band Tiny Towns to produce a run of their 2018 album, “Deadweight,” on wax. The partnership bore fruit in early 2024; 300 copies of “Deadweight,” pressed on “Full Moon Blue” colored vinyl, hit Full Moon Records’ shelves that February. Full Moon Sessions has taken a backseat since then, but Dunn said it’s still alive.
“It’s kind of on hold. We’re working on it. We have a band we’re recording right now,” he said. “We’re getting the demos together
and then we’re gonna send them off to get done. It’s not as aggressive as I had planned for it to be but it’s still rolling around in the background.”
Dunn said the impetus for starting a microlabel was to further help out local bands that don’t have the money to publish their music in a physical format.
The first iteration of the Front Street store was much too small for concerts and crowdsurfing, taking up a tiny footprint in the front of the building. Dunn did multiple rounds of renovations to the property, expanding the space and adding more inventory each time.
Dunn built Full Moon Records’ first stage himself.
“That thing was sketchy. I was under there multiple times having to fix beams and stuff,” Dunn said.
Now, on stage number three, Full Moon Records no longer looks like a record store that happens to have shows, but an honestto-God small concert venue that happens to be a record store, complete with stage lights and a soundsystem that could rival the setups at Vino’s or the White Water Tavern in Little Rock.
The latest iteration of the stage is the largest one yet and, unlike the last two, it’s built into the building itself and not going anywhere. Dunn and Cory Fisher, host of the local music interview show Crash Cast Podcast, constructed it over the course of about five days.
Keeping with the DIY ethos, Dunn also
FULL HOUSE: A recent show headlined by Northwest Arkansas band Thoughts on Bowling brought a crowd of around 170 people to Full Moon Records.
serves as Full Moon Records’ sound engineer, a role he took on out of necessity that has since become one of his biggest passions. Mostly self-taught through YouTube tutorials and on-the-job learning, Dunn had no previous experience with live sound mixing but found he had a knack for it.
“It’s an art. You feel like part of the band. You feel like part of the show,” Dunn said. “I love it when after a show people are like, ‘This is the best we’ve ever sounded.’”
Dunn’s got the process of turning his record store into a music venue — a task that previously took hours — down to a science.
“It’s pretty quick. Five o’clock hits, I lock the doors, open the back door for the bands if they need to get in, and then it takes probably five to 10 minutes to tear down,” Dunn said.
Dunn built his current record bins on wheels; all he has to do to prepare for a show is wheel them out of the main room.
“Before, we used to have to pick up every single one. And when the bins are full, they’re heavy,” Dunn said.
Dunn said he loves that Full Moon Records has become a home for the black sheep of Conway and he plans to stick around. Long term, he said he wants to get a bigger building, ideally one with a room capacity of 500, which would be a big step up from Full Moon Records’ current capacity of 200.
“There’s a very nice group chat about some possibilities in the future,” Dunn said. “The right people are on it and we’re just trying to make things make sense.”
‘THE WAY YOU HOLD THAT CAMERA’
A NEW HBO DOCUMENTARY PAYS TRIBUTE TO SLAIN ARKANSAS JOURNALIST AND FILMMAKER BRENT RENAUD.
BY SAM EIFLING
HOMETOWN HERO: Little Rock’s Brent Renaud was among the most respected American documentary filmmakers of his generation when he was shot and killed by Russian soldiers while on assignment covering the invasion of Ukraine in March 2022.
Brent Renaud of Little Rock was 50 years old and among the most respected American documentary filmmakers of his generation when he was shot and killed by Russian soldiers while on assignment covering the invasion of Ukraine in March 2022.
He was the first foreign journalist to die in that conflict, and his death constituted an international incident. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Pentagon issued statements praising Renaud’s heroism. As so often happens when a journalist dies in a war zone, silence followed mourning. The work that Renaud had let speak for him self was left undone.
More than three years after his death, Re naud once again shares a director credit with his younger brother and primary collabora tor, Craig Renaud. Their new documentary release, “Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud,” premiered Oct. 21 on HBO. At less than 40 minutes, the vérité short film laces Brent’s murder and his body’s journey back to Arkansas with moments from his inimitable documentary work over the previous 20 years.
The film is unflinching, beautiful and just utterly wrenching. There are only two ways to watch it: by yourself, or among people you don’t mind watching you sob.
“I know this is what Brent would be do ing,” Craig says early in the film as he pho tographs his brother’s body, waxen and bro ken, lying in a casket in Ukraine. “Brent has always felt it was important not to hide from the reality of what violence and war does to people.”
Throughout the film, Craig looks absolute ly a wreck any time he doesn’t have a camera in his hands, like when he describes the mo ment he knew Brent was gone: a phone call with their colleague Juan Arredondo, who was shot and injured in the attack that killed Brent, and who paused tellingly when Craig asked whether Brent was shot in the vest or the face. Craig sees Juan in the hospital, recovering, and the men try to console one another. It’s achingly sad. A single teardrop quivers at the end of Craig’s nose as he leans down to hug his wounded friend.
This is what war does. It steals people. And those who are left behind feel they have lost everything.
Bring
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Upholstery | Pillows | Drapery | Headboards
BRENT RENAUD ALWAYS PROCESSED THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY FROM MOST. HE FOUND COCKTAIL PARTIES UNENDURABLE, YET KEPT A COOL HEAD AND A STEADY HEART RATE WHEN SURROUNDED BY EXPLODING BOMBS AND WHIZZING BULLETS.
FAMILY AFFAIR: From the age of 10, documentarian Brent Renaud was fascinated with cameras. His brother, Craig Renaud (pictured below), was his primary collaborator.
Brent spent his career finding and interviewing people who had lost it all. The first shot of “Armed Only With a Camera” shows him on the southern border of Mexico, boots and jeans slung around his neck, wading through a river with child migrants too broke to afford the primitive ferry across the water. Later, he finds a mother in Iraq showing baby pictures of her slain son and weeping into the stiff, shredded fabric of his bullet-riddled jeans. He finds men in Chicago doing their best to raise boys amid an avalanche of neighborhood shootings. He finds children in Honduras among the birds and dogs scavenging dumps for recyclables, and hiding out from gangs they are certain will kill them. He finds families mourning amputations — a hand, a penis — of children struck by coalition fire in Afghanistan. He finds children in post-earthquake Haiti missing limbs and missing parents and famished to tears.
In Somalia, he finds men savaged by an enormous car bomb recovering in a chaotic, fly-strewn hospital. One of them, a man with fresh red-and-pink burns lacing his dark skin, waves him over to answer his questions. But the man soon turns the questions back on the filmmaker.
“What is your name?” the man asks as Brent films him bedside.
“Brent.”
“Can I ask you something? You’re very honest and very faithful. The way you hold that camera — the way you hold that camera, it is not just you’re holding it, you’re doing it from your heart.”
“I am, man. I am.”
“It really means a lot, dawg. You know what I mean? We can change this world, dawg. You and I can change this world if we wanted to. Believe that.”
You could watch a lot of documentary film without ever seeing a higher compliment paid. The Renaud brothers won the top prizes in their field — two duPont-Columbia Awards, a Peabody Award — but this unlikely interaction, captured on camera, feels truer to the hope and goals of their work than any banquet hardware. Particularly for someone in such pain and fear to genuinely see Brent offers a bittersweet
taste of hope in this documentary. Brent Renaud was, by his admission in the film, an awkward boy who had trouble making friends. Old home movies show him and Craig enjoying the finest of Arkansas summertimes together, riding horses and leaping off docks into dark lake water, but he remembers a lot of alone time with their parents working. From the time he was 10, he was fascinated with cameras, and soon, with the potential of TV.
He always processed the world differently from most. He found cocktail parties unendurable, yet kept a cool head and a steady heart rate when surrounded by exploding bombs and whizzing bullets. At 5-foot-6 and 140 pounds, he commanded the spaces he entered with something more akin to aura than with physicality. “Small guy,” a friend from his Chicago reporting said at his eulogy. “He was like a dove that came in a room. But his presence was of an elephant.”
As you see Brent’s subjects experiencing their lowest moments — with their children dead, or with hands missing, or with their homes bombed to splinters, or with thousands of miles to cover on foot — you wonder how, exactly, he got them to open up. Brent was visiting crime scenes, and the people there spoke in hopes that he could be part of righting a wrong. No one else was arriving to put anything back together. The job fell to this reedy, beguiling cameraman, perhaps speaking Spanish with a twang, to ask what happened. And over and over, people want to talk. Stripped of their homes and their loved ones and their limbs, with only their story left, they look to him as a glint of hope. They were witnesses to crimes. Without him, those crimes would go unreported.
“Armed Only With a Camera” ends with a dedication to Brent and to “the many journalists who gave their lives in pursuit of truth and peace.” Since his murder, hundreds of other journalists have died in conflict zones around the world — Israel alone has killed nearly 300 journalists during that stretch, nearly all of them Palestinians. You may not know anyone who kills journalists, but you probably know people who joke about killing them, perhaps even leaders who describe journalists as enemies of the people. Those people, if not would-be tyrants, are at least fools. With no journalists, silence follows crimes. With no witnesses, those who would do violence to you will get away with it.
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.
Beginning in 2019 with the “Idaho Stop” law, cyclists may treat stop signs as yields and red lights as stop signs.
DRIVERS PLEASE BE AWARE, IT’S ARKANSAS STATE LAW: AND CYCLISTS, PLEASE REMEMBER...
Your bike is a vehicle on the road just like any other vehicle and you must also obey traffic laws as applicable — 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.
EMU ON THE MENU
AS ALPHA-GAL SYNDROME LIMITS MANY ARKANSANS’ ABILITY TO EAT RED MEAT, SOME ARE CHARGING FORWARD WITH NEW SOURCES OF PROTEIN.
BY PHILLIP POWELL PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON
Amysterious red meat allergy stalks meat-loving Arkansans, but an alternative protein movement is sprouting up to offer the afflicted a new, and perhaps healthier, path forward.
The red meat allergy called alpha-gal syndrome has become infamous around Southern communities in the last few years, as more and more people are reporting surprise allergic reactions hours after eating beef, pork, lamb, dairy or other mammals. Many of the individuals recently diagnosed with alpha-gal had not previously experienced an allergic reaction to meat, including Amy Hall, whose diagnosis led her to become an emu farmer in Paris (Logan County).
When the problem started for Hall, she was working as an international commercial pilot. Every so often, when she’d be in a hotel somewhere overseas, she’d start to break out in hives and feel her chest tighten up. Her first reaction, when she was in her 40s, was at a Sheraton hotel in Ethiopia, which left her shaking and covered in a rash from head to toe.
Eventually, after an allergic reaction so extreme she ended up going into anaphylactic shock and being hospitalized, Hall’s health troubles began to interfere with her work.
“I had never had food allergies in my entire life, I didn’t know what the heck was going on. And of course the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] was like, ‘What’s going on with you? You need to go through tests, and you’re grounded,’” Hall said. “When you have a problem like that and you can’t tell the FAA why, they are like ‘nope,’ and that’s understandable.”
Even Hall’s allergist was stumped.
“Back then, people had no idea about alpha-gal, and I was going to this allergist who had me on all kinds of antihistamines,” Hall said. “And I thought, ‘This isn’t something sustainable, right?’”
Around two years after Hall’s first reaction in Ethiopia, her allergist returned from a symposium at the University of Virginia and said he finally knew what was wrong with her. The University of Virginia is where Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills, an allergist and immunologist, discovered the alpha-gal syndrome through various studies in the 2000s.
Platts-Mills had heard from patients that they developed a red meat allergy in the middle of their lives, but he initially didn’t believe it was possible. Later, while conducting trials for a new cancer drug, Platts-Mills and other researchers found that more than 20% of the patients in the
trial would mysteriously break out into anaphylactic shock after being given the drug.
The researchers then determined that a mammal-based sugar called alpha-gal was present in the drug and that all the patients who experienced an allergic reaction had antibodies for alpha-gal before the treatment. Platts-Mills began making connections between the allergic reactions during the cancer drug tests and the reactions many of his patients had complained about after eating red meat.
Despite the fact that humans do not naturally produce the alpha-gal sugar, some humans primarily in the South were being exposed to it and having allergic reactions to meat they’d eaten all of their lives without trouble. And Platts-Mills didn’t know why.
Dr. Joshua Kennedy, an allergist at UAMS, was completing a fellowship at the University of Virginia in 2007 when PlattsMills’ team finally connected the dots between how some people were mysteriously coming to possess the alpha-gal antibodies: the lone star tick, named for the white, star-shaped spot on its back.
Kennedy explained that the tick is prevalent in the South, where alpha-gal syndrome has mostly been found, and that researchers have found it can produce alpha-gal sugar in its saliva. Moreover, as the tick habitat has expanded northward, so have diagnoses of alpha-gal syndrome. But Kennedy said there are still so many questions around the allergy, as many people who have been bitten by the tick never develop the allergy. In other words, the actual means by which a bite turns into an allergy is still unknown.
Furthermore, many people with alpha-gal will see their symptoms decline or even disappear with time, and not all kinds of red meat products make everyone with the syndrome have an allergic reaction. Before Hall was diagnosed, she ate pork knuckle in Germany without a reaction.
Now, alpha-gal syndrome is recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an emerging tick-borne illness, and the organization estimates as of 2023 that as many as 450,000 people may have been affected.
Arkansas has proven to be the heart of the tick-driven public health challenge. A 2024 Army Medical Department study of military personnel found Arkansas had the highest prevalence of the syndrome, and a 2023 CDC study found that over half of Arkansas counties — especially in the Ozarks — had some of the highest rates of cases.
“We are absolutely seeing an increased
RETIREMENT PLAN: Former commercial pilot Amy Hall raises emus on her farmland in Logan County.
number of positive tests in our state, and our state is one of five or six current states that actually has a mandatory report for alpha-gal. Our Department of Health is actively evaluating cases for our state to determine whether or not they fit certain diagnostic criteria and determining whether a patient is actually having an alpha-gal reaction,” Kennedy said. “It’s become a hotbed.”
Whether the surge in diagnoses is because testing is more widespread or more ticks are spreading the allergy is also up for debate, Kennedy said, with much more research and studies needed to find conclusive answers. But regardless of how exactly the allergy develops, alpha-gal syndrome diagnoses have disrupted thousands of people’s lives.
FROM ALLERGY TO ALTERNATIVE PROTEIN
For Hall, the disruption was so significant that it resulted in her becoming one of the largest emu farmers in the United States.
After being officially diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome in 2013, Hall adopted a plant-based diet to prevent further reactions. But soon she was running into another problem: vitamin B-12 deficiency, which can be caused by not eating enough red meat. After some searching, she found that a couple of exotic birds could be a good substitute. Despite containing high amounts of B-12 and protein, emu and ostrich meat don’t cause allergic reactions for people with alpha-gal syndrome.
So Hall retired and began building a house on a piece of land near Paris that she had purchased when her parents relocated to Arkansas from her hometown of Cleveland. She bought a few emus to raise on her land for her own consumption after she struggled to find emu farms that would sell her the meat not mixed with pork fat.
After a few years, her operation slowly expanded and she began selling emu to local restaurants and markets, and to customers online. In 2019, she opened Gum Creek Emus, building a second career in the remote Ozark Mountains. Now, at 58 years old, she has hundreds of emus on her 20 acres of farmland, and expects dozens more as the birds head into mating season.
Part of the reason she was drawn to farming as a second career was because she grew up on a farm.
“Everyone is different with alpha-gal, you know? Some people just get a little rash, but I would break out into full hives everywhere and go into shock,” Hall said. “My parents had a farm for a long time, and they had horses. I think that’s where I picked up alpha-gal, going on horse rides through the woods. And we’d get off and go pee in the woods and spend every night picking off ticks.”
The transition away from meat-eating was difficult for Hall, but with the growth of her farm, she’s found a lot of community with people in similar situations. She said most of her sales are to people struggling with alpha-gal who, like her, turned to emu meat to supplement their diets. Her favorite part of the emu? The flat filet.
“The necks are like oxtail and have quite a bit of meat on them. They’re great for broth. Then there’s the flat filet, which can make great fajitas. I love fajitas,” Hall said. She also extracts and sells “emu oil” from the birds, which is used as a cosmetic ingredient similar to mineral oils.
HOTBED: Rising numbers of alpha-gal diagnoses in Arkansas have customers flocking to goods from Gum Creek Emus.
ARKANSAS SOY QUEEN
Around the same time Hall was being officially diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome in 2013, Karen Ballard was in eastern Arkansas working as a program evaluation professor for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Like Hall, Ballard began to experience unexpected allergic reactions after eating meat and dairy.
Ballard and her husband grew up in Delta row crop country, among huge soybean fields where the yields were destined for export. But she never ate much soy, even while she was working on nutrition research with the university to expand access to it.
After a particularly bad allergic reaction in 2019, Ballard even lost her vision in the car while her daughter was driving her to the hospital. Then, in her mid-60s, a doctor diagnosed her with alpha-gal.
“One of the hardest things about alpha-gal — I mean it’s hard enough that you can’t eat meat in a meat-dominant society — is in the South we wrap everything in bacon, or at least I did,” Ballard said. “I don’t think there was a vegetable I cooked that didn’t have bacon. I mean I was your classic Southern cook. It’s in gelatin, and in some pharmaceuticals … How do you know what is safe and what isn’t safe?”
With her diagnosis of alpha-gal, Ballard turned to a food grown in massive quantities in the Delta but rarely eaten there: soybeans. Ballard and her husband also took over his family’s farm in rural Jackson County, and she began growing edamame and dried soybeans to sell locally around Arkansas.
“The most people think about soy, if they think about it at all, is that it’s the gold standard of plant protein, but they don’t think about the fact that it’s high in fiber and there are all these things it brings to the table,” Ballard said. She emphasized that soy is truly a superfood, packed with protein, fiber, calcium and vitamins. After adopting soy into her diet daily, Ballard said, she lost weight, had lower cholesterol and was surprised by how much more healthy she felt.
Their farm, called B&B Legacy Farms, was designed in part to make locally grown, quality soy products available in Arkansas. While also growing and promoting soy, Ballard also applied for grants from the Mid-South Soybean Board to study how to expand access and demand for soy products in The Natural State.
“Most people had never eaten soy beyond edamame and then only occasionally, and most people — around 97% — had never eaten a cooked, dried soybean. In a state where we grow 3 million acres of it and it’s the top production crop in the state,” Ballard said. “But we don’t eat it. And it’s
phenomenal! Why? What were the barriers? And I found that it was multitiered.”
In particular, Ballard found that many Americans hold strong biases against soy foods, and that when tofu or other soy products are cooked to fit American recipes, more people tend to like it. She conducted hundreds of trials with customers, testing various recipes and consumer responses to see how Americans would ideally like to consume soy.
Now, Ballard has retired from both the university and from selling soy products direct to consumers from her farm, but other researchers at the Division of Agriculture will continue her efforts. A large part of her research was developing recipes that incorporate soy in American cuisine, such as “Soylicious Banana Pudding” and “Chipotle Soylicious Bean Dip.”
Though Hall’s farm was successful among the alpha-gal community, Ballard found much more success with vegans and vegetarians. She does think there is an opportunity for more soy adoption in the alpha-gal community, but said that because people with the allergy don’t choose to stop eating animals, they’re usually looking for animal-based alternatives to the foods they can’t eat anymore.
While their diagnosis of alpha-gal may have upended their lives for some time, both Hall and Ballard believe they’ve ended up in better places years after their diagnosis despite the challenges.
“I don’t have any doubt that it has in creased my quality of life and it has in creased my longevity because of the health side effects of not eating so much saturated fat. I had a cholesterol level at 25 of like 250 and everyone in my family practically has heart disease. I have the genes for that,” Ballard said. “Nutrition was never part of that discussion, so [al pha-gal syndrome] caused me to learn about nutrition and learn about how much power we have over the quality of our years and the length of them. I had never previously connected the dots on how what I ate could change all my health numbers.”
1st - Chris Combs
7th - IV and the Strange Band (Centralarkansastickets.com)
8th - Tina Cossey Band
14th - Dirty Lindsey
15th - MoonShroom
21st - Love and a Revolver
22nd - Big Red Flag
26th - Turkey Jam w/ Jonathan DeGazarian and Friends 27th - Friendsgiving Potluck (7pm)
For Hall, she loves being out on her land with the birds, and providing a service to so many people struggling to adapt their diets like she did years ago. There aren’t many emu farmers in the country, but she thinks emu farming will become more popular as time goes on and more people are diagnosed.
“The thing about emus is you can grow a lot of them on a smaller footprint,” she said. “You don’t need 100 acres, you can raise a pretty appreciable mob on five acres. They need space to thrive, but they also don’t eat a lot of grass.”
NOVEMBER
3 4 5 A Little Holiday Magic! Beautifully Crafted Something Special Just Opened A Cup of Joy
1. Cynthia East Fabrics cynthiaeastfabrics.com. 2. Arkansas Craft Guild Christmas Showcase - Find these pieces and more at the 46th Annual Arkansas Craft Guild Christmas Showcase. arkansascraftguild.org/christmas-showcase. 3. Hillcrest Designer JewelryBrevani diamond necklace: 14kt yellow gold triple necklaces, worn together or separate. Ashbery & Guldag Designer Jewelry: 14kt yellow gold bead chain, adjustable 14-16” with 3mm beads with 1.75ct diamonds. Estate bracelet in 18kt yellow and white gold with hinged diamonds. Lies flat on the wrist. 4. Brave New Restaurant - Give the gift of a locally roasted cup every morning with this 12-ounce bag. Throw in a gift certificate for a delicious night out. bravenewrestaurant.com. 5. Arkansas Times arktimes.myshopify.com.
UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE® STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION
4. Issue Frequency: Monthly. 5. Number of Issues Published Annually: 12. 6. Annual
Subscription Price: $60.00. 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: 201 East Markham, Ste. 150, Little Rock, Pulaski County, AR 72201. Contact Robert Curfman (501) 375-2985. 8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher (not printer): 201 East Markham, Ste. 150, Little Rock AR 72201 9. Publisher: Alan Leveritt, 201 East Markham, Ste. 150, Little Rock, AR 72201. Editor: Austin Bailey, 201 East Markham, Ste. 150, Little Rock, AR 72201. Managing Editor: Stephanie Smittle, 201 East Markham, Ste. 150, Little Rock, AR 72201. 10. Owner: Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, 201 East Markham, Ste. 150, Little Rock, AR 72201. 11. Known Beholders, Mortgagees, and Other Securities: None. 12a. Tax Status Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months. 13. Publication Title: Arkansas Times Newspaper. 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: 8/01/2025. 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months; No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date. 15a, Total Number of Copies (Net press run): 18,500; 15,000. 15b. Legitimate Paid and/or Requested Distribution (By mail and outside the mail): (1) Outside County/Requested Mail Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541. (Include direct written request from recipient, telemarketing and internet requests from recipient, paid subscriptions including nominal rate subscriptions, employer requests, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): 119; 116. (2) In-County Paid/ Requested Mail Subscriptions stated on PS Form 3541. (Include direct written request from recipient, telemarketing and internet requests from recipient, paid subscriptions including nominal rate subscriptions, employer requests, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): 0; 0. (3) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid or Requested Distribution Outside USPS®; 10,068; 8,079 (4) Requested Copies Distributed by Other Mail Classes Through the USPS (e.g., First-Class Mail®):0;0. 15c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation: (Sum of 15b (1), (2), (3), and (4)):10,187; 8,195 15d. Non-requested Distribution (By mail and outside the mail): (1) Outside County Nonrequested Copies Stated on PS Form 3541 (include sample copies, requests over 3 years old, requests induced by a premium, bulk sales and requests including association requests, names obtained from business directories, lists, and other sources): 0;0. (2) In-County Nonrequested Copies Stated on PS Form 3541(include sample copies, requests over 3 years old, requests induced by a premium, bulk sales and requests including association requests, names obtained from business directories, lists, and other sources): 0;0. (3) Nonrequested Copies Distributed Through the USPS by Other Classes of Mail (e.g. First-Class Mail, nonrequestor copies mailed in excess of 10% limit mailed at Standard Mail® or Package Service Rates): 0;0. (4) Nonrequested Copies Distributed Outside the Mail (include pickup stands, trade shows, showrooms and other sources): 6,331; 4,366. 15e. Total Nonrequested Distribution [Sum of 15d (1), (2), (3) and (4)]: 6,331;4,366 15f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and e): 16,518; 12,561 15g. Copies not Distributed 1,982; 2,439 15h. Total (Sum of 15f and g): 18,500; 15,000. 15i. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15c divided by 15f times 100): 61.67%; 65.24%. 16. Electronic Copy Circulation 16a. Requested and Paid Electronic Copies 0;0 16b. Total Requested and Paid Print Copies (Line 15c) + Requested/Paid Electronic Copies (Line16a) 10,187; 8,195 16c. Total Requested Copy Distribution (Line 15f) + Requested/Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a) 16,518; 12,561 16d. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c x 100) 61.67%; 65.24%. I certify that 50% of all my distributed copies (electronic and print) are legitimate requests or paid copies. 17. Publication of Statement of Ownership for a Requester Publication is required and will be printed in the 11/1/2025 issue of this publication. 18. Signature and Title of Editor, Publisher, Business Manager, or Owner: Alan Leveritt, Publisher. Date: 10/1/2025. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil penalties).
MARKETPLACE
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EMAIL LUIS@ARKTIMES.COM TO ADVERTISE.
IT Professionals:
CHI St. Vincent seeks Medical Lab Scientists in Little Rock, AR. Req’s Bach deg. in Med Tech, Bio, Chem Science, or related. Apply to: Tunisha.logan@commonspirit.org.
Valuepro Inc seeks multiple IT positions in Little Rock, AR, 72201 & various unanticipated sites throughout the US. SOFTWARE ENGINEERS: Duties: Plan, dsgn, create, analyze, & maintain s/ware systems. Use various s/ ware tools like Oracle/ SQL Server/ DB2/Postgres, SQL/ PLSQL, cloud technologies/ AWS/ Azure/ GCP. Reqs: Master's or equiv in Science, Engg, Info Systems/ Technology, Business Administration, or rltd field is req'd. Bachelor's deg in the above fields along w/ 5 yrs exp in job offered or rltd occupation is acceptable in lieu of master's deg. Sal: $118,227.00. BUSINESS SYSTEMS ANALYSTS: Duties: Analysis, configuration, customization, & documentation. Gather & analyze system reqmts. Involvement in system dsgn & implmtn. Translate computing needs into system specs. Use skills such as SharePoint/ JavaScript/ Angular, & familiarity w/ Agile/ Waterfall methodologies. Reqs: Master's or equiv in Science, Engg, Info Systems/ Technology, Business Administration, or rltd field w/ 6 months exp in job offered or rltd occupation is req'd. Sal: $92,206.00. QUALITY ENGINEERS: Duties: Analyze business & s/ware reqmt specs. Dsgn, dvlp test plans & test cases for manual & automation testing. Execute & dsgn test plans, test cases, scenarios, scripts, & procedures using Java, TestNG, NUnit, Visual Studio, & Eclipse. Test d/ bases using SOAP, UI, & SQL. Perform automation using Azure DevOps CI/CD stages & release definitions. Perform data analysis testing to ensure proper s/ware support for users & end products. Participate in establishing QA & testing guiding principles. Reqs: Bach's or equiv in Science, Engg, Info Systems/ Technology, Business Administration, or rltd field w/ 2 yrs exp in job offered or rltd occupation is req'd. Sal: $77,376.00. For all jobs, any suitable combo of edu, training or exp is acceptable. May travel & relocate to various unanticipated sites throughout the US. Send resume to hr@ valueprosite.org. Clearly ref. position. EOE.
TO YOUR HEALTH
CANNABIS AND HEALTH ARE TEAMING UP AT THE NWA CANNABIS & WELLNESS EXPO.
Whether you’re an industry insider, a longtime consumer or a newbie who’s looking to finally score your medical marijuana card, the NWA Cannabis & Wellness Expo is sweeping through the Fayetteville Town Center on Nov. 7-8 to satisfy your needs. This event is presented by Arkansas’ Finest, A Dispensary Collective (Osage Creek, Harvest Cannabis, The Vault at Hilltop, Morrilton Dispensary, Clarksville Dispensary and Pine Bluff Dispensary); the Arkansas Times, the Arkansas Cannabis Industry Association; and Bud Agency.
Starting with a half day (noon-4:20 p.m.) of networking, panels and special programming for growers, business owners and budtenders on Friday, the expo heats up for consumers on Saturday (10 a.m.-6 p.m.). Thanks to a partnership with Natural State Medicinals and Leafwell, physicians will be on site to provide $50 medical card consultations — the cheapest we’ve ever been able to offer — for both new and renewing patients. (Once you purchase a ticket to the expo, you’ll receive an email with instructions on how to sign up for an in-person or telehealth appointment.)
After you’ve gotten your consultation out of the way, stick around at the expo, where you’ll be treated to vendors, an industry job fair, and educational talks and panel discussions about everything from cooking with cannabis to microdosing. Plus, you’ll get clued into the best products in the biz when the winners of the Big Bud Classic Awards — sponsored by Calyx Containers — are announced at 4:20 p.m.
Get your tickets ($10 per day or $20 for both Friday and Saturday) at armmjexpo.com. No medical marijuana card is required for entry, but you must be 18 or over to attend, so leave the kiddos at home. The first 500 attendees will go home with a complimentary T-shirt and swag bag.
BRIAN CHILSON
THE OBSERVER
STOOLISH GAMES
The boomers that regularly occupy the barstools at The Observer’s restaurant workplace have spent countless hours consuming vast quantities of domestic beers while plopped down on what are easily the eight most uncomfortable seats in the city.
They are the same firm, backless stools my boss bought when he opened the Little Rock restaurant more than 30 years ago, and I doubt he’s given them any thought since then. But, if you asked him about them, he’d probably have some story about how he got a great deal and that he always knew they’d last 60 years.
Fundamentally, I don’t understand why the stools are so widely accepted. I’m in my late 30s now, but even in my 20s, my lower back would start to hurt after an hour of sitting at the bar. But our 60-plus-year-old beer-slugging pros can sit (and drink) with the best of them, never complaining about a lack of cushioning, lower back pain or crushing hangovers.
They really come out to party on Friday nights. The interior of our restaurant is a relatively small space and sometimes the boomer-to-barstool ratio exceeds capacity. When this happens, the unlucky guys left out of the stool club stand around awkwardly, invading the space of customers sitting at tables and bumping into people in the to-go order line. Sometimes a bar regular without a stool causes an act of unified inspiration, and guys that are sitting decide to stand up in solidarity, creating a traffic nightmare for busy servers trying to deliver food.
One Friday night, Kenneth, a longtime regular and the most skilled Bud Light drinker I’ve ever seen, valiantly abandoned his seat when this guy Howard was left stool-less after showing up a few minutes behind schedule. Shortly after their standing brodown began, a woman at table six — my table — slid one chair over and was now
seated diagonally across from her husband. I thought the seating arrangement was peculiar at first, but quickly realized that she likely moved because leaning back in her previous chair could have easily led to a physical encounter between her head and Kenneth’s ass. I apologized and offered the couple a new table. The husband said, “I think we’re OK,” but there was uncertainty in his eyes. His wife did not look happy.
After a few laps around the restaurant, the vibes still seemed off at table six, so I walked up to Kenneth and Howard and said, “Guys, I have a table right here. Could you give them some space, please?”
They looked at me like I was speaking a language they didn’t understand called “restaurant employee,” and continued their conversation. At this point, their behavior was legitimately abominable, leaning on the bar with their arms and chest and letting their posteriors protrude outward, almost as if they wanted the entire restaurant to check them out. The woman eventually moved across the table to sit beside her husband.
When I timidly delivered the couple’s pizza a little bit later, everything seemed to be OK. I continued to circulate, delivering beers, ringing up tickets and talking trash to members of the kitchen staff about Kenneth and Howard.
I was walking by table six when it happened. Everything seemed to go still, and it felt like I was moving in slow motion. I gave the couple a phony customer service smile as I passed them, and then — with very little regard for human life — Kenneth fucking ripped one. The blast made landfall on the couple’s table instantly, and I swear their hair blew back from the polluted gale-force gust. I stopped dead in my tracks. Surely, that didn’t just happen, I thought to myself.
But it did, and I knew exactly where it
came from. There’s something about Kenneth that every server, busser and frontof-house member of our staff is well aware of. After seven or eight beers, the man is shameless about ripping god-awful farts in the restaurant, but until this instance, they’d always been of the silent-but-deadly variety.
The woman at table six also knew exactly where the fart originated because she looked at her husband, pointed directly at Kenneth’s hindquarters and firmly said: “He just farted on us!” The husband didn’t respond. The dejected look on his face said it all. He looked like a man who told his wife they’d be OK and his decision got them farted on. Such a costly mistake could cause irreparable harm to any relationship.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“I told you that was gonna happen!” the wife said to him. He looked at me like he was about to say something and then recoiled as he caught a whiff.
“Dear, Lord,” he said.
“We’ll take our check,” the woman said.
“Do you need a box? I asked.
“No,” she replied.
Over the next few shifts, I tried to institute a “no standing” policy for bar regulars. It didn’t work at all. There’s no training those guys. They’re set in their ways. Those sturdy stools can’t hold ’em forever.
Everyone I told the story to in the ensuing days showed a certain degree of empathy for the couple, and for me as a server, but for whatever reason found it to be more comic than tragic.
The night it happened, I sent a shorter version of the tale via text message to a former co-worker who lives in New York now and doesn’t wait tables anymore. His response sums it up best:
“It’s a marvel of unexplained phenomena that a story about a fart, 1,200 miles away, can cause one to pee himself.”
