Arkansas Times | March 2023

CULTURE WARS | TIPPI MCCULLOUGH TALKS | FIGHTING FENTANYL

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023

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MARCH 2023

FEATURES

KNIVES OUT: As a kid, Henry Rodgers collected old school discarded iron railroad spikes in the woods near the White Water Tavern to forge into knives.

Now, he sharpens blades for a living (pg. 60).

26 OPIOIDS IN ARKANSAS How Arkansas is spending its opioid settlement fortune.

By Stephanie Smittle

30 OVERDOSE, REVERSED

MATTHEW MARTIN

A Q&A about NARCAN with Justin Buck, Executive Director of Wolfe Street.

By Daniel Grear

9 THE FRONT

From the Farm: Which heirloom tomatoes reign supreme?

Q&A: With Rep. Tippi McCullough, intrepid House minority leader.

Big Pic: Inconsequential News Quiz, variety pack edition.

17 THE TO-DO LIST

Sunny War at the White Water Tavern, Valley of the Vapors music fest in Hot Springs, Diego Rivera at Crystal Bridges, Bill Callahan in Fayetteville and more.

23 NEWS & POLITICS

Data on how the Democrats should be strategizing for more votes.

By Christopher Williams

51 SAVVY KIDS

60 FOOD & DRINK

Henry Rodgers, a 20-year-old knife sharpener, is reinventing the game by bringing his tools to you.

By Rhett Brinkley

Barbara Hall, a veteran teacher at Pulaski Heights Elementary, innovates with kindness.

68 CANNABIZ

By Ali Noland

By Griffin Coop

56 CULTURE

74 THE OBSERVER

The story of Kenny Wilcox, the bull riding pride of Greenbrier.

Despite challenges, women are making an indelible mark on the weed industry.

What babysitters have to teach us about culinary adventure.

By Daniel Grear ON THE COVER: Kenny Wilcox by Brandon Hunt.

4 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

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ARKANSAS TIMES

VOLUME 49, ISSUE 7 ARKANSAS TIMES (ISSN 0164-6273) is published each month by Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, 201 East Markham Street, Suite 200, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72201, phone (501) 375-2985. Periodical postage paid at Little Rock, Arkansas, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ARKANSAS TIMES, 201 EAST MRKHAM STREET, SUITE 200, 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. ©2023 ARKANSAS TIMES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP

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THE FRONT FROM THE FARM

THE HOLY TRINITY OF TOMATOES HEIRLOOM GOLDIES, CARBONS AND ANANAS NOIRE ARE THE BEST OF THE BUNCH.

BY ALAN LEVERITT

I

t’s December and the Johnny’s Seed catalog is splayed out across my coffee table along with Baker’s Rare Seeds, Tomato Growers Supply and any number of other splashy, colorful catalogs. The fire in my wood stove is roaring, it’s cold outside and I can’t wait to get out into the summer heat with all my new varieties.

Just two months earlier I was praying for an early frost, burned out and worn down from the relentless summer heat. But now the harbingers of spring, seed catalogs — with no mention of the heat, hornworms, stink bugs, fire ants and bacterial wilt — renew me.

The world’s greatest liars do not go into politics or even journalism. They go to work writing for seed catalogs, perhaps after a successful career as time-share salesmen.

They’ll spin siren songs about the exquisite flavor of Brandywine tomatoes without mentioning that you will be lucky to harvest more than two the whole season. Or try to sell you on Old German, a beautiful bi-color yellow and red heirloom with huge tomatoes and an affinity for every disease known to man except possibly the common cold.

Over the last 30 years I have tried several hundred tomato varieties, particularly heirloom tomatoes. Beware if the word “rare” is ever in the description. Usually they are rare for good reason: They won’t grow. I now plant just a few varieties of tomatoes — all but two are heirlooms — and I get great results. You may grow the identical varieties with terrible results because of your soil, microclimate or the funny way you hold your hoe. For example, Charley’s Mortgage Lifter, a great heirloom

with a great story, has been the mainstay at North Pulaski Farms for years. Supposedly Charley bred this tomato during the Depression, and it was so good he was able to sell the plants for $1 each, paying off his mortgage in one season. North Pulaski is less than 1 mile as the crow flies from my farm, and I have never been able to get a Mortgage Lifter to maturity.

So with that caveat, here are the heirlooms and others that I have had the best luck with. I grow a holy trinity of tomatoes: Goldie, Carbon and Ananas Noire.

Goldie is a golden tomato, not a yellow tomato. If you eat it yellow it will taste like a grocery store tomato. Wait until it is a deep gold, and there is none better. Goldie, also known as Dixie Giant, is supposed to be a stable mutation of a 19th century red Abraham Lincoln tomato. It is a big tomato, extremely prolific and an early producer for an heirloom. It’s one of my favorites. The seeds can be a little hard to find, but I order mine from Everwilde Farms.

Carbon is known as a “black tomato.”

It’s dark red, medium sized and for me, the best tasting tomato there is. I am also experimenting with the similar Cherokee Purple this year so I can do multiple taste tests. As I am a small commercial grower, the fact that Cherokee Purples are bigger and have a great reputation is of interest to me. Both tomatoes are offered in most seed catalogs.

Ananas Noire, which translates to black pineapple, is a French heirloom with green flesh and red marbling. Peter Brave at Brave New Restaurant likes to take Goldies, Carbons and Ananas Noire and fan them out on a long, narrow plate. Their amazing, ARKTIMES.COM

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ARKANSAS TIMES

contrasting colors make for beautiful presentations. They have a great mild flavor and are beautiful on the plate.

Sun Gold Cherry tomatoes are known for their intense sweetness. As a hybrid, it also has the incidental benefit of having a full range of disease resistance, making it one of the few tomatoes in the field to make it to frost.

Purple Bumblebee Cherry tomatoes are dark red with green metallic stripes.

They’re beautiful, but most importantly, they taste like Carbons. I can’t say enough about their full, old-fashioned tomato taste.

Bumblebee is part of the artisan series bred

by Baia Nicchia Farm in California and available through Johnny’s Seeds. Purple Bumblebee also has the advantage of being open pollinated, which means, like with heirlooms, the seeds can be saved for next year.

Here’s a pro tip: These varieties are seldom available at local outlets so you have to order the seeds. That means you also have to germinate them, which can be challenging. One alternative to germinating them yourself is to send the seed to a grafting lab, where they will germinate the seeds and then graft the stems of your heirlooms onto a wild root stock, giving your heirlooms tremendous vigor and, most importantly, disease resistance. I use Grafted Growers but they are not taking new orders until summer, which would be for either fall tomatoes or next season.

But they or another grafter would be worth talking to. I tried grafted Goldies next to un-grafted Goldies last season, and the grafted Goldies lasted until frost while the un-grafted Goldies died in August, which is typical for me. This year I will plant 1,500 heirlooms outside and all will be grafted.

The cost is around $2 a plant plus seed. Last I checked, they did not have a minimum order but that may change.

There are a few varieties that I don’t plant. Stay away from anything with the word “mountain” in it. The Mountain Series is bred by the University of North Carolina for the fast-food industry and, as far as I am concerned, has destroyed the reputation of the Bradley County tomato industry. Years ago, growers there were told their Bradleys and Arkansas Travelers were too soft and juicy to hold up under electric slicers of the fast-food industry. The solution was Mountain Pride, an abomination with the size, flavor and texture of a baseball. There are holdouts but the big, South Arkansas producers have been forced to switch to one of the Mountain varieties. “Arkansas tomatoes” have gone from being a sell line to a consumer warning.

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MARCH 2023 11

PRESENTS

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THE FRONT Q&A

COACHING THE POLITICAL GAME TIPPI TAPS THE POWER OF COLLABORATION TO STEER HOUSE DEMS THROUGH ROCKY YEAR.

When did you first get elected? And what does being the House minority leader entail?

I got elected in 2018, and this is my second time as House minority leader. In some ways, my job is the same as the other representatives. We get together and talk about bills and whip votes if we’re trying to get together on something. We meet pretty much daily.

And I end up talking to the press quite a bit as a spokesperson for the party.

Part of it’s organization, part of it’s political, part of it’s media-related. My role is just for someone to hold us together as much as possible.

politics.

It’s a really high-energy day where you can feel pulled in a lot of directions. It never becomes easy, but there’s a rhythm to it that you learn.

BRIAN CHILSON

When the 2023 Arkansas legislative session comes to an end, can we all agree to give Rep. Tippi McCullough of Little Rock a few weeks to just ride her bike, read some good books and maybe hide out in a cabin somewhere? The job of keeping House Democrats organized and not demoralized in the face of an insurmountable Republican supermajority would be tough for anyone. An introvert who’s happy to talk with the press and show up to all the mix-andmingles as long as she gets to occasionally recharge, McCullough is likely in the market for some down time.

SOME GOOD BOOKS SHE’S READ LATELY: “These Precious Days” by Ann

Patchett, “Evicted” by Matthew Desmond, “Dopesick” by Beth Macy, “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver, “Lost & Found” by Kathryn Schulz MOVIE RECOMMENDATION:

“Women Talking” FAVORITE WHEELS: We mountain bike a

That unwind time you mentioned, what does that look like? I eat dinner with Barb.

[McCullough’s wife, Barb Mariani, is a Pulaski County prosecutor.] Sometimes I’ll ask her about bills she might know about. We discuss our days.

Last weekend, when we got done Thursday we went out of town. Barb had a bike race, and I was going to have some quiet time to read and catch up on calls and texts.

And I read every night before I go to bed.

Does being the only openly gay member of the Arkansas Legislature create extra responsibilities for you? I’m a caucus of one in that respect. But I represent 30,000 people in my district. A certain number of those are members of the LGBTQ community and a certain number of those are allies, but I’ve got all kinds of people and I try to represent all of them. And of course I do feel that I’m a voice and a representative for the LGBTQ community.

I’m a lesbian out of those letters, but I’m not trans, I’m not bisexual, so I have to listen a lot to those voices and try to stand up for them.

ton, and road bike. I just got an electric What are the Democrats’ goals this year? mountain bike and I can keep up with We've known since early on the agenda set How could your constituents be more helpful Barb on that. out by the governor, with education and or effective? I want them to know me and public safety and taxes. We’re huge public ed reach out to me. ... And come up to the Capitol! supporters, and our goal, even as far back as This should be a place where everybody feels the special session [in 2022] has been the RAISE act, with teacher and comfortable and everybody understands how it works. When I walk staff raises. We feel like those are clean bills for one purpose and with in there, I feel like I did when I walked into Central High School in my no strings attached. teaching career, just in awe of that history. I feel the same when I walk We want a healthier, safer, fairer, brighter Arkansas. Anything we do, it’s into the Capitol. In the end, my time here will come and go, but it’s to achieve those goals. Whether it’s teacher raises, or Ashley Hudson’s always going to be the people’s house. bill to help pregnant teenagers finish school, or Deborah Ferguson’s constitutional amendment to repeal the abortion ban, or Andrew How do you stay level-headed when you’re dealing with emotional Collins’ election bills, that’s what we’re doing. issues and lack of understanding?

My teaching and coaching career prepared me, in a lot of ways, for this.

What’s a typical day for a state representative? My day starts the When you’re a coach you develop thick skin pretty quickly or you get night before. When I get home, I look at the calendars for the next day, destroyed by it. You have to lay your head down every night knowing all the committees and agendas, not just my own. I’ll formulate some you’re fighting for the right things and the right values. questions and talking points.

We try to concentrate on the bill, and not to be personal.

Between morning meetings and afternoons, groups come in for lunches Sometimes people are doing things because that’s what they believe. and presentations, and we have receptions with different groups in the Sometimes it’s for constituents, sometimes it’s political. I try to not be early evenings. So I usually get home around 6-ish and unwind for just a too judgmental, I try to listen and not close the door on people. ... It’s second or two and then get right to working again. not always easy. I just found out I’m better off if I listen more than I talk.

Last night I was at the Capitol later doing a podcast, “The Girl and the Gov,” that’s trying to get young women interested in government and —Austin Bailey ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 13

THE FRONT

INCONSEQUENTIAL NEWS QUIZ

THE VARIETY PACK EDITION

PLAY ALONG AT HOME, SAFE FROM LEGISLATORS WHO MIGHT ASK WHAT VARIETY YOU’RE PACKING.

2. During a judiciary committee meeting, state Sen. Matt McKee (R-Pearcy) thought he was clever when he asked a pharmacist who is a transgender woman if she had …

A) Any ideas about how to make gender-affirming medical care more accessible to trans people throughout Arkansas.

B) Seen the new “Avatar” movie yet.

C) Ever considered the age-old question of whether there are more wheels or doors in the world.

D) A penis.

3. Were you recently shocked by a gas bill that was double or triple its average? Join the club. A Summit Utilities executive pointed the finger at ______ and ______.

A) The threat of a mushroom zombie apocalypse like in “The Last of Us” (exciting), a major gas leak (scary).

B) Hip middle-aged women doing hot yoga at home (innovative), grill masters roasting too many weenies in the cold (yum).

C) A pack of sled dogs sneaking into area hot tubs and turning up the heat (understandable), the fact that they just wanted to make some extra money for crème brulée and caviar (greedy).

D) An increase in natural gas prices in recent years (boring), increased usage during cold months (extra boring).

14 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

4. Mourn the loss of the original 112 Drive-In theater in Fayetteville before it gets blown into new proportions.

Plans for developing the land were recently announced. What’s coming?

A) Rodeo land for hog racing.

B) A Wonderworks museum with a giant upside-down, cracked building, a spectacle sure to rival Branson’s tourism scene.

C) NASCAR, baby.

D) A big ol’ Alamo Drafthouse Cinema with local beers and themed movie nights, flanked by shiny new residential streets and retail space.

5. Neil Mehta, a man who set off an international manhunt after the FBI found illegal explosives in his Fort Smith home, drove a swanky orange Lamborghini. What did his customized vanity plate say?

A) 1NN0CNT. B) EXPLODE. C) BMBSAWY. D) WARLORD.

1NN0CNT

ANSWERS: D, D, D, D, D

1. The Little Rock Zoo tried a new fundraising event this Valentine’s Day. What was the entertainment?

A) Legislators attacking the state’s transgender youth got fed to the tigers.

B) Donors received a sloppy kiss from their favorite zoo creature.

C) The penguins offered a ticketed workshop on how to dress for romance success.

D) Mayhem the hornbill chowed down on cockroaches named after exes who likely deserved it.

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 15

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SUNNY WAR

TUESDAY 3/14. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 8 P.M. $15-$18.

Guitarist David Rawlings shows up all over singer-songwriter Sunny War’s new album, “Anarchist Gospel,” but this is no Gillian Welch record. Take the track “Higher,” for instance, which complicates Rawlings’ taut, high-pitched fingerpicking by overlaying it with synth pads, distorted drums and War’s low and gospel-tinged voice. Another unexpected utilization of Rawlings comes on “Swear to Gawd,” which features a bluesy harmonica and electric piano that ooze with attitude. War calls herself “folk-punk” and though I’m not sure I agree with the “punk” side of that genre distinction, maybe she just means that her version of roots music can’t be contained. Sarah Shook & the Disarmers are set to open.

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 17

TEENAGE HALLOWEEN & BLVCK HIPPIE

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SUNDAY, 3/12. VINO’S. 7 P.M. $10.

Teenage Halloween and Blvck Hippie are both bands designed to win over the outsider at a messy house show. Teenage Halloween — an emo group from New Jersey — brings tuneful and speedy power pop for the kind of kid who likes music with attitude but is a little intimidated by singers that yell and never smile, or for the newbie who wants to mosh but not too hard.

Blvck Hippie — a Black-fronted sad boy indie rock project from Memphis — provides jangly, “VHSinspired” songs for the punk who actually prefers music that’s chill, or for the hardcore regular who’s realizing that maybe weed and booze make them more introspective than they used to. This stacked Vino’s bill is rounded out with locals Benadriil and Crying in Public.

ARGENTA READING SERIES: STACEY SWANN

SATURDAY 3/4. ARGENTA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. 7 P.M. FREE. I can’t stop thinking about the cover of Stacey Swann’s debut novel, a simple watercolor painting that depicts a grand, twisting tree in the foreground, so large and looming that you almost don’t notice the speck of a house that’s positioned behind it. Much like its cover, “Olympus, Texas,” released by Doubleday in 2021, dreams up a rural Texan family whose drama overshadows any relational loyalty.

In fact, this clan is so prone to tangling themselves up in what Kirkus Reviews describes as “scandals, betrayals, fistfights, and other fireworks” that you nearly forget they’re kin. Arrive 30 minutes early for the native Texan’s reading at Argenta United Methodist Church and score some free wine, provided by 107 Liquor.

DIEGO RIVERA'S THE FLOWER CARRIER BY KATHERINE DU TIEL

DIEGO RIVERA’S AMERICA

18 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

SATURDAY 3/11-MONDAY 7/31. CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, BENTONVILLE. $12.

Known most for his ornate, densely populated murals that portray the hectic bustle of working-class strife and Mexican history, Diego Rivera (1886-1957) was a massively influential artist. Crystal Bridges will soon host the first major exhibition focused exclusively on his work in over two decades. “Diego Rivera’s America,” last housed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, is also significant because of its expansiveness: Over 150 drawings, easel paintings, frescoes and more from the early 1920s through the early 1940s will be featured, as well as large-scale digitally projected recreations of his massive public art pieces. Culled from public and private collections across the United States and Mexico, it’s the largest body of Rivera’s art from that period to be displayed all at once since he was alive. The permanent collection at Crystal Bridges is always free, so make sure to explore the rest of the museum, especially if you’re driving up from Central Arkansas.

BILL CALLAHAN

BEKAH JORDAN

FRIDAY 3/10. CLAPP AUDITORIUM, FAYETTEVILLE. 8 P.M. $27.50.

PONY BRADSHAW

THURSDAY 3/2. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 8 P.M. $12.

If “North Georgia Rounder,” the newest album from twangy singer-songwriter Pony Bradshaw, sounds like it was meant to be performed on the White Water stage, it might have something to do with the fact that it was recorded at Jason Weinheimer’s Fellowship Hall Sound, just a couple miles down the road from the beloved tavern. Bradshaw’s dark, aching voice makes mournfulness his natural mode, but don’t let that scare you away: There’s plenty of counterpointing instrumental pep to get your toe tapping amidst the sadness. If you’re not sure what I mean, listen to “Foxfire Wine” and tell me it doesn’t make you want to simultaneously cry and dance. When you hear him sing about being stuck “upon this matchless earth,” you’ll wonder if he’s condemning our planet for lacking spark or if he’s praising it for being beautifully incomparable. His lyrics, too, will place you right between disappointment and admiration.

Because Bill Callahan — a singersongwriter who’s been steadily releasing well-received folk albums since the ’90s, sometimes under the name Smog — sings in an understated, nearly monotone voice, his lyrical genius can go undetected. And even if you’ve been primed to give extra attention to his words, it’s not their complicatedness that will arrest you.

Instead, you’ll likely be stopped in your tracks by his peculiar gaze, transfixed by the infinite wisdom of his simple, nature-heavy imagery. In perhaps his most popular track, “Jim Cain,” he wonders “how much of a tree bends in the wind” and “how can a wave possibly be.” These questions initially sound sensical and scientific, but they’re posed at such an angle so as to never be completely answerable.

Ponder alongside Callahan at Clapp Auditorium in Fayetteville, a modest space stuffed with wooden pews at the top of Mount Sequoyah.

ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES: ‘THE GLEANERS AND I’ The year before she died, French filmmaker Agnes Varda was described by the New Yorker as someone who “loves the burnt edges of cinema, finding treasures in images or ideas that other directors might reject.” When a critic says something like this, I often wonder if they’re just exaggerating in service of an artful argument. Sure, every creative brings something unique to the table, but how truly inimitable can any one artist really be?

Varda’s idiosyncratic work gives us a definitive answer to that question.

In “The Gleaners and I” (2000), an unusual and discursive documentary, Varda wields a handheld digital camcorder for the first time and offers a poetically associative perspective on those who glean — or collect and make use of what is discarded by others — out of either poverty or conviction.

The subject material itself feels stumbled upon, spontaneous and genuinely discovered, as well as the conclusion she comes to that the movies she makes are also animated by the spirit of gleaning. Another distinctive feature of this film is the way its production process intrudes upon the viewing experience, through self-reflexive acknowledgements of Varda’s presence behind the camera and playful inclusions of accidental footage.

HANLY BANKS CALLANHAN

TUESDAY 3/21. RIVERDALE 10 CINEMA. 7 P.M.

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VALLEY OF THE VAPORS

CALVIN LEE JOSEPH

FRIDAY 3/17-SUNDAY 3/19. CEDAR GLADES PARK, HOT SPRINGS. $50 WEEKEND PASS, $20 SINGLE-DAY TICKETS.

POTLUCK & POISON IVY: RACHEL REYNOLDS

THURSDAY 3/23. THE JOINT THEATER AND COFFEEHOUSE. 7 P.M. $35.

Maybe you’ve heard Rachel Reynolds bow an old-time tune on her fiddle. Maybe you’ve eaten one of her award-winning pies.

Maybe you’ve listened to her enthusiastically lecture on the ecology, history and folklore of the Ozark Mountains. Maybe you’ve been to one of the barn concerts or square dances she hosts at Meadowcreek, a 1,600-acre nature preserve where she serves as the Project Steward. Maybe you’ve visited the People’s Library, a community space that she co-founded on the same land in Fox. Even if you’ve been lucky enough to do every single one of these things, I guarantee you that there’s something about Ozark culture that Reynolds can still teach you. Carefully balancing the scholarly with the rowdy, she’s one of the state’s premiere preservationists of rural living.

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Valley of the Vapors calls itself an “underground” music festival, but when you consistently corral dozens of incredible bands from around the globe to the Ouachita Mountains for 19 years straight, that descriptor starts feeling like something of an understatement. Maybe what they really mean when they say “underground” is that the festival has effortlessly retained its welcoming DIY ethos. With low ticket prices, uncommonly obliging hospitality and a dedication to prioritizing hidden, eclectic artists on the cusp of something greater, VOV is an unpretentious institution. This year’s fest includes performances by zzzahara (Los Angeles), Begonia (Winnipeg, Canada, pictured at left), Constant Smiles (Martha’s Vinyard, Massachusetts), Shutups (Oakland, California), Truth Club (Raleigh, North Carolina), The Foreign Resort (Copenhagen, Denmark), Modeling (Fayetteville) and much more. Since the festival moved to Cedar Glades Park in 2021, camping has become a more enticing option, which is available for $30 per day per vehicle, or $75 for the whole weekend.

ILYA KAMINSKI & KATIE FARRIS TUESDAY 3/28. REVES RECITAL HALL, HENDRIX COLLEGE. 7:30 P.M. FREE.

Since poetry is an associative form, liberated from always having to make literal sense, it is often constructed from disparate ideas and images placed so close together that they produce unexpected resonances. By that logic, staging a commingling of verse by asking two accomplished poets to read back to back might be one of the best possible poetic experiences. What might be even more spectacular is the pairing of poets who are married, who share an intimate life, but whose work still stands alone. Ilya Kaminski — a hard-of-hearing National Book Award finalist whose poems in “Deaf Republic” explore deafness and political violence — and Katie Farris — whose soon-to-be-released collection, “Standing in the Forest of Being Alive,” captures “both the pleasures and the horrors” that come from breast cancer and all of its accompanying bodily awareness — are that exact couple, and will share their poems at Hendrix College.

Presented by

Join us as we honor James Bobo and enjoy a “taste” of some of the best dishes from restaurants around Little Rock.

We’ll also celebrate the success of UA Little Rock Giving Day 2023.

Tuesday, April 4 | 6-8 p.m.

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22 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

NEWS & POLITICS

HOW TO WIN A CULTURE WAR

DON’T FIGHT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. WHAT THE DATA SAYS ABOUT HOW DEMOCRATS CAN WIN.

BY CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS

R

epublicans in the Arkansas legislature have gone full-on “culture wars.” So far this session they have attempted to legislate everything from who can watch a person wearing a dress sing and dance to what toilets children can use, and even telling public school employees what names they have to call students. The lowlight of this session, however, may have been when state Sen. Matt McKee (R-Pearcy) asked a witness in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 15 to tell him what her genitalia looks like. Just imagine how small-government conservatives like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan would have felt about elected officials asking citizens what is in their pants.

Given this absolutely unprecedented show of theocratic legislating at the state Capitol, Arkansas Democrats have been left having to figure out how best to respond. Referring to a bill that would have designated drag shows as adult entertainment, state Sen. Greg Leding (D-Fayetteville) said, “The sponsors say this bill will protect kids, and I know they’re sincere when they say they want to protect kids — every one of us wants to protect kids — but even if you believe drag performances are anything more than fun and entertaining, what percentage of kids do we think are involuntarily witnessing drag performances? How often do we think this is happening? Where do we think Arkansas

ranks in children who have seen a drag show?

I know where we rank in child food insecurity: we’re number two. We rank 16th in teen suicide, seventh in child deaths by firearms, and fifth in child mortality.”

Leding’s statement appears to be precisely the kind of message that political science research on elections and campaigns suggests could be successful in helping Democrats increase vote share. To understand why, we first have to understand what makes a successful election campaign.

SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGNS Candidates win by saying only what voters want to hear or by changing voters’ hearts and minds through rhetoric, right? This is a common misconception that could hardly be more wrong.

Successful campaigns focus public attention on the issues where voters and the candidate match up.

If a candidate can get voters thinking about issues on which they and the public hold a similar position, come Election Day the voters are more likely to cast a ballot for that candidate.

After all, if a voter is thinking about an issue, it makes sense to vote for the candidate who you think will handle it best. Thus, candidates try to increase the salience of issues that provide them an electoral advantage.

ISSUES FOR THE CENTER-LEFT The question becomes, what issues provide center-left parties, like the Democrats, with a comparative advantage on Election Day? Centerleft parties have been associated with economic positions designed to help the working class and middle class. This is most definitely the case for the Democrats, particularly since FDR’s New Deal. Republicans, on the other hand, have been associated more regularly with economic policies that benefit the wealthy, such as Wall Street traders, businesspeople and bankers.

Since there are far more working- and middleclass people in almost all societies, including Arkansas, it would follow that a Democratic focus on market regulation, increasing its salience among the public, might lead to increased vote share for the Democrats.

But what about these “culture wars” issues Republicans in Arkansas and elsewhere are shouting about lately? Republicans would argue that the majority of the public wants to preserve “traditional family values,” suggesting an emphasis on “culture wars” issues would hurt Democrats at the polls. Democrats would argue that voters are generally more progressive than Republicans give them credit for. If this is true, it would suggest that a focus on “culture wars” issues would help Democrats. But crunching some numbers actually leads to a different conclusion.

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PLATFORMS AND VOTE SHARE The Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) has actually taken the party platforms (which are called manifestos outside of the United States) of hundreds of political parties across dozens of countries, and broken them into what political scientists call “quasi-sentences.”

A quasi-sentence is simply a full thought or message, and a sentence can be made up of one or more quasi-sentences. The researchers at the Comparative Manifesto Project then determined what issue area each quasi-sentence addresses.

This data allows me to determine how much of their platforms center-left parties devoted to “market regulation” and “traditional morals,” respectively. Importantly, discussion of “traditional morals” does not necessarily mean that center-left parties are talking positively about them.

Using inferential statistics (for the other data geeks out there I used a mixed effects linear regression with random country intercepts), I was able to examine what the effect is of a center-left party talking more about “market regulation” and what the effect is of a center-left party talking more about “traditional morals” on party vote share for center-left parties across 22 countries from 1961 through 2021. Using these advanced analytics also allows me to remove the effects of a host of other factors that might

influence center-left vote share.

Figure 1 displays the expected vote shares for a center-left party as they increase discussion of “market regulation” and “traditional morals.”

We see that if a party like the Democrats devoted none of their platform to “market regulation,” they are expected to receive about 48% of the vote. Increasing the percentage of the platform dedicated to “market regulation” increases vote share substantially, with a center-left party like the Democrats expecting nearly 60% of the vote when they dedicate 15% of their platform to “market regulation.” Put simply, talking more about “market regulation” boosted expected vote share for a party like the Democrats by nearly 12 percentage points.

The vote share of a center-left party moves in the opposite direction the more the party talks about “traditional morals.” If a party like the Democrats dedicated 5% of its platform to talking about “traditional morals” it would expect a vote share of slightly more than 45%.

Increasing to 15% of a platform, the center-left party would expect vote share to dip to about 38%; a 7 percentage point drop. The takeaway here is that Democrats talking about breadand-butter economic issues provides them with a comparative advantage, but getting bogged in the “culture wars” is probably not the most promising strategy.

Of course, this data spans 60 years, from 1961 through 2021. It is possible that messaging has a different effect today. To look at this, I analyzed data from 1992 and later, using an approach

V A S

similar to what I used for the full span of time. I chose 1992 because it was an important political year in which the Soviet Union fell, and centerleft parties around the world began to converge on center-right economic policy.

Figure 2 shows the effect of center-left party discussion of “market regulation” and “traditional morals” on vote share for those parties from 1992 through 2021. We see that when parties like the Democrats discuss “market regulation” more during this time period, they still should expect a larger vote share. If a party like the Democrats doesn’t talk at all about “market regulation,” their expected vote share would be about 45%. Increasing that discussion to about 15% of their platform, however, would yield an expected vote share of about 54%.

Looking only at data from 1992 onward, it appears that a party like the Democrats talking more about “traditional morals” won’t lose vote share, but won’t really gain vote share either.

SO, WHAT IS A BELEAGUERED PROGRESSIVE TO DO? What then does this mean for how Democrats should respond to Republican “culture wars”?

Obviously, this analysis comes with caveats, most importantly that the Arkansas public might be very different in their preferences than other publics, and we cannot really know the effect of one message or another in Arkansas without data specifically from this state. If Arkansas voters respond like other voters around the world, though, the data suggests Leding’s above-quoted response that keys in on food insecurity, child mortality and other hardboiled data points is the way to go.

There does not appear to be harm done to the Democrats by discussing the Republican’s “culture wars” bills. But the most successful strategy for Democrats may be highlighting the fact that Republicans are focused on legislating morality while ignoring poverty, childhood hunger, health care, etc. Simply put, by pursuing “culture wars” issues, it appears the Republicans are giving the Democrats an electoral opening.

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MARCH 2023 25

HOW ARKANSAS IS SPENDING ITS OPIOID SETTLEMENT FORTUNE.

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

he ink's not yet dry, but Arkansas stands to collect well over $250 million over the next dozen years in settlement money won in litigation against the pharmaceutical companies, drug store chains and other businesses that profited from the nation's opioid epidemic.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic swallowed up headlines in recent years and nearly relegated the opioid crisis to back-page news, the state has been ravaged by opioid addictions and overdose deaths since 2020, and is second only to Alabama in the number of legal opioid prescriptions per 100 people.

In 2021, 618 Arkansans lost their lives to opioid overdoses, up from 546 Arkansans in 2020 and 401 Arkansans in 2016. Sixty percent of the fatalities in 2021 were caused by illicit fentanyl, a wildly potent synthetic opioid that flooded into the state from the drug-trafficking world, marketed to a swelling population of addicts created when unchecked pharmaceutical companies pushed unprecedented amounts of legal prescription opioids into doctor’s offices across the country for their own profit.

One of those deaths was Hagan Jones, a 22-year-old Arkansan who died on March 19, 2019, within minutes of inhaling a single line of what he believed to be cocaine. His toxicology report, his mother Staci James told us, showed that he actually ingested five times the lethal dose of fentanyl. “I had heard of fentanyl in passing,” James said, “but didn’t even know how to spell it.” Distraught by the immeasurable and sudden loss and feeling alone, she took a “raw, emotional” text message she’d composed to a close friend and posted it on Facebook instead.

“I’ve historically been a person who did not air out my dirty laundry,” she said. The post circulated widely, and within days James was hearing from families and organizations

across the country and began, in her words, “basically stalking” memorial services of people she knew had died as a result of an overdose. “I know that sounds morbid,” she said. (It doesn’t sound especially morbid when James says it; she’s warm and effusive and addresses me as “Hon,” and when she reports that she identified strongly as a “team mom” to Hagan and his high school football buddies, it tracks.) “But I would go, and I would stand in front of them just so they could look in the eyes of someone who knew exactly what they were going through. Because that’s what I was lacking. I have a very loving family, and I had amazing friends, but … how do I put this in the words that are gonna make sense? I was so lonely.

I could have been standing in a room of 1,000 people — and known every one of them, and loved every one of them, and I still would have felt like I was completely and utterly alone.”

Along with two other grieving mothers, James paid a visit to then-state drug director Kirk Lane, who encouraged them to start a nonprofit to tell their stories. That group, Hope Movement Coalition, spent much of the pandemic doing advocacy work around the opioid crisis — raising funds to offset funeral costs for impacted families, purchasing headstones, paying for daycare in cases where the deceased left behind a young child. “I’ve been to the border wall,” James said. “I’ve been to the White House.

We had our ‘Can You See Me Now?’ banners on the National Mall. I was invited to sit at the DEA’s first opioid family summit this past summer.” The coalition is partnering with a New York City-based group called Partnership to End Addiction, which is building a text messaging platform to connect opioid-impacted families who don’t use social media.

Now, with funding from opioid settlements, the nonprofit is hiring two case

managers to assess and meet the needs of families impacted by an overdose death.

“We will figure out if they’re food secure, housing secure, financially secure,” James said. “Are they going to have to take in a little one they weren’t prepared to take in? If so, do we need to go through the court system?

Was there something already in place for guardianship?”

When it comes to perceptions about the opioid crisis, James said, the focus tends to be solely on the person who died, but that’s not the whole story. “Hagan left behind 39 close family members across four counties in Arkansas. Four parents, five grandparents, four siblings, a fiancee and a baby on the way, 10 aunts and uncles and 13 cousins, and a great-grandmother. … Last year, we lost 618 people. If we did the same math — if those families are about the size of mine, that’s 24,000 people in Arkansas.” *** Since James visited Kirk Lane’s office in 2019, Lane’s taken a new gig as director of the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership, meaning he now oversees the dispensation of Arkansas’s opioid settlement money — $16 million so far, with an additional $200 million-plus to come over the next decade or so.

Talking to Lane feels like talking to someone who’s half-officeholder, half-cop, and there's a good reason for that. Lane started out in law enforcement, working at the Pulaski County Sheriff’s office and later as chief of police in Benton. It was during that time that he became interested in medication disposal programs like Arkansas Takeback, the state’s prescription drug monitoring program, and programs to increase the availability of naloxone — a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose. It was also a

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BRIAN CHILSON

time, he said, when he began to realize that not everyone in law enforcement was connecting the dots between legal opioid prescriptions and the dependencies they fostered — dependencies that could swiftly turn a patient recovering from a sports injury or a wisdom tooth extraction into an addict. “A lot of times,” Lane said, “the prescription pills were discounted by law enforcement as not being part of the problem.”

Arkansas was primed to be hit hard by opioids “because of our culture, and the fact that we were a strong meth state,” he said, but also because “we have a tremendous problem with overprescribing in our state. We've been No. 2 in the nation for overprescribing for over 15 years, and even though we’re at our lowest point that we’ve ever been at in 15 years, we’re still almost twice the national average. The criminal cartels took advantage of that … flooding us with heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl.”

Another big misunderstanding? That the best way to help someone after an opioid overdose is to lock them up for possession.

“For a long time, I'll just tell you, I was one of those investigators that went to an overdose scene and did not pursue anything. Society had taught law enforcement, pretty much, that stigmatizing language — that that person got what was coming to them because they were using drugs. And that is the wrong mindset.”

Instead, Lane said, addiction should be treated like the disease that it is. “Help doesn't always have to mean going to jail. I think we need to be creative in rethinking, ‘Do these people need to be handled in a criminal fashion, or are these people being victimized? Should we be criminally incarcerating them or pushing them to seek help and making that available to them?’”

Lane and the team at the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership are hoping that the influx of settlement cash should equip the state to do exactly that.

On March 15, 2018, a coalition of Arkansas cities, counties and the state began a long and often contentious legal battle which originated in the Crittenden County Circuit Court, unifying as co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against 65 opioid manufacturers, distributors and criminally convicted Arkansas pharmacies and health care professionals. The agreement yielded a settlement fortune to be divided, as literature from the Association of Arkansas Counties details, in “an equal split of Arkansas settlement dollars among the state, counties and cities — one-third of every Arkansas dollar is allocated to the state, one-third of every Arkansas dollar is allocated to cities and onethird of every Arkansas dollar is allocated to counties.”

Arkansas’s approach to the litigation, Little Rock lawyer Colin Jorgensen told us, was a bit of an anomaly. “We’re the only state where the governments actually united as plaintiffs together in a single case instead of everybody filing individual lawsuits.” Jorgensen spent a

“I HAD HEARD OF FENTANYL IN PASSING, BUT DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT.”

decade working at the attorney general’s office and was then recruited by the Association of Arkansas Counties. Since 2018, he has served as attorney for Arkansas counties in litigation against opioid companies.

The money Jorgensen helped secure for the state, two-thirds of which (the city and county shares) is overseen by the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership, is under court supervision and held in what’s called a Qualified Settlement Fund at a custodial bank. The settlement document dictates where the money can go; it is strictly for programs to address the opioid epidemic. Established nonprofits, like sober living facilities, are eligible to apply for settlement funding. “The recovery community is already there,” he said. And meetings with support groups are typically provided at no cost.

The Partnership does not fund programs that are duplicated elsewhere in government infrastructure; naloxone for law enforcement officers, for example, is already provided for by the University of Arkansas’s Criminal Justice Institute. “My opinion is that naloxone should be like defibrillators and fire extinguishers,” Jorgensen said. “It should be that available.”

Jorgensen has a personal connection to the work he’s doing; he’s in recovery himself. “Wild Turkey’s my favorite drug,” he said. “And what I tell people is: The stigma is baseless. And people know this, if they’re honest, that addiction is a disease. The medical community is unanimous on this. There is no outlier, medical professional or otherwise, that says addiction is a moral failure that arises from bad choices. That’s incorrect, and there’s nobody involved in this effort who had that misconception.”

The partnership program went live Nov. 4, 2022, with its application process, meaning that organizations aimed at combating the opioid crisis in Arkansas could apply for funding from the state’s opioid settlement fortune. By midFebruary, a total of 34 applications had been filed and 16 programs had been approved to receive funding. Crucial, Jorgensen said, was that local governments drove the effort. “It was always perceived first as a local problem,” he said. “Where the county, city, first responders, all the types of boots-on-the-ground public servants we have — were in the best position to do something about it to help people.” ***

'CAN YOU SEE ME NOW?': Staci James, founder of a group called Hope Movement Coalition, lost her son Hagan to fentanyl poisoning in 2019.

Not everybody doing work around opioid abatement will get funded. An organization called Central Arkansas Harm Reduction, which operates a drop-in center in Southwest Little Rock, does not expect to be funded by the settlement money. When this reporter visited the headquarters on Chicot Road, I found four people working at laptops set up in a multipurpose room: Amber Kincaid, Shelby Darden, Eric Reese and Rahem White. Collegial and quick to laugh, the quartet gave a tour of

BRIAN CHILSON

the office, which it shares with other adjacent organizations, and which gave a glimpse into the group’s day-to-day efforts — corkboards advertising mail-order HIV testing kits, access to fentanyl testing kits, Central Arkansas Library System’s gender-expansive clothing closet pop-up and Our House’s career center program. In another room, boxes of inventory are tracked on a dry-erase board: latex gloves, naloxone vials, tampons, toothpaste, syringes, condoms.

When asked what the organization does, Kincaid said, “We help reduce the harms associated with drug use, whether that means providing naloxone for overdose reversal, or safe injection kits with syringes and alcohol pads. With our partnership with Arkansas RAPPs [Reaching Affirming Positive Progressive Systems], we’re also able to offer HIV testing, and we can actually deliver that to them or send it through the mail so there’s a really low barrier” to access. “We help people stay alive through their journey with using substances so that they can ultimately make decisions about their health, because you can’t make decisions about your health if you’re dead.”

The group delivers supplies each Sunday afternoon within Pulaski County, taking orders on a hotline and filling them in-house. They mail naloxone to anyone who wants it, free of charge, with naloxone kits provided by a Clinton Foundation-adjacent organization called Direct Relief. The demand for naloxone, Kincaid said, is “extreme. We run through our supply every week.”

“Our approach is a no-strings-attached, resources no-matter-where-you’re-at approach,” Darden said. “For other organizations, abstinence is a requirement for care.”

Reese, who’s been the resource development coordinator at the organization for about a year and a half, said his interest in harm reduction work is twofold. “My dad died of a cocaineinduced stroke,” he said. “This was 11 years ago, and my dad, as well as my uncles, have always dealt with substance abuse issues. And my family was usually like, ‘Get away, get outta the house, we don’t want anything to do with you.’ And that’s pretty hard. Going through that with my dad really stuck with me.” Watching his relatives bounce in and out of recovery, Reese said, was illuminating. “For me there was too much of that in the Black community, and no one was really doing anything around addiction and harm reduction. If we’d had harm reduction when my dad was going through this, he would still be here.”

Secondly, Reese is a social worker, and that work, he said, intersects with harm reduction.

“These issues are hitting Black and brown communities in Arkansas more than the white community. But we always see a white face with it.”

Kincaid, a former pre-K teacher who’s served as the organization’s outreach/operations coordinator since July 2020, was drawn to

"HELP DOESN'T ALWAYS HAVE TO MEAN GOING TO JAIL." DIRECTING THE DISBURSEMENT: Kirk Lane (above) oversees the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership.

"WE’RE THE RIGHT HAND IN RECOVERY." NO STRINGS ATTACHED: From left to right, Eric Reese, Shelby Darden, Rahem White and Amber Kincaid of Central Arkansas Harm Reduction.

working with marginalized Arkansans because she’s experienced housing insecurity herself.

“My perspective was like, I’ve been there.

I know how hard it is to get benefits, keep benefits, the recertification process, where the food banks are, when they’re open, when you should go to get the best selection vs. going at the end of the month and getting 30 cans of beans. That you possibly can’t even open!”

A bulk of the organization’s funding has historically come from private donations, “usually outside of Arkansas,” Reese said, and from organizations like AIDS United and Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company that focuses on treatments for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and other conditions.

If there’s a tension between abstinencefocused models like the ones the partnership funds and the efforts of Central Arkansas Harm Reduction, it’s one that is not presented as adversarial. “Recovery is included under the harm reduction umbrella,” Kincaid said.

“It’s part of our family. It’s a way of reducing harm. It’s not the only way of reducing harm.

If recovery worked for everybody, we wouldn’t have substance abuse problems. So obviously something else is needed.”

“But we’re the right hand in recovery," Reese said. "You can’t do recovery if you’re dead. We meet people right where they are to keep them alive, to get them to the next step so they may be able to go to recovery.”

“Nobody objects to naloxone,” Jorgensen told us. “Of course you should save somebody’s life if they’re dying. But then you move toward things like fentanyl strips, and clean needle exchange programs, and safe use sites like the ones they have in Canada,” he said, and abatement efforts become more controversial.

And, importantly, settlement funding becomes unlikely. “We won’t see all forms of harm reduction in Arkansas. There’s too much important work that everybody agrees on, so let’s do it.”

“Fentanyl took my child from me,” James told us. “But stigma is what nearly killed me.

Stigma silences. Stigma makes you think that you or your loved one are less than. Stigma puts us in a place of isolation that we’re terrified to come out of. These leaders in the churches, in the schools, in the counties, in the cities, in the small towns, have got to be the ones to stand up and say something because their silence is going to keep families from information they need, and they are literally aiding and abetting.

Stigma is simply not understanding that it can, and it might, be you. If my son had died from cancer, I would have had more support than I knew what to do with.”

Arkansas’s opioid problem, Lane echoed, “is something that every person needs to be involved with to solve. It can’t be pushed off on law enforcement, or the medical field, or any one field. It's gonna take all of ’em to make a real difference.”

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 29

WHY YOU (YES, YOU) SHOULD CARRY NARCAN — AND KNOW HOW TO USE IT A Q&A WITH JUSTIN BUCK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF WOLFE STREET.

BY DANIEL GREAR

You offer NARCAN Overdose Reversal Training at Wolfe Street. What is NARCAN and how does it work?

NARCAN is the name brand for what’s called a naloxone nasal spray. It’s really easy to use and it literally saves lots and lots of lives in Arkansas every year. The TL;DR on naloxone is that it reverses overdoses by replacing the opioids in your opioid receptors. It’s a miracle drug to combat overdoses from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids because that’s what’s really driving the problem.

It’s not the people who are using the substances. It’s this synthetic opioid that’s really hit the streets hard. We’re finding fentanyl in a lot of drugs. People think they’re getting hydrocodone or a prescription opioid when they’re really getting a counterfeit fentanyl pill. It’s hundreds of times more powerful than a natural opioid. So people are stepping up and saying, “Hey, I’m willing to get trained and carry NARCAN in case I encounter an overdose.”

Why is fentanyl showing up in all of these drugs? It comes through Arkansas in bulk. The DEA has put out a threat assessment for this year and talked about how there are a lot of distribution cells in Arkansas that send fentanyl onto other major markets in the Eastern United States. It’s just flooded the streets. It’s a cheaper, more powerful opioid. Folks who know they’re getting fentanyl, someone is saying, “Hey, try this, this is a much more potent version of what you’ve been using for the same or less money.” It’s synthetic, so it’s manufactured and it’s easier to get your hands on it. Also, some people who are trafficking drugs are covertly slipping fentanyl into other drugs for that hook and it’s really doing some damage.

Can you walk me through what one of your trainings consists of? We do our trainings on the fourth Saturday of every month from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

30 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

here at Wolfe Street. One of our certified peer recovery support specialists leads, so you’re hearing from someone with lived experience in addiction and recovery who’s made a career out of this and received extensive training about how to help people get the resources they need to recover. What we teach people is how opioids work, how NARCAN works and is administered, how to recognize an overdose, what you do when you recognize one and — very importantly — how you follow that up with resources for you as a person who has experienced that, and with resources for the person you’re helping.

The most important thing that we want people to know is that using NARCAN isn’t the end of the interaction.

When you start the process, you need to call 911 and get medical help on the way. The NARCAN is going to reverse the overdose and revive that person, but it only works for a short amount of time. The other thing we want people to know is that when you’re performing that service for someone, you’re protected by Good Samaritan laws because you’re rendering aid to a person. Also, if you’re the one seeking medical help for an overdose, you’re not going to be arrested during that time.

covered by insurance and if you have the GoodRx app, it’s pretty affordable to get a two-dose carton. I think it’s around $46.

How long has Wolfe Street been offering these trainings? We started doing regular NARCAN trainings in January or February of last year. At first, it was difficult for us to access NARCAN, but a lot of that has changed because we have a partnership with the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership, which is an initiative of the Arkansas Municipal League and the Association of Arkansas Counties. That partnership now funds all of the doses of NARCAN that we need. When you finish the training, we give everyone two doses. That said, individuals can actually walk into a pharmacy and request NARCAN. It can be expensive, but sometimes it’s

If an individual or group wants to sign up for a training, what should they do?

You can sign up for either at wolfestreet. org/register. We do accept donations, we are a nonprofit organization, but it’s always free to anyone who wants to join us. The individual training is on the fourth Saturday of every month and I can’t imagine a Saturday where we would be overfull. We have a really large facility here on Louisiana Street.

We have the capacity to comfortably train as many as 80 people on any given Saturday.

How many people have been trained so far? Last year, we trained about 300 people. And we’ve trained 113 more people since Jan. 1. We’re going to be training probably more than a thousand people this year. Previously we were restricted on who we could train, but this partnership has busted that wide open so now we’re not only training people who have a direct connection to someone with a substance use disorder.

You also offer on-site trainings for groups outside of the Wolfe Street facility. Who are you seeing take advantage of this? So far, we’ve been training people who live in sober living and chem-free houses. We’ve partnered with several of those to train house managers, staff members and some residents. We’re targeting and seeing a lot of traction with schools, nonprofit organizations and some larger churches as far away as Texarkana. We’ve also trained a lot of individuals coming in from government agencies who are in public-facing agencies.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Women in Charge

Celebrating International Women’s Month March is International Women’s month and we want to celebrate the women making history in Arkansas. Meet the women that are in charge, the ones that make the wheels turn and the lights come on. In this March issue, we celebrate the amazing women of Arkansas and the contributions they have made to our communities and our state.

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 31

DIANA BRATTON

STACEY REYNOLDS

CHEF/OWNER TACO MAMA

OWNER OF BLUE YOGA NYLA STUDIO YOGA THERAPIST IN PRIVATE PRACTICE

D

A

iana Bratton’s career in restaurants in Hot Springs dates back to 1997 when she opened Café 1217. In 2009, she opened Taco Mama, today expanded to include a second location and a food truck.

It’s been a fun ride for the Texas transplant, during which she’s seen the community evolve for the better when it comes to women entrepreneurs.

“When I opened my first restaurant in 1997, people said, ‘Your idea isn’t going to fly here,’” she said. “Today, I look around and I see women owning galleries, shops downtown, boutiques, catering companies. We have a good number of female-run businesses here in Hot Springs.”

Bratton said in the time she’s been a business owner and boss, she’s developed wisdom she enjoys passing on to other entrepreneurs in the food space.

“Being consistent in the product you’re putting out is key,” she said.

“Being present is key; I’m not in the restaurant the whole time it’s open, but I’m there every morning, checking in with my employees. Treating your people with respect is absolutely key.”

32 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

fter 22 years teaching yoga, 13 of them as owner and yoga therapist in private practice at Blue Yoga Nyla Studio in North Little Rock, Stacey Reynolds has come to understand a few things about the ancient artform.

“I don’t think of yoga as an industry, but as a mission,” she said. “For me, this is not a job, but a passion, a purpose, a way to meet the many hurting people, the walking wounded, where they are on this road and offer them support.”

Reynolds said while the specific arc of each day is ever-changing, her overall goal remains consistent: To share her own experience, strength and hope for the future to those she interacts with, be it a beginner or yoga teachers pursuing certification.

“I appreciate others trusting me to lead, guide, train and mentor them,” she said. “Yoga has been here for thousands of years and will be here long after we are gone. It stands on its own merit. At Blue Yoga Nyla Studio, we simply carry the message.”

Special Advertising Section of the Arkansas Times

SUZANNE BOSCAROLO (OWNER, 2001-2023)

BLAIR WALLACE (OWNER)

CIAO BACI

C

iao Baci in Little Rock, a well-known business success story, recently changed hands from legendary restaurateur Suzanne Boscarolo who handed it down to talented new owners, Blair and Stephanie Wallace.

“I wanted to create a friendly neighborhood bar where everybody’s friends and it’s very comfortable for women to come in by themselves,” said Boscarolo who opened the chic neighborhood eatery in 2001.

“When I started thinking about an exit strategy, I didn’t just want to close it or sell it to just anyone. I needed someone I could work with and I could teach.

So Blair was, for me, the perfect choice.”

“The restaurant business is tough for sure,” Blair Wallace said. “Suzy showed me the way; she raised me in that building and from her leadership I saw how she dealt with that ‘man’s world’ thing. She’s a very smart woman, a very forward-thinking woman.

The last 15 years I’ve learned from the best.”

The Wallaces said while they operate by a “not broke don’t fix it” mentality, they are eager to put their own spin on the restaurant’s operations. One thing that won’t change, however, is the work ethic and customer experience that has made Ciao Baci such a favorite in central Arkansas.

“Our biggest focus is taking care of the legacy that [Suzanne] left us and making sure that we’re keeping great relationships within the community,” Blair Wallace said.

Asked what advice she’d give anyone in the restaurant business, Boscarolo said stick to the fundamentals.

“What it really comes down to is, you have to give your customer a fair price, consistency and friendliness,” she said. “Honestly, if you have all these components there’s no reason why you can’t succeed with a lot of hard work and dedication.”

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 33

MS. DEBBIE THOMPSON (Curator of Carnivores and Primates)

MS. JOY MATLOCK

(Director of Marketing and Development)

DR. SARA STONEBURG (Staff Veterinarian)

LITTLE ROCK ZOO

I

t takes a lot of skill and leadership to maintain the award-winning Little Rock Zoo. Many of these critical roles are held by women highly regarded in their respective fields of expertise, who praise the empowering environment at the state’s only zoo.

“When I started in the zoo field in the ‘80s, it was dominated by men, and it’s done a complete turnaround,” said Debbie Thompson, curator of carnivores and primates. “For me, it’s all about trying to make a difference for wildlife, for conservation, educating people about these animals. That’s the only way people are going to care about them and want to save them.”

Dr. Sara Stoneburg, staff veterinarian, said while women have reached equal numbers with men in veterinary medicine overall, joining the zoo in 2020 fulfilled a long-held professional goal.

“It’s a very sought-after job, a zoo veterinarian,” said the Ohio State graduate. “The Little Rock Zoo is very unique.

We have a very diverse collection compared to some other zoos, and in a smaller setting. It lets us be able to take care of animals and contribute to the conservation of these species.

That’s something I’m really passionate about.”

Joy Matlock, director of marketing and development, feels a special connection to her work. She attended school across the street and remembers the impact field trips to the zoo had on her.

“I got to come to the zoo as a part of my educational experience,” she said. “Now, I get to tell the story of the Little Rock Zoo and highlight the important work we do for conservation. As an African American, girls of color get to see someone who looks like them in a role they may want for themselves one day.”

34 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

DR. JOHANNA RAHMAN (OWNER)

AMY WOOD

(GENERAL MANAGER)

ELIZABETH BARNETT (OWNER)

HARVEST CANNABIS DISPENSARY

W

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

hen asked what sets apart her family’s company, Harvest Cannabis Dispensary, Johanna Rahman doesn’t mince words.

“The cannabis industry as a whole is heavily dominated by men, mostly white, mostly privileged,” she said. “We set out to do things differently from the get-go, so we’re heavily weighted towards women, both in ownership and leadership.

Without question, our business has succeeded because of, not in spite of, the powerful, capable women running the show.”

Rahman is joined by her mother, Elizabeth Barnett, as well as other family members, all of whom are committed to diversity and opportunity.

“We each bring unique career skills to the table that absolutely contribute to the total package. The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts,” Barnett said. “I think that’s been really important in trying to start, run and make the business successful.”

Johanna said the example set by her mother has been nothing short of inspiring.

“One thing I’ve learned from my mom is that, from birth, women are socialized to become cautious conformists, so reject your training,” Johanna said. “Don’t be afraid to take risks, don’t be afraid to march to the beat of a different drum. Do big things, do hard things, do important things.”

These core values form the basis for Harvest Cannabis and have helped elevate employees to maximize their potential.

“Something I’ve learned from Elizabeth and Johanna is the value of being direct,” said Amy Wood, general manager. “They have taught me to not shy away from being outspoken and to really own my truth and to be powerful. I see them in their roles and it inspires me to also be like that and not just take up space. I hope my daughter, Alice, learns the same.”

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 35

STEPHANIE GARNER CEO ARVAC, INC.

I

t doesn’t take much to see how effective Stephanie Garner has been over the decade she’s served as chief executive officer of ARVAC, Inc., based in Russellville.

Under her guidance, the social services nonprofit has grown exponentially, from 50 employees to 250 and increasing the annual budget from $1.5 million to $18 million ($22 million during the pandemic.)

But what’s less conspicuous, though no less important, are the ways in which Garner marshaled the troops to continue to provide services during COVID when the community needed them most.

“It starts with mindset in leadership,” she said. “Everyone has fears, but there still has to be someone who can see the light at the end of the tunnel and provide hope and stay true to the mission. For me, it was my reverence toward what was occurring at this special time in history. What do we want people to say about how ARVAC, Inc. positioned itself and served our constituents and patients during this time? It was about putting people first.

“We looked at our employees, making sure their health and wellbeing were our number one priority while also making sure that we continued to serve others. We’re in the field to serve people in their most vulnerable state.”

ARVAC, Inc. supports services combating hunger, addressing early childhood learning and helping individuals with substance abuse issues. Garner said as satisfied as she is by what the organization did to meet the challenges of the past, she’s more excited about what lies ahead.

“People first, developing the whole person. That’s always been my leadership philosophy,” she said. “Our mission statement has been to help others reach their full potential and that includes our team members. I think great leaders create leaders.”

36 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

JENNIFER BURR, HANNA WAID, DANI LEMATTY, EMILY WILSON, SHAWNA SPINA (LEFT TO RIGHT)

NATURAL RELIEF DISPENSARY

N

atural Relief Dispensary in Sherwood distinguishes itself in the rapidly growing medical marijuana industry by its quality product and excellent customer service, with women in several key roles.

“Being so new, we work really hard to promote the health benefits of medical marijuana,” said Dani LeMatty, floor manager. “Everybody here is very passionate about helping patients and it creates a lot of opportunities for our staff to show leadership and advance.”

“We take the opportunity to train and coach and try very hard to make sure people aren’t left in the

dust,” agreed Emily Wilson, packaging manager.

“Everyone here starts out as a frontline worker and if they want an opportunity later on, they’ll have that because we promote from within.”

Extensive training is also a critical part of how the dispensary meets its mission.

“A lot of it goes back to providing compassionate care and understanding people’s pain, whatever it may be,” said Jennifer Burr, trainer. “To be on the cutting edge of this industry and seeing how that’s continued to progress and where it’s going is something I get very excited about.”

Being subject matter experts equips staff mem-

bers with the ability to connect patients with the right products for them.

“I love that, and I really value that, especially as a patient myself,” said Hanna Waid, head wellness consultant. “If the knowledge isn’t there at a dispensary, patients are left to advocate for themselves. Being able to teach people makes me feel good.”

“If patients have any issues, any questions, they need a little bit more attention, I step in and help them along that way,” said Shawna Spina, patient relations manager. “I love being able to teach them, I love being able to share my knowledge with them.”

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

Special Advertising Section of the Arkansas Times ARKTIMES.COM MARCH 2023 37

ERIN GRAY

ANN DINUBILA

CO-OWNER HEALING HEMP

GENERAL MANAGER THE SOURCE

A

A

s the very first brick-and-mortar CBD specialty store in the state, Little Rock’s Healing Hemp of Arkansas opened, in co-owner Erin Gray’s words, “with a passion and a prayer.”

“CBD was a completely untapped market at the time we opened,” she said. “We were overcoming stigma; CBD at that time was frowned upon here in the Bible Belt. The mission behind the store has always been to be a place where people could learn about CBD. Education was hugely important for us and still is.”

Today, Gray can look back on five successful years and hundreds of satisfied customers who have found relief for a variety of ailments thanks to the store’s inventory of carefully curated wellness products.

“I cannot tell you how satisfying that is,” she said. “When people are coming back and are literally in tears because they’ve been able to actually get some relief, or a customer comes in and says their doctor referred them to us, that makes it all worthwhile.”

nn Dinubila joined the staff at The Source Cannabis in Rogers in 2019 after a decades-long career in education. The former teacher found her background in education to be enormously useful as she moved through various roles in the company.

“I started as a budtender and worked my way up from the bottom of the totem pole,” she said. “This business is about teaching people about the medicine, so my transition to this industry was incredibly seamless as far as what was expected of me and what I would be capable of doing.”

Now one of the store’s managers, Dinubila gets to extend that educational mindset to support and mentor employees.

“We are very much a family unit. I think by empowering others they empower me, and we all support each other because we all have the same goal,” she said. We just have an amazing team. They’ve allowed me to really blossom and be the best leader I can be within my store and within the industry.”

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

Marijuana is for cure, use byorqualified only.Do Keep of reach of children.

Marijuana usethe during pregnancy or breastfeeding poses potential harms. Marijuana is not approved by the FDA to treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of marijuana.

Special Advertising Section of the Arkansas Times 38 MARCH 2023 ARKANSAS TIMES

38 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

BONNA SANATHONG

(Events Manager)

COURTNEY WELLBORN

(General Manager)

JOANN (JOJO) SIMS (Server Extraordinaire)

CACHE RESTAURANT

C

ache Restaurant in downtown Little Rock is synonymous with style, elegance and some of the finest dining in Arkansas. At the helm of this River Market institution is General Manager Courtney Wellborn, who was hired 10 years ago as a bartender and rose through the ranks.

“I am in love with people,” Wellborn said. “Hospitality and people keep my heart happy and my emotional bank full.”

Wellborn started in restaurants at the age of 18 and has developed a management style that emphasizes personal enrichment over heavy-handedness.

“My approach is a trust relationship more than fear,” she said. “We try to make sure our employees know this is your job, but we care about you outside of work, too. If outside of work isn’t good, inside of work is not good.”

Wellborn is supported in her role by the entire staff, including leaders at every level of the organization.

Among them is Bonna Sanathong, event coordinator and floor manager, who said she enjoys the collective energy among coworkers. She enjoys bringing the team together to deliver the ultimate Cache experience.

“We’re a mini family away from home by the way we support each other,” she said. “You tend to understand what everybody is going through and we don’t take things personally. Everyone understands the dynamics of the service industry. It creates unity.”

Another integral team member is Jojo Sims, head waiter and one of the most famous faces in the restaurant community.

“The secret to surviving in this business is having fun doing it,” said Sims, known as Mama Jojo — a tribute to her longevity. “I look at it as a stage; once I walk into that door, it is my stage right there. I’m part entertainer also. I tell everybody, ‘You’re not only getting dinner, you’re getting a little show here with JoJo.’”

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 39

Arkansas Times’ Best of Arkansas THE FIRST. THE BEST. THE ORIGINAL. THE ONE THAT REALLY MATTERS.

ABIGAIL HOLLAR VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS CONGER WEALTH MANAGEMENT

A

bigail Hollar, vice president of operations with Conger Wealth Management, is more enthused than ever about career opportunities for women in the financial services industry.

“The opportunities are absolutely spectacular,” she said. “Women financial planners are highly desirable because they have an excellent skill set. Soft skills are so valuable and women in this industry who communicate well really resonate with clients. A lot of households really enjoy working with a woman for that reason.”

Hollar, who has been in the business for 12 years, said she particularly enjoys the opportunity to use her experience to mentor new financial planners toward achieving their career goals.

“There’s so much creativity to what we do, finding a new way to communicate with people, finding better ways to persuade people to build wealth,” she said. “There’s a lot of potential for people to build practices they really enjoy and there are a lot of clients out there who are looking for someone to provide that creative, expressive, personal touch type of practice.”

Investment advisory services and financial planning services offered through Advisory Alpha, LLC DBA Conger Wealth Management, a SEC Registered Investment Advisor. While tax and legal issues may be discussed in the general course of financial and investment planning, Advisory Alpha does not provide tax or legal advice.

40 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

Special Advertising Section of the Arkansas Times

Voting starts March 16.

arktimes.com/vote

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCE DIRECTORY

From the developmental stages of childhood and adolescence through adulthood and into planning for our later years, maintaining good mental health is as important as keeping up with physical fitness. Research sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health has found that more than half of Americans will deal with a mental illness in their lifetimes, so it’s vital that every person have access to excellent mental health services close to home. These local specialists are here to help.

Special Advertising Section of the Arkansas Times

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 41

Work for families and become part of one.

“I love helping youth, and I love what I do.

This isn’t work to me. This is a passion.”

– Thurmeisha White, Youth Villages employee 42 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

It takes a family to find just where you belong.

Creative, adaptable, focused, resilient and determined.

Is this you?

The right path feels less like a job and more like a calling.

Is this you?

Doesn’t shy away from hard work with a powerful payoff.

Is this you?

A company with national reach that feels like a family.

That’s Youth Villages.

Join Youth Villages to find a family and a forever career.

youthvillages.org/careers ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 43

MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCE DIRECTORY

The Centers is committed to meeting the unique and evolving needs of individuals by providing comprehensive, integrated care that promotes physical, emotional and social wellness for all.

We are a nonprofit mental, behavioral and physical health provider with locations in Little Rock and Monticello. We are the designated Community Mental Health Center for individuals residing in Pulaski County south of the Arkansas River. Our programs address typical concerns that individuals today encounter along with serving specific populations, such as socially and emotionally challenged and at-risk children/adolescents, foster children and families, survivors of human trafficking, adults suffering from a variety of mental and behavioral challenges and individuals of all ages in need of primary care/integrated care services.

Life is not picture perfect. Traumatic events may cause emotional and social challenges that make daily living seem impossible for you, your child or loved one.

We are here for you 24/7/365.

6601 W. 12th Street, Little Rock, AR 72204, 1521 Merrill Drive, Ste D220, Little Rock, AR 72211; 501-666-8686; TheCentersAR.com

Since 1899, when we began our legacy of care as the Arkansas Methodist Orphanage, Methodist Family Health has helped rebuild the lives of Arkansas children and families who have been abandoned, abused, neglected and struggle with psychiatric, behavioral, emotional and spiritual issues. Today, Methodist Family Health’s complete, statewide continuum of care includes the Methodist Behavioral Hospital in Maumelle; psychiatric residential treatment facilities in Bono and Little Rock; qualified residential treatment program homes throughout the state; a therapeutic day treatment program in Little Rock; Arkansas Center for Addictions Research, Education and Services (Arkansas CARES) in Little Rock; community- and school-based counseling clinics throughout the state; and the Kaleidoscope Grief Center, which is focused on helping grieving children and their families. Our mission is to provide the best possible care to those who may need our help. If you or someone you know needs help, call us at 866-813-3388 24 hours a day, seven days a week, email Info@MethodistFamily.org or visit MethodistFamily.org.

We Provide a Full Continuum of Behavioral Healthcare Services

11501 Financial Centre Parkway Little Rock, Arkansas 72211 501.223.3322 | 800.880.3322

Pinnacle Pointe Behavioral Healthcare provides a full continuum of behavioral health PinnaclePointe care Residential services.

We specialize in mental health treatment for children and adolescents ages inpatient care Hospital.com •• Day treatment 5-17 who are services struggling with emotional or behavioral health issues. Our programs inservices •• School-based clude acute inpatient care, residential TRICARE® inpatient care, partial hospitalization, school-based Partial hospitalization inpatient care services, outpatient services and Certified day treatment services.

•• Acute Outpatient services Pinnacle Pointe also includes statewide services provided by The Pointe Outpatient Behavioral Health Services. The services provided include intensive outpatient and school-based outpatient.

11501 Financial Centre Parkway, Little Rock, AR 72211; 501-223-3322; Pinnaclepointehospital.com 44 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

Nestled among the woods of the Ouachita Mountains, The BridgeWay is between Interstates 40 and 430, near the banks of the Arkansas River, affording our patients breathtaking views of The Natural State.

In 1983, the 60-bed facility served children, adolescents and adults of all ages through inpatient hospitalization. Since then, the hospital has branched out, growing along with the needs of Arkansans of all ages.

Today we offer a continuum of care that is safe, secure and serene. The BridgeWay is the only psychiatric hospital in Arkansas with distinct programs for adults 18 and older, adolescents ages 13-17, and children ages 4-12.

21 BridgeWay Road, North Little Rock, AR 72113; 1-800-245-0011; TheBridgeWay.com

Lake Point Recovery and Wellness offers pathways out of addictions. Our team is committed to providing individually centered, whole-person treatment and care rather than focusing solely on addiction. Our model supports a philosophy of holistic connection between the mind, body and spirit. We place value on reframing the problem by emphasizing the positive aspects of change. We believe that by providing overall health and wellness, we are addressing the issue as a whole. Lake Point Recovery and Wellness has over 45 years of experience in providing personalized methods of recovery for those suffering from a substance use disorder. Our program is a recognized leader in quality treatment.

Our highly qualified team of professionals recognizes that quality care, privacy and comfort play an important role in recovery. Lake Point Recovery and Wellness is a recognized leader in CARF (Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities) Accreditation for substance abuse and mental health services.

At Lake Point Recovery and Wellness, we offer a wide range of treatment options that include substance use, social detoxification, residential treatment, co-occurring mental health disorder treatment, specialized women’s services, outpatient treatment, intensive outpatient treatment, family counseling services, gambling addiction services, grief counseling and many others services.

Lake Point Recovery and Wellness is located on a twelve-acre estate nestled on a peninsula in the heart of the River Valley surrounded by the beautiful waters of Lake Dardanelle. Lake Point is the perfect place to renew and reset your mind, body and spirit. Our Amenities are second to none, with private rooms and suites, a pool table, music, art, a fishing curriculum, an onsite garden, exercise facilities including yoga, a nature walking and bike trail and much more.

65 ARVAC Ln., Russellville, AR 72802; 479-219-5292; lakepointrecovery.org

Special Advertising Section of the Arkansas Times

SA ME -DA YA PP OIN TM

A crisis is not planned.

EN

Outpatient Counseling for Children, Adolescents & Adults

Outpatient Clinic Adults 1521 Merrill Dr. Ste D220 Little Rock, AR 72211 501-660-6893

TheCentersAR.com

Outpatient Clinic Children & Adolescents 6601 W. 12th Street Little Rock, AR 72204 501-666-4949

501-666-8686 (24 hrs)

@TheCentersAR

TS

Talk to an experienced counselor when you need it most.

MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCE DIRECTORY You are not the darkness you endured.

You are the light that refused to surrender.

- John Mark Green.

MethodistFamily.org Info@MethodistFamily.org 501-661-0720

Every day at Youth Villages, we strive to improve the lives of children, young adults and their families. We have a passion for those who need us the most, and we’re known across the country for helping them achieve lasting success.

We have a complete array of evidence-based programs and services, allowing us to help children and youth in the most effective setting. The key to this is our amazing staff, who help restore families while helping children and youth grow and move past trauma.

If you’re a working professional or a recent graduate in the social services field with a passion for helping young people and their families thrive, we want to learn more about you. Join the Youth Villages team where you can work for families and become part of one. Visit youthvillages.org/careers for more information.

2024 Arkansas Valley Dr Suite 402, Little Rock, AR 72212; 501-227-8466; youthvillages.org

NEWS | POLITICS | CULTURE | MUSIC | FOOD | CANNABIS

SUBSCRIBE TODAY. arktimes.com 46 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

Special Advertising Section of the Arkansas Times

The Psychiatric Research Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences provides state-of-the art, evidence-based clinical care for a wide range of mental health concerns. UAMS’ vision is to lead the way to a better state of mental health for all Arkansans through our nationally renowned educational, clinical and research programs. Our highly trained team of mental health professionals has the compassion, skills, technology and dedication to advance psychiatric treatment for individuals in Arkansas and beyond. Arkansas’ premier mental-health treatment facility, the Psychiatric Research Institute provides inpatient and outpatient care for adults and children and hosts some of the nation’s most outstanding research scientists and academic authorities. We also offer virtual appointments for patients in need of urgent care through our AR ConnectNow program. Our specialty programs address the needs of pregnant and postpartum mothers and those dealing with substance use issues. Home to UAMS’ Department of Psychiatry, the Psychiatric Research Institute has the capacity to treat patients with virtually all forms of mental illness while addressing the needs of family members most affected.

4224 Shuffield Dr, Little Rock, AR 72205; 501-5268100; psychiatry.uams.edu.

11501 Financial Centre Parkway

Little Rock, Arkansas 72211 We Provide a FullinContinuum Specializing mental ofhealth501.223.3322 treatment for | 800.880.3322 Behavioral Healthcare Services

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PinnaclePointe Hospital.com

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ARKANSAS

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48 MARCH 2023

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BHA Job #19042

Connecting

Clubs

with

AT PCSSD

The Pulaski County Special School District is committed to providing a quality and equitable education to all students, which includes lessons both in and out of the classroom. In addition to the academic courses offered for Pre-K to 12th grades, PCSSD provides a number of extracurricular and club activities for students to join at many different grade levels.

Here are just a few of the unique opportunities available to students within PCSSD.

Pine Forest Elementary in the Maumelle Feeder offers a Chess Club for students. They meet weekly and play against other students, watch video lessons, and even play against the computer on Chesskid.com.

“Chess Club provides players an opportunity to play casually, socialize, and participate in a yearly tournament,” says chess club facilitator Deborah Jones. “The chess classes link to many facets of the curriculum -- from higher-order thinking skills to math, science, and reading.

The children not only develop critical thinking skills but also show more self-esteem and self-worth as a result of learning the game.”

Joe T. Robinson High in the Robinson Feeder has a Friends for Life Club. The club is composed of students with and without disabilities with the goal of creating friendships no matter the obstacles one may face in life.

“Students of all abilities are able to interact on a deeper level with their peers and form real friendships,” said club advisor Heather Moreland. “While those with disabilities are learning social skills, they are also being given the encouragement they need to do and try new things. Those without disabilities are breaking down barriers and learning to mentor, volunteer, and be a friend to all!”

ABOUT PCSSD

Choose

“They get to form a different bond with the students they are in choir with,” said Music teacher Rebecca Bloodworth.

“The honor choir gets to develop singing skills and social skills on field trips and practices that we don’t get to do during the normal school day.”

PCSSD is proud to offer a number of unique extracurricular activities and clubs for students across the District. You can find a full list of extracurricular opportunities on each school website.

Pulaski County Special School District spans more than 600 square miles in central Arkansas and requires highly skilled and passionate personnel to adapt educational policies and personalization to 26 schools. Every school is accredited by the Arkansas State Board of Education. PCSSD has served schools across Pulaski County since July 1927.

PCSSD is committed to creating a nationally recognized school district that assures that all students achieve at their maximum potential through collaborative, supportive and continuous efforts of all stakeholders.

PCSSD www.pcssd.org 50 MARCH 2023

Over in the Mills feeder, Mills University Studies High offers U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) for its students. JROTC is designed to teach values associated with responsible citizenship.

“Cadets learn and apply leadership and human relations skills, communication skills, and an appreciation for teamwork and self-discipline,” said LTC Paul Brown.

“Emphasis is placed on integrity, responsibility, and respect for each other and authority.”

Finally, in the Sylvan Hills feeder, Oakbrooke Elementary has an honors choir for 4th and 5th grade students. They meet weekly and work together to learn songs and prepare for performances.

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

SAVVY KIDS

A LENS OF SAFETY: Hall works hard to create a safe, affirming, joyous classroom where all students can shine.

HALL’S HEROES

A PULASKI HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY TEACHER’S SUPERPOWER: HONESTY AND KINDNESS.

BY ALI NOLAND

M

r. Miyagi. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Professor X. Splinter. Pop culture has perfected the mentor-teacher archetype who patiently guides a reluctant young protege into becoming the hero of his or her own story. In real life, though, we don’t have Dumbledore or Yoda, Gandalf or Mr. Keating, but we do have something better: a pink-haired, National Board Certified, thirdgrade teacher named Barbara Hall.

Hall, who is in her 19th year of teaching, has decorated her classroom at the Little Rock School District’s Pulaski Heights Elementary School with a colorful comic-book theme and calls her students “Hall’s Heroes,” helping them each discover their own unique talents and superpowers. For many of her students and their families, though, it is Hall who is the real Superwoman. Not only does she help her third graders grow academically, she works

hard to create a safe, affirming, joyous classroom where all students can shine.

“Students cannot learn if they feel invisible, disrespected or unsafe,” Hall said. She considers it an integral part of her job as a teacher to maintain a classroom environment where all of her students can feel comfortable enough to explore and grow. “Every day in my classroom, we make a commitment to being safe.”

She and her students regularly discuss what that means. “When we discuss any classroom issue, we pass it through the lens of safety. For example, if we have problems with unkindness or disrespect, we talk about how it contributes to people feeling unsafe, and we revisit our commitment to making school a safe place for everyone.”

Hall’s focus on making school a safe and welcoming place for all students has become especially important in recent years. The

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 51

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COVID-19 pandemic exposed and amplified students’ emotional, behavioral and mental health needs, and outside of school, young people today absorb pervasive messages about the political, religious and cultural rifts in America.

These divides show up as efforts to ban Black history courses and censor library books, backlash against diversity and inclusion programs and an array of legislation targeting LGBTQ+ Arkansans.

Hall, who is a lesbian and has been married to her wife, Amanda Linn, since same-sex marriage became legal in Arkansas in 2014, said her third graders are thankfully shielded from the bigotry and hate on display in state and national politics. But she still worries about how these attacks on vulnerable and marginalized groups affect her students and their families. “I know when I was a teenager, I was acutely aware of the homophobic comments from family members, classmates, church leaders and media, and I remember how that message impacted me.”

Hall said she has been lucky to work in schools that have long focused on the whole child, prioritizing students’ social, emotional and physical well-being along with their academic performance. She notes that she and her peers have learned to adapt to the changing educational needs of their students by equipping them with strategies to manage their emotions and stress. She also understands that simply having a happy, successful, openly queer teacher can be incredibly affirming for students who need to see themselves represented in a positive way. “I so often think about what it would have been like as a child to have had such adults around me.” Hall explains that while she avoids bringing her personal life into the classroom, her students often ask her if she is married (a question that most elementary school teachers hear frequently), and it is important to her to be able to answer honestly and say, “Yes, my wife’s name is Amanda.”

Hall’s life experiences have led her to advocate for policies to help protect the mental health and well-being of all students. One such policy Hall strongly supports is having a fulltime counselor in every school, a step that Hall praises the Little Rock School District for taking, saying, “I see the impact of that change every day.” She also hopes that schools will expand school-based health clinics to include mental health services for students and their families, and she hopes that more districts will adopt nondiscrimination policies that protect LGBTQ+ staff and students. She remembers when the school district added sexual orientation and gender identity to its nondiscrimination policy, and she notes that “even though I was lucky to work for and with people who accepted me, there was a giant sense of relief and pride in that acknowledgment.” Hall said that she also

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Rhea Drug Store

SERVING LITTLE ROCK SINCE 1922 • 2801 KAVANAUGH LITTLE ROCK 501.663.4131

DRIVE-THRU DROP-OFF ONE-DAY EVENT WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 2023 – NOON–1 P.M. The Little Rock Community is encouraged to drop off items at participating schools during this one-day event.

Needed: non-perishable food (items that students can prepare without a stove), as well as personal hygiene and household items, i.e.: toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, deodorant, diapers, feminine hygiene products, detergent, etc.

Providing Extra Support for LRSD

by Stocking Our Own Pantries.

For list of items needed at schools, visit:

www.LRSD.org/STRWrightWay

54 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

STUDENTS CANNOT LEARN IF THEY FEEL INVISIBLE, DISRESPECTED OR UNSAFE. appreciates the fact that LRSD board members and the district’s new superintendent, Dr. Jermall Wright, have spoken out during board meetings and on social media in support of the district’s LGBTQIA+ students, staff and families (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the LRSD School Board).

Hall emphasizes, though, that creating a classroom environment conducive to learning isn’t just about protecting her students’ safety and mental well-being; it’s also about making sure that school is a place where kids can have fun. “Joy and fun are so important in a classroom,” Hall said. She reflects that with all the demands placed on teachers, it can be easy for adults to forget that they are working with children who still need laughter and play every day.

“I use humor a lot in my classroom,” she explained, and she consciously monitors herself so that “if I ever feel like I’m being an old crank trying to rush through the learning, I try to take a breath, crack a joke and have some fun.”

Hall also admits she works hard to demonstrate vulnerability and bravery for her students because she wants them to be bold and take chances. She said she tries to help students learn to believe in themselves, which is crucial for their long-term happiness and future success. Hall said that, like all teachers, she worries about not being able to do enough for her students, especially when they are facing difficulties and challenges beyond her control. But she hopes all of her students will look back on third grade as a time they loved school, had fun and felt loved and accepted. “When I look back at my own time as a student, what I remember most are the times I felt that way.”

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MARCH 2023 55

CULTURE

CHAMPION: Greenbrier native Kenny Wilcox competed in the National Finals Rodeo five separate times.

56 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

Sarita

HOLD ON TIGHT FOR THE TALE OF KENNY WILCOX THE BULL RIDING HALL OF FAME INDUCTS A GREENBRIER LEGEND.

BY DANIEL GREAR

R

odeo king Kenny Wilcox, born in Conway in 1954, grew up among ponies, horses and cows on his family’s Greenbrier farm, but he didn’t get a saddle until he was 12. Having already clocked countless unsupervised hours riding bareback with his brother, his path to championship bull riding was set.

“It’s a reflex more than a big game plan,” he told me. He learned to rope at the same time and in a similarly organic fashion: “I’d probably roped my grandpa's foot 50,000 times by the time I was 6 years old.” Since Wilcox never had any formal training, he attributes most of his eventual prowess to those years spent messing around.

After rodeoing his way through high school and college (for which he received scholarships at Arkansas State University Beebe and Oklahoma Panhandle State University), Wilcox started traveling the country to compete. “In the midto late-’70s, I just got around the best I could,” he said. What he means is that when he wasn’t stealing rides from other competitors, he mostly hitchhiked. A reliable strategy involved digging an old tire out of a ditch, rolling it down the side of the road and waiting for a driver to pull over to help with the flat, only to bait-and-switch and say he needed a ride, at which point the driv-

ons unicati Comm t s li Specia

FIVE YEARS OF

REMARKABLE

STORIES ... the 5th Anniversary of Women of Water!

In recognition of Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating more women who lead the way in

er had already stopped, so they usually let him hop in. In 1978, he got his Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) card, available to those who have won $1,000 in prize money at PRCA-sanctioned events.

During his first professional year, Wilcox knocked his shoulder out of socket and broke his collarbone in Atlanta, setting him back for the remainder of the season. When he reentered the scene the next year, he broke his sternum.

He took some time off to lease and run an Exxon gas station on Interstate 40, but his mindset about the healing process was shockingly cavalier: “I got mended up” was all he had to say.

With $2,800 in his pocket from a rodeo in Fort Smith, he called his father and told him to “do whatever you want with that service station, cuz I can rodeo all summer on this.”

By 1980, he made it to the National Finals Rodeo (NFR), an annual championship popularly known as the “Super Bowl of rodeo,” which showcases the top 15 money-winners of the season. He competed in the NFR in 1981, 1982 and 1983. His absence in 1984 was due to a severe groin (pronounced "grow-in" by Wilcox) muscle injury that he never fully recovered from. “They don’t ever attach back,” he said.

With classic Kenny Wilcox resilience, he returned to the NFR in 1985. “I still don’t know

protecting public health and the environment. We salute heroes like Sarita, our Communications Specialist, who connects LRWRA to ratepayers, community leaders, and industries.

Learn more about our Women of Water, and our diverse people and processes at LRWRA.com.

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 57

NO PLASTIC BAGS IN YOUR CART!

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

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

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

No Plastic Bags of Any Kind Should Be in Your Curbside Recycling Cart.

No matter what’s in the bag.

For more information on how to do recycling right and where you can drop off plastic bags, go to MyDoRight.com.

300 Spring Bldg., Ste. 200 Little Rock, AR 72201 501-340-8787 • RegionalRecycling.org 58 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

CONSTANT: Wilcox still lives on his family's land in Greenbrier.

"IT WAS THE CLOSEST THING TO NOTHING THAT I EVER CALLED A JOB. I WAS JUST LIVING THE DREAM."

Connie e

istrativ Admin ional Profess

FIVE YEARS OF

REMARKABLE

STORIES ... the 5th Anniversary of Women of Water!

BRANDON HUNT

In recognition of Women’s how I did that.” Eventually though, once the injury and his natural aging was coupled with another big life moment a month later — his wedding — Wilcox decided to retire.

In college, Wilcox competed in almost every event — bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, bull riding, team roping and steer wrestling. But as a professional, he was best at bull riding. Counter to my suburban obliviousness, a good score in bull riding has nothing to do with how long you manage to hold on. You either successfully weather 8 seconds of bucking with your free hand whipping in the air, or you get a score of zero. If you make it, your score comes from judges, who evaluate the rider and bull for their control and intensity, respectively.

During his prime, Wilcox was competing around 100 times a year. When I asked if there’s any continental states he hadn't competed in, he was doubtful: “There might be some little old state in the Northeast that I didn’t [ride] in, but I’ve been through there.”

His greatest accomplishment might be winning “the average” at the 1980 NFR, which means he had the best combined results of anyone at the championship over 10 days of events. Through the years, he received buckles, spurs, watches, guns, rings, photographs and other memorabilia in celebration of all his wins, but the vast majority of it burned up in a fire at his parent’s house in 1983 or 1984.

Despite that loss, his legacy has not been forgotten. On May 20, Wilcox — who still lives in Greenbrier on his family’s land — will make a trek to Fort Worth, where he’ll be inducted into the Bull Riding Hall of Fame. In the presence of his family and friends, he’ll get to tell a few wild stories about his rodeo days. “When I was rodeoing, I always had a good time,” he said. “Travel was an adventure. The whole deal was like an adventure. I always had fun with it. It was the closest thing to nothing that I ever called a job. I was just living the dream.”

History Month, we’re celebrating more women who lead the way in protecting public health and the environment. We salute heroes like Administrative Professional Connie, who monitors processes, records, and safe entry at our Adams Field Water Reclamation Facility.

Learn more about our Women of Water, and our diverse people and processes at LRWRA.com.

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 59

FOOD & DRINK

KNIVES OUT MOBILE KNIFE SHARPENER HENRY RODGERS WILL PROFESSIONALLY CURE YOUR KNIVES OF THEIR DULLNESS FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN DRIVEWAY.

BY RHETT BRINKLEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW MARTIN

CUTS LIKE A KNIFE: Rodgers' paper slicing demonstration shows the knife is sharp all the way through. "If there's spots that aren't sharp it will cut and then tear," he said.

60 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

r Ambe

ment Procure ator istr Admin

FIVE YEARS OF

I

n the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving of 2022, a friend posted a PSA on Instagram that showed Henry Rodgers, a 19-year-old from Central Arkansas, sharpening her knives from the trunk of his car using a belt sander situated atop a vintage bench that was once part of his great-grandmother’s makeup table. “He comes to YOU,” the caption reads.

“Get your set Thxgiving-ready. Pro-tip: ask for a demo and tip your local knife sharpener.”

In an Instagram video on Rodgers’ business page (@rodgers_sharpening_services), he speaks directly to the camera about his business model while simultaneously using a kitchen knife to smoothly and repeatedly slice all the way through a piece of paper that he’s holding with his opposite hand.

Since launching the business in 2022 — a side gig to his full-time job at Hobby Lobby — Rodgers, now 20, has become the resident knife sharpener for several Central Arkansas restaurants: The Fold Botanas & Bar, Cache Restaurant, 42 Bar & Table, Boulevard Bread Co, HAM Market and Café Bossa Nova. Additionally, he sharpens specialty hook knives for a window company and scissors for a few local hair stylists.

METAL CHILDHOOD Long before he’d ever sharpened a knife, Rodgers was already making them out of random pieces of metal while he was still in elementary school. A longtime fan of medieval weaponry and armor, he grew up on movies and TV shows like “Lord of the Rings,” “Forged in Fire” and "Big Giant Swords.”

One day his mother, Pearl Zebert, asked him if he wanted to do some metal work with his neighbor Julian Kresse, artist Kevin Kresse’s son. They made a saber-style sword out of an old retired stop sign using an angle grinder. He

was hooked. Soon after, he found a method online to make a cheap DIY forge, and he and his dad were off to Home Depot.

While other kids were passing the time with sports, music or video games, he and Kresse collected old school discarded iron railroad spikes in the woods near the White Water Tavern to forge into knives.

The forging method Rodgers and his friends were using involved a metal tub full of heated charcoal. They’d feed the fire oxygen using a hair dryer connected to a pipe. When the metal turned red hot it would be set on another metal slab, known as an anvil, and they’d bang it into shape using a hammer until it needed to be heated again. They would eventually replace the hair dryer when they realized the power of a leaf blower.

“He used to wear me out going to the store to get charcoal,” his father, Brian Rodgers, said.

When Rodgers' collection of materials and tools eventually outgrew his home, his grandfather, a woodworker, built him a metal shop in the backyard when he was around 11 years old.

The neighbors probably weren’t thrilled with the result, Brian Rodgers said.

“They would sit out there and if you didn’t make them quit it could be like 10 hours of the worst noise you’ve ever heard,” he said.

During the summer, Rodgers and Kresse spent time at the Historic Arkansas Museum learning about blacksmithing from master bladesmith Lin Rhea. Rodgers said it eventually became like an unofficial internship that went from just watching Rhea in his shop to getting to do some hands-on work that was worthy of school credit.

Rodgers’ home forging got more serious, and arguably more dangerous, too, after his grandmother moved out of a remote cabin in the Ozarks and she no longer needed the huge tank

REMARKABLE

STORIES ... the 5th Anniversary of Women of Water!

In recognition of Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating more women who lead the way in protecting public health and the environment. We salute heroes like Amber, a Procurement Administrator who works to ensure that businesses are aware of opportunities to grow and partner with us.

Learn more about our Women of Water, and our diverse people and processes at LRWRA.com.

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 61

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ARKANSAS TIMES

CUTTING EDGE: Rodgers' process involves the belt sander and four different grades of high grit sanding belts.

of butane to heat her home. Rodgers and his dad cut one end off a smaller empty butane tank and filled it with concrete insulation refractory material. They drilled a hole to install a burner that would attach to his grandmother’s tank, creating a torch to heat whatever metal Rodgers and his friends were working with. Rodgers' father described the process as somewhat terrifying.

“When he was burning the massive air-driven fire, that got a little scary every now and then.”

Zebert said her confidence in him was so strong that she was never worried.

“He was a natural,” she said. “When he gets into something, he goes full on and learns as much as he can.” She said he gave her the first knife he made, which was “rudimentary but super cool.” And he made her iron handles for sliding doors to her back shed.

HONING HIS SKILLS AND GOING INTO BUSINESS Rodgers learned the process of professional knife sharpening from a metal worker named Bob Means. Means sharpened the kitchen crew’s knives at downtown restaurant Bruno’s Little Italy. Zebert was Bruno’s head chef at the time and asked Means if he would show Rodgers the ropes. Rodgers trained under Means and soaked up as much knowledge as he could, and Means gifted him the equipment he’s using out of his trunk now. For several years Rodgers didn’t do much with the skill other than sharpen knives for his mom and a few cooking-minded friends until about eight months ago when a friend asked him why he hadn’t made a career out of it.

“I really thought about it and realized there’s no other reason than I just haven’t gone for it,” Rodgers said.

He started out going to local restaurants and pitching himself. Then he had some business cards made and launched an Instagram page.

He’s been in the process of establishing an LLC for the last month. His first three attempts at a business name were already taken. He was previously calling his company The Better Blade before changing the name to Rodgers Sharpening Services.

Rodgers' process involves the belt sander and four different grades of high grit sanding belts.

He sharpens each side of the blade all the way to the tip with a 600-grit belt, followed by 800, 1,000 and 2,000-grit belts. He finishes each knife off on a leather belt with polish to give it a razor edge.

Rodgers said when a knife is sharpened correctly and skillfully, the blade will reflect and even shine from top to bottom.

Part of his pitch to restaurants, aside from the dazzling human paper shredder showcase, is that he can get the job done in an hour or two and the restaurant’s knives never have to leave the premises. He can sharpen the knives from his trunk or just come inside the kitchen.

Open Mon/Wed/Thurs/Fri 4pm to 9pm Open Sat 11am to 10pm & Sun 12pm to 9pm (closed Tues)

(501) 324-2449 • bigwhiskeyslittlerock.com 225 E Markham, Little Rock

LITTLE ROCK WATER RECLAMATION AUTHORITY

FIVE YEARS OF REMARKABLE

STORIES

Women, like water, sustain our communities and nourish the stories that shape our history.

March is Women’s History Month, and in celebration of the impact women have made to our city, Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority (LRWRA) salutes the honorees of our fifth “Women of Water” (WoW) Campaign.

For five years we’ve shared the stories of women whose hands, hearts, and minds protect public health and foster thriving narratives of our city.

This year, we celebrate Amber, a procurement administrator who helps businesses partner and grow with us; Connie, an administrative professional who manages data and processes at our Adams Field Water Reclamation Facility; and Sarita, our communications specialist who shares our mission with over 67,000 homes and businesses. We share the stories of their contributions to the water reclamation process as they thrive in a traditionally maledominated field with the full support of LRWRA. “Our organization works diligently to create a positive atmosphere where women can excel in anything they choose - from science and engineering to construction and procurement,” said Sarita, an opinion reinforced by her colleague.

“LRWRA is a real-life example of what women can do given the opportunity,” said Amber.

“Today and every day, our organization encourages our ratepayers to uphold women across various fields and urge women everywhere to tell their stories. Seeing women who have advanced their careers provides inspiration to young girls everywhere about what their future can hold.”

LRWRA also shares the experiences of its Women of Water to launch a broader dialogue.

“Understanding the experiences of women opens the mind to a broader scope of intellect,” said Connie. “Women often offer a viewpoint that encompasses more than just the immediate issue.”

Learn more about this year’s “Women of Water,” and their daily contributions that help preserve our city’s quality of life and support its continued growth.

Visit LRWRA.com/wow to read their stories.

ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 63

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METAL SHOP: Rodgers' grandfather built him a metal shop in the backyard when he was around 11 years old.

“There's a lot of big national companies that are around, but they will have you either ship the knives in or they’ll go collect your knives and you might not get them back for a week,” he said.

Rodgers charges $1 an inch and has a $30 minimum if he travels to the site. Customers can drop off and pick up their knives for no minimum fee. He recently sharpened a single pocket knife for a client.

“We sharpen our own knives and still do, but [Rodgers] has made the kitchen life easier by sharpening the bulk of knives that do not get a lot of attention otherwise,” said Boulevard’s co-owner and head chef Sonia Schaefer. “We have him come in every six weeks and he does a good job.”

Rodgers said The Fold has him come by every two weeks. He also does HAM Market’s every six weeks. In between that time, the chefs there use steel to keep the edge on the blades.

“Knife sharpening is becoming a lost art,” HAM co-owner and operator Tim Bryant said.

“We’re excited to see a young man take such an interest. It’s an invaluable tool in the restaurant industry, and just because you use a knife doesn’t mean you can sharpen a knife well,” Bryant said.

Rodgers met up with us just after he finished sharpening knives for HAM Market. When he arrived, he opened his trunk to reveal the antique makeup bench and what looked like hundreds of pieces of shredded paper peelings.

“I need to clean it out a bit,” he said with a laugh. “I always test them and do the [paper] demonstration for the customer every time,” he said. “It’s a little showy, but it really shows that the knife is sharp all the way through. If

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there are spots that aren’t sharp, it will cut then it will tear. If it’s not sharp enough, it won’t even cut the paper,” he said. Rodgers has a cool zen-like demeanor and didn’t flinch when Arkansas Times Creative Director Mandy Keener told him she was very concerned that his shoulder-length hair would get caught in his belt sander.

I learned the hard way how valuable it is for Rodgers to go straight to the customer. Without much thought or practical sense, I decided to transport my three knives in a thin reusable grocery bag. When I left, I sauntered down the street behaving as if I were carrying a bag of feathers, and when a tip of one of the knives stabbed me in the leg as I walked, I felt the effectiveness of Rodgers' good work. Once I got home I used one of the knives to cut a lemon, and the knife cut like a brand new blade. It’s a refreshing feeling when your personal kitchen knife gets its groove back.

It’s only natural to feel more afraid of an object that’s sharp versus something that’s dull, but dull knives are actually more dangerous for cooks. According to the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Health Encyclopedia: “A dull blade requires more pressure to cut, increasing the chance that the knife will slip with great force behind it. A sharp knife ‘bites’ the surface more readily.” Chefs know this all too well.

Rodgers’ goal is to get about 50 clients and continue working with metal.

“I’m thinking if I get about 30-50 clients, I can do this as a full-time career,” he said.

You can get your knives cutting like knives again by contacting Rodgers on Instagram at @ rodgers_sharpening_services or by calling 501516-6826.

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10TH ANNUAL ARKANSAS TIMES CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL RETURNS TO ARGENTA

W

hen a festival celebrates its 10th annual event, it’s stood the test of time and cemented itself as an enduring symbol of importance.

We’re talking about craft beer here. That's right, the Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival, presented by Colonial Wine & Spirits, is back and better than ever! Benefiting the Argenta Arts District of North Little Rock, the annual beer festival will be held from 6-9 p.m. on Friday, March 31, at the Argenta Plaza in North Little Rock at Sixth and Main streets. Thanks to our supporting sponsors Charlotte Potts State Farm Agency and Edwards Food Giant. Over 150 beers will be available for your enjoyment from more than 50 participating local and national breweries. If you're more of a hard seltzer fan, there will be an entire section dedicated to the bubbly, fruity refreshing beer alternative. Arkansas Times has always discouraged drinking on an empty stomach, so several local food trucks will be on hand providing food for purchase — Charleston's Chick'n and Catfish, Top Dog Catering, Nach'Yo Nachos and Crissy's Pub Style.

Early bird tickets are on sale now for $30. General admission will be $40 at the door and 100 VIP tickets are available for $100. VIP tickets include access to special beers, food from Mr. Cajun’s Kitchen, limited VIP parking, early entry (5:30 p.m.), a private restroom facility and a swag bag full of goodies.

There will be live music from Alabama “swamp soul” outfit Red and the Revelers. Get your tickets now at centralarkansastickets.com.

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PARTICIPATING BREWERIES (SUBJECT TO GROW): American Solera Athletic Brewing Co. Aval Cidre Artisanal BeatBox Bell’s Brewery Black Apple Hard Cider (Springdale) Boulevard Brewing Breckenridge Brewery Cigar City Brewing Core Brewing (Springdale) Deschutes Brewery Diamond Bear Brewery (North Little Rock) Dogfish Head Brewery Einstök Beer Elysian Brewing Co. Epic Western Flying Embers Flyway Brewing (North Little Rock) Founders Brewing Co. Golden Road Brewing Goose Island Brewery Independence Brewing Co. Jackalope Brewing Co. Karbach Brewing Co. Komes Baltic Porter Kona Brewing Co. Lagunitas Brewing Co. Lazy Magnolia Brewing Co. Left Hand Brewing Lost Forty Brewing (Little Rock) Mother’s Brewing Co. New Belgium Brewing Co. New Province Brewing Co. (Rogers) Ozark Beer Co. (Rogers) Piney River Brewing Co. Pipeworks Brewing Co. Point Remove Brewing Co. (Morrilton) Prairie Artisan Ales Rogue Ales Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Soul & Spirits Brewery Squatters Salt Lake Brewing Co. St. Bernardus Brewery Stone Brewing Stone’s Throw Brewing (Little Rock) Toppling Goliath Brewing Co. Two Pitchers Brewing Co. Vino’s Brew Pub (Little Rock) Wasatch Brewery Wiseacre Brewing Co.

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Friday, March 31 Argenta Plaza 6th & Main Downtown North Little Rock

Sunday, April 16 Main Street Downtown Little Rock Partnership

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Thursday, April 27 Argenta Plaza 6th & Main Downtown North Little Rock

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ARKTIMES.COM

MARCH 2023 67

CANNABIZ

BUSINESS OWNER: Danielle Buntyon owns Mink and Kimball Extracts, a cannabis processor in Marion.

GRASS CEILING

YOU CAN’T HAVE CANNABIS WITHOUT FEMALE PLANTS, AND YOU CAN’T HAVE THE CANNABIS INDUSTRY WITHOUT WOMEN.

I

t’s hard out there for women in weed.

Just ask Annie Iselin, senior director of operations at BOLD Team in Cotton Plant, or Danielle Buntyon, a former oil and gas industry employee who started her own hemp and cannabis companies in Tennessee and Arkansas.

Iselin relocated to Arkansas after some work experiences in cannabis-rich Colorado that did not meet her expectations. She uprooted her life to land in the rural Arkansas Delta with a cultivator that she says values her as a woman.

“I’m not into glass ceilings,” she said. “I like to break them open and be able to create a lane that I see for myself.”

LIMITED DATA It’s hard to find a lot of data on cannabis employment, but the data that exists shows women lagging behind men. MJBizDaily, a national cannabis online publication, has provided a helpful resource with its nearly annual anonymous survey of industry professionals. The results of the survey show women are less represented than men in the

68 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

BY GRIFFIN COOP

cannabis industry and are greatly outnumbered in executive roles.

In 2022, the survey found an estimated 40%42% of industry employees were women and showed female employees lagging behind men in staff-level jobs and even further behind men in executive roles.

The survey reported that women accounted for just 23% of cannabis executives, a figure that has fallen from a high of 36.8% in the 2019 survey. The survey also found that women account for 22.2% of cannabis business ownership nationwide, although that was a slight rise from 19.9% the year before.

“As you can see from the data in the report, it is a male-dominated industry,” said Pam Moore, the chief content officer at MJBizDaily. “I think many industries are. I think that cannabis, especially the processing and cultivation side of the business, tends to be especially maledominated.”

In nearly every sector of the industry — from cultivation to retail to ancillary businesses — women are less represented than men, according to the survey. In cultivation, females

make up 44% of the staff and 38% of the executives. In retail settings like dispensaries, women make up 47% of the staff and just 19% of the executives.

“There’s a lot of just flat-out sexism in the industry, as there is in the world,” Moore said.

“Cannabis isn’t any different than anywhere else, but its casual and entrepreneurial nature, I think, makes it easier for those things to come out.”

Nonprofits, media and government/lobbying had the highest percentages of women, the survey found, with women in the majority in some instances.

Moore said a lot of women have been helped by cannabis products as consumers, then become advocates and want to get into the industry but find roadblocks.

“I think, as in so many industries, the challenge then becomes getting to that higher level of the industry, just given the unconscious bias that exists,” Moore said.

Chanda Macias runs the nonprofit Women Grow, which helps women working in the cannabis industry. Macias, who also owns

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WOMEN IN CANNABIS: Annie Iselin (front), senior director of operations at BOLD Team Cultivation in Cotton Plant, left a career in Denver for a job in the Arkansas Delta where she said she feels valued as a woman. Women make up 53% of her staff. several cannabis businesses, said the number of women in the industry has fallen since she entered the business in 2012.

While the numbers show less female representation in cannabis staff and executive jobs, it’s also tough for women entrepreneurs because it’s difficult for them to get funding for their businesses. Without access to traditional loans, cannabis businesses must seek private loans to fund their business plans and most of private equity is run by white men, Macias said.

“It's not necessarily their ability to run their business, it really comes down to the capital contributions and how much money they're able to raise in order to get their businesses off the ground,” Macias said. “That has been the 70 MARCH 2023

ARKANSAS TIMES

number one challenge for women in cannabis and women, period, in the entrepreneurial space.”

ARKANSAS DATA While national data on the topic is hard to come by, there is some employment data on the industry in Arkansas where employees are required to get approval from the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Division to work in the industry. Scott Hardin, spokesman for the ABC, recently reviewed the employment data and found the state has about 2,900 people working in the industry, including about 1,700 males and 1,200 females.

That’s about 58.62% males and 41.37% females working in the industry, figures that are

pretty close to what MJBizDaily found in its 2021 survey.

Another data point available in Arkansas shows that while men make up most of the employees in the industry, the majority of cardholders in the state medical marijuana program are females.

The Arkansas Department of Health’s medical marijuana report for the 2022 fiscal year shows that 53% of cardholders are female and 46.7% are male. The report said the gender of the remaining 0.3% of cardholders was unknown.

Moore said the prevalence of women consumers of medical marijuana fits with other trends in the medical industry.

“We see the same thing in most medical spaces,” Moore said. “Given the way we understand gender in America, women tend to be the people who run health care for their families as well as for themselves.”

ARKANSAS WOMEN IN WEED In Arkansas, some women have found a home in the cannabis industry with some even obtaining leadership roles and business ownership.

Iselin, the senior director of operations at BOLD, has extensive experience in the cannabis industry, including working for two male owners in the Colorado cannabis market. Iselin found a bit of sexism in that role and believed it was holding her back.

She moved on to another cannabis business that she said valued her more, but it still wasn’t perfect.

“When I scaled up to a different facility, I was more empowered than I had ever been before by that CEO,” she said. “But even then you kind of hit a glass ceiling, and I experienced that there as well.”

When Iselin moved on to cannabis consulting, she proved her worth by writing two of the five initial winning applications for cannabis cultivators in Arkansas – BOLD Team and Osage Creek Cultivation.

Iselin went on to find a home in BOLD, a business that she says values her and other women. Iselin uprooted her life in Denver to take a job in Cotton Plant, a town of about 500 people in the rural Arkansas Delta. The change helped Iselin become the working woman she wanted to be.

“I think coming to BOLD allowed me to realize that I could be a fierce, direct woman and be successful in my lane without feeling as though I didn’t have a seat at the table,” she said.

Iselin’s executive role at BOLD hasn’t made her complacent about the issue of promoting women in the cannabis workplace. Iselin said 53% of BOLD’s 101 employees are women, a figure surpassing the 44% MJBizdaily found

working in cannabis cultivation in its survey.

Many of the women at BOLD are working in management positions, Iselin said.

“I absolutely will wrap my arms and embrace younger women that want bigger and better for themselves, and I hope to guide them,” she said.

Buntyon is another woman building a career in the Arkansas weed industry as the owner of a processing business in Marion called Mink and Kimball Extracts. The business is named after the streets where she grew up in nearby Memphis.

Before Buntyon found her way into the cannabis world, she worked in the oil and gas industry in Houston where her boss shared her interest in the burgeoning cannabis and hemp industries. Buntyon’s boss and family supported her move back to her native Tennessee to work with hemp. Since that time, Buntyon has become an expert in the field, advancing her education with a certificate in agriculture from Tennessee State University, receiving grants and teaching others.

Buntyon has moved her cannabis expertise west across the river to Marion where medical marijuana is legal and she can create THC products. Tennessee has not legalized marijuana.

Buntyon has purchased flower from Arkansas cultivators and turned that into products that quickly sold out at Body and Mind dispensary in West Memphis. She plans to create more products and reach more dispensaries.

As the “owner-operator-multitasker” of her business, Buntyon said she gets to interact with people at all levels and has found it to be a “very male-dominated industry” with more women in retail and fewer in decision-making roles.

“I do see a lot of women, more on the store management, retail side, but when you get into the tables, the meetings, the big decisions, a lot of times it’s led by men,” she said.

But she says there’s an important parallel between cannabis plants and the world.

“The one good thing I can always say is the major properties of a cannabis plant are supported in the female part of it,” she said.

“You can’t have cannabis without the females.

You can’t have the world without females.”

Like Buntyon, Iselin moved to Arkansas from another state to pursue her cannabis dreams and support women along the way. Iselin said she doesn’t regret her decision to leave Denver for rural Arkansas and has found a place that values her as an “outgoing, outspoken human being.” Iselin said she leans on other women in the industry, like BOLD owner Misty Drennan and Spring River Dispensary owner Renee ClayCircle, for advice.

“Women can do whatever we want if we put our minds to it,” she said.

SCAN ME

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

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MARCH 2023 71

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THE OBSERVER

LIFE LESSONS IN FLAVOR FROM CHILDHOOD BABYSITTERS

G

rowing up, The Observer had three somewhat regular neighborhood babysitters who were each able to teach me palate-sharpening food lessons in the short amount of time we spent together while my parents were away. When the crushing reality of adolescence set in and my need for babysitting ended, I found myself a better eater and more curious about food than I was in the days before neighborhood teens were paid to hang out with me.

Nick was just a few years older than me and would scream, “I’m the babysitter; I’m the babysitter!” whenever my little brother and I questioned his authority. He introduced me to early ’90s cinematic bangers like “Silence of the Lambs,” “Talkin’ Dirty After Dark” and “Kindergarten Cop.” Most importantly, he gave me my first bite of Mexico Chiquito cheese dip after his mom dropped some off for him at our house. It was an extraordinary first bite, one that easily ranks in my childhood top 10. It was being able to identify cumin without knowing what cumin was. I chastised my parents for not introducing me sooner. Little did I know, the restaurant would later be credited as the inventor of cheese dip. Who knows how I would’ve reacted if Nick had filled me in on that detail? “The inventor of cheese dip is down the street, and you kept it from me?

Mom, really?”

Jordan was also just a couple years older than me. He lived right next door and taught me how to spell Mississippi. He would later

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sell my brother the scooter that he'd break his arm riding. Jordan imparted the valuable yet unsanitary lesson that the gross green olives in the fridge could be legitimate snacks if you suck the delicious red pimentos out of the bitter oval fruit before discarding the pimento-less olives back into the jar. I still do this from time to time, but rather than putting the olive back in the jar, the pimento serves as a kind of amusebouche to the olive. Jordan also taught us that a Hershey’s Kiss is way more fun if you put a heaping glob of peanut butter on it. Jordan was ahead of his time. A visionary.

Katrina was our most regular babysitter when I was around age 5-10. She lived down the street, and she’d already graduated from high school and was attending college at UALR. She was a great babysitter and became really close with our family. She’d take my brother and me fishing at the pond and give us Wonder Bread to feed to the ducks. I remember her quoting the “strange things are afoot at the Circle K” line after seeing “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” in the theater, so this would’ve been around 1989.

At this point in my culinary upbringing, I was on a steady diet of total garbage.

Katrina gave my palate the assist it needed on a particularly embarrassing day from early childhood when my brother and I insisted on eating McDonald’s rather than Chinese food at a restaurant we’d never been to. She got us Happy Meals to go and then took us along to a little place called Hunan in Jacksonville.

My first lesson that day was realizing how painfully shameful it feels to eat American fast food while dining in a beautifully decorated Chinese restaurant for the first time. Being a little kid was no excuse for that kind of bratty, culturally asinine behavior. Katrina was eating Moo Goo Gai Pan, a dish with chicken, mushrooms, water chestnuts, baby corn and other veggies in a white sauce. She knew that I was eyeballing it. She asked if I wanted a bite and grabbed a straw mushroom with her chopsticks and passed it across the table.

Looking back, it was an interesting choice.

She had to have known I would’ve been more inclined to partake in a piece of the chicken, given the level of sophistication and maturity prominently displayed by the fast-food bag in front of me from a restaurant whose mascot was a clown. But she went for the straw mushroom, a type of fungi I’d never seen in my life until that point. I didn’t hesitate. I cast my massproduced cheeseburger aside and bit down on my babysitter’s chopsticks. It was a glorious bite, and I wanted more.

“Told ya,” Katrina said.

My family started going to Hunan for lunch every Sunday. My parents became friends with the husband and wife who owned it. All my best friends ate there with us at some point. We were happy there. The restaurant closed many years ago, and it’s by far the one from my past that I miss the most. I stopped by once in a dream and awoke, saddened by the reality that I was only just visiting.

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