MANAGING
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Catherine Frederick
Marla Cantrell
Marla Cantrell
Marcus Coker
Catherine Frederick
Laura Hobbs
Tonya McCoy
Anita Paddock
Buddy Pinneo
Betty Pittman
Whitney Ray Todd Whetstine
Marcus Coker
Catherine Frederick
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Glenn Gilley
Laura Hobbs Todd Whetstine
DESIGNER
WEB GURU EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
PUBLISHER
Jeromy Price
David Jamell Read Chair Publishing, LLC
Advertising and Distribution Information
Catherine Frederick at 479 / 782 / 1500 Catherine@AtUrbanMagazine.com
Editorial or Artwork Information
Marla Cantrell at 479 / 831 / 9116 Marla@AtUrbanMagazine.com
©2012 Read Chair Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. The opinions contained in @Urban are exclusively those of the writers and do not represent those of Read Chair Publishing, LLC. as a whole or its affiliates. Any correspondence to @Urban or Read Chair Publishing, LLC., including photography becomes the property of Read Chair Publishing, LLC. @Urban reserves the right to edit content and images.
Well, we did it! It’s 2012. The new year is unfurling before us like a field of fresh snow. We haven’t yet had a chance to leave our footprints on it or to change it in any way.
I love the chance we get each January to start over. I love that in the coldest part of the year we get to hibernate a little and consider the possibilities of the coming seasons. This year, my plan is to do a little more crafting (you can see my first attempt in “Confessions of a DIY’er). I also plan to cook a little more, stress a little less, and take time to enjoy what a wonderful world this really is.
Creativity runs through this entire issue of @Urban. We’ll introduce you to a man who sees opportunity whatever his situation, and that’s garnered the attention of Vince Gill, Amy Grant, and a little company called The Pottery Barn.
We’ll take you to a university where students are able to earn their degrees without the worry of student loans. How do they do it? It’s simple: they work for their education. And now they’re running a dream of a hotel and restaurant where you can see them in action.
We’re also taking you inside the lives of a young couple, and a librarian who’s just retired. What’s the connection between the two? When faced with unimaginable loss, each found a way to go on, and in going on made all the difference in the world to those around them.
And for those of you who are sitting on a million dollar idea, we have a contest that could make you famous one day. Read our “Gone in Sixty Seconds” story for all the details. This could be the year that changes your life!
How blessed we are that you allow us to be part of it.
Be sure to check in on February 1st to see the winner of our “Can Your Dog Hunt?” Contest.
To reserve this space for your charitable non-profit organization, email: Editors@AtUrbanMagazine.com
Areyouinlove,sufferingfromloveontherocks,orreelingfromtheonewho got away? Maybe you had a dating encounter that makes your friends roar withlaughter? Ifyoucanwriteapoemaboutit,wehavethecontestforyou.
We’reaskingforourUrbanitestowritealovepoem(orlovegonewrongpoem) and submit it to editors@AtUrbanMagazine.com by January 13th. The winning poem will be printed in our February issue, and you’ll win an @UrbanPrizePackagevaluedatover$100! Itcan’tbelongerthan24lines,andmustbeyourunpublishedwork. There’s no age limit; however, if you’re under 18, let us know your exact age in the bodyoftheemail. Ifyou’reover18,justsaythat. WEDONOTWANTTOSHARE YOURAGEINAPUBLICFORUM. Sograbyourpenandstartcomposing! Youcouldbecomeapublishedpoet. Forafulllistofcontestrules,logonto AtUrbanMagazine.com/lovepoemrules
Sing, Sun, Moon’s sister.
Sail across the sky toward high noon.
Balance on the apex of today, longing for the slow downward glide to the dark edge of tomorrow where your pale sister croons her languid midnight melody.
@lines Betty Pittman
@story Marla Cantrell
During the course of this year, @Urban is going to bring you stories about ordinary people who have come up with extraordinary ideas, promoting positive changes in the lives of those around them. Here’s our first.
What if it only took sixty seconds to change your life? Would you be willing to try? On February 27, the first ever River Valley version of Gone in 60 Seconds will take place at Second Street Live in Fort Smith. Think of it as a cross between American Idol and Shark Tank. Contestants will have one minute to pitch their idea and sway investors from across the state, who will be judging the competition. They’ll be looking for great concepts for new or growing businesses, technological innovations, or services that have the potential to rake in millions once they’re developed.
When the night is over, the three people with the best ideas will walk away with cash prizes. The grand prize winner will receive $1,000. Second place earns $300. And third place will get you $200. But the opportunities don’t stop there. All the participants have the chance to wow the investors, and could strike up a deal all their own.
What happens to the top three is this. The trio will train with
a team from Innovate Arkansas, who will help them hone their business plan and get them ready to present a much longer, more formal presentation. That will take place about a month and a half later.
At that time, the investors will have a chance to ask questions, and weigh their options for possibly funding any or all of the three ideas that have made it to the final showdown.
Wondering how to get started? You begin with your great idea. You can even be in business now and hoping to expand your company. Log on to centuriaventures.com and find the section entitled “elevator pitch.”
From there you’ll be led through a series of questions. Most are simple ones, like describing what it is you have to offer. If you get stuck anywhere in the process, contact Brandon Cox via email at bcox@propak.com for help.
The deadline to enter is January 31. Once the applications are reviewed, the fifteen selected to pitch will be notified.
Fayetteville has already hosted two similar events. The last one was in October, in a barbeque joint, where 200 people crowded in to watch the 20 contestants take the mic and pitch their ideas, all in 60 seconds.
The grand prize winner was twenty-four-year-old Max Mahler, who stood on a chair and belted out his message. “After I won I had great feedback from many influential people and it has really inspired me to take my idea (a coffee business) to the next level,” Max said. “The best thing about the event is the energy in the room and getting to hear other people’s ideas.”
The organizers of Fort Smith’s Gone in 60 Seconds are Centuria Ventures and Innovate Arkansas. They believe the opportunities are endless. They’re also welcoming those who don’t want to pitch an idea but would like to watch this energy-filled competition unfold.
Those in charge have been busy contacting universities, potential investors and banks within a hundred-mile radius to get the word out. While they’re limiting their visits to this area, they won’t rule out someone with a good idea who lives farther away. Right now, they say, the field is wide open.
Who knows the amount of talent this contest will reveal? The creator of the next big thing might be right here among us, just waiting for a chance like Gone in 60 Seconds. So get going! This could be your chance to change your life.
Where: Second Street Live, 101 North 2nd, Fort Smith When: February 27 at 6:30 p.m.
For more information, or to enter, log on to centuriaventures.com/elevator pitch.
Questions? Contact Brandon Cox at bcox@propak.com
@Urban is a proud sponsor of Gone in 60 Seconds.
Scan this QR code to watch a sample elevator pitch.
Ihave a confession. I have an addiction. To Pinterest.
Pinterest defines itself as “a virtual pinboard that lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web”. I lovingly define it as creative crack. I can’t stay away from the beautiful images that keep calling me back, day after day, begging for me to admire them, pin them, and make them mine.
Aside from perusing beautiful images, what do I get from Pinterest? Simple: page after page of creative inspiration and a feeling of “I could do that too.”
During one of my daily (I said I had a problem) browsing sessions, I noticed several pins from creative folks who turned pallets into some of the most uniquely beautiful items: coffee tables, couches, shelves, plate racks, art, wine racks, and more. The rustic image of the pallet-turned-wine-rack stuck with me. So when last month’s issue of @Urban arrived on pallets, I knew I had to try my hand at making my own.
The pallet I chose had taller boards on each end and smaller ones in the middle. The bottom board was too tall and would cover up much of the bottles’ labels, so my first objective was to remove the bottom board and two of the middle boards. One of the middle boards would become the bottom, or base, where eight-to-ten bottles would stand and the other would become the front.
I grabbed a hammer and went to work. Severely underestimating how difficult it would be to remove the nails from the wood, I was only able to remove three of the nine from the bottom board. I needed more muscle, power-tool muscle. Just as I was returning from our neighbors with circular saw and power
sander in hand, Hubby spied me.
I think he said something along the lines of, “What do you think you’re doing?” You see, as much as I want to wield around sharp power tools, it’s just something Hubby won’t allow. It could have something to do with my habitual klutziness - I mean who trips down a flight of stairs on her wedding night and breaks her foot? Oh right, me.
Quickly realizing this was now a “Do It Ourselves” project, I handed over the power tools. Trying to remove the nails with the hammer was only destroying the boards, so Hubby began drilling the nails out to get to the boards we wanted, and removed the boards we didn’t need.
Once the boards were removed, hubby cut the pallet down to the height we needed. Then, promising not to injure myself, I begged to use the power sander. Figuring no limbs could be lost, Hubby gave me the green light. Using a rough grit paper, I sanded all pieces to perfection.
Next, we nailed one board to the bottom and another to the front. The final steps were applying the stain, a few coats of polyurethane (the spray can version) and picture hanging hardware to the back on each end.
This entire project took about an hour and a half but had the nails come out easier, it would have gone a lot faster. I love how it turned out and even more, that it was something we were able to repurpose – together.
Pallete-Turned-Wine-Rack
Items needed:
» Pallet
» Hammer
» Drill (may be needed to remove nails)
» Saw (circular or handsaw)
» Sandpaper (a hand sander is convenient but optional)
» Stain
» Paintbrush (to apply stain)
» Old rags (to rub stain)
» Gloves
» Newspaper (eliminates overspill/spray when staining)
» Picture hanging hardware
Check back next month for my next project – from Pinterest, of course!
Looking for a pallet?
Best Pallets of Fort Smith has a variety of sizes and range from $5-7 each.
1105 Ballman Road 479. 782.4233
Pinterest – You too can become addicted too www.pinterest.com (request an invitation to start pinning)
Those Who Save Us
By Jenna Blum
479 Pages
Jenna Blum, the author of this book first published in 2004, is of Jewish-German descent. She once worked for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation interviewing Holocaust survivors, and I suspect that after that experience, this was something she simply had to write. This novel is something you simply must read.
Much of the story is set in Germany during World War II. Anna, a beautiful German woman falls in love with a Jewish doctor and has a baby named Trudy. The doctor is sent to a Buchenwald concentration camp near her home, and Anna and her baby hide in a bakery with a woman who sells bread to the Gestapo and secretly delivers bread to prisoners in the Buchenwald camp. The baker is eventually killed by the Gestapo, and Anna is left to run the bakery. Supplies for the business dwindle, and Anna is forced to become the mistress of an officer of the SS (the Nazi Party’s protection squadron) in order to survive.
When the war is almost over, American soldiers arrive and find the concentration camps.
Jack, an American soldier, falls in love with Anna, marries her and brings his new family back to his Minnesota farm. Anna isn’t accepted by the townspeople, so she rarely leaves her new home. She keeps her past a secret from her husband and her daughter. Trudy remembers bits and pieces of her life in Germany, but she doesn’t know who her biological father is, nor does she understand why she and her mother are shunned.
Trudy grows up to become a professor of history at the University of Minnesota. After Jack dies, she places her mother in a nursing home, but she eventually has to bring her mother home to live with her.
She doesn’t have a close relationship with her mother because of all the secrets her mother keeps about her early life. Trudy fears that her mother was promiscuous, and her biological father was a cruel SS officer. That belief has always haunted Trudy.
Trudy begins an oral history project at the university and advertises for people of German descent to participate in recollections about living through the war. Trudy finds that these interviews are disturbing and cause her to remember her own early years in Germany.
The novel moves from Anna’s story in the 1940s to Trudy’s story in present day Minnesota. Trudy finds that the truth she is searching for lies somewhere in between, just as the truth nearly always does in real life.
Congratulations to the winners of our first flash fiction contest! And thanks to the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith Center for Lifelong Learning and the UAFS Bookstore for providing prizes.
1st Place { Beginnings } by
Lea Anne Brooks
“Do you know…” He shifts uneasily, his shadow stirring the night’s silvery light around you.
His eyes lift to yours, burning with pieces of himself he’s not shared before now, and in your astonishment you forget to breathe for a few moments.
“Do you know how I…” he tries again, his voice fading as his eyes implore yours to understand.
Then his hand slides hesitantly into yours, fingers knitting, sending sparks skittering up your arm, into your chest.
His face slowly begins to shine like the sun.
Your face answers like the moon.
2nd Place { Onward } by Mary
Sobhani
One hundred years. She hardly recognized her hands anymore, once hardworking, now so bony in their stillness, skin fragile as tissue paper. The time was near. She could hear it in the voices around her, see it in the presence of the children who
weren’t really there. She smiled although she knew her face didn’t respond as it used to. Her daughter held her hand. Her grandchildren and great grandchildren kissed her. Immense love, sweet as summer sunshine. Okay, then, she’d never been one to dawdle when she knew something had to be done. Big breath. Ready, set…
3rd Place { Missing } by Randi Bomar
Her silver-haired husband was sorting music like a teenager ready to party.
In the morning a thirty year marriage would end. He would move in with his girlfriend.
His wife only asked that he be gone before she returned from work, and that he find their dog, missing for three days.
He called and reported flatly that he had found the dog dead, that he would return to bury her later.
That evening she came home, unlocked the dark house and entered her longest night. An owl cried eerily from the sycamore, and sodden walls collapsed upon her dreams.
fanfarlo — reservoir
@review Buddy Pinneo
Weeks ago, a friend of mine was walking by a row of discounted CDs and, being the impulsive type, she was snared solely by the cover of Fanfarlo’s Reservoir, which is really just a sepia tone photograph.
Still, the photo’s credentials are impressive: shot by Czech photographer Lilja Birgisdottir, suggested by Icelandic band Sigur Ros’s lead singer, and featuring his little sister, Sigurros, from whom he took his band’s name.
If this is setting off your “pretentious” alarm bells, take heart: the music delivers. In fact, in a pop world dominated by AutoTune, synthetic instrumentation and high-gloss editing, Fanfarlo brings an authenticity to the table nearly as refreshing as 2011’s surprise-hit Mumford & Sons.
Their instrumentation has been called “eclectic,” and rightly so. Anchoring almost every track are piano, mandolin, violin,
clarinet, glockenspiel and, gulp, trumpet. Occasional mariachi feel? Yes. But it works.
The opener is Reservoir’s finest moment. “I’m A Pilot” begins with an almost tribal percussion, yet quickly gives way to something delicate, melodic and slightly wistful. Reportedly inspired by the latter days of Howard Hughes, with mildly dark poetry to match, it’s a gorgeous song set in 6/8 time that will almost have you wishing for a waltz partner.
“Ghosts” raises the energy slightly and confirms my theory that any song with handclaps is impossible to dislike. Next up is “Luna,” which begins post-punk enough to feel straight out of the early 1980s. Yet before the halfway mark, the percussion relents slightly and allows the track to be claimed by lush orchestration, with Swedish-born frontman Simon Balthazar singing with his seemingly ubiquitous charisma and emotion.
What follows for the rest of the album is equally melodic, intricate, and meticulously executed. A close second for standout track is “If It Is Growing,” a mid-tempo ballad with lyrics as impenetrable as anything on Reservoir, but kind of feels like a beautiful breakup song. And we really can’t have too many of those.
Reservoir is Fanfarlo’s first studio album, as well as being more than two years old. But it provides a glimpse into how a good band sounds right before they become great. We won’t have to wait long to see, as the follow-up Rooms Filled With Light is set for release in late February.
It’s a Tuesday in Fayetteville, and Matt Mooney, thirty-four, sets down his Starbucks cup and leans forward as he begins telling his story. His wife, Ginny, thirty-two, is at home packing for their trip to Ukraine. They’re leaving Saturday and won’t be back for over a month. When they return, they’ll have another child, a five-year-old girl who can’t speak and can’t walk. Her name is Lena.
Lena has lived most of her life in an orphanage, in a facility for special needs children. “She’s not the first in line to be adopted,” says Matt. “We know it won’t be easy, but we’re ecstatic. We’ll take her for who she is because we believe absolutely in these kids. We see things differently. We can’t help but see things differently.”
At one time, the thought of adopting a special needs child would not have occurred to Matt and Ginny. Just six years ago, they’d moved to Fayetteville, Matt was in law school, and Ginny owned a jewelry business. And Ginny was pregnant. But Eliot, their first child, changed everything. And as Matt says, “Nothing mattered before Eliot.”
Ginny was thirty weeks pregnant when they found out. There’d been a test, and the doctor called to confirm the results. Their child had Trisomy 18, also known as Edwards Syndrome. Trisomy 18 is caused by a chromosomal defect. Upon conception, a child receives twenty-three chromosomes from each parent. The chromosomes form pairs, giving the child a total of fortysix chromosomes in each cell. Trisomy 18 children, however, have an extra eighteenth chromosome. The syndrome occurs in one in every three thousand live births and is the second most common form of trisomy, second only to Trisomy 21, known as Down syndrome.
“We knew what that meant,” says Matt. Trisomy 18 is usually fatal, and most of the babies die before birth. Of those that are born, the majority live only a few days. “Friends don’t know whether to throw you a shower or not. It was this weird dynamic of preparing for our first child and also being told to prepare for his death. Our prayer was that he would live long enough for us to get to know him.”
Eliot Hartman Mooney was born on July 20, 2006, at 4:59 p.m. He weighed six pounds, had an underdeveloped lung, and a hole in his heart. He required an oxygen tube and spent his first thirteen days in a neonatal intensive care unit. After that, he went home with Matt and Ginny. “He was sick,” says Matt, “but his life for the most part was very normal.”
Matt dropped out of law school for a semester, and he and Ginny worked in shifts to take care of their son. Eliot required feeding through a tube every three hours, and each feeding took an hour and a half. Meanwhile, friends and family showed up with food for Matt and Ginny. And every single day, Eliot had a birthday party at 4:59 p.m.
Eliot lived for ninety-nine days, and passed away on October 27, 2006. At his memorial service, Matt, Ginny and their loved ones released ninety-nine balloons in celebration of his life. Matt says, “By all accounts, Eliot’s life would have been a nightmare scenario. But having lived through his life, I can say that it was wonderful and it was beautiful.”
Both during and after Eliot’s life, Matt and Ginny kept a blog, which has since been archived at ninetynineballoons.com. “We wanted people to know what was happening without having to pick up the phone forty times a day. The blog led to making a
video. We’d taken thousands of pictures and hours and hours of video. We didn’t say it at the time, but we knew, well, this is precious. It might be all we have.”
Matt and Ginny worked with a friend to produce a six-minute video that tells the story of their son. They posted it online, and the response was overwhelming. Matt and Ginny began to hear from many people they’d never met. “I think people are drawn to Eliot. They connect with him in a way that we can’t sit across the table and talk about. Maybe they’ve lost a father, or have a special needs kid. Maybe they just connect with staying up to care for someone, or simply understand grief.” Eliot’s video was so compelling that Matt and Ginny were invited to share their story on both The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Today Show.
When Matt’s asked why so many have responded to Eliot’s story, he pauses and smiles. Then he says, “Well, first of all, I think he was beautiful. He taught us the absolute worth and beauty of
every person. I think God wanted to tell a story of Himself, and He chose to do it through our son. All that Eliot’s life was is more clearly what all of our lives are. None of us are guaranteed another day. We knew that with Eliot, but it’s true with all of us.”
In the last five years, a lot has happened for Matt and Ginny. Matt graduated from law school, and the couple had two more children, both of whom are healthy. And as a way of helping special needs kids and their families, Matt and Ginny started a project. “We started 99 Balloons out of our desperation, the void. We didn’t need anything to remember Eliot, but we felt like we had learned all this stuff and we wanted to do something to live out the things we had learned.”
At first, 99 Balloons was simply a blanket organization for a program called rEcess. (The capital E is in honor of Eliot.) rEcess takes place once a month and is a night when families with special needs children can receive respite. The program usually takes place at a church, and families are invited to drop off their special needs children and their siblings for a few hours. The kids can rest, play games, and make crafts. rEcess not only gives families a night off, but it also provides a starting point for special needs families to build a community of support.
“We have great volunteers, and I love pairing them with kids. A lot of times high school and college students are kind of about themselves or what they’re wearing, and this is a perspectivechanging deal, guaranteed. Because these kids don’t get to care about what other people think of them. Their vulnerability is out in front of them, and everybody knows it. They live with that reality, and that’s pretty beautiful, but most of us hide our vulnerability at all costs.”
rEcess has been so successful, that Matt and Ginny have started helping other churches and groups start their own respite nights. Currently, there are three in Northwest Arkansas. Matt now works for 99 Balloons fulltime, and is increasingly focused on serving special needs kids both locally and globally. “We’ve become aware of the plight of special needs kids internationally, and it has become a driving force of all we do, to make others aware of special needs kids in other countries. Unfortunately, they are often neglected, pushed aside, or thought of as cursed.”
99 Balloons has established relationships with special needs groups in Haiti, Guatemala, China, and Ukraine, which is how Matt and Ginny learned about Lena. For the last year, they’ve worked to adopt her, and the process is almost complete. For Matt, the challenges of adopting a special needs child are worth all the effort. “Our decision-making process looked like this: Is Lena supposed to be our daughter? Our answer was yes. You can worry about how you’re going to pay the doctor bills, but what we learned with Eliot is when it’s your child, you figure all that out.”
As Matt finishes his cup of coffee, he talks about how he and his wife have been changed. “I think we’ve learned to see beauty in the last places that people would look for it.” And then he says something we could all be reminded of every single day. “I’ve learned you don’t have to live up to some false standard to be loved, because love has no requirements.”
For more information, including a video about Eliot, visit 99balloons.org.
@story Whitney Ray @images Glenn Gilley
If you haven’t heard of Fort Smith’s Shaquille Jones yet, you will. And if we’re all lucky, Shaq, as he’s known on the gridiron, will be a Razorback next year. The 6’2”, 180 pound Northside receiver has dominated defenses all year long. What words can’t capture about this football phenom, numbers do.
Shaq shattered Arkansas’ all-time high school receiving record in Northside’s eighth game of the year against the Bentonville Tigers. He ended his high school career with 295 catches, 3,571 yards and 26 touchdowns. Along the way, he broke every receiving record in Northside’s football history. But Shaq wasn’t satisfied with best at his school, nor did he stop pulling pigskins out of the air once he landed the top spot in the state.
With every pass he pulled down and pinned to his chest, Shaq not only brought the Grizzlies closer to the end zone, he brought himself closer to the all-time national receiving record. He started the season just outside the Top Ten alltime receivers in the county, and slowly began to climb. On the same night he shattered Arkansas’ receiving record he climbed to eighth in the nation. He tried not to think about the record. He focused on running his routes and catching passes. He jumped to seventh place and soon held the sixth position. His quarterback kept throwing passes, and like clockwork Shaq kept ripping them out of the air.
He came closer than any Arkansas football player ever had, but the number one position in the country proved just beyond his reach. Like a Hail Mary pass that lands in the end zone with no time left on the clock, Shaq had run out of time. It was about the only record he didn’t get his hands on during the three years he spent playing football for the Grizzlies. In a game against Springdale Har-Ber, Shaq caught seventeen passes, setting yet another state record. When he hung up his grass-stained helmet and sweat-soaked jersey after a heartbreaking playoff loss to the Southside Rebels, Shaq was fifth in the nation for all-time receiving.
Sports Illustrated caught wind of the Arkansas kid with the quick
feet and sticky hands. Shaq was featured in a November 2011 issue of the national publication’s “Faces in the Crowd” section. He’ll never forget the morning when he awoke to a voicemail from the SI reporter. “I never thought Sports Illustrated would write an article about me. I ran around my house like five times. I was just so stoked. I really didn’t know what to do. I told my mom, ‘I don’t even know if I should call them back.’ I was shocked.”
Of course he called, the reporter wrote, the magazine made the rounds through smelly locker rooms and smoky bars. College football coaches from all over the country heard about the Fort Smith kid with the magic hands. Shaq is getting letters of interest from Arkansas, Arkansas State, Auburn, Clemson, Illinois, Kansas, Old Miss, Texas A&M, Tulsa, and a deluge of other NCAA Division I coaches. But he wants to be a Hog. And why not? The Razorback playbook was written for athletic receivers.
Under the leadership of Coach Bobby Petrino, the Razorbacks have developed one of the most high-octane, quick-strike offensives in college football. This year, Coach Petrino proved pigs can fly. Quarterback (and Greenwood’s own) Tyler Wilson threw for 3,433 yards, 22 touchdown passes and completed 63 percent of his throws. He has a locker room full of talented receivers and a 10-2 record to prove the offense works. Adding a target like Shaq could help. Shaq soars above his competition, jumping high enough to dunk a basketball in full pads and helmet. He seems to hang in the air. While defying gravity he finds ways to make the impossible look easy, pulling down balls few receivers would even dare to attempt to catch.
He treats cornerbacks and free safeties the way his namesake treats double teams on the hardwood. Born around the time basketball legend Shaquille O’Neil entered the NBA, the famous
name gave him a lot to live up to. While NBA Shaq was breaking backboards, Shaq Jones was trying out different sports. He enjoyed basketball, but decided it wasn’t physical enough to allow him to use all his talents. He quit hoops his sophomore year and hit the weight room. He put on more than ten pounds of muscle, improved his vertical leap and his forty time.
His dedication paid off and his tenacity justified the comparisons to the NBA’s 7’center. He’s even stolen NBA Shaq’s nickname, Superman. “My friends just started calling me Superman. They said, ‘They call Shaquille O’Neil Superman because he’s unstoppable on the court. So we’re just going to call you Superman because you are unstoppable on the football field,’ Shaq said, remembering the day his teammates gave him the nickname. “I just took it and ran with it.”
Midway through his junior season it became clear Superman had the talent to play at the next level. He decided to give basketball another shot. The competitor in him needed to be fed.
On the court and out of his bulky football gear, Shaq really soars. His specialty is the breakaway dunk. When Shaq gets a steal or a long rebound, no one can catch him. A few dribbles past half court and the football star takes flight. Every muscle in his body tightens as he leaves the ground. He soars above the rim, almost looks down through the hoop, before hammering the basketball through the goal. He’s not the star of the team, but his hardwood heroics aren’t to be taken lightly. While he’s having fun on the court now, Shaq knows his future is on the gridiron. He continues to lift weights and train.
Shaq says being mentioned Sports Illustrated is the highlight of his career. He grew up watching Razorback football and is excited about the Hog’s amazing season and number six BCS ranking. Becoming a Razorback has been a lifelong dream. But if Shaq gets to play at the next level, he hopes to take his talents all the way to the National Football League. “I’ve always wanted to be a Razorback,” Shaq said. And then he added, “I can’t really say right now. I’m weighing my options.”
He’s proven he has the work ethic to play in college. He’s tall enough, strong enough and athletic enough to compete right now and has proven he can make plays. Diehard fans wait on pins and needles to find out his decision. Worry not, they won’t be waiting long.
Michael Spencer, twenty-nine, doesn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, and you won’t see him wearing a cape on national news. You might, however, see him wearing an American Red Cross jacket, which is essentially the same thing.
Michael grew up in Van Buren, and first encountered the Red Cross in April of 1996 after a deadly tornado hit the area. After the twister hit Fort Smith, it crossed over into Van Buren and leveled more than 450 homes. Michael wanted to help his friends who were affected, so he volunteered with a local church. “The Red Cross would come by and feed everyone, and I saw how appreciative people were for the simplest of things,” says Michael. “I knew then that it was something I wanted to be a part of.”
When he was sixteen, Michael took a Red Cross lifeguarding class, then later started teaching it. A large part of what the Red Cross does is responding to more than 70,000 disasters a year, and Michael began volunteering after families lost their homes to fires, and at other local emergencies. “A lot of people are still in shock,” says Michael. “Just listening, just being there, is important. It’s amazing what a toothbrush or warm meal means to someone. I think it’s the little things that have a big impact down the road.”
In 2000, Michael was selected to participate in training for national disasters. He specialized as part of Red Cross’s advanced public affairs team, and has since been interviewed by Good Morning America, The Today Show, and by Anderson Cooper “Talking to the media is a big part of my job. We want victims to know where they can go for help and what we’re doing to get them back on their feet. Many people also want to volunteer, donate blood, or give financially, and we want people
to have the best information possible to make that decision.”
On September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers were hit, Michael was a freshman at the University of Arkansas. “For a few days, I did interviews for the Red Cross from my dorm room. When air travel opened up, I flew to the Pentagon, then New York. There were bomb threats coming in, and people would ask, ‘Why would you want to go somewhere everyone else is running away from?’ Well, if I were in their shoes, I would hope someone would help me.”
Michael pauses and says he can still see the images. “There were posters with names and faces of missing loved ones on every available space. We let people cry on our shoulders, but we wanted to cry too. That’s the challenge with any disaster. It starts to become personal after a while.”
Since 2005, Michael has worked for the Red Cross fulltime. He spent two years working in public relations in Washington, DC, and has since worked in information technologies (IT) from his home in Fayetteville. “Of course I want to be on the ground, rolling up my sleeves, but I’ve learned that all the work behind the scenes is what allows the work in the field to be done.”
In addition to his fulltime job in IT, Michael continues to volunteer as a national spokesperson for the Red Cross. Each year, he spends two months on call and responds to an average of two disasters. Michael was on call last year in May when a tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, and he arrived the same night. “I’ve been to over a hundred disasters, but nothing quite like Joplin. It was like a war-torn country. There were fires erupting and water shooting up in the air from broken pipes.”
The EF5 tornado, which is the highest ranking given to twisters, killed 160 people and injured almost 1,000 more. Even the hospital was hit. “The memory I can’t get out of my head is hearing all the heart monitors going off at St. John’s Hospital. It was evacuated, but I kept thinking about what happened to all those people who were in those rooms.”
Michael worked through the night. “The thing that keeps me going is the disaster victims. I’m afraid I might miss someone. It’s about seeing people through their darkest hour. If you ever wrap a blanket around someone who is cold and just lost their home, you’ll never have another feeling like it.”
After Joplin, Michael independently helped start a project called Joplin Rescued Photos. “Our vision is to help storm victims reconnect with lost photos and memories. People bring us photos they’ve found, and we number them and scan them. So far we’ve uploaded over 30,000 photos to our website and Facebook. People can search online and claim pictures that belong to them or their neighbors.” So far, the project has returned almost 4,000 photos.
Michael’s dedication to the Red Cross and Joplin Rescued Photos seems remarkable, but Michael is quick to point out that he’s nothing extraordinary. He doesn’t consider himself a hero. But as he talks about what keeps him volunteering, he says, “If I didn’t give up my time, that person wouldn’t have a place to sleep tonight,” which sounds like something a hero would say.
For more information, visit redcross.org or joplinrescuedphotos.org.
Chad Little is leaning against one of the worktables his father built at his shop, Ethos Custom Brands, in Sallisaw. It’s early December, and he’s talking about the recent call he took from a Manhattan jeweler who needed a leather cuff for a design he’d been working on for celebrity chef Guy Fieri. Rachel Ray, yes that Rachel Ray, wanted to surprise Guy with the bracelet for Christmas.
there are no mondays here
@story Marla Cantrell
@images Marcus Coker
Evan Baines
Tim Parker
“The jeweler had that thick New York accent,” Chad says. “At first he wouldn’t tell me who the cuff was for, but I asked some questions and figured it out. I sent him a few samples and he picked one and it became the base of his jewelry design.”
The call came just months after a buyer for Pottery Barn contacted him about selling his guitar straps in their holiday gift guide that reached more than five million people.
“She’d been looking on the website Etsy, where we have a few of our leather products. She saw my designs and liked the guitar straps, and then we started the process to become a Pottery Barn vendor.” Chad holds his hands a good two feet apart. “The manual was about this thick,” he says.
What’s most remarkable about this conversation is that we’re standing in what I thought was a custom BOOT shop, talking about leather cuffs and guitar straps. Although, none of this seems remarkable to Chad, who’s now mixing in stories about his MUSIC career.
The conversation gravitates toward country star Carrie Underwood, and the subject of boots finally comes up. Chad made her a pair. They’re gold, high-heeled, over-the-knee cowboy boots. He’s not a huge fan of the boots, but he adores Carrie Underwood, and starts to tell the story of their meeting.
“I’d moved back home from Nashville in ’97,” Chad says. “I went there as a singer/songwriter/guitar player, thinking I was somebody. But in the first few weeks I found out I was just like everybody else trying to make it in the music business, from the cab drivers to the waiters. When I came back to Fort Smith, because of the experience I’d picked up, I was a whale in a pond. Over there I was a piece of algae in an ocean.”
Chad had been contacted by Carrie’s promoters, who were looking for someone who had an insider’s view of the music industry.
“They stuck in this tape, and the voice of this little girl started roaring on that thing. I said, ‘This girl’s got pipes. I’d love to meet her.’
“I coached her a little bit. She amazed me how good she was. It was ridiculous how fast she could learn. She had perfect pitch, and was so sweet, just a little Christian farm girl.
“We put a band together and started doing gigs: chili cook-offs, charity events. My best memories are of just me and her on stage.
Days before a show, I’d take her to a hall and we’d sit on stage, and I’d make her sing to people who weren’t there. She had no stage presence. She could sing perfect. She could sing the phone book,” Chad says, and shakes his head. “But she didn’t own the stage. And I was just the opposite; I had the stage presence but I wasn’t a lead singer, so I was great at drawing her out.”
Carrie eventually landed on American Idol, and Chad ended up in Sallisaw, where he bought a shoe repair shop. Not long after, a “boot artist” from Poteau showed up on his doorstep, offering to teach him how to make custom cowboy boots.
Chad, who’d worked in shoe repair since his high school days, knew a good deal when he heard it. Soon, he’d moved to a new building, and the orders were flying in.
Then the Twin Towers fell, business dropped off, and his bootmaking teacher left town.
In 2002, he shut the doors for good.
Which sent him back to Nashville, where he played Christian contemporary music, eventually as part of the band CO3. This time he stayed five years. “We had two Top Twenty singles,” Chad says. “Then the music industry left us. CDs were going away. I saw the handwriting on the wall.”
What’s different about Chad is that this isn’t a sad story for him. “You know what’s so fun about that?” he asks. “In my off time, I’d been making boots to wear on stage, and I was embellishing my jeans with leather designs.
“I saw a brand potential. I met a guy at my last showcase.
He gave me his card. He said he’d been behind the brands of Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. ..He and I went into business together. He’s an absolute marketing guru.”
Since that day, Chad’s designs have shown up on celebrities like Vince Gill and Amy Grant. He’s made boots for Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, and for actor Moses J. Brings Plenty, who will wear his turquoise-lined boots in his role as Wilma Mankiller’s husband in the upcoming film, The Cherokee Word for Water.
None of it seems extraordinary to Chad. He thinks his need to create, and his “good eye for positive and negative” space, have helped him succeed. Plus, he works incredibly hard.
He asks one of his employees to take off her cowboy boot, and she hands it over. He points to the inside, where the smooth leather has laser engraved quotes from two of her idols, former Dallas Cowboys’ coach Tom Landry and Johnny Cash.
Sometimes Chad will even burn portraits to the inside, so that the boots, which run about $1,000 a pair, could someday be passed down as a family heirloom.
Last year, he and his four employees made forty pairs of boots. Each pair takes about forty to sixty hours from the initial fitting to the finished product.
But when he starts talking about the year ahead, his biggest idea has nothing to do with boots. It’s hard to keep up; he has so many ideas. And as he’s talking, he’s pointing out other visionaries who’ve taken ideas and flown with them. “I’ll tell you this,” he says, “there are no Mondays here. We’re loving what we’re doing.”
Inside his office, where he has enough equipment to record another CD if he wants to – and yes he does want to – he shows off three little pairs of boots he made for his daughters. “You want to learn about life,” he says, “have a family. That puts everything in perspective. Plus,” he says, and then smiles, “I married a woman who keeps me grounded.” He laughs. “And her father owns Wild Horse Barbeque. I’d say I got a heck of a deal.”
He looks happy, like a kid about to open a present. Ask the thirty-eight-year-old where he’ll be in five years and he doesn’t miss a beat. “I’ll be a multi-millionaire,” he says, as he surveys the 1,800 square foot shop where the tapping of his fellow bootmakers’ hammers punctuate his words. “I plan to live a long life, to give back, and to leave a legacy for my three daughters.
And then the conversation turns to his profound faith. He has a “Little is much when God is in it” philosophy. “I’m not an ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ kind of person. I just keep creating, whether it’s music or boots. And I’ve seen some of what God has in store for me, and there’s a lot of hope in that.”
I’m a writer because of Anita Paddock. I took her writing class when she was teaching at Westark Community College. The first thing I wrote was a travesty. I’ve forgotten the worst of it, but I do remember there was an elderly woman in it who stood through the entire piece, in high heels, at the foot of her sister’s grave and gave a soliloquy on life, love and the deficiencies of men.
When I finished reading it aloud, Anita tapped her chin with her index finger and said, “Well, isn’t that lovely.” She stalled. “It’s not truly a story.” She paused again. “It could do with a bit of dialogue.” She smiled at me. “I’d say you’ve written a nice little vignette.”
I was too green to know what a vignette was, and I was too naïve to realize that “isn’t that lovely” was most likely a question and not a testament to any talent I might posses.
But she guided me through the remainder of the classes, and I ended up with a story that I wouldn’t be ashamed to show you today.
My story is not unlike hundreds of others in this area. Over the years Anita has taught new writers to be good writers, and some good writers to be great ones. She’s also that person who causes a traffic jam if you happen to stand beside her at a party. “I’d like you to meet someone,” she’ll say, and before she can put your hand in theirs, seven more people line up to talk to her.
It’s easy to believe that Anita, who’s just retired as branch manager for the Miller Library in Fort Smith, is one of those charmed people, eternally sunny, skipping through the rough patches of life with little effort.
It just isn’t so.
To do the story justice you have to go back to October of 1995. Anita was living in a stately old house, teaching writing, and working part time in a Vivian’s Bookstore in Fort Smith. Her husband Ben was a talented attorney.
If you ever wanted to step into someone’s life, Anita’s looked like a good bet. But Ben was struggling that year. He’d lost his biggest corporate client when the company was sold. The loss caused money problems, something Ben, who was part of one of the city’s prominent families, hadn’t faced before.
When Anita talks about what happened next, she tells the story with the precision of a writer. The two had a ritual. When Ben came home from work, he whistled to announce his arrival. When Anita came downstairs in the morning, he whistled again. She’d usually find him in the kitchen, sitting at the table with the newspaper.
But on that Sunday morning, after waking from a fitful sleep, Anita descended the stairs. She didn’t hear Ben whistle.
The newspaper had been brought inside. In the kitchen she found a letter from Ben. He’d gone to a warehouse they owned. He’d taken his gun.
There were ten pages of instructions. She was to call a close
friend, who was also an attorney. He named a funeral director who needed to be notified. He made sure she stayed away from the warehouse, writing and then underling this sentence. You stay away from there.
In the midst of the darkest morning of her life, Ben had mapped out a plan that would lead her through the first part of her life without him.
“I never dreamed anything like this would happen,” Anita said. “I always thought things would turn around.”
There is a busy-ness that accompanies death: planning the funeral, writing fistfuls of thank you cards. But that can only last so long. One day you wake up with a finished to-do list and you’re left to wear the weight of sorrow like a shroud.
“I had a friend named Becky who came to my house. Her husband had committed suicide. And I asked her how long it had been. She told me fourteen years. I told her I couldn’t live fourteen years like this. And she said, ‘Yes you can.’”
What saved Anita was a tiny ad in the local paper, way back in the Help Wanted section, that appeared two months after Ben’s death. The Fort Smith Public Library had an opening for someone to manage a little store-front branch. The pay was $14,500 a year. Anita decided to apply. “I think about it now,” Anita said, “and I think how in the world did I do that? But I did. I remember being proud of how I’d handled myself in the interview, and that was a little something I could hold on to.”
Before the end of the day the phone rang. Anita had gotten the job. “That first day of work I called my friend Becky and I
said, once again, ‘I don’t think I can do this.’ And she said, ‘Yes you can.’”
Anita remembers following her co-workers around with a notepad and asking “about a million questions.” For at least eight hours a day she had the relief of focusing on something other than sadness. At the same time, voters were weighing the question of whether Fort Smith needed to fund major improvements to the library system.
The library’s director believed Anita was just the person to sway the public. “When they asked me to do PR, I knew I could. The first thing I did was make sure my little library was not a place where you had to be quiet. I brought in some houseplants I’d gotten when Ben died, and some of my own furniture. I patterned it after the bookstore where I’d worked. I loved it there, the customers loved it. People came in to chit-chat, to visit, and to talk about books. So that was my entire plan.”
Well, not her entire plan. The other part was a covert mission, prompted by something she learned years before. “My daddy owned his own store. He taught me to have a firm handshake. He encouraged me to learn the customers’ names and the names of their children. He was always giving away pocketknives to little boys and my mom would say, ‘Jim, why are you doing that?’ And Daddy would say, ‘If I give him a pocketknife now, he’ll buy a refrigerator from me when he’s a big boy.’ And I saw it happen all the time.
“So at the library, I’d tell a patron, ‘Well, you owe a quarter fine on this, but that’s okay.’ It’s just a quarter, but it’s goodwill. And when the vote was counted in 1997, the library won.”
Anita has been the manager of the Miller Library since the day it opened. “It became my baby. I brought in local artists and had them show their work. I read review after review, so I’d know the best books to order. These guys would come and get these little Westerns, and I’d say, ‘Let’s try something else.’ I started putting my selections on a cart near the front of the library, so it was easy to see some really good books. I think it worked.”
“It’s been a job I just loved. When someone here does something good, I’ll look over and say, ‘Wow, what a librarian.’ I’ve been accused of Tom Sawyer-ing folks. Maybe I do, but it sure is nice to get a little praise.
“The truly wonderful thing about the library is that it’s the most democratic place on earth. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, you have the same standing here. If you have a library card you can find out anything.”
Anita believes in books the way other people believe in religion. The books, and the library that houses them, rescued her when her world was crumbling.
January first is her first official day of retirement. She plans to stay in her pajamas and read. After that, who knows? Those of us who took our first steps as writers under her watchful eye are hoping she’ll teach now and then. Some of us, I happen to know, have a few vignettes that could use a little work.
There will be a farewell reception for Anita on January 22 from 2 – 4 p.m. at the Miller Branch Library in Fort Smith
Confession: I have a crush on The Food Revolution’s Jamie Oliver. There, I said it. I adore his messy, disheveled blonde mop, I swoon over his Cockney accent, and I giggle at his cute lisp and his overuse of the words “brilliant” and “literally”. He is passionate about quality food and good eating habits, and uses his fame and his media power to share his mission worldwide. This is a crush that Hubs approves of because 1) the man is happily married with umpteen children, and 2) he’s a megawatt celebrity who lives on the other side of the planet, making him completely unattainable and inaccessible, ergo harmless.
I obsessively DVR Jamie’s show, Jamie at Home on the Cooking Channel. The show takes place at Jamie’s “vegetable patch” (read: impossibly fertile and beautifully landscaped acreage, painstakingly tended to by his own private gardener), where Jamie whips up simple, rustic dishes using a variety of fruit and vegetables grown in his own soil, and offers tips about growing your own home garden.
I was able to park it on the couch for an episode recently. This one was dedicated solely to carrots and beets, both of which are in season this time of year.
Among other beautiful creations, Jamie made an Indian carrot salad, which he deemed “a brilliant snack that would go perfectly with a pint”: thinly shaved carrots with herbs in a cumin and lemon dressing, piled on a bed of crispy fried ground pork, served up with pillowy naan bread. This dish is what I think of as classic Jamie Oliver style: rusticbordering-on-crude, messy, piled high, fresh and colorful. Oh, and lip-smacking delicious.
I thought I’d add a little more color and flair to the salad, considering I didn’t have the multicolored carrots Jamie had. I figured radishes would add some colorful crunch, as would apples – along with a little sweetness. Thinly slicing radishes and apples can be a tedious thing, so I broke out my handy dandy mandolin to make things a cinch. If you don’t have one of these gadgets, it’s one I highly recommend, as long as you watch those fingertips with an eagle eye!
The salad came together in no time, and the addition of basil and mint from the garden added more flavor and color for an extra pop. After a quick toss with my hands, I piled the colorful ribbons on top of a heap of crispy pork, and sprinkled the whole thing with crunchy little sesame seeds. With warm, soft naan alongside, this was indeed a brilliant light lunch. The garam masala and smoked paprika added an exotic, smoky flavor to the crispy pork, which went perfectly with the cumin in the crunchy carrot salad. For a little extra love, add a dab of plain yogurt or sour cream for dipping. As I always say, feel free to play with the ingredients to make it your own. Enjoy!
Carrot Salad with Fried Port
1 1/4 lb. ground pork
2 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 lb. carrots, peeled
1/2 lb. radishes, sliced thinly
1 apple, sliced thinly
small bunch of basil, leaves picked
— small bunch of mint, leaves picked
1 Tbs. sesame seeds
salt and pepper to taste
— Naan bread, to serve alongside
For the Dressing:
1/4 tsp. cumin
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 tsp. freshly grated ginger
— extra virgin olive oil
— salt and pepper to taste
For the salad dressing, combine all the ingredients in a jar with a tight-fitting lid, and shake vigorously. Set aside.
Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and fry the ground pork until all the fat is rendered, draining off any extra liquid as necessary. Cook until the pork is deeply browned and crispy. Add the garam masala, smoked paprika and a generous pinch of salt, and cook for about a minute more. Turn off the heat and set aside.
Shave the carrots into long strips using a vegetable peeler. Using a mandolin or a very sharp knife, slice the radishes and apple thinly. Combine the carrots, radishes and apple in a large mixing bowl, and add the basil and mint. Pour the dressing over the salad and use your hands to gently toss everything together.
Using the fried pork as a bed for your salad, place a good handful of the salad over top. Top with sesame seeds, and serve with warmed naan bread.
1 oz. Cuervo Especial Gold
1 oz. Godiva Mocha Liqueur
2 oz. hot coffee
Whipped cream for garnish
Combine Cuervo Especial Gold and Godiva Mocha Liqueur into a glass
Fill cup with hot coffee
Garnish with whipped cream
