Mercy Health used an innovative walking program to become one of the healthiest workplaces in the country.
Ozarks At Large
A roundup of events and news for the next few weeks include an alternative way to deliver a Valentine.


An administrative law judge with the Arkansas Public Service Commission on Friday ordered SWEPCO to proceed on its proposed plan to build a massive new power transmission line through portions of northwest Arkansas. Also, Governor Mike Beebe says that recent cost analyses of operating the state's Private Option expansion of Medicaid justifies the program's passage during last year's session of the state legislature. And the state Attorney General's office warns residents about rapid-refund tax providers.

Ahead on Ozarks, a conversation with young adult author An Na. Also, we learn what it takes to become a police officer.

We speak with An Na, author of A Step From Heaven, a book that was awarded the Michael L. Prince Award when it was published a decade ago. Critics and reviewers commended the book's characters for speaking like a child without being too precocious or condescending. The author will speak in Fayetteville later this month.
Latest Edition of Ozarks at Large
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Ahead on this edition of Weekend Ozarks, we visit the kitchen of Jen Lewis, take a spin in a state-run clinic that aids veterans in rural communities, and we meet a recovering opiate addict who has found hope with methadone.
Clint Schnekloth is the Lead Pastor at Good Shepard Lutheran Church in Fayetteville and the author of the new book, Mediating Faith: Faith Formation in a Trans-media Era.
at end of show: "Sunny of 75" by Joe Nichols
When the Arkansas Legislature convened this week, lawmakers proposed and pondered long-term solutions to the state's Private Option expansion of Medicaid. The changes considered were meant to make the program more palatable to some politicians. We learn more in this morning's Week in Review.
"The Game of Love" by Daft Punk
In 1980, more than 125,000 Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro's communist regime were boatlifted to America and processed at military compounds including Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. Among the population were gay Cubans and prisoners that Castro had purged from his prisons. The Cubans were widely portrayed by the press as criminal—a stigma that's persisted. But as Jacqueline Froelich reports, historians are working to clarify the record.
Photo: "Task Force Commander, Colonel Don E. Karr with Cuban refugee family"--Courtesy Fort Chaffee Museum
Charles Baum was both a philanthropist and a baseball lover. We learn more about the man behind the Arkansas Razorback's baseball stadium.
"Stubborn Love" by The Lumineers
Here are the ten sources for our Sunday Montage dedicated to bows, arrows and archers:
1) Sam Cooke sings tribute to Cupid.
2) Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) proves a point in the animated movie Brave.
3) Harry Nilsson sings Me and My Arrow.
4) Claude Rains and Errol Flynn meet in the 1939 version of Robin Hood.
5) Arya receives counter intuitive lessons on an episode of HBO's Game of Thrones.
6) Kacey Musgraves offers advice in her song Follow Your Arrow.
7) Legolas fails to impress in a scene from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
8) From the 80s: ABC's hit Poison Arrow.
9) Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) gets attention after her amazing shot in The Hunger Games.
10) The Halle Orchestra performs the greatest piece of music dedicated to an archer, Rossini's William Tell Overture.
Apologies to: Hawkeye, Green Arrow, The Golden Archer (and about 100 other comic book characters), Burt Reynolds in Deliverance, Edith Wharton, and Cock Robin. Maybe next time.