Ozarks At Large
Tonya Lewis Lee helped bring Christopher Paul Curtis' novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham to Tv this month. Tonight the film is being shown, for free, at Bentonville High School and today we talked with Ms. lee about the project that premiered earlier this month on the Hallmark Channel.
Late last week, the federal Department of Health and Human Services accepted Arkansas's plan for Medicaid expansion. The city of Bentonville will give away compost and wood mulch this week. A couple of roads close or otherwise reroute in the River Valley starting today. And gas prices dropped slightly in Arkansas over the past week.
With this morning's montage, we say several goodbyes; to Summer, to a famed Yankees pitcher, and to one of our longest-tenured colleagues at KUAF. Here are our 10 pop culture references we used to say goodbye.
- "So Long, Farewell" from the Sound of Music
- Lou Gehrig's farewell speech
- "Goodbye my Lover" by James Blunt
- ET says his goodbye
- The famous words from Gone With The Wind
- "Hello, Goodbye" by The Beatles
- The Friends leave the apartment for the final time
- "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John
- Jim Carey tells his fare goodbye at the beginning of Dumb and Dumber
- Leaving Casablanca for the final time
- Johnny Carson bids his final farewell to the audience during his final time hosting The Tonight Show
The Arkansas Center For The Book this week made its selection for the 2013 If All Arkansas Read The Same Book Program. Kyle Kellams spoke with Vivienne Schiffer, the author of the novel Camp Nine, this year's selection.
State officials continue to seek a solution to the teacher insurance crisis in Arkansas. New numbers are out regarding Arkansas students' achievements on Advanced Placement tests. And, the Connecting Arkansas Internet Conference is being held in Little Rock this week.
You can go to a workshop at NWACC to learn about the state's Freedom of Information Act, or you can participate in one of many lake and other outdoor cleanups in the next few days.
Ahead on Ozarks: the approaching enrollment period for new Arkansas health care plans means many people in the state have questions about how they'll be affected. Roby Brock, from our content partner Talk Business Arkansas, seeks answers to some of the questions from three people close to the health-care issue. Plus theater returns in full force. No fewer than thirteen productions will be on area stages in the next month. We'll have a rundown and meet the young, earnest cast of the University of Arkansas’ Clean House…the first play of the U of A season. And how mammals in the University of Arkansas’ museum collection are being preserved.
Well, maybe not lions and tigers, but the UA collection does have more than 250 river otters. They recently received a grant to rehouse their mammal collection. Ozarks at Large's Christina Thomas has more. Latest Edition of Ozarks at Large
Friday, May 9, 2014
Ahead on this edition of Ozarks, Michael Tilley talks about a new owner for some long-abandoned real estate in Fort Smith, and the official announcement of a Whole Foods in Fayetteville. Plus, Cletus Got Shot gets ready to perform at a few festivals in the next month.
The Ozarks Genealogical Society's annual conference is scheduled for Sept. 13-14 in Springfield, Missouri, and the featured speaker is D. Joshua Taylor (http://www.djoshuataylor.com).
The first event outside of Eureka Springs for the Creative Energy Project will bring yarn, and plenty of it, to Bentonville.
Link: For more about Yarnology or the Creative Energy Project, www.creativeenergyproject.com
Officials with hunger relief organizations in Arkansas express concern over recent efforts to remove SNAP funding from the federal Farm Bill. Central Arkansas leaders request information from ExxonMobil regarding a stretch of pipeline in the Lake Maumelle Watershed. The Arkansas House and Senate Education Committees discuss the new Common Core curriculum, set to take effect when schools start in about a month. And the Fayetteville Public Library board of directors moves forward with an offer to purchase the former City Hospital property.
"Cut Me Loose" by T Model Ford
In the first of our series on the deployment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in Arkansas, Cynthia Crone, the state’s insurance department deputy commissioner, explains the fundamentals, including getting an early look at Arkansas’s insurance exchange, now referred to as marketplace.
Early next month the organization called the Military Order of the Purple Heart of the U.S.A. Inc. will hold its annual convention in Rogers. We talked to John Bircher, National Spokesman for the Military Order of the Purple Heart.
Link: To learn more about the Military Order of the Purple Heart, visit www.purpleheart.org
