
Ozarks At Large

We continue our series previewing this weekend's poetry festival at Nightbird Books. Katie Nichol grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota and says she started writing poetry when she was about 12 years old:
Arkansas' U.S. Senators speak out in favor of the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would require online retailers to collect state and local sales tax on purchases anywhere in the country. Officials with the WestArk Area Boy Scout Council voice their feelings about changes to the national organization's membership policy regarding sexual orientation. The Rogers Farmers' Market will be in a different location when it opens Saturday, and the Bentonville School District gets state funding approved for construction of a second high school, though the battle for building bucks continues.
Nathan Vandiver from our content partner KUAR in Little Rock provides a wrap-up of this year's Legislative Session.

For the past few months there have been meetings, open to the public, to discuss making Fayetteville a city of compassion. We met with two of the organizers of the meetings to find out what it might take for a more compassionate place.
Click here.

Governor Mike Beebe and the state legislature tie up some loose ends at the conclusion of the legislative session, the Northwest Arkansas Council holds a summit for area leaders to figure out how to connect immigrants--either international or domestic--to resources in the area. A group of concerned area residents held a protest on the U of A campus yesterday in an attempt to draw U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack's attention to the confined animal feeding operation set to operate in the Buffalo River Watershed, and a group of UAFS students plan a run to benefit victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing.
The state's Department of Human Services holds a rally on the steps of the state capitol to raise awareness that April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. One of Northwest Arkansas' two public transit operators get ready to expand certain bus routes in an efficiency reorganization. One economist at the University of Arkansas thinks that construction will help the state, and the nation, recover from the lingering effects of the economic recession. And Walmart sets a record for the amount of donations given by a retailer in a given year.

Latest Edition of Ozarks at Large
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Ahead on Ozarks, the Nobel director and secretary talks about the selection process for the annual Nobel Peace Prize; he's on the University of Arkansas campus today. Plus, the Northwest Arkansas Council on jobs created in the area in the past year, and the differences between education in the U.S. and the European Union.
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.