Ozarks At Large

Roby Brock from our content partner Talk Business Arkansas takes stock of the fifth week of the Arkansas Legislature and the past seven days in Arkansas business.

Eco-preservationists, recreationists and scientists are collaborating on a project to save Kessler Mountain, a 387-acre forest southwest of Fayetteville, from urban development. We take a short expedition along a scenic escarpment to an ancient grove of chinkapin oak, with geoscientist Dr. David Stahle and grad student Allen Edmondson. They want the UofA to dedicate an outdoor natural laboratory on Kessler—similar to Harvard Forest and Duke Forest. To receive permission to explore Mount Kessler, contact Frank Sharp here. Web Exclusive: Sampling an Ancient Chinquapin Oak Forest on Mt. Kessler

The concealed carry bill for college campus staff moves forward in the Arkansas General Assembly after passing a House vote on Friday. Governor Mike Beebe acknowledges the work of family farmers in the state, and the Razorback Foundation announces its next director.

Here is our out-of-this-world list of material that made up our space montage this morning. If you correctly identified them all, buy yourself a cold glass of Tang.

1. "Major Tom," as performed by David Bowie
2. Neil Armstrong lands on the moon.
3. Charlton Heston just before his space ship crashes into future earth. Spoiler alert: there are APES. This is the opening scene from the original Planet of the Apes
4. A commercial for Tang
5. HAL takes over in 2001: A Space Odyssey
6. The Shocking Blue with their biggest hit, "Venus"
7. A piece of the trailer for the disaster movie Armageddon. That's nativa Arkansan Billy Bob Thornton explaining "It's a meteor shower."
8. Pluto, the dog, barking in his 1952 cartoon, "Pluto's Party."
9. The worst bit of dialogue ever in a movie ("Future events such as these will affect you in the future.") from Plan 9 From Outer Space"
10. Holst's Mars from "The Planets"