POCAHONTAS – Law enforcement will be present during the first inaugural Novemberfest, making residents feel safer. The city will hold its first inaugural Novemberfest in historic downtown Pocahontas on November 1 through 2.
Co-Chairmen of the Novemberfest John Allen French said there will be law enforcement present during the festival. Pocahontas Chief of Police David Edington said there will be full-time officers, part-time officers and volunteer reserve officers at the festival. “Just for the general safety. It’s not anything dealing with the fact that we are afraid it’s going to get out of hand; there is still traffic around those areas, so it’s about safety and being visible.”
The streets that will be blocked off:
North Marr Street
West Pyburn Street
North Van Bibbber Street
West Everett Street
North Bettis Street
French agreed that there is a need for law enforcement at the festival, but doesn’t expect there will be any real need for them. “The last festival we had a police presence and nothing happened.”
Gypsy Girl owner Carrie Barnes said, “Its always good to have the police around during something like this; in case someone gets hurt or if something happens.” Barnes also said that Gypsy Girl will be opened during the festival and are expecting nothing to happen.
Another committee member Linda Bowling said, “We expect a large crowd. We have always coordinated with the city for any of our festivals in the event there is a problem.”
There will also be alcohol sold at the festival. Edington said he believes there will be an officer that will be assigned for alcohol beverage control.
“With regard to the festival tavern, we have all the proper permits, temporary alcohol sales and we’ve complied fully with the Alcoholic Beverage Control.” Bowling said, “I believe there will be paramedics there or at least easy access to our paramedics.”
French said there will be a lost and found and it will be held in the old court house. There will also be a member of the Novemberfest committee inside at all times.
Editor’s Note: Feature photo shows Pocahontas Courthouse Square. Photo by Maddison Smith
JONESBORO – The Foundation for Jonesboro Public Schools hosted the inaugural A Stormy Night event Oct. 3 to raise funds for grants for students attending the Jonesboro Public School District.
Other events like this one existed in the past, but this was the first fundraiser of its kind in terms of the format and set up for the foundation. The foundation sold tickets at $50 each and a silent auction took place at the event. Sponsors also donated money to the cause.
Slade Mitchell, president of the Foundation for Jonesboro Public Schools, commented on the initial ticket sales.
“These are going to be estimates because I haven’t seen any final numbers, but I believe we have sold somewhere around 200 tickets,” Mitchell said. “But with sponsorships and everything involved, I expect this event will raise somewhere around $30,000 for our cause.”
The foundation hosts fundraisers like A Stormy Night because teachers in the district tend to put forward ideas of how they can educate their students in fun and creative ways. However, these teachers do not always have the means necessary to carry these plans out.
“We have great teachers,” Mitchell said. “They have great ideas for things they would like to do in their class: creative ways to educate their students. A lot of times with the ideas they have there’s a disconnect between the idea and the funding needed to pull that off. So what we do as a foundation is we award grants to those teachers in that situation. These types of events sustain that program.”
Joshua Miller, a math teacher at the Success Achievement Academy in Jonesboro, benefitted from multiple separate foundation grants. Miller is a testament to the success of the fundraisers the foundation hosts.
Miller’s students built roller coasters, rockets and bridges all thanks to grants from the Foundation for Jonesboro Public Schools. These projects made math engaging for the students and illustrated different ways math applies in the world outside of the classroom.
“If it weren’t for you all, the ideas and the dreams that we want to experience in our classroom would not become a reality,” Miller said in a speech to A Stormy Night attendees. “This dream of mine that I sit at home planning every once in awhile would not become a reality.”
A Stormy Night marks the first fundraiser the foundation created as a dinner during the middle of the week. Mitchell commented on how this could change the game for foundation fundraisers.
“We’ve always wanted to have an event like this,” Mitchell said. “We have board members now that have experience with doing this. While we’ve wanted to do it in the past, we’ve got the team that can do it now. We’re so excited to have something like this come together. In the past, rather than an evening banquet, we have done a brunch the Saturday following homecoming.”
The Foundation for Jonesboro Public Schools hosted the brunch for a few years, but an annual dinner has a chance to bring even more people to a fundraiser.
“We’ve always talked about doing an evening and doing something where we could maybe allow for more people to come,” Mitchell said. “Saturday mornings were tough because people were out of town or various things. We never really had the courage to try. This year, again, with the right board members in place, with the right team in place, we were able to pull it off.”
Many different people attended at A Stormy Night, including faculty from the Jonesboro Public School District along with various members of the community and sponsors.
Felicia Johnson represented New Door Real Estate Brokerage at the event, a local real estate company. Johnson’s daughter graduated from Jonesboro Public Schools.
“I think Jonesboro Public Schools are amazing and I would take any opportunity to support the schools,” Johnson said. “That’s why our company is here tonight. It’s wonderful to get here tonight and be with all these people that share the same goals.”
Johnson did four years of schooling herself with Jonesboro Public Schools and has been in Jonesboro for 32 years. She highlighted the importance a fundraiser like A Stormy Night plays in the lives of students.
“Oh my goodness, the funds that are raised here, can you imagine? Can you imagine the robotics team having what they need? The band having what they need? The cheerleaders? (For them) not to have to do tons and tons of fundraisers. This is amazing. We’re going to raise a lot of money to help our children.”
Editor’s Note: Feature photo shows Joshua Miller addressing attendees at A Stormy Night event.
JONESBORO – Arkansas Delta farmers harvested their crops and took them to market after a difficult growing season.
Farmers experienced many challenges this season as they planted crops and tended to their fields all summer. Chris Grimes, Craighead County Cooperative Extension agent, works with these farmers to ensure they use the most efficient growing methods possible.
“Right now, we are harvesting cotton, soybeans, peanuts, and there’s still a little bit of rice and corn,” he said. “We were delayed planting, which in turn pushed our harvest a little later than normal.”
Other than a few hiccups with rainfall, the harvest continues moving rather smoothly. Many rice farmers like Terry Gray, owner of Thomas Gray Farms, already finished cutting.
“We were probably off 15 bushels an acre from last year. Not a bad crop, but nothing to brag about,” he said.
The wet spring and late planting affected Gray’s crop just as it did many other growers in the area. Some, including Gray, even skipped out on growing soybeans all together rather than plant late.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in the October Crop Production report a 14.3% nationwide drop in soybean acres planted from last season and a 7.3% drop in yield. Rice harvested experienced a 15% drop from last season.
While yields may be lower, growers report high qualities in their rice crop. Sample houses look at characteristics such as grain length, aroma and stickiness to determine the quality. Factors such as the amount of rainfall, heat and pests affect the quality of the finished product.
“The early part of the crop, the quality is good,” Gray said. “The middle part of the crop got so dry in the field the moisture content got down to 12%. As that grain sits in the bin, it’ll age and come up.”
“The early part of the crop, the quality is good…The middle part of the crop got so dry in the field the moisture content got down to 12%. As that grain sits in the bin, it’ll age and come up.” – Terry Gray, owner of Thomas Gray Farms
After harvesting the crops, farmers take truckloads of grain to driers so it can be properly stored and milled. Rice comes out of the field at a higher moisture content than it can be stored, so it must first be dried before it can be milled.
Riceland Foods markets agricultural commodities for its 6,000 member-owners in Arkansas and Missouri. The Jonesboro Grain Drier accepts both rice and soybeans from their members.
Freddie Gahr, drier manager, handles rice for the Jonesboro area and the mill.
“There was so much rain this past spring and so many acres that went into preventive planting acres that it really hurt our harvest receipts on rice this year,” Gahr said.
In Jonesboro, growers can take advantage of early sign up. They tell Riceland how many acres they intend to market through them, and they might get a better price than they would during the season.
“We can take those acres and convert them to bushels per acre, and we can determine, on rice, what we are going to get during harvest,” Gahr said. “We take soybeans basically as a service for our members.”
For rice, the Jonesboro mill includes four different processes. The parboil mill precooks and steams rice, and the traditional white rice mill removes the hull and polishes the rice. Rivland, a partnership between Riviana and Riceland, produces rice flour, and the by-products division takes bran, sends it to Riceland headquarters in Stuttgart, and they make rice bran cooking oil.
Riceland offers the farmer a certain price per bushel for their crop, and it takes care of drying the grain and milling it to be consumed by the public. The price they give changes daily, but on Friday, Oct. 11, they offered $5.51 per bushel of rough rice, an OK price.
“The prices could be a lot better,” Grimes said. “They vary depending on where they deliver, and they may have it contracted.”
Low prices mean especially difficult times for farm families. Overhead costs such as insurance, taxes and equipment payments never stop, so a low yield could lead to a financial stress for families who rely on farming.
Stress on a farmer could also contribute to family issues.
“When things aren’t going right, I’m sure my kids don’t think I’m quite as nice a dad,” Gray said. “You try not to take that home with you, but sometimes you just come home and you’re really frustrated.”
Despite tough seasons, low prices and stress, farmers like Gray continue to grow year after year.
He said, “Two famous words that come out of a farmer’s house are ‘next year.’ As a farmer, we love what we do, we love taking care of the soil and land, and we are always wanting to promote our vocation.”
Gray said next season may bring higher prices due to the interruption in the market, and many farmers will start out with land already worked, making it an easy planting season.
JONESBORO – New restaurants provide employment opportunities for job seekers however, many current restaurant employees are bracing for a negative impact often caused when new businesses within the same industry come to town.
JONESBORO – In a fully packed Wesley Hall at the First United Methodist Church in Jonesboro, Dare To Be ministry held its first conference in Jonesboro on Oct. 3. Multi-Dove and Grammy Award winner Natalie Grant and author and Pastor Charlotte Gambil founded the ministry which seeks to empower women of all ages.
Shirts are displayed while on sale during the Dare To Be ministry concert.
Grant performed at the sold-out event and it was the first time for Gambil, who lives and pastors the Life Church in England, United Kingdom, to visit this part of the United States of America.
Gambil, together with Grant, started the ministry to empower women and to help them reach their potential and be whom God has called them to be. They do so through the ministry of music and preaching. “In the eye of the storm, there is calmness,” Gambil said.
Compassion International, a humanitarian organization helping needy children from developing countries, organized the concert. The theme of the event was “Speak to the Storm”.
Gambil gave a story of Eliezer, a 4-year-old Rwandese boy now a grown man in his 20s and a member of her church in England, whose parents and grandparents were slain by rebels during the Rwandan genocide at his watch.
Profile packets of children seeking sponsors are on display during the Dare To Be ministry concert.
Eliezer’s mother asked him to climb a tree and keep silent should the rebels come to attack his family. When rebels finally did, Eliezer climbed the tree and observed as both his parents and grandparents were hacked to death by machetes. He did not say a word and hid on the tree for two days. When he finally came down, he walked to the street; someone saw he was a child walking alone and took him to Compassion International, where Eliezer was adopted.
That story inspired Gambil. Gambil said she saw in her storm; she was able to help someone else in their storm. Gambil’s storm was lack of a child. She struggled with infertility. When she realized the possibility of adopting a child through Compassion, she saw a way to saw a seed for a miracle she was asking God for, so she became a sponsor.
Grant implored the audience during the concert to support Compassion International by contributing $38 a month to sponsor a child. Profiles of children from several countries laid out in a packet on a table at the entrance, which she asked the volunteers to distribute to those who raised their hands.
“If you take a packet, this is a no-pressure deal. We just want to make you aware and invite you to be a part of it, but we don’t want to strong-arm you into it or anything,” Grant said. “So, if you take a packet and you are like, ‘you know what, I just don’t think I can do this right now,’ we just need the packet back. This is why, every packet represents a real-life, so if you accidentally take it home or slip it in your bag and it gets lost, it takes months for that child on the packet to go through the system and get back on the packet, to have an opportunity to get sponsored again,” Grant said.
Volunteers passed packets; some people in the audience wrote checks.
The lead organizer from Compassion International at the Jonesboro Concert, Rachel Knoop 25-years-old, from Minnesota, said, her organization is in partnership with the Dare To Be ministry to help reach out and support less fortunate children in the developing countries.
Rachel said Compassion International was founded in 1952 by Everette Swanson, a preacher who traveled to South Korea to preach the gospel to the Army troops during the war. In his travels, Swanson encountered children orphaned by war and started the organization to raise funds to help the children with a little money every month to survive on.
Rachel said she has worked for the organization for some time.
“We are in 25 countries; recently, I was in Tanzania, Africa. I have also been to the Dominican Republic,” she said.
She said the organization is taking a holistic approach to eradicating poverty, providing clean water, nutrition for kids and their families, education and catering for the health costs.
“Compassion International is releasing children from poverty in Jesus’s name,” she said.
Rachel said the organization works with the local churches to recruit children to the program. Before, they used to hire a local staff member to do the recruiting. She said the local staff knew which children are most vulnerable. Now, it’s open and children can apply directly at compasion.com. She said they must meet critical poverty guideline, which is living on a $1.25 or less per day.
Rachel said they take in children from birth and the sponsors stay with them until they graduate out of the program at ages 18 to 22.
Once a child gets connected to a sponsor, they write each other letters back and forth. They get to know each other.
Sheila Hinson, a volunteer at the organization, handling a table where an array of profiles of children were spread out, said she has sponsored a child for the past 12 years.
Hinson started sponsoring Martha Wanjiru from Kenya when Wanjiru was only 6-years-old. She said when she picked Wanjiru’s packet, she was the only child left on the waiting list who had not found a sponsor. She said every month she spends $38 on Wanjiru and has done so for the past 12 years.
She said Wanjiru talks a lot about education. She said she hopes she can help make her dream come true and is in a place where she hears about Jesus.
Wanjiru is now 18 years old and pursuing a career in nursing. Smiling broadly, Sheila said she was also in the medical field for a long time. She sends her birthday cards and Wanjiru writes to her at least four to five times a year.
Erick Bush, 52, from Memphis, another Compassion International volunteer at the event. Bush said the organization sponsors children from South and Central America, Asia and Africa. He said to sponsor a child you pick out a packet, on the package are a photo of the child, information about the child, the child’s specific needs, their birth date and the community from where the child originates. There is a place for the sponsor to include their name and their credit card numbers. He says anyone interested can go online on Compassion.com, fill out their information and become a sponsor.
Bush is sponsoring two children from Ecuador. This is his eighth year since he started sponsoring them and plans to continue until they are out of the program. Bush sponsors the children providing food, shelter and medical services. He said he is sponsoring the children as an overflow of gratitude to Jesus Christ for the grace. When he is not volunteering for compassion International, he runs a restaurant in Memphis.
Knoop said a graduate of the program, Jonathan Almonte, ran for a political office in the Dominican Republic. Almonte is also a founder of a ministry that provides leadership training to local churches in the Dominican Republic.
Faith Benson from Nashville, Tennessee, the merchandise manager for “Dare To Be” oversaw the sales team selling branded T-shirts, jackets that read, ‘Peace is Power,’ necklaces that read, ‘Faith over Fear’ and devotional books authored by Gambil and Grant.
Benson said every night in the course of the tour, they have an honoree moment, where women at the previous event give offerings which they use to bless a woman at the next concert. Volunteers passed baskets around in the concert hall and people made their offerings.
The Jonesboro event honored Tiffney Turner, a breast cancer survivor who has recovered from drug problems and is helping men and women who have drug problems beat the addiction through her ‘Breaking Bonds’ Ministry, was the Honoree. She received flowers, a black handbag made by women fighting addiction, and a two-day paid vacation at a hotel so she could celebrate her wedding anniversary, which fell on that same day and a 15-seater van to help transport the men and women in her ministry.
Gambil closed the event with a call on the audience to come forward and receive Christ Jesus, as Grant led the audience in a chorus of the song: ‘Whom you say I am,’ by Hillsong Worship.
The duo, together with their crew, headed to Dallas, Texas, for their “Dare To Be” performance the following day and after that to San Antonio, Texas.
MARION – New arrangements have been made for the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas.
The museum tells the story of an explosion of the steamboat, the Sultana, that occurred April 27, 1865. During the Civil War era, the boat was designed to carry only 376 passengers plus crew. Investigations revealed a great deal of corrupt practices, including bribes paid to high-ranking Union officers causing overcrowding on the vessel. Three of the boat’s four boilers killed nearly 1,200 of the more than 2,100 passengers and crew.
A 14-foot replica of the Sultana is available for viewing at the current museum site at 104 Washington St. in Marion. Photo by Crystal Carter Harrell
Project director Louis Intres said the new museum will be located on Old Military Road in the old Marion gymnasium, two blocks from the current site at 104 Washington St.
“It will be remodeled and repurposed into a 14,500 sq. foot state-of-the-art museum and archive and replace the existing 1,000 sq. foot museum,” Intres said.
The Sultana Historic Preservation Society Inc. purchased the 1938 Marion School Auditorium-Gymnasium as a future home for the Sultana Disaster Museum. The building provides higher ceilings, LED lighting, space for additional artifacts and precise temperature and humidity control.
“Architects working on the design will make the museum interactive and modern, which will entertain as well as educate people of all ages,” Intres said.
Three years ago, the museum confirmed the location of the Sultana. It sits 37 feet below a soybean field in Crittenden County. They are currently working with state agencies to develop a monument.
“Want to hear something interesting? I work for a farmer in Marion in the fall. The Sultana sunk on his great grandfather’s land,” museum visitor Tony Sasser of Marion said.
Jere Norville, far left, museum guide, explains the casualties of the Sultana disaster to Gracie Ford, left, Eli Ford , center, and May Sasser, right. Photo by Crystal Carter Harrell
Jere Norville, doctorate candidate at the University of Memphis, gives tours of the current Sultana Disaster Museum on Fridays.
“Now, we’re just fundraising to build the new museum. Hopefully within two years, there will be a permanent home in the new location,” Norville said.
Stories will be told of the men who were freed from Andersonville and Cahaba prisoner of war camps and how they were overcrowded onto one boat. The Congressional Resolution acknowledges the incident as the greatest maritime disaster in U.S. History.
The new museum will demonstrate the conditions which caused the boiler explosions, show the workings of the steamboat propulsion and allow the display of fragile materials.
“We are really thankful and appreciative of Marion Public Schools for allowing us to take over the old building,” Intres said.
Editor’s Note: Feature photo shows Tony Sasser of Marion viewing artifacts and clippings of the Sultana maritime tragedy. Photo by Crystal Carter Harrell.
Delta Digital News Service 