Arkansas Times | March 2026

Former inmates bristle at behind-bars book ban

BY ELIZABETH L. CLINE AND ARIELLE ROBINSON

DIAMOND CHEF

UA - Pulaski Technical College Foundation ARKANSAS

Committee Chairs

Witt & Emily Stephens

This event, made possible by our generous sponsors, funds: student scholarships, culinary school equipment and supplies, student-focused success initiatives and facility improvements. Thursday, April 16, 2026

MARCH 2026

‘GAS LINE’: Ron Kleemann’s 1979 screenprint appears in “A Month of Sundays: Art and the Persistence of Time,” the latest exhibition at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.

FEATURE

28 SHELF AWARENESS

As a proposed book ban threatens to further limit reading options for Arkansas prisoners, formerly incarcerated people talk about the books that saw them through their sentences, and beyond.

By Elizabeth L. Cline and Arielle Robinson

9 THE FRONT

Q&A: With nonagenarian peace activist Caroline Stevenson. First Person: Political scholar Jay Barth ponders the perils of Arkansas-centrism. Big Pic: Gestating ideas for a “Monument to the Unborn.”

15 THE TO-DO LIST

Jason Isbell at Robinson Center, Pallbearer at White Water Tavern, “Love Jones” at the Arkansas Times Film Series, Valley of the Vapors in Hot Springs and more.

22 NEWS & POLITICS

Two years before the Little Rock Nine set foot inside Central High School, the town of Hoxie integrated its classrooms. By Arielle

Robinson

58 CULTURE

The 2025 Oscar darling “Sinners” brims with saucy, bluesy references to Arkansas. By Elizabeth L. Cline

62 FOOD & DRINK

A menu switcheroo at Three Fold has people talking. Owner Lisa Zhang is sticking to her guns. By Benjamin Hardy

66

THE OBSERVER

Kablooie Decimal System.

ON THE COVER: Korelli Loyalty Woods poses with “Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude” by Napoleon Hill, a book that motivated him while incarcerated. Photo by Brian Chilson.

VETERAN: Beverly Foster, seen through the eyes of photographer Matt White, has been tending bar at The Forge in North Little Rock for 28 years.

PUBLISHER Alan Leveritt

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Austin Gelder

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mandy Keener

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PHOTOGRAPHER Brian Chilson

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‘PEOPLE JUST WANTED TO KEEP GOING’

A Q&A WITH ORGANIZER CAROLINE STEVENSON.

In February 2025, amid a postinauguration flurry of scorched-earth budget annihilations by Elon Musk and Co., text messages began flying between a group of senior citizens in Little Rock. Frustrated at the wall of silence from their elected representatives — Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill, along with U.S. Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton — who refused to show up for a public forum, the constituents became, in Caroline Stevenson’s words, “desperate.” So, on the afternoon of Feb. 27, around 90 people turned up outside Hill’s office in the Prospect Building on North University Avenue, waving signs with slogans like “Support & Respect Federal Workers,” “Truth Matters” and “French Hill Town Hall??? When?”

Ninety-year-old Stevenson — an El Paso, Texas, native whose family moved to Fayetteville when her father was deployed in World War II — led the mannerly brigade. One year later, on Feb. 26, Stevenson and her fellow dissenters celebrated a full year of consecutive Thursday protests, which have continued at the corner of Markham Street and University every week — rain, sleet, heat or snow.

What’s it been like to show up for protests every week for an entire year?

The hardest part was the summer. In June or July, we also went to two a day, so we had people coming in the morning around 8:30, 9:30 or so, and that was manageable. Where we were standing at the time, we were facing west, and so the afternoon sun at 95 degrees was really hard. Those were by the Prospect Building. … We started with the one day that we were gonna go to French Hill’s office. It turned out there were a whole bunch of us, 90 people, and the security people came and asked us to move over to the sidewalk over on University there. We decided we would try it another week. After the first one or two times, we’ve always gotten permits from the city.

You initially set out with a goal, as a recent email among organizers put it, “to draw attention to Congressman French Hill and his unwillingness or inability to stand up for Democracy.” What moved this from talking to action? I just actually sent a text message to about 20 or 30 people I knew. It seemed then that the tearing apart of democracy by Elon Musk

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK YOU'VE READ LATELY? “The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory” by Tim Alberta.

WHO’S YOUR HERO? Whoever works for peace and justice in their own, unique way.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE JUNK FOOD? Peppermint patties.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE IN LITTLE ROCK? Allsopp Park.

had begun. He had DOGE, which cost a lot of people their jobs, cost us a lot of money and heartache. It began even before the election, when Project 2025 was being promoted. I think a lot of us were just feeling desperate. ... Sherry Simon, who leads Pax Christi, she and I have been friends and have done other stuff together. She had a lot of people from the Catholic community, the Pax Christi community, and word got around. And we started to go every Thursday. We didn’t set out to do it for a year at all. People just wanted to keep going.

What are you hearing from people who drive by? We don’t encourage people to stop to talk to us because it’s dangerous. When you’re coming up Markham going

east, there’s a little pull-in there where you’re waiting to turn right, and people will talk to us there. But mostly it’s honking and waving, and people will yell, “Thank you!” We talk all the time about this dopamine rush that you get when people respond. It makes you feel good. I think protest should feel good, if possible.

You are 90 years old, and you’ve seen a lot of political waves come and go, more than most of us have. The other day, we were talking about when Franklin Roosevelt died, and I remember that night so well. We were living in Fayetteville, and a friend of mine and I had gotten a hold of some newspapers, and we were running around saying, “Read all about it!” We were very excited to be experiencing that momentous occasion, even though it was very sad. There’s energy around that for a kid, I think.

And I have the sense that a lot of older people have — that this hasn’t always been the political scene. It was always the United States reaching out to the rest of the world. I remember being very proud of what we were doing.

What are your hopes or goals for the next year of protest? Our goal, originally, was simply to get French Hill to an open forum. We just wanted to have him come and explain his position, and listen to us. And, of course, we were not successful in that. Do you remember the town hall meeting that was put together at [First United Methodist Church]? That was when Hallie Shoffner first spoke about being a sixth-generation Arkansas farmer, and that’s really what propelled her to run for office.

But we’re not going away. We’re going to be a presence. Because of our age, I guess you could say, we want our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to have the benefits we had growing up, to have a sense of hope that the United States can continue to be a beacon of hope to the rest of the world. It’s lofty, but we have a lot of experience. A lot of us were involved with Women’s Action for New Directions — it was called WAND — and what we were concerned with at the time was the proliferation of nuclear weapons. There’s always going to be conflict. There are always going to be things people need to stand up to. And this is our time to stand up against tyranny.

—Stephanie Smittle

THE WALL GOES BACK UP

ARKANSAS EMBRACES DEFIANT ISOLATION.

BY JAY BARTH

As late as the 1970s when I was learning Arkansas history in middle school, it was commonly taught that Arkansas was the only state that could survive if a wall were built around it to prevent anything from coming in. From agricultural goods to lumber for homes and furniture to ores like bauxite for appliances, Arkansas had it all. Provincialism — that sense that Arkansans have limited use for the world beyond its borders — had been a defining characteristic of the state’s politics and society since territorial days when Territorial Governor John Pope characterized Arkansans as holding “a terrified truculence toward new ideas from outside.” One of the most important alterations across my lifetime has been a growing acceptance that there is more good than ill that accompanies Arkansas’s interaction with the rest of the nation and world. This winter, however, has been dominated by negative headlines, each representing another brick in the wall of an Arkansas where provincialism is having a decided comeback.

First, and most personally painful, is the decision in December by the state commission governing Arkansas’s public television offerings to end its contract with the federal Public Broadcasting Service, disconnecting Arkansas viewers from numerous superb programs. While the separation from PBS will not be cemented until the middle of this year, the rebranding of the network as ArkansasTV is already underway.

What would later become Arkansas PBS went on the air as KETS the same year as I was born and, as the programming expanded, “Channel 2” became a crucial reinforcement to my traditional education while also helping me learn about people and places beyond Arkansas. As an only child living in a nearly totally white world, I had most of my daily interaction with persons of color through shows such as “Sesame Street,” “The Electric Company” and “Zoom.” While its children’s programming is simply the best, PBS programming for adults serves as one of the most potent, free continuing education opportunities available in a state that remains 48th in college completion rates.

Explaining the shift as being about the financial future of public television in Arkansas, ArkansasTV CEO Carlton Wing emphasized in a speech to a Little Rock Rotary Club last month that locally produced programming would replace shows that

viewers have become accustomed to across the decades. The examples Wing emphasized would be produced by Arkansas entities with a focus on Arkansas topics. Arkansas PBS has aired award-winning local programs for decades, and the examples that Wing envisions sound like nice additions to them, but what Arkansas’s kids and adults need to balance this Arkansas-centrism are programs that will open their eyes to a nation and world beyond Arkansas.

PROVINCIALISM — THAT SENSE THAT ARKANSANS HAVE LIMITED USE FOR THE WORLD BEYOND ITS BORDERS — IS MAKING A COMEBACK.

The demise of Arkansas PBS was announced just a few weeks before the University of Arkansas School of Law announced the completion of its thorough search for a new leader. Within hours, however, the flagship campus of the university announced it was backtracking on the offer of the deanship to University of South Carolina faculty member Emily Suski. The school explained that “key external stakeholders” had expressed concerns about Suski’s appropriateness for the job. It quickly came to light that those stakeholders were legislative leaders who reminded the university of their control over the school’s budget, and their concerns focused on a carefully nuanced amicus brief signed onto by Suski in a case before the United States Supreme Court involving state laws barring transgender girls from participating in athletic events. The move showed a deep disrespect for academic freedom and the new ideas it brings with it, as the law school students who protested the school’s withdrawal of Suski’s offer made clear. Just as importantly, the intense national coverage

the firing received in academic circles will prevent many prospective job candidates in varied fields from considering academic positions in Arkansas, to the detriment of the state and its students.

Finally, while it remains on hold at the moment, the Arkansas Board of Corrections voted in December to bar commercial entities from delivering printed books and periodicals to those incarcerated in the state’s prisons, creating the strictest policy in the nation regarding access to publications. The policy sounds logical as a means to prevent contraband (particularly synthetic drugs) from getting into prisons, but it understates the importance of creating opportunities for personal growth that come through outside ideas and remaining connected with the outside world. That growth is vital for successful reentry when prisoners are released. Anyone who has toured an Arkansas prison facility knows about the restricted offerings in prison libraries and, while many incarcerated individuals have access to electronic tablets with reading materials, these tablets must be rented and also have severely limited offerings. The rule change promises to further separate the most isolated Arkansans from outside ideas.

Arkansans have been made better economically, intellectually and socially by letting go of the “terrified truculence” toward outsiders in recent decades. Sadly, as we’ve experienced this sad winter, all signs are that many similar seasons of defiant isolation are in our state’s future.

Jay Barth is a native Arkansan, longtime professor of politics at Hendrix College, and expert on the politics of Arkansas and the South.

JOIN US FOR TASTE OF LITTLE ROCK

We are honoring Tom Brannon for his longtime support to UA Little Rock while sampling exquisite dishes from premier Little Rock restaurants.

Proceeds from Taste of Little Rock support student scholarships, so secure your spot for a memorable evening of culinary exploration and making a difference!

Tuesday, April 7 • 6-8 p.m.

Jack Stephens Center

For tickets or more information call 501-916-3208 or scan the QR code

ABORTION RIGHTS, IN MEMORIAM

ARKANSAS POLITICIANS WANT A ‘MONUMENT TO THE UNBORN’ ON THE CAPITOL LAWN. Y’ALL HAD SOME PRETTY GREAT IDEAS ABOUT WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE.

BY ARKANSAS TIMES STAFF

A renewed effort to erect a memorial to Arkansans’ bodily autonomy on the state Capitol grounds is underway. Fundraising efforts for the first iteration of the “Monument to the Unborn” — a million-dollar living wall of plants — failed to thrive, sending the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission to solicit another slate of ideas.

State lawmakers greenlit the project in 2023, the year after abortion rights that had been in place for five decades fell victim to a rightwardly lurching judiciary. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision tossing the issue back to the states spelled doom for Arkansans in need or want of abortion care; a conservative Republican supermajority Legislature made sure of it.

Of course, Arkansans have and will continue to travel out of state or order abortion pills by mail to secure reproductive care despite the state’s near-total ban. Nanny nanny boo boo! But the Capitol lawn is already home to three Civil War monuments to the Confederacy. What’s one more lost cause?

Thank you to the Arkansas Times readers who shared your interesting visions, sketched out here by local artist Layet Johnson.

The most practical monument to the unborn concept would be this option, a vending machine that dispenses condoms, morning-after pills and birth control. Arkansas’s longstanding fidelity to abstinence-only sex education hasn’t panned out well at all. Sex education and access to birth control is what we need if we have any hope of knocking Arkansas from its perch at the tippy top when it comes to unwanted teen pregnancies.

The Venus of Willendorf has served as a symbol of fecundity through time. This supersized, Americanized version is ripe to Make America Great Again.

Ranking at the bottom when it comes to child hunger, infant mortality and accidental gun deaths, Arkansas children are more likely than those in the rest of the country to suffer from preventable maladies and avoidable dangers. Do they get a monument? No, they do not. We only have eyes for fetuses around here.

Is your life worth more than a cell cluster? This monument poses the question in a provocative way.

This giant inflatable demonstrates just how unhumanlike fetuses look in the first trimester. The dramatic deflation when the umbilical cord is unplugged from a power source each evening might be triggering for the pro-life set. Still, this is a great option for when the political tides inevitably turn back toward the humane and we can stuff the freaky thing into an attic somewhere.

Saturday, March 28

LET THE FEAST BEGIN!

PALLBEARER

FRIDAY 3/27. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 7 P.M. $25.

Remember the early 2010s? Life was pretty simple then. Before Trump, before the COVID-19 pandemic and before artificial intelligence overtook the internet. Those innocent days are long gone, but the White Water Tavern is giving you a chance to forget the inevitable passage of time for a night and transport yourself back to 12 years ago with Pallbearer. In late March, the elder sages of the Little Rock metal scene will cram themselves onto the small stage and perform in its entirety their landmark 2014 sophomore album “Foundations of Burden,” which they remastered and re-released in 2025. The new mix sounds monumental and will surely be an even more bone-crushing experience live in the intimate environs of our city’s most beloved dive bar. Pallbearer will be joined by fellow Little Rock scene veterans Terminal Nation and R.I.O.T.S. Get tickets at whitewatertavern.com. MS

ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES:

‘LOVE JONES’

TUESDAY 3/17. RIVERDALE 10 VIP CINEMA. 7 P.M. $12-$14.

One of the most enduring cinematic questions of the past three decades is why Theodore Witcher has only one director’s credit. The creative engine behind the beloved 1997 romantic drama “Love Jones,” Witcher used his sole directorial opportunity to explore the uncertain love story of two middle-class Black artists in Chicago — or, as Roger Ebert put it, “a world more unfamiliar to moviegoers than the far side of the moon.” Darius Lovehall (Larenz Tate) is a poet working on his first novel; Nina Mosley (Nia Long) is a photographer looking to break into the industry. The meet-cute takes place at a nightclub on poetry night. After some fits and starts, Darius is able to convince the recently un-engaged Nina to go out with him. The two hit it off, but neither is great at communication. Things are further complicated when Nina’s ex returns and entices her with the promise of living out her dream as a photographer in New York. Dreamy and messy, “Love Jones” is an ode to the importance of timing. It doesn’t answer the question of the existence of soulmates, instead emphasizing the importance of the right now. Get tickets at riverdale10.com. OJ

LILY SEABIRD, HEMLOCK

SUNDAY 3/15. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 6 P.M. $15.

Singer-songwriter Lily Seabird is coming a long way to grace Little Rock. Hailing from Burlington, Vermont — the town that birthed Phish, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Bernie Sanders’ political career — Seabird will make her Arkansas debut March 15. A disciple of Leonard Cohen and a frequent collaborator of fellow up-and-coming Burlington musician Greg Freeman, Seabird is coming off a hot 2025, which saw the release of her third album, “Trash Mountain,” and an interview with Rolling Stone, which called the record an “exquisitely bittersweet alt-country song cycle about love, loss, and friendship.”

Supporting Seabird is hemlock, a project started in 2018 by multidisciplinary artist Carolina Chauffe. Chauffe describes hemlock as “doggedly DIY, swamp-raised, phone-fi alt-folk,” and has self-released hundreds of songs and toured extensively under the moniker. Get tickets at whitewatertavern.com. MS

JASON ISBELL

THURSDAY 3/26. ROBINSON CENTER. 8 P.M. $94 AND UP.

There is a (perhaps apocryphal) story in Arkansas music circles that says Jason Isbell, then still a member of The Drive-By Truckers, wrote the lyrics to “Goddamn Lonely Love” late one night while sitting by the Arkansas River. True or not, it’s a painfully beautiful song written at a time when Isbell was in the depths of addiction and depression. The Isbell who wrote that song bears only passing resemblance to the much happier, sober one who will be on stage at Robinson Center in Little Rock on March 26. His songwriting, however, remains just as good as ever, and his current solo acoustic tour is offering fans a greatest hits rundown night in and night out. Setlists for recent shows on the tour include older emotional gut punches like “Songs That She Sang in the Shower,” “Elephant” and “Outfit,” along with some of his more recent (but still heartrending) tunes such as “Dreamsicle” and “King of Oklahoma.” Throw in an occasional John Prine or Todd Snider cover, both of which have popped up multiple times on the tour, and these solo shows are basically a crash course in everything that makes Isbell one of the best singer-songwriters working today. Get tickets at ticketmaster.com. MC

‘CHASING AMY’

SUNDAY 3/15. BIRDIE’S CABARET

THEATER & LOUNGE, NORTH LITTLE ROCK. 3 P.M. $10.

In one of the most memorable scenes in Kevin Smith’s 1997 romantic dramedy “Chasing Amy,” Alyssa Jones, played by North Little Rock native Joey Lauren Adams, performs the catchy love song “Alive” from start to finish in a crowded New York City gay bar. Ben Affleck’s character, Holden, cheesily dances along. When she belts out, “I want to feel passion, I want to feel pain / I want to weep at the sound of your name,” he thinks she’s singing to him, even though they’d only met the night before. But as soon as the song — which Adams wrote for the film — ends, Alyssa and a woman from the crowd kiss passionately. Holden’s ego is wounded when he realizes the beautiful object of his affection is gay. But the two comic book artists become close friends, and Holden convinces himself that confessing his love will inspire Alyssa to rethink her sexual identity. (A substitute teacher at Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School told my 11th-grade 1998 English class that he became a screenwriter because of that confession scene.) Holden’s eye-roll moments feel more ignorant now than they did in the ’90s, but one thing remains steady after nearly 30 years: Joey Lauren Adams steals the show. Relatively unknown at the time, she played the free-spirited author of the comic book “Idiosyncratic Routine” with remarkable depth. She’s also incredibly funny in a bar scene inspired by “Jaws” where she and actor Jason Lee compare scars. The film screens at Birdie’s in North Little Rock alongside a presentation and Q&A with Adams herself — a can’t-miss for cinema fans. Get tickets at birdiescabaret.com. RB

VALLEY OF THE VAPORS INDEPENDENT MUSIC FESTIVAL

FRIDAY 3/13-SUNDAY 3/15. WHITTINGTON PLACE, HOT SPRINGS. $20 PER DAY; $40 FOR WEEKEND PASS.

Valley of the Vapors, the long-running independent music festival presented by arts nonprofit Low Key Arts, is like nothing else in Arkansas. Thanks to the tried-and-true strategy of snagging bands on their way to and from the concurrent South by Southwest in Austin, the DIY fest’s expertly curated lineup typically spans multiple countries, continents and genres, and this year is no different. The 2026 roster includes the speedy pop rock stylings of Cootie Catcher (Toronto); the mellow, improvisational ballads of Diles Que No Me Maten (Mexico City, pictured above); the tunefully hazy shoegaze of Lucid Express (Hong Kong); the experimental soundscapes of Brainwasher (Oklahoma City), a project from Flaming Lips members Matthew Duckworth Kersey and Tommy McKenzie; and much more. The bulk of this year’s Valley of the Vapors — the fest’s 22nd go-round — will happen at Whittington Place, a cathedral-turned-venue in downtown Hot Springs, but be on the lookout for the announcement of one-off secret shows with offbeat locations that will remain undisclosed until just hours beforehand. Get tickets at valleyofthevapors.com. DG

‘A

MONTH OF SUNDAYS: ART AND THE PERSISTENCE OF TIME’

THROUGH SUNDAY 9/6. ARKANSAS MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. FREE.

What’s more universal than the passage of time? No matter who you are, what you know or where you come from, the inescapable ticking clock binds all people. Organized by Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts curator Jennifer Jankauskas, “A Month of Sundays: Art and the Persistence of Time” presents the work of nearly 50 modern and contemporary artists across the mediums of craft, video, painting, drawing and sculpture to dissect the delights, horrors and eccentricities of temporality. Pieces by George Segal, William Christenberry, Leandro Katz, Richard Yarde, Ivan Albright, Ron Kleemann, Bruce Comer, Mimi Smith, William Ferris, George Nakashima and more will be featured in the traveling exhibit, which runs from Feb. 19-Sept. 6 at AMFA before heading to galleries in Nashville and Memphis. Note: If you stop by from March 19-28, you’ll be treated to a live stunt by performance artist Tim Youd, who’ll be audaciously retyping Arkansas writer Charles Portis’ “True Grit” in its entirety as part of his “100 Novels Project.” DG

WISH ME LUCK FORTUNE FEST

SATURDAY 3/14. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 8 P.M. $15.

Fortune Fest, the first-ever mini festival from local music management agency Wish Me Luck, is taking over the White Water Tavern on March 14. Established in April 2025, Wish Me Luck provides freelance management services to a growing bill of Arkansas musicians all over the genre spectrum and is ready to showcase the talent they’ve been cultivating over the past year. Whether it be the acoustic stylings of North Little Rock singer-songwriter Richard Michael Hall; the pointed lyrics of Fayetteville’s Avery Lee & The Sweeties, who share a frontperson with The Phlegms; the tight indie rock of READER, also hailing from Fayetteville; or the pop-punk-inspired arrangements of Little Rock’s HouseTreeHouse, there’s likely something for everybody in the Fortune Fest lineup. Local art will also be on display. That’s a lot of Arkansas music and art for only $15. Get tickets at whitewatertavern. com. MS

‘HOW (AND WHY) TO CREATE A BIOGRAPHICAL COMIC’

MONDAY 3/2. DEE BROWN LIBRARY. 6 P.M. FREE.

Henderson State University professor emeritus Randy Duncan takes cartoons seriously. In fact, as part of the small but mighty contingent of scholars working to elevate the status of comics and graphic novels to their rightful place as capital-L Literature, he’s co-authored and co-edited several textbooks on the subject. Now, in partnership with local artist Layet Johnson, whose buoyant illustrations can be found on countless surfaces across Little Rock (including the Arkansas Times; head to Page 12 for proof), Duncan is bringing his knowledge to the public. Join Duncan and Johnson for a free all-ages workshop in which attendees will walk away with their very own one-page comic — as well as the theoretical context to better understand why it matters. Participants are instructed to “bring a friend or family member to interview” — make of that what you will. Find more information at events.cals.org. DG

CALS SPRING SPEAKER SERIES

Betsey Wright Distinguished Lecture

Thursday, March 26 | 6:00 PM

CALS Ron Robinson Theater 100 River Market Avenue

Register at cals.org

S T. PA T R I C K ’ S DAY PA R A D E

HONORING HOXIE

A NEW MUSEUM MARKS A NEARLY FORGOTTEN CHAPTER OF SCHOOL INTEGRATION IN ARKANSAS THAT PREDATED THE LITTLE ROCK NINE.

BY ARIELLE ROBINSON

It’s not a competition to her, but Ethel Tompkins wants the world to know that in Arkansas, Hoxie integrated their classrooms first.

“It’s getting better, but up until a few years ago, if you ask about integration in Arkansas, the first thing that comes up is the Little Rock Nine. However, we integrated two years before they did, but we didn’t have as much publicity … so we kind of got lost in history,” Tompkins said. Tompkins, who returned to her small, northeastern Arkansas hometown in the 1990s after living in Southern California for years, serves as a living history of a little-known school desegregation crisis. Now, her story is immortalized in the Hoxie: The First Stand Museum, which opened its doors for the first time in February. Tompkins was one of 21 Black students who integrated the Hoxie School District in July of 1955, two years before the more famous and widely publicized Little Rock Central High School crisis about two hours away. She was the first Black person to graduate from Hoxie High School, in 1961.

Hoxie’s school board, made up of all white men at the time, voluntarily decided to inte-

grate the schools. Black families in Hoxie did not have to push for integration like in other parts of the South, Tompkins said.

Locals quote the Hoxie schools superintendent at the time, Kunkel Edward Vance, as saying one of the main reasons for integrating schools was because it was “right in the sight of God.”

Integrating schools also saved the city money and complied with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ruled that segregating schools based on race is unconstitutional.

Today, Hoxie locals say that integration was a relatively peaceful process until a Life magazine feature on its success was published in late July 1955, drawing the ire of white supremacists who descended upon the city to try to stop the progress being made.

A legal battle that made its way up to United States Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr.’s office affirmed the Hoxie school board’s decision to integrate, which helped crush white supremacist resistance.

Hoxie’s new 2,736-square-foot museum is in a brick building that was once a masonic lodge, along Southwest Lawrence Street next

to the police department. Off in the distance, one can hear a train wail in the background every once in a while as it chugs through the city.

Inside the Ethel Tompkins Exhibit Hall, artifacts on display include a diorama of Hoxie’s former school for Black children, maps, old black-and-white photographs and newspaper clippings telling the story of Hoxie itself, along with the school desegregation crisis.

Frances Green, a 1959 graduate of Hoxie High School, dedicated the museum space to Tompkins. Green recalled a story Tompkins told from when she was a little girl in the late 1940s. Tompkins tried to drink from a water fountain, but her father pulled her away. Not yet understanding that Jim Crow laws barred her from drinking out of that one, Tompkins asked her father, “Well, why can’t I?”

Green said that the barriers Tompkins faced as a Black woman never stopped her from achieving what she wanted to. After serving in the U.S. Navy and working in the computer science field in California, Tompkins returned to Hoxie and worked in the Lawrence County Library.

“Did you know that even 50 years after those Jim Crow times, in the 1990s and early 2000s, occasionally, a library client would refuse to be assisted by a Black woman?” Green said.

“Around 1992, ’93, I started checking to see what information I could find on school integrations, just things in history,” Tompkins said.

Knowing she was the first Black person to graduate from Hoxie High School, Tompkins’ curiosity guided her to look into the school integration process in her hometown, but she struggled to find much information about it.

“I couldn’t find anything,” she said. “I didn’t find any books, I didn’t find any major articles.”

Over the years, she was able to find bits and fragments of information and combine them with her personal experiences to piece more of the story together.

Tompkins said she was encouraged to start a nonprofit to qualify for grants to research and promote knowledge of Hoxie’s school integration.

“IT’S REALLY HARD TO CONVINCE PEOPLE THAT HISTORY

Still, Green said, Tompkins continued undaunted and promoted Black History Month programs during her 20 years working in the library as a research librarian, which led her to further explore the story of Hoxie’s school integration.

The ribbon-cutting and grand opening are just the beginning, Green said. Plans call for interactive digital technology to bring “an immersive, multisensory experience” to visitors.

The idea for the new museum began solidifying in 2017, when Tompkins founded the nonprofit bearing the same name as the museum. Tompkins serves as its president.

But her interest in sharing the city’s story goes back much further and stems from a general love of African American history.

Many of the items on permanent display in the museum have traveled with Tompkins across the state, to the Arkansas State Capitol and other places she’s gone to share Hoxie’s school integration story.

She said that not many around today know of the Hoxie school integration story, and people must keep talking about it.

“Hopefully I will be around a few more years, because I have constantly told people that I’m going to live to 120 just to annoy you,” Tompkins said. “We have to keep talking, we have to keep presenting. It’s really hard to convince people that history was made in a small town like Hoxie.”

The city’s geography is one impediment to convincing people that Hoxie is significant in the history of school integration.

A tiny, rural town in northeastern Arkansas, born at the crossroads of train tracks that ran north to St. Louis and east to Memphis, Hoxie is just south of Walnut Ridge in Lawrence County. Walnut Ridge is the county seat. Hoxie’s current population is around 3,000.

Tompkins told the Arkansas Times that while growing up, Black and white people in Hoxie both picked cotton for money.

“If there was somebody else that needed somebody to come pick cotton, it didn’t make

CHILDREN SHALL LEAD: Photos from the era of school integration in Hoxie show peaceful scenes and new friendships. A 1955 spread in Life magazine (middle image) riled white supremacists, who came to town to make a ruckus. Regardless, the integrated glee club sang on (bottom image).

any difference whether you were Black or white. We were all out there in the fields, in the hot sun together,” Tompkins said.

Much like other schools for Black children throughout the South, Hoxie’s school was in poor physical shape and was under-resourced, especially when compared to the schools for white children.

Tompkins remembers attending Hoxie’s school for Black kids. It was a white, one-room schoolhouse where one teacher taught nearly 30 children of various ages. The high-school-aged children were bused to a Black school in Jonesboro, Booker T. Washington High School.

The Black school in Hoxie was rundown, with no indoor facilities of any kind and outdated textbooks that were at least a decade old when Tompkins was a student. Tompkins said her teacher, whom she spoke of fondly, lived in Little Rock and would take a train up to Hoxie on the weekends to teach throughout the weekdays, staying the nights with Hoxie families.

Lawrence County was a very poor place at the time, Tompkins said, and the school board could not afford to keep the Black school open, nor could it pay to keep busing Black kids out to Jonesboro. The economic crunch influenced the decision to integrate.

Going to Hoxie’s white school, Tompkins found herself in a much roomier two-story building with about 1,000 white students.

Tompkins said her experience was fine, but she understands how it may have been traumatizing for the other Black students who had to transition to a much larger school with hundreds of new, white faces.

Those students all have different experiences and stories to tell, and Tompkins wants all perspectives to be shared and displayed, not just hers. She has been trying to convince other students from that era to share their experiences.

Tompkins said that by around 1958 or 1959, she was about the only Black student left in Hoxie High School.

“Most of them [the Black kids] ended up moving away,” Tompkins said. “Their parents moved away because the work situation, as years went on, got to the point where in order to support the families, the dads had to go to different cities, different states to find work, so a

lot of the kids ended up moving away.”

Tompkins thinks she had an advantage when it came to integration because the house her father rented was in an area where they were the only Black family for several blocks.

“Hoxie was not segregated or divided like in a lot of cities, you didn’t have a Black neighborhood or a white neighborhood, it was divided as to how much could you pay for rent to rent a house or buy a house, that was the dividing thing,” she said.

The fact that everyone was struggling to make a living lessened the impact of Jim Crow, she said.

“The white kids there, because they were struggling to make a living, [my] dad was struggling to make a living, most of them didn’t care about the skin color or anything,” she said.

Tompkins said she and white kids would play together and white parents would even invite her over for sleepovers and birthday parties.

“That gave me also a little advantage, too, when it came to the integration, because the other Black families … were not as closely associated with the whites in the neighborhood as we were,” she said.

School photos of Tompkins, as well as her high school diploma, are on display at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in downtown Little Rock has a copy of the 1955 Life magazine article that shared Hoxie’s integration story with a national audience.

“We’re here. We did something,” Tompkins told visitors at the museum’s opening. “And so my goal in life is to make sure that the word is out. I will not let it be buried, I will not let it go to the wayside. As long as I am able to get around — I’ll probably [have] a wheelchair and I’ll get somebody to push me around — but as long as I can talk, I’m going to tell the story of the Hoxie school integration, and I hope that the people that are here, every one of you that’s here, at some point in time, you will pass the story along back in your communities.”

Hoxie: The First Stand Museum is at 602 SW Lawrence St. in Hoxie. It is open every Thursday from 1-4 p.m. and on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is free.

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WHAT WE READ BEHIND BARS

AS ARKANSAS WEIGHS A PRISON BOOK BAN, FORMERLY INCARCERATED READERS SHARE HOW BOOKS RESHAPED THEIR LIVES.

Brotha Knowledge read constantly while in the Arkansas state prisons. Over his nearly three decades behind bars, he read nearly 3,000 books and built a personal library, stacking them in his cell until it was more like a study than a cage. As rules tightened and prison officials limited how many titles he could keep, he lent his books to other men in his cellblock, donated them to the prison library or mailed them home to make room for his next read.

When the other inmates gave him the nickname Brotha Knowledge, he pushed back at first. “How could I live up to that?” he remembers thinking. But the name stuck. Today, Brotha Knowledge is a free man, and he says that reading constantly while imprisoned helped him rebuild his life.

Now, Arkansas is considering the strictest book ban in the country, which would forbid all outside books, magazines and newspapers from being sent directly to incarcerated people in Arkansas prisons. An initial attempt to put the new policy in place without public input or a vote from state lawmakers proved unworkable, and the ban is on hold, pending approval from the Arkansas Legislature. The proposal has sparked attention from national media, including an article in The Washington Post, and a petition and letter-writing campaign by local prison justice organizations that hope the longer timeline is enough to halt the ban.

The Arkansas Department of Corrections says

a book ban is critical to stop the flow into prison units of dangerous contraband, namely K2, a highly addictive synthetic cannabinoid that can be sprayed onto paper and smuggled in. Prison justice advocates say only a small amount of drugs enter via mail, and the majority is brought in by guards or tossed over prison walls. They point to failed efforts like those in Pennsylvania, where mail was digitized in 2018 to crack down on drugs, only to have substance use inside prisons continue to increase.

Kaleem Nazeem, a co-director of the Arkansas prison reform advocacy group DecARcerate, said that without productive outlets like reading, inmates may turn to more dangerous means of mental escape. “You’re creating a problem by trying to solve a problem,” he said.

To understand what a prison book ban would mean, the Arkansas Times spoke with formerly incarcerated Arkansans and the family member of a currently incarcerated person. Their stories trace how books helped them free their minds, finish their education and shape their futures.

Our interviewees read early in the morning before a work shift or squinted in the dark to read after lights out. They made notes in the margins and read their favorite volumes multiple times. While nearly all aspects of prison life are controlled, the time spent in a book was a chance to feel like they were somewhere else.

These accounts have been edited for length and clarity.

BY ELIZABETH L. CLINE AND ARIELLE ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

RELEASED IN 2006 AFTER SERVING SEVEN YEARS AND EIGHT

Whenever I first got incarcerated, I was reading books like John Grisham’s books, like “A Time to Kill” and “The Firm,” and Sister Souljah. I also used to read Donald Goines’ books, and they talked about pimping and all of that. Those books would help me escape from prison, but they won’t get me to be productive in life. I stopped reading that material and just started to read self-help material. I’m a better man today because of it.

My top three favorite books were “The 48 Laws of Power” [by Robert Greene], “Think and Grow Rich” [by Napoleon Hill] and then “You’ve Got To Be Hungry” by Les Brown. I read those three books continuously, and I still have them now. They are marked up, and I took a lot of notes and learned a lot of life skills from those books.

Whenever I got incarcerated, I was about to be in the 11th grade. I knew how to read, but I didn’t know how to comprehend what I had read. Reading allows you to slow down and process information and to think before you react. I wanted a chance to get out, to never come back, and so I studied and read materials on how not to come back to prison.

I also wanted to get out and visit some of these places that I would read about. Fortunately for me, whenever I got out of prison, I was able to travel around. I had never been on an airplane, so I was able to go to Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle and St. Louis, and all of these places that I would read about in these books.

Whenever you are incarcerated, you are physically locked up, but you have a mind, and you can allow your mind to be locked up, or you can allow your mind to be free. I would read the book and literally be so encapsulated in the book that I’m not locked up. I could escape from the madness of being incarcerated, if that makes sense.

SUNSHINE

HARRIS, 49, SHERWOOD HARRIS’S HUSBAND HAS BEEN INCARCERATED FOR 28 YEARS AND IS CURRENTLY HOUSED AT THE EAST ARKANSAS REGIONAL UNIT KNOWN AS BRICKEYS.

My husband currently receives the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper. He reads it all the way through, and it allows him to feel connected to where he grew up in Little Rock. He also receives different magazines, like Reader’s Digest, The Week and Men’s Health, which has good workouts and a lot of different health tips. He’s really health-conscious and doesn’t eat junk food or drink soda. He loves beets, and he read in an article [while in prison] some years ago how beets are healthy for you. Whenever they have it available at the unit, he eats them. There’s no way on God’s green Earth I would eat beets.

He has a variety of books that he likes to read, like history, biography and autobiographies. One of his favorite recent books was called “Outspoken: The Olly Neal Story,” about an African American judge born in Marianna [Lee County]. The book gave him inspiration, reading about how Mr. Neal went through the different aspects of life and was still able to become a judge. It made him feel like he still has that opportunity when he comes home.

He doesn’t get any real privacy, but he sits on his own bed. He gets up at like 5 o’clock, and he works, and then works out. And so he reads midday a little bit, and then at night, before lights are out, he’ll read.

I asked my husband what he thinks about the book ban, and he said you’re going to have individuals who are unoccupied instead of focusing on something like reading a book. He was 19 when he went to prison. He’s an eighth-grade dropout, so a lot of his learning and his being as articulate as he is is from reading while he’s been incarcerated. There was one book that I recently ordered. It was a Black history book called “Black AF History,” and it was about mid-January, and they refused the book. They said it was because it was from a non-approved place, but I know that it was approved because I ordered from there before. I feel like it was denied because they thought this book ban was about to go through.

”MY HUSBAND IS AN EIGHTH-GRADE DROPOUT, SO A LOT OF HIS LEARNING AND HIS BEING AS ARTICULATE AS HE IS IS FROM READING WHILE HE’S BEEN INCARCERATED.”

KORELLI LOYALTY WOODS, 41, LITTLE ROCK RELEASED IN 2025 AFTER SERVING 21 YEARS IN PRISON.

I read a lot of books over my time incarcerated, and some of the things that I learned in the books helped me along my journey since I’ve been out. I want to start a food truck business, but I would never have known how to start a food truck business or even have an idea about it unless I was able to read up on it. Another book that I read was a book about how to talk to children and communicate with them. I didn’t have any type of significant role models in my life to guide me as a young person. I was surrounded by prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers daily. Some of the advice they gave me was good, like to stay in school, but I didn’t listen.

Now, I want to be that role model that I didn’t have for a lot of the youth out here. I want to start this clothing line. I want to teach the [young guys] how to invest their money, take care of their families and their kids. And I hope it can be able to change some of their lives.

When I got locked up, I would go around the barracks and try to find people with books, and we’d trade. That’s how I was able to get a lot of self-help material. I just took notes while I read, and sometimes I read books two or three times. Every time you read something, like that third time, you’re gonna see a lot of stuff that you didn’t see the first time.

Sometimes I’d grab the [prison-issued] tablet, but they had a lot of older books on there, chronicling history, like books about Caesar or novels. It’s nothing that can build a person’s self-esteem or build up a person’s mindset. Self-help was kind of what everybody wanted to read, and yet the self-help material really wasn’t available. It’s almost like they had a ban on all educational books or getting any type of knowledge.

The main book that I tried to get for years was “[Success Through A] Positive Mental Attitude” by Napoleon Hill. It’s a book about finances and about everything you need in life to be successful and feel great. They said it was a security threat, but it teaches principles that you can apply to your life to be successful and have a great mindset. I’m like, “Why wouldn’t you want this book in there?”

I was able to finally read “PMA” in a book group organized by another guy in prison. He had this book, and he created a program, and they let us do the program. They just didn’t know what he was teaching there until the program started. And what he did is he photocopied the whole book and was able to get the sponsors of the program that worked there in the prison to make copies. He would give each group a copy, and they would sit down in the group and go over these exercises, every chapter, doing a little writing exercise in there and everything. These guys that was on drugs in prison, they were doing all the wrong things, and this book helped open up their minds to doing better.

I saw this book ban coming before I got out. They’re saying it’s about contraband, but either way, contraband is going to come in. It seems like their goal and objectives are to keep people in prison and to keep making money. If people are doing good and educating themselves in prison, using these books to read and learning how to live life, this will stop the recidivism rate. People will come out here with a lot of knowledge and wisdom to do the right thing.

“WHEN I GOT LOCKED UP, I WOULD GO AROUND THE BARRACKS AND TRY TO FIND PEOPLE WITH BOOKS, AND WE’D TRADE.”

KIMBERLY ROGERS, 58, NORTH LITTLE ROCK RELEASED IN 2005 AFTER SERVING FIVE YEARS IN PRISON.

I remember that I looked forward to the guards coming around and hollering for us to go to the library because it felt like a little bit of freedom being able to go to the library. Books can take your mind outside the walls. It gives you an education; it is just knowledge.

I liked reading a variety of books while incarcerated. I liked reading romance novels. I also liked going to the law library and looking up stuff about my crimes, and what I could do once I got out, what I could do to be a better person, which I did. I was incarcerated for five years from 2000 to 2005. The first time I’d ever been incarcerated in my life. I was a bad drug addict, and so I ended up committing crimes to support my drug habit, which led me to going to prison.

I understand it’s a prison, and, yeah, people did wrong things to get there, but still, they’re people. That’s somebody’s daughter, that’s somebody’s sister, that somebody’s mother, somebody’s brother, somebody’s father. I think there needs to be more books and more educational programs in prisons, because that can help them be a more successful person when they come out.

I had a job two weeks after I got out of prison, and then I was a full-time college student. Today, I have a bachelor’s degree from UALR, and my master’s degree is in human resources. Unfortunately, I would never be able to get a job related to any of my degrees because of my criminal background, but three years ago, I got my pardon. God brought me through a lot. I know he didn’t just let me go through everything I went through not to give me more. I believe that my perfect job is coming, so I’m still waiting.

BARRED BEHIND BARS

Aproposed new rule puts Arkansas prisoners’ access to reading materials in jeopardy.

As it stands, prisoners can still receive books, magazines and newspapers from recognized commercial vendors such as Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and ThriftBooks. Their family and friends place orders with booksellers, or incarcerated people can order books themselves using physical catalogs available at the institutional commissary.

Though censorship has crept up in recent years and books are sometimes subject to arbitrary restrictions on content that’s deemed sexual, violent or criminal, people behind bars are otherwise able to access many millions of titles, from recent bestsellers like “Black AF History” to self-help books on how to start a food truck.

If the Arkansas Department of Corrections’ book ban moves forward, however, prisoners’ book access would be limited to institutional libraries and titles available on prison-issued tablets, which have a small fraction of what online publishers offer — and are stocked with books lacking in “modern-day relevance,” according to Brotha Knowledge, who was incarcerated for nearly 30 years.

Both tablets and libraries can never substitute for the breadth of human knowledge available through book publishers, said Moira Marquis, director of Prison Banned Books Week, a national initiative fighting prison censorship. “If the DOC is truly concerned about the well-being of imprisoned people, then ensuring access to reading material should be a very high priority,” she said.

The ADC counters that prisoners will still have access to institution-issued tablets, which are loaded with an e-book catalog of approximately 50,000 titles.

But access to tablets is more limited than physical books: Prison Wi-Fi can be unstable, or the devices run out of battery power and are left uncharged. Tablets are also collected each evening, a time many inmates say they would like to read. Additionally, prisoners being kept in solitary confinement aren’t permitted to use the tablets.

A copy of the prisons’ e-book catalog shared with the Arkansas Times shows the tablet catalog overwhelmingly stocked with obscure 19thand early 20th-century texts from the public domain that are unrecognizable to modern readers, like the “Book of Old Ballads, Volume 1-4,” or the 1921 parenting guide, “Say, Fellows: Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life’s Big Issues.”

The omissions are more striking. Great American novels of the modern era, such as “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Catch-22” and “Beloved,” are absent. Many writers of color like Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez are not accounted for. There are no modern books on politics, race, current events or sociology.

What if you wanted to, say, read Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” or a self-help book on how to launch a small business? Rand Champion, the ADC’s communications chief, said prison libraries are updated and fully stocked and said that the department is “exploring different ways to expand that catalog.”

Interviewees, by contrast, describe the libraries as largely containing genre fiction and esoteric donations from charities and religious organizations. One reliable source of quality reads comes from prisoners donating from their personal collections. If a ban moves forward, this source of books could dry up.

WOMEN IN CHARGE

MEET THESE TRAILBLAZING WOMEN SHAPING ARKANSAS. THEY ARE LEADING THE CHARGE FOR A BETTER FUTURE FOR ARKANSANS EVERYWHERE. JOIN US AS WE SHINE THE LIGHT ON THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THESE WOMEN IN CHARGE, WHO MAKE THE WHEELS TURN AND THE LIGHTS COME ON.

The Women’s Foundation of Arkansas recently appointed Marc Haynes of CTEH to its Board of Directors. Haynes serves as Senior Vice President of Business Transformation & Human Resources at the North Little Rock-based scientific consulting firm, where he leads organizational development and workforce strategy. He brings both professional and personal perspectives to the role, having become a father through surrogacy and navigating parenthood as a single dad. Haynes is a proud advocate for women’s initiatives, especially expanding accessibility and opportunities for women in STEAM.

“We need more women in leadership — and that requires men to move beyond passive support and into intentional action,” Haynes said. “Allyship isn’t a side conversation; it’s a leadership responsibility.”

CACHE RESTAURANT

COURTNEY WELLBORN GENERAL MANAGER

JOJO SIMS SERVER SERVER EXTRAORDINAIRE

BONNA SANATHONG EVENTS MANAGER, EVENT COORDINATOR AND FLOOR MANAGER

In downtown Little Rock’s River Market District, Cache Restaurant has long been synonymous with fine dining, sleek style and unforgettable experiences. Whether guests arrive for a romantic dinner on the patio, an elegant upstairs meal with skyline views, or a private celebration, Cache delivers more than a meal: it delivers an atmosphere.

Behind that atmosphere is a powerhouse team of women who keep the restaurant running with equal parts precision, passion and personality.

At the helm is Courtney Wellborn, Cache’s general manager, who began her journey with the restaurant a decade ago as a bartender. Today, she oversees the daily operations of one of Little Rock’s most iconic dining venues, but her management style remains rooted in the people-first mindset that hospitality requires.

“I’m in love with people,” Wellborn said. “Hospitality keeps my heart happy and my emotional bank full.”

Wellborn entered the restaurant world at 18 and quickly learned that leadership doesn’t have to come with intimidation. Instead, she prioritizes trust, communication and the kind of workplace culture that feels like community.

“My approach is a trust relationship more than fear,” she said. “We try to make sure our employees know this is your job, but we care about you outside of work, too. If outside of work isn’t good, inside of work is not good.”

Supporting Wellborn is Bonna Sanathong, Cache’s events manager, event coordinator and floor manager, a role that requires juggling the moving pieces of private dinners, holiday parties, wedding functions and corporate

gatherings, all while maintaining Cache’s signature polish.

Sanathong thrives on the energy of the team, especially when the restaurant is operating at full capacity.

“We’re a mini family away from home by the way we support each other,” Sanathong said. “You tend to understand what everybody is going through, and we don’t take things personally. Everyone understands the dynamics of the service industry. It creates unity.”

From table settings to timing, Sanathong helps ensure that each private event feels seamless, customized and elevated, matching Cache’s refined menu and luxury dining spaces.

Then there’s JoAnn “JoJo” Sims, known affectionately as Mama JoJo, a server extraordinaire and one of the most recognizable faces in Little Rock’s restaurant community. Sims has built a reputation not only for impeccable service, but for creating an experience guests talk about long after dessert.

“The secret to surviving in this business is having fun doing it,” Sims said. “I look at it as a stage; once I walk into that door, it is my stage right there.”

With her warmth, charisma and quick wit, Sims has turned hospitality into an art form.

“I’m part entertainer also,” she said. “I tell everybody, ‘You’re not only getting dinner, but you’re also getting a little show here with JoJo.’”

Together, Wellborn, Sanathong and Sims represent the driving force behind Cache’s enduring success, proving that in one of Arkansas’s most stylish dining rooms, women are not just part of the story. They’re leading it.

HEATHER BOTTEICHER

OWNER ARKANSAS OSTOMY INC.

When Heather Botteicher returned to Little Rock after six years as an ICU nurse, she didn’t plan to take over the family business. Nursing, not entrepreneurship, was her calling until legacy, loss and love quietly redirected her path.

Today, Botteicher is the third-generation owner of Arkansas Ostomy Inc., a woman-owned durable medical equipment supplier that has served more than 30,000 Arkansans since 1985. With credentials that include a Bachelor of Science in nursing, registered nurse licensure and certification as an ostomy management specialist, she leads the company with both clinical expertise and a deeply personal understanding of care.

“It’s an immense privilege,” Botteicher said. “It kind of fell into my lap because of my family, but I also worked really hard to get here.”

Arkansas Ostomy Inc. was founded by Botteicher’s grandmother, Jerry Chandler, a vivacious, self-taught entrepreneur who saw an unmet need while working at a pharmacy in the early 1980s. Patients came in asking for ostomy supplies, products few pharmacists understood. Chandler traveled to a conference in Nashville to learn everything she could, returned to Little Rock, secured a business loan and launched the company from her home. She was in her early 40s at the time.

“That was not something women were doing in the ’80s,” Botteicher said. “She didn’t care about her age or the odds.”

The business later passed to Chandler’s only daughter, Jane English, who recognized that deeper medical knowledge would set the company apart. English went to nursing school specifically to better serve patients and build trust, an approach that helped Arkansas Ostomy grow into the only DME supplier in the state specializing exclusively in ostomy care. She then spent 35 years leading Arkansas Ostomy Inc., helping the company acquire the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s 2021 Community Impact Award. That philosophy of specialization continues under Botteicher’s leadership. While many suppliers diversify into multiple product lines, Arkansas Ostomy has stayed firmly in its lane.

“This is sensitive, personal care,” she said. “People are trusting us with something most don’t want to talk about. That trust matters.”

It’s also why the company’s response during crises stands out. After a devastating tornado hit central Arkansas in 2023, Arkansas Ostomy opened its doors to anyone in need of suppliesclient or not. The company maintains a donation closet, regularly providing supplies to uninsured patients, people experiencing homelessness and those facing overwhelming deductibles.

Now marking 40 years in business, Arkansas Ostomy ships nationwide and is in network with most insurers. Botteicher is focused on expanding awareness beyond central Arkansas, building relationships in northwest Arkansas through support groups, awareness events and face-to-face connection.

For her, leadership is less about growth for growth’s sake and more about stewardship: of a business, a profession and a family legacy shaped entirely by women who trusted their instincts.

“Never say never,” Botteicher said. “My grandmother started this later in life and changed our family’s trajectory. I never planned to come back, but I listened to that little voice, and I’m so glad I did.”

STACEY REYNOLDS

“ADeeper Shade of Blue” is more than a tagline—it’s a reflection of where Blue Yoga Nyla finds itself today. After sixteen years rooted in the heart of Park Hill, the studio is entering a season of meaningful growth and expansion, guided by the same values that have shaped it from the beginning.

Blue Yoga Nyla has opened the doors to its fourth location, all within a half-block radius of where it first began. In a rare and intentional continuity, every studio has remained deeply embedded in the same neighborhood. The newest space, designed for expansion, will face both the original first and second locations—a physical representation of honoring the past while stepping confidently into the future.

One of the most exciting additions to this next chapter is the opening of a dedicated children’s yoga studio, developed in conjunction with Blue Yoga Nyla’s Soul Child program. Officially launched in 2025, Soul Child is a therapeutic yoga model developed from owner and founder Stacey Reynolds’ years of work in a children’s therapy clinic. Drawing from her experience supporting children and teens with generalized anxiety and those on the autism spectrum, the program integrates the eight limbs of yoga to help children regulate emotions, build connection, and feel safe in their bodies. The response from both parents and children has been deeply affirming, reinforcing the need for spaces that prioritize emotional well-being from an early age.

At the heart of Blue Yoga Nyla is Stacey herself. The studio’s mission and spirit were born from her own lived experience with chronic illness and a profound desire to share what yoga has offered her over nearly three decades. What began as a personal healing journey became a calling to create a space where others could also find healing, respite, and community. In January 2026, Stacey began her 25th year of teaching

yoga—an anniversary that still feels surreal. As she often shares, there are moments when she wakes up and has to pinch herself that this work of purpose and passion is what she gets to do for a living.

Over the years, Blue Yoga Nyla has grown far beyond a traditional yoga studio. Yoga therapy has become a cornerstone of its offerings, reflecting Stacey’s “day job” addressing trauma, grief, and addiction. In addition, 200- and 500-hour yoga certifications are offered through an in-person, intensive training experience for teacher credentialing or advanced personal study. In the studio, students range from those newly discovering yoga to senior adults who began practicing with Stacey 25 years ago and still attend classes multiple times a week. This speaks to the studio’s deep relational roots and its commitment to meeting people wherever they are.

Accessibility has always been non-negotiable. Every class offered Monday through Friday before noon operates on a “pay what you can” model, with approximately one-third of all classes available this way—something the studio has consistently upheld. The belief is simple and unwavering: all people deserve access to yoga, regardless of their financial situation.

Blue Yoga Nyla is intentionally referred to as a sanctuary, and for many, it truly is. It serves as a safe haven for the walking wounded—a place where people can arrive exactly as they are and feel held. None of this would be possible without its extraordinary staff, dedicated students, and the broader Park Hill community that has supported the studio from the beginning. It is this collective heartbeat that continues to carry Blue forward.

As new doors open and new offerings emerge, the purpose remains unchanged. Blue Yoga Nyla is, and always has been, about healing, connection, and creating a space for people to come home to themselves.

CHRISTIN HULA BRYANT

CO-OWNER

HILL STATION

For Christin Hula Bryant, hospitality is more than good food and a welcoming atmosphere: it is about creating a place where people feel they belong.

As co-owner of Hill Station, a neighborhood restaurant and gathering spot in Little Rock’s Hillcrest area, Bryant has helped shape a business that functions as much as a community hub as it does a dining destination. Alongside her husband, Tim Bryant, and brother-in-law Daniel Bryant, she has played an essential role in building Hill Station’s reputation as a welcoming, family-friendly space for longtime locals and first-time visitors alike.

Hill Station is housed in a historic former Magnolia gas station built in 1955, and the restaurant embraces that legacy. The building’s original cinder block structure remains, complemented by photographs that highlight Hillcrest’s past, an intentional reminder of the neighborhood’s history and the people who have shaped it.

Bryant says Hill Station was designed to feel comfortable for everyone - friends catching up after work, families celebrating milestones and even guests arriving with their four-legged companions. That inclusiveness has helped the restaurant become a gathering place where customers return not only for the menu but also for the sense of connection.

“We serve as a hub for community meetings, big games, family celebrations, community give-back events, and simply a place for our neighbors to gather together,” Bryant said.

The restaurant has also become known for its involvement in local outreach and neighborhood-centered events, reinforcing its role as a place where community happens naturally. Whether hosting gatherings or supporting those in need, Hill Station’s mission extends beyond its walls.

Food remains central to that mission, and Bryant points to the partnership with H.A.M. Butcher as a defining part of the restaurant’s identity.

H.A.M. prepares and provides all the meat served at Hill Station, including hand-stuffed sausages for charcuterie, house-cured bacon and freshly ground burger meat. The butcher shop has also become a destination itself, known for quality cuts of meat. Bryant encourages guests not only to enjoy the Hill Station experience, but also to explore what the neighborhood offers, including stopping by H.A.M. Butcher to bring something home.

As a woman in business, Bryant’s leadership is rooted in consistency, relationship-building and an understanding of what people want most: a place to feel welcome. With her leadership, and dedicated key team members that help her run the busy restaurant, she is able to make this happen. In a world that often feels hurried and disconnected, Hill Station offers something increasingly rare: a familiar spot where neighbors gather, stories are shared and community is strengthened one meal at a time.

For Bryant, that is the real reward: helping create a space where people don’t just come to eat but come to belong.

SARA BRYANT

CO-OWNER THE HILLCREST FOUNTAIN

SaraBryant doesn’t seek the spotlight, but for 21 years, she has helped create one of Little Rock’s most beloved gathering places: The Hillcrest Fountain.

Bryant is co-owner of the neighborhood bar alongside her family, including her husband and a cousin, who is also named Sara. The Fountain, tucked into the heart of Hillcrest, has become a second home for generations of regulars, a place where relationships begin, celebrations unfold and friendships deepen.

“My goal was always just to have a place where people felt comfortable coming by themselves if they wanted to,” Bryant said. “And where they felt welcomed and knew the bartenders and other customers.”

That sense of belonging is intentional. Bryant wanted a bar where people could stop after work, meet friends before dinner or simply decompress after a long day. She’s watched customers move through life’s milestones, from first dates to weddings and even engagement photo shoots inside the bar where couples first met.

“We have tons of regulars who have been here from day one,” she said. “People have met their significant others in here.”

Bryant’s path to ownership began long before Hillcrest. She worked in a bar called Tables and Ale from age 21 to 30, even after earning a degree in social work. When she and her husband moved to Little Rock, they saw an opportunity in Hillcrest: a walkable neighborhood with a strong community feel, and they decided to create something familiar.

Now, Bryant balances business ownership with raising three children – all of whom are teenagers. Her days include payroll, inventory, ordering and the

never-ending demands that come with running a bar.

“It’s not as easy as everybody thinks,” she said. “If the internet goes down, I’m getting a call at midnight. The responsibility is a lot.”

As a woman in charge of a business centered around alcohol, Bryant leads with firmness and fairness. She believes accountability matters, for customers and staff alike.

“You’re going to behave well in here,” she said. “You don’t get to ruin other people’s time.”

Still, her approach is rooted in kindness, a lesson passed down from her grandmother.

“It’s so much easier to be nice to people,” Bryant said. “You can do everything with a smile on your face and with respect.”

She credits the service industry with teaching resilience and emotional intelligence, skills she believes are essential, especially for young workers.

“Service work forces you into uncomfortable conversations that I think everyone should have,” she said.

Bryant is also quick to acknowledge she can’t do it alone. She praises her longtime employees and the team that helps keep The Fountain running, especially when family responsibilities pull her away.

“You can’t do it by yourself,” she said. “And I don’t like to pretend I can. I feel like women tend to think that they should, and they shouldn’t.”

After two decades, Bryant’s message is simple: show up, work hard and learn to see beyond your own perspective, a lesson she hopes readers will carry long after the last drink is poured.

SUITE 443 THE GRASS STATION

HOT SPRINGS

(FROM LEFT TO RIGHT)

BRADIE JOHNS ASSISTANT MANAGER

SHANNON FINLEY ASSISTANT MANAGER

ROCHELLE MCLEMORE CO-MANAGER

APIFFANY WILLS SUPERVISOR

ARKADELPHIA

BUFFY MONTGOMERY GENERAL MANAGER

Across Arkansas’s growing medical marijuana industry, women are stepping confidently into leadership, and at Suite 443 and its sister dispensaries, they are helping shape the culture, compliance and community impact of cannabis retail.

Suite 443 Dispensary in Hot Springs continues to set the pace. The state revenue agency reported Garland County’s lone dispensary led Arkansas in sales by weight for the third year in a row in 2025. As Sonny Albarado of the Arkansas Advocate reported, “A total of $1.5 billion has been spent on medical marijuana since the state’s first dispensary opened in May 2019.” Suite 443 sold 1,419.6 pounds in July and August 2025 alone, leading the state during that period.

Behind those numbers is a team of women guiding daily operations, patient care and long-term strategy.

“At Suite 443, I pride myself on my customer service,” said Bradie Johns, assistant manager, who has worked at the dispensary for more than two years. “I

care deeply about how I interact with every single patient that walks through the door. I want them to know that their medical needs matter to me, and they are in the best hands.”

Co-manager Rochelle McLemore, who has been with Suite 443 for more than five years, brings institutional knowledge to the leadership team. “As one of the longest serving members of the Suite 443 team, I bring a wealth of institutional knowledge and experience in the industry and culture, specifically that of Suite 443,” she said.

Assistant Manager Shannon Finley, with more than three years at Suite 443, focuses on operational efficiency without sacrificing compassion. “I have a knack for finding ways to make processes more efficient, without removing the very human element of what we do,” Finley said. “Caring for people, both patients and members of my team, is always at the forefront of my mind.”

Supervisor Apiffany Wills, who will mark one year with the dispensary this

HIGH BANK CANNABIS CO. BOLD DISPENSARY

spring, emphasizes team morale. “My ability to connect with all employees and hype them up for the day while also being an effective leader defines my approach,” she said. “I try to help make sure that everyone feels seen while simultaneously lightening the mood when necessary.”

That same blend of compliance and compassion extends across the family of dispensaries. At The Grass Station, General Manager Buffy Montgomery, who has worked in the industry since 2019, leads with both regulatory precision and heart.

“Our team is compassionate, empathetic and has a deep knowledge of cannabis and its medical use,” Montgomery said. “We are able to guide our patients safely and responsibly.”

She noted that everything is tracked “from seed to sell,” and the dispensary also supports the community through food drives and donations to local food banks and nursing homes.

At High Bank Cannabis Co., General Manager Summer Wrinkle, who began

as a budtender in 2020, believes culture drives outcomes. “With help from my co-manager, Akima Germany, we strive to create an environment that is positive and uplifting for all of our employees,” Wrinkle said. “Offering structure and positivity to your employees creates a better environment for your patients.”

Germany, co-manager of inventory and purchasing, agrees. “My outgoing personality allows me to connect easily with both budtenders and patients,” she said. “I’m not afraid to step outside the box, try new products or explore fresh ideas that could benefit the team and our patients.”

At Bold Dispensary in Heber Springs, General Manager Danielle Van Don, a six-year veteran, keeps patient needs front and center. “I run a dispensary that caters to people, not numbers,” she said. “We run on Southern hospitality and want everyone to feel at home.”

Together, these women are not just managing dispensaries: they are redefining leadership in one of Arkansas’ fastest-growing industries.

MAYGIE STALLINGS

FOUNDER & OWNER BLOOM SALON

Maygie

Stallings believes a salon can be more than a place for great hair.

It can be a force for good.

As founder and owner of Bloom Salon in Little Rock, Stallings set out to create what she calls “a positive and creative space focused on uniting and supporting all things good.” Since opening the salon in 2021, she has paired beauty services with a strong commitment to community outreach.

A stylist and colorist with 14 years of experience, Stallings specializes in balayage and lived-in color, techniques designed to enhance natural beauty and boost confidence. But when the idea for Bloom took shape during the COVID-19 pandemic, she envisioned something deeper than excellent hair.

“I’ve worked in amazing salons, but I always felt like something was missing,” Stallings said. That missing piece was consistent, meaningful community involvement.

Under her leadership, Bloom Salon has hosted fundraisers and drives benefiting organizations such as the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and the Arkansas Period Poverty Project. The team has organized events for local nonprofits and, in less than five years, raised more than $20,000 for community causes.

Stallings, who has lived in Arkansas for more than 16 years, says the Natural State feels like home. She and her family spend their free time camping and kayaking, embracing the outdoors, which inspires her daughter’s interest in environmental preservation.

She is also intentional about supporting women-owned businesses, believing strongly in empowerment through community connection.

For Stallings, being in charge means lifting others up - in her chair and far beyond it.

MEG GREEN, MS, RDN, LD, IFNCP

For over 20 years as a Dietitian — and as the only Integrative and Functional Nutrition Certified Practitioner in Arkansas — I’ve helped women who look like they “have it all together” finally feel as strong, clear, and energized as they appear. I specialize in thyroid health, hormone support, gut healing, and burnout recovery, with a deep focus on perimenopause and postmenopause — where so many women begin to feel dismissed, unheard, and told “everything looks normal.”

Brain fog. Stubborn weight gain. Afternoon crashes. Anxiety out of nowhere. Poor sleep. These are not character flaws — and they are not something you just have to accept.

My mission is to uncover the root cause and create a precise, personalized plan that works with your physiology, not against it. I combine advanced testing, strategic nutrition, and targeted treatment with realistic systems that support full calendars and big responsibilities.

You deserve more than rushed appointments and surface answers. When we work together, you receive clarity, strategy, and concierge-level support — so you can lead, build, love, and live with the energy and confidence you were meant to have.

DR. SUZANNE YEE

OWNER

DR. SUZANNE YEE COSMETIC & LASER SURGERY CENTER

Women account for nearly 87 percent of all cosmetic surgery patients in the United States.¹ Yet only 14 percent of practicing plastic surgeons are women.² Dr. Suzanne Yee has spent more than twenty years proving why closing that gap matters — and what changes when a woman is the one leading the practice.

“I never set out to be a trailblazer,” Dr. Yee says. “I set out to be excellent. But being a woman in this specialty gave me something my training alone couldn’t: the ability to understand my patients’ experiences from the inside out.”

That understanding is more than anecdotal. Studies consistently show that women’s health concerns are more likely to be dismissed or attributed to emotional causes rather than physical ones.³ Research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that female patients have measurably better outcomes when treated by female physicians.⁴ In a field where the overwhelming majority of patients are women, those findings carry weight.

Dr. Yee has built her entire practice around the gap that research describes. After graduating first in her class from UAMS medical school, she pursued the rare distinction of triple board certification — through the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery, the American Board of Otolaryngology, and the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Each certification was a deliberate choice to deepen her expertise across facial and body aesthetics, building layers of knowledge that allow her to see the whole patient, not just the procedure. But credentials alone don’t explain why patients drive from across the state to see her. What draws them is the experience of being heard.

“Most of my patients are women coming to me during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives — after pregnancy, after weight loss, after years of putting everyone else first,” she explains. “They don’t just want a skilled surgeon. They want someone who’s navigated those same chapters. I have. I’m a mother of two. I know what it feels like when your body tells a story that doesn’t match who you are anymore.”

“People often mistakenly equate cosmetic surgery with vanity. But there is nothing vain about wanting to feel like yourself again — or maybe for the first time. It takes courage to voice that desire, and even more courage to act on it.”

That philosophy — listen first, then lead — has shaped a practice culture where every team member understands that the emotional experience matters as much as the clinical outcome. The practice offers facial plastic surgery, body contouring, physician-guided weight loss, injectables, and advanced laser treatments. But the real transformation often begins before any procedure is scheduled, in a consultation room where a woman finally feels like what she’s saying actually matters.

For more than two decades, that approach has sustained one of Little Rock’s most established cosmetic surgery practices — built not on the loudest marketing, but on a reputation passed between women who finally felt seen by the person trusted with their care.

“I’ve spent twenty years proving what the research now confirms,” Dr. Yee says. “When women lead in this field, women get better care. It’s that simple.”

Dr. Suzanne Yee Cosmetic & Laser Surgery Center | drsuzanneyee.com

Sources: https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/articles/in-a-field-where-the-patient-demographic-is-dominated-by-women-why-are-most-plastic-surgeons-men

https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/articles/achieving-gender-parity-womens-role-in-plastic-surgery https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10732547/ https://www.uclahealth.org/news/release/treatment-female-doctors-leads-lower-mortality-and-hospital SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

WRIGHT LINDSEY JENNINGS

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:

JENNIFER SMITH, ADRIENNE BAKER, MEREDITH LOWRY, JANE KIM WLJ.COM

WLJ LAUNCHES WOMAN-RUN PODCAST

WLJ has long served as advisor, ally and advocate for woman- and minority-owned businesses. We are proud to have strong female leadership and attorneys who can relate to the challenges woman business leaders face. We created our Woman-Run initiative in 2019 to build connections through networking, mentorship, education and resources. Woman-Run aims to overcome historical challenges faced by women leaders – lack of mentors and social capital, a financing gap, and the tendency to be more self-critical and risk-averse.

The Woman-Run podcast launched in 2025 to expand our community in a more accessible way and to continue to share the stories of those who inspire us. We highlight women who start businesses, women who lead businesses

WEEKDAYS with Nichole Niemann

MIND, BODY & SOUL

When we think about improving our health, we often focus solely on the physical aspects of who we are, but there’s more to it than that. The mind, body and soul are a three-part harmony that makes us who we are. When one feels out of sync, the others work overtime to fill that space. In our Mind, Body & Soul section, we offer the resources and organizations that specialize in healing, improving and building our resilience for all three.

The Centers provides comprehensive care for Arkansans, addressing mind and body. Offering behavioral health, primary medical care and pharmacy services, The Centers supports emotional, social and physical wellness for children, adolescents, adults and families.

Additional services include:

• Family Centered Treatment

• Outpatient counseling for all ages

• Substance use counseling

• Child and adolescent residential treatment

• Adult disability residential programming

• Therapeutic foster care

• Adult day treatment

• Other high-quality, innovative programs and services

The Centers also serves as the region’s Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic and is home to Arkansas’s only nationally recognized human trafficking treatment program.

The Centers has physical locations in Little Rock and Monticello, offers Telehealth appointments, and operates a 24/7/365 Crisis Hotline (888868-0023).

MORE THAN 1 IN 5 U.S. ADULTS EXPERIENCE MENTAL ILLNESS

At Argenta Counseling, the mission is simple yet profound — to provide compassionate, personalized mental health care for children, teens, adults, and couples. With two locations in Central Arkansas and telehealth statewide, a dedicated team of licensed providers brings diverse expertise in areas like anxiety, depression, trauma, relationships and life transitions. Argenta Counseling believes that mental wellness is essential for overall well-being and is committed to growth through evidence-based therapies tailored to each client’s needs. Whether you're seeking individual therapy, couples counseling, or a psychiatric medication evaluation, Argenta Counseling will walk alongside you. With a deep commitment to inclusivity, respect and understanding, the professionals at Argenta Counseling strive to make mental health care accessible and stigma-free for everyone.

Get started today on your wellness journey.

Call or Text 501-777-5969.argentacounseling.com, North Little Rock, West Little Rock, Telehealth Statewide

As a yoga studio owner and yoga therapist, I witness daily how yoga supports mental health in profound and practical ways. Yoga is a multifaceted practice that unites body, mind, and spirit, creating an integrated approach to well-being. Central to this process is the breath, or pranayama, which serves as a bridge between the physical and emotional body. Evidence-based research continues to demonstrate how conscious breathing can regulate the central nervous system, reduce anxiety, and restore a sense of balance and calm. Through intentional movement and breath awareness, students experience not only physical strength and flexibility, but also improved resilience, clarity, and emotional stability. Rather than addressing one symptom in isolation, yoga offers a holistic, complementary modality that supports the whole person—empowering individuals to participate actively in their healing and long-term mental wellness.

Treating Body & Mind Treating Body & Mind

Youth Villages Inc. is dedicated to transforming the lives of children, young adults and families through proven, individualized mental and behavioral health services. With a mission to help children and families thrive, Youth Villages provides intensive in-home support, foster care services and specialized programs for those aging out of the foster system. Its team of compassionate professionals addresses trauma, emotional and behavioral struggles and family instability — offering hope and lasting change. Focusing on evidence-based treatment and long-term success, Youth Villages empowers young people to build strong foundations for the future. Whether through intervention, mentorship or family restoration, its impact extends beyond crisis care, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to lead a healthy, fulfilling life.

youthvillages.org, 2024 Arkansas Valley Dr. Suite 402, 501-227-8466.

Many women start to look in the mirror and think, What happened to me? You may feel more anxious than usual, forgetful, overwhelmed by simple tasks, or exhausted no matter how much you sleep. Your patience feels shorter. Your focus isn’t the same. If you’ve thought, I don’t feel like myself anymore, you are not alone.

During perimenopause, estrogen and progesterone begin to shift. These hormones strongly affect the brain. When they fluctuate, ADHD symptoms can worsen, anxiety can rise, brain fog can settle in, and motivation can drop. Add in cortisol, your main stress hormone, and sleep and energy can suffer even more. With the right testing, nutrition, and stress support, balance can improve. As an integrative and functional nutrition practitioner and dietitian, I help women connect their hormones to their mental health so they can regain clarity, calm, and steady energy.

As Arkansas Hospice’s Family of Care is becoming LifeTouch Health, we are offering more services and impacting more lives in more ways.

We now provide a continuum of care that includes:

• Personal care providing in-home, non-medical support in Greater Little Rock, Searcy, and Hot Springs. You have known this service as First Choice Senior Care.

• Primary care for seniors, where they live. This line of care has been known as Arkansas Advanced Care.

• Palliative care to partner with doctors and specialists to provide patient-centered care at any stage of serious illness. You have known this service as Arkansas Palliative Care.

• Hospice care for patients and families when time may be limited. This line of care has been known as Arkansas Hospice.

To see how LifeTouch Health offers trusted care, where you are, please visit https://www.lifetouchhealth. org/ or call 877-713-2348

Mental illness can affect anyone. Thankfully, compassionate, professional help is available at White River Medical Center in Batesville. White River Health Behavioral Health offers comprehensive mental health services for individuals across north central Arkansas through inpatient, outpatient, and medically supervised detox programs, each designed to meet patients where they are on their journey to recovery.

Our inpatient programs provide structured, therapeutic environments for adults and seniors experiencing acute mental health crises. Senior Haven focuses on geriatric psychiatric care, while Stepping Stone serves adults ages 18–55, emphasizing dignity, safety, and individualized treatment.

For ongoing support, WRH Behavioral Health provides outpatient services for adults managing anxiety, depression, grief, and life stressors, with personalized therapy and medication options.

White River Health also offers a voluntary detox program for adults withdrawing from substances such as alcohol, opiates, and benzodiazepines, ensuring safety and comfort through close medical monitoring.

To learn more, visit WhiteRiverBehavioralHealth.org.

Methodist Family Health (MFH) has helped rebuild the lives of Arkansas children and families for over 125 years. Its legacy of care began as the Arkansas Methodist Orphanage and evolved into a comprehensive, statewide behavioral health system.

MFH specializes in mental health treatment for children and adolescents ages 4-17 with anxiety, depression, and emotional or behavioral issues. Methodist Children’s Behavioral Hospitals in Maumelle and Jonesboro offer 24-hour, no-cost assessments and provide crisis stabilization for children and teens in immediate danger to themselves or someone else. Other MFH services include residential psychiatric treatment, therapeutic group homes for teens in foster care, therapeutic day treatment school, Kaleidoscope Grief Center, and schoolbased and outpatient counseling. MFH also serves pregnant women, mothers, and their families through its family-centered substance use recovery program, Arkansas CARES. All programs are accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and The Teaching-Family Association, reflecting MFH’s commitment to high-quality, evidence-based care.

501-661-0720; After Hours & Emergencies: 888-813-3388; methodistfamily.org

Mental wellness looks different for everyone. For some, it means better sleep. For others, relief from chronic pain, anxiety, or the daily weight of stress. At Suite 443 in Hot Springs, compassionate care and personalized guidance help patients find what balance looks like for them.

As one of Arkansas’s leading medical marijuana dispensaries, Suite 443 is rooted in education, safety, and community. Their knowledgeable team works one-on-one with patients to understand individual needs and provide thoughtful recommendations in a welcoming, stigma-free environment. The focus is simple: empower people with information so they can make confident decisions about their health.

For qualifying patients, medical cannabis can be part of a broader wellness plan supporting relaxation, pain management, and overall quality of life. Suite 443 believes mental health is health, and access to trusted care matters.

Learn more at suite443.com or visit Suite 443 in Hot Springs to explore patient-centered options.

YOUR PATH TO MENTAL WELLNESS BEGINS HERE.

Inpatient Behavioral Health Services

Stepping Stone (for ages 18–55)

Senior Haven (for ages 55+)

Medical Detox (for ages 18+)

Peer Recovery Services

Outpatient Behavioral Health Services

Behavioral Health Integration

Clinical Care for Adults

Medication for Opioid Use Disorder Caring Beyond Healthcare

For more information, scan the QR Code above or visit our website at WhiteRiverBehavioralHealth.org.

MARITAL INTENSIVES

Sometimes weekly therapy sessions aren’t enough. Whether you’re navigating trauma, relational pain, or feeling like you’ve hit a roadblock in therapy, our custom therapy intensives offer a focused, accelerated format for deep healing where you can cover months of therapy in 3-5 days.

TARGETED APPROACH AND LASTING CHANGE

• Customized for You: Each intensive is built around your story and therapeutic goals.

Whether you’re navigating trauma, relational pain, or feel like you’ve hit a in therapy, our custom therapy intensives offer an accelerated format healing where you can cover months of therapy in 3-5 days. Our Vine intensives are led by experienced clinicians that help clients retrace their hurts back to the root.

• Accelerated Progress: Focused work allows for breakthroughs that can take months in weekly sessions.

• Trauma Trained, Root-Focused: Our team uses their extensive trauma training to identify and treat the systems keeping you stuck.

• Pacing: Our team tailors your intensive based on your discovery call with a structure aligned to your goals.

at vine-root.com or

Capstone Treatment Center is a world-class residential treatment program for teen and young adult boys struggling with trauma, substance abuse, mental health, and addictive behaviors. For nearly 25 years, Capstone has helped families across Arkansas and beyond find lasting change by providing clinical excellence in a Christ-centered environment.

Capstone’s approach includes:

• Trauma trained, Christ-centered care

• Industry leading 2:1 client-to-therapist ratio

• Outdoor adventures and experiential programming

• Canine companion program where each client receives a Lab puppy on admission and takes the dog home when he graduates.

Talk with our admissions therapists or visit our website to learn more about our program at capstonewellness.com or call (866) 729-4479.

Children’s Behavioral Hospitals in Maumelle & Jonesboro specialize in crisis stabilization for children and adolescents who are an immediate danger to themselves or someone else.

& most private insurance accepted. 24-hour, no-cost assessments offered.

ANCHORED IN ARKANSAS: From left to right, Miles Caton (Sammie), Delroy Lindo (Delta Slim) and Michael B. Jordan (Stack) star in 2025’s “Sinners,” a Mississippi-set movie straddling history and horror. The film has a surprising number of connections to Arkansas.

EVERY ARKANSAS REFERENCE IN ‘SINNERS’ EXPLAINED

THE NATURAL STATE GETS NAME-CHECKED THROUGHOUT THE OSCAR-NOMINATED FILM. HISTORIANS EXPLAIN WHAT THOSE REFERENCES MEAN.

BY ELIZABETH L. CLINE

Not long before Mary, played by actress Hailee Steinfeld, turns into a red-eyed, blood-sucking vampire in “Sinners,” she shows up in the Mississippi Delta fresh off the train from Little Rock. She’s not the only character in the hit film with ties to Arkansas.

Set in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1932, “Sinners” follows identical twins and gangsters Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan), who are back in the Delta from Chicago to open a rowdy juke joint. We learn that Stack and Mary are exes who had a tumultuous affair, it seems, while living in our capital city. Arkansas is also namechecked as a place where the blues are “just fine” and where you might move to start a “little church.”

Now that “Sinners” has earned an unprecedented number of Oscar nominations — 16, in fact, two more than the previous record — the film has sparked not only our pride, but also our curiosity. The Arkansas Times reached out to local scholars and historians to see just how well the film’s nods stack up to the historical record. “Someone clearly did their homework,” Guy Lancaster, editor of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, said.

Though fictional, the film reflects

the Delta’s nuanced past. “Sinners” doesn’t gloss over the dark history of racial violence. But its characters — and the real-life people who inspired them — turn that pain into some of the most influential music the world has ever known. The result is a film that nods to the horrors of the Jim Crow South but is ultimately a joyous ode to the Delta blues and southern Black culture — and its global impact.

“Sinners” is good fun as a straight vampire flick, but we think it’s even better consumed knowing this fuller history — and how we fit into it.

‘THEY PLAY THE BLUES JUST FINE IN ARKANSAS’

About an hour into the movie, we’re at Smoke and Stack’s juke joint. Stack bristles at the sight of his former flame, Mary. She tells Stack she’s come to hear the blues, and he snaps back, “They play the blues just fine in Arkansas,” hinting that she should hit the road back to Little Rock.

Though Mississippi and Memphis are best known for blues, Arkansas also produced many of its own genre heavyweights. This includes artists born in the Arkansas Delta and those who lived here during their careers, according to Jimmy Cunningham Jr., executive di-

rector of the Delta Rhythm & Bayous Cultural District in Pine Bluff. “You’re talking about people like ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson in Helena, you’re talking about ‘Big Bill’ Broonzy in the Pine Bluff area. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was also around,” Cunningham said. Even the legendary Charlie Patton, the owner of the devil-conjuring guitar played by Smoke and Stack’s cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) in “Sinners,” lived in Dermott for a time, according to Cunningham.

Musicians also didn’t draw sharp lines between regions of the Delta, Cunningham explained. “The Delta is the Delta. It’s the Delta in Arkansas, it’s the Delta in Mississippi, it’s the Delta in Louisiana,” he said. What bound artists together was a shared experience of racial oppression, poverty and rural farm life.

Little Rock also featured prominently in the blues scene as a key part of the music circuit traveled by blues musicians on their way to Chicago, St. Louis or other major cities. Taborian Hall, now the site of Dreamland Ballroom, is where major acts like B.B. King played. Rhonda Stewart, genealogy and local history specialist at the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, recalled the city also hosted blues players at smaller venues “like the Tucker Hotel or the Flamingo Hotel.”

According to Cliff E. Jones, deputy director of the Delta Center for Economic Development at Arkansas State University and a Delta blues scholar, Arkansas not only had its own native-born players, but it had countless ramshackle rural juke joints that hosted luminary players. “The Cotton Club in Forrest City, Brown Jug in Madison, Top Hat in Blackfish Township, Robinson’s Cafe in Hughes and White Swan in Brinkley were noted juke joints in the region,” he said.

Pine Bluff had as many as 15 or 20 juke joints, added Cunningham, including one right by the train station. “All this dancing and frolicking and juke joints and everything else right next to that station created tension,” he said.

‘A FARM’ IN LITTLE ROCK

Later in “Sinners,” we learn that Stack helped set Mary up with a rich white husband on a farm in Little Rock, a life she’s unhappy about. But Mary’s stepping off the train back in Clarksdale reflects the real-life flow of transportation at the time.

“There would have probably been multiple trains a day,” J.L. Gattis, an amateur train historian and newsletter editor for the

Arkansas-Boston Mountains Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, said. From Little Rock, Mary might have taken the Rock Island line to Memphis, then the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad south to Clarksdale.

On a more emotional note, Mary also tells Stack, “I didn’t wanna be white. I wanted to be with you.” Mary’s ability to live as a white woman in Little Rock also reflects historical reality. Though Jim Crow rules were certainly in effect, some parts of Arkansas were less rigid than other parts of the South, CALS’ Stewart explained. “There was always that connection between the races because we were too poor to be totally segregated,” she said.

What’s more, some light-skinned people of color did in fact move between “white” and “Black” worlds. Stewart’s aunt Ruth

Roland may have been one such person. Though the historical record is hard to confirm, Stewart said that her family lore places Roland in Chicago living as a white woman before returning to Little Rock, where she then lived as Black.

“We think of race as something that’s very obvious when you look at someone, but forget how much it relies upon local knowledge,” Lancaster noted.

‘SELLIN’ ASS’ IN LITTLE ROCK

Moving on to the most salacious reference in the film! Stack and Smoke are arguing over money when Smoke says to Stack, “When you was sellin’ ass out in Little Rock … you ever let a john pay with a goddamn promissory note?”

Little Rock did, in fact, once have a thriving red light district, known as Battle Row

ARTIFACTS: Clockwise from left, First Missionary Baptist Church in Little Rock, one of Arkansas’s oldest Black congregations, first organized in 1845; like Mary in “Sinners,” historian Rhonda Stewart’s light-skinned aunt Ruth Roland allegedly lived as a white woman for a time; a vintage matchbook from the Gala Room, a juke joint in Pine Bluff.

and Fighting Alley and located near the modern-day River Market. Though the district was shut down in 1913, prostitution simply moved into less conspicuous places — “things like hotels and massage parlors,” Carlie Cowgill, a program and administrative assistant at the University of Arkansas Little Rock Downtown and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, said. Were there separate Black and white vice districts? Though the historic record is hazy, Cowgill said there’s evidence that Battle

little city,” Stewart said, and Black Arkansans could start their own churches in the state after emancipation. For example, First Missionary Baptist Church on Seventh and Gaines streets, first organized in 1845, has one of the oldest African American congregations in the state. The Church of God in Christ, a predominantly African American Pentecostal denomination, was started in Arkansas in 1897, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s mother was an evangelist and singer for the church in Cotton Plant.

“SINNERS” NODS TO THE HORRORS OF THE JIM CROW

Row may have been a Black neighborhood, but that the brothels were likely not rigidly segregated spaces.

One detail does seem to veer from history, Cowgill said: Sex work was almost entirely controlled by women — by madams rather than male pimps. “That’s interesting that they chose to portray that character as a pimp, when I’m not actually sure that that’s the way that the commercial sex industry was operating in Little Rock,” Cowgill said.

‘A LITTLE CHURCH IN LITTLE ROCK’

The film’s most haunting Arkansas reference happens earlier in the film, when the young bluesman Sammie and the older harmonica player Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) are rambling across the vast Delta cotton fields in what looks to be a Model T.

Slim tells of a friend, Rice, with whom he once played juke joints around Memphis, until the two were arrested for vagrancy and forced to play the blues for white families. Rice dreamed of taking his earnings to Little Rock to “start him a little church.” He never makes it out of town: Rice is lynched at the train station. The memory is so painful that Slim breaks into guttural humming and drumming.

This scene was partly improvised and blends many aspects of history into one harrowing moment. Still, Rice’s dream of leaving Mississippi and opening a church in Arkansas hits on several historical realities.

For starters, it could be a nod to the dominance of Black churches in Arkansas, Stewart suggested. “We had every denomination you could imagine right here in this

Other historians guess the scene was drawing out how countless blues musicians moved between the gospel world and the secular world of the blues, even though some strictly pious people looked down on the art form. “The church tried to create the kind of artificial line between secular and sacred,” Cunningham said, “even though it all comes from the same place.”

It’s also possible, Stewart said, that “Sin ners” writer and director Ryan Coogler pinned Rice’s dreams on Little Rock because the city offered more freedom and opportu nities compared to the Delta, where share croppers lived under the thumb of land owners. “People were thriving here in Little Rock and doing what they needed to do to take care of their families and their commu nities,” she said, pointing to the West Ninth Street Black business district, which was in its heyday in the 1920s and only partly di minished by the Great Depression.

While Arkansas was for a time known as a relatively tolerant place for Black people, that reputation hasn’t always held. Cunningham noted that Pine Bluff, for example, once had one of the highest rates of lynching in the state.

That dark truth makes it all the more powerful when, in the same scene in the cotton fields, Delta Slim keeps humming the blues until Sammie picks up his guitar and starts playing along, capturing the resilience of Black Southerners that the music represents. “There’s a connection between our musical blues and our social blues,” Cunningham said. “All the blues ain’t blue. It’s also overcoming.”

FROM SCRATCH

LAST YEAR, THREE FOLD SHOCKED FANS WITH A MENU OVERHAUL. CAN THE BELOVED NOODLE AND DUMPLING SHOP WIN BACK SKEPTICS?

BY BENJAMIN HARDY

MAKEOVER: In addition to being steamed rather than boiled, the new dumplings at Three Fold are now served in bamboo baskets.

From the moment she opened Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co. in downtown Little Rock more than a decade ago, Lisa Zhang has stubbornly followed her own path.

In contrast to the sprawling yet generic menu of the average American Chinese restaurant, Three Fold offered only a handful of carefully considered items: handmade dumplings, toothsome noodles, bun-inspired sandwiches, a few sides. When I interviewed her for the Arkansas Times in 2015, Zhang told me that her goal for the new restaurant was to expose Americans to Chinese cooking traditions they’d likely never encounter otherwise.

The reception was rapturous. Three Fold attracted a devoted following and soon expanded from its original digs on Center Street to a larger storefront on Main Street. In the years that followed, Zhang experimented with new concepts large and small — multicourse evening meals; a pop-up chicken restaurant, Haybird; an innovative breakfast menu at Three Fold’s second location, which opened in West Little Rock in 2022 — but the core noodle-and-dumpling offerings remained constant.

Until last year, that is, when Zhang marked Three Fold’s 10th anniversary with a complete menu overhaul. New dumplings, new noodles, new appetizers. Some muchloved dishes disappeared entirely; others were transmuted into unfamiliar forms. It’s hard to imagine a bolder, riskier move for a local restaurant that depends on customer loyalty.

Reactions have been mixed, to put it mildly. “I miss the old Three Fold,” reads the title of one mournful Reddit thread on /r/Little Rock lamenting the loss of the pork dumpling soup. Dozens of commenters chimed in, mostly to express unhappiness at the new menu and nostalgia for 86’d Three Fold favorites. Some said prices had gone up and portions on the whole seemed smaller. One Yelp review from September put the sentiment succinctly: “WHYYYYYYY?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?”

I recently put that question to Zhang in an interview. What would prompt a successful restaurateur to scrap their entire menu overnight and leap into the unknown?

Zhang, 60, said it’s about staying true to the mission she set for herself from the beginning. The point of Three Fold has always been to provide a small window into the vast world of authentic Chinese cooking. Part of that tradition is constant change, she said.

“That’s the traditional mentality of Chinese eating. … Chinese are always chasing different, better, [more] variety,” she said. A restaurant in China that doesn’t change up its menu substantially after a year is certain to be outpaced by competitors. The same applies to home cooks, Zhang said: “It’s a cultural thing in China. No matter at a restaurant or a housewife, they have to keep on doing new things.”

Zhang’s own restless nature surely also has something to do with the switch. A chemist by training, she spent years in business management in China and the U.S. before enrolling in culinary school in Dallas. (She and her family first moved to the U.S. in 1999.) When Zhang launched Three Fold in 2015 at age 50, she had no idea how Arkansas would receive a restaurant that departed so completely from the typical sweet-and-sour Chinese fare Americans are used to.

“We were received very well. It exceeded my expectations 10 years ago,” she said.

Since then, Zhang focused on stability and quality at Three Fold. But after a decade of holding steady, she said, a shakeup was necessary.

“Before I retire, I think it was about time to bring more variety to people,” she said. She switched out pork for pork belly, shredded chicken for poached chicken. The noodles now come in three types: scallion, peanut and “mala,” the signature spicy-tingly seasoning of Sichuan cooking. Customers can choose from several “small bites”: fried chicken, seasoned fries, crisps with dip and Taiwanese pickled vegetables.

Along with changing up the food, Zhang sought to improve the quality of the presentation. The dumplings, which are now steamed rather than boiled, are served in bamboo baskets. The noodles are served in double-layer stainless steel bowls designed to keep temperatures more consistent than the enamelware Three Fold previously used. Those changes, and others, incurred significant new costs, but Zhang wanted to make an environment that felt less like fast food — “more comfortable than disposable,” as she put it.

Though she still has “a lot of die-hard Three Fold fans that give me support,” Zhang acknowledged that the new menu has been met with a good deal of pushback.

“The result is not being received as good as I wish,” she said.

Zhang left open the possibility of bigger changes in the future, but for now she’s still hoping that customers will come around. Or at least meet her halfway as she continues adapting and adjusting.

Since the rollout of the new menu last June, Zhang has already made several tweaks, such as doing away with a greenhued ginger scallion oil whose color made many diners “uncomfortable.” Her poached chicken in cold sauce — a “very difficult cooking method” that she said yields exceptionally tender meat — hasn’t gone over well, so she plans to bring back shredded chicken this year.

“It’s a learning process for me also,” Zhang said. She’s reluctant to reverse course on her vision as a whole, though, at least not any time soon.

“I’ll try my best to bring some of their comfort food back … but my direction won’t change,” she said. “With my limited lifetime, I’m continuing to try to bring good things to people.”

That may not be conventional business advice, but Zhang sees Three Fold as more than a business.

“Businesswise, I’m not doing the right direction … but as a mission of the heart, I do think I’m doing right,” she said. “Supposedly, the business should keep up with the demands of the customers — but at Three Fold, I request my customers keep up with me!” she said with a wild laugh. “I move too fast!”

INTERLIBRARY LOAN GUNMEN

Despite a lifetime of fairly leftist leanings, The Observer has, this past year, surprised himself by developing some rather conservative beliefs.

For example, I now believe that the government that governs best governs least, states’ rights are paramount, the presidency should be reserved for people of high moral fiber, federal agents are jack-booted thugs who want to put us all in FEMA camps, and our national government is run by a cabal of elite pedophiles.

But where I am most demonstrating my newfound conservative impulses lies in becoming something of a gun nut.

I never really anticipated this, although I grew up very familiar with guns. Both of my parents hailed from rural places before meeting in the military, and they raised me with a respect for firearms that now seems almost quaint. When I graduated from college, my dad gave me a Ruger Mark I .22 pistol, but only rarely did I take it out of the box over the next 20-plus years.

However, the reelection of Donald Trump rather wrecked my sense of being safe in Arkansas and in the United States at large, and so I asked a friend of mine, a former sheriff’s deputy, if he could recommend a concealed carry instructor. It turns out that a few other friends and acquaintances were thinking along similar lines, and thus we got a small group to go through the class together, studying under Danny Dring in Sherwood. We ended with a little bit of range time at The Shooters Gallery in North Little Rock — my

first time at a gun range, for all my childhood experiences had been out in the woods or at some gravel pit.

Anyhow, things spiraled a bit from there.

I mentioned to one co-worker that I had gotten my concealed carry license, and she said, “Oh, I’ve been thinking about that, too!” Another colleague overheard us and said, “I’ve decided that I can’t really rely upon my husband’s collection of katanas for our defense. What would be a good pistol for a beginner?”

It turns out that more people than I had ever expected were suddenly developing a curiosity about guns here in these waning days of American democracy. I didn’t have a whole lot of experience, but I was someone who had been through the process and wasn’t your typical weapons enthusiast — a friendly face rather than a firearms fetishist.

This is how The Observer started a shooting club.

After all, I didn’t imagine that my meager possession of a license to carry a concealed handgun marked me as some kind of marksman. I knew I needed more practice and experience. And if I was going to get it, why not do it with some friends?

Of course, if you start any kind of group, be it a rock band or a militia, everyone’s first question is: “What are we going to call ourselves?” Given that most members of this group worked in various libraries, we threw around names like Range Masters (as in a range of books) or Kablooie Decimal System before eventually settling upon Interlibrary Loan Gunmen.

In March 2025, we had our first gathering

at the Levy Gun Range in North Little Rock. That’s become our usual monthly hangout, though we’ve also met at the aforementioned Shooters Gallery and also Arkansas Armory in Sherwood. Yes, it was intimidating at first, entering this world of weaponry with very little knowledge and experience in my pocket, but at each place we’ve visited for an hour’s range time, I’ve encountered nothing but helpful souls, eager to answer at length any meager question I have. After a year of doing this, I’ve finally realized why.

Gun nuts are just nerds.

You know nerds. You’ve probably made the mistake of saying to a friend who considers himself a cinephile, “Who is this Jean-Luc Godard person?” only to be treated to an hour’s discourse about the impact of French New Wave cinema. Back in the day, The Observer would passionately defend John Ostrander’s original 66-issue run of “Suicide Squad” as the very apotheosis of superhero comics — don’t you dare even mention Chris Claremont’s “Uncanny X-Men” to me.

When I walk into a gun store and hear folks talking about Holosun red dot optics, it reminds me of nothing so much as the comic book stores of my youth. Oh, you say the Colt 1911 pistol hasn’t been paralleled by anything developed since? We used to say the same thing about the works of Alan Moore.

The Observer now has informed thoughts about brands of ammunition. I started on this journey with the goal to defend myself and my loved ones, and maybe even defend democracy. Now, I have a fully fledged hobby.