Still Time to Sign Up for the
6th Annual Take the Lake 5k Walk/Run

There is still time to sign up to participate in the 6th Annual Take the Lake 5k Walk/Run and the Take the Lake Kidz Races for ages 14 and under.  All events will be held on Saturday, April 25th at Dam Site Park near Heber Springs, Arkansas. These events will be held in conjunction with Spring-Fest, a local festival sponsored by the Heber Springs Chamber of Commerce, and all race proceeds benefit the local American Cancer Society/Relay for Life.   ”We are expecting fantastic weather and hoping for a record turn-out on Race Day,” says Cynthia Kasbohm, Race co-chair.  “Everything is in place to provide a family-friendly atmosphere, and we hope everyone will join us for a great afternoon of fun and support the American Cancer Society at the same time.”

The Kidz Races begin at 3:45 p.m., at the entrance to Dam Site Park, located north of Heber Springs.  “Parents who wish to participate in the main event at 5:00 p.m. will have plenty of time to see the Kidz Races and still catch a bus ride to the starting line for the Take the Lake 5k,” says Kashbohm.

The Kidz Races are open to all boys and girls up to age 14, and will be divided into categories as follows:

o Ages 9 – 14  ~ 1 mile
o Ages 7 & 8   ~ ½ mile
o Ages 5 & 6   ~ ¼ mile
o Ages 4 & under – 200 meters (1/8 mile)

Prizes will be awarded to the first place girl and boy in each group.  All participants will receive commemorative ribbons.  The entry fee is $10 per child prior to race day, and $15 per child the day of the race.  To register, send a check for $10 with the child’s name, address, telephone number, and age to:  Take the Lake Kidz Races, 13 Woodland W, Heber Springs, AR  72543.  Make checks payable to ACS Relay for Life/Take the Lake.  Kidz Race participants should check in at the registration tent at Dam Site Park on race day between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m.

Teens and adults to register for the Take the Lake 5k Walk/Run, and the fee for early entry is $20 per person.  The entry fee will be $25 per person on Race Day.  Race participants can register online at http://takethelake5k.blogspot.com  The prize for overall male and female runner is $100 each, with medals being awarded in each age group.

Race day registration and runner’s packets may be picked up between 1:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., at Dam Site Park in Heber Springs, where race participants are to assemble.  Buses will shuttle the participants to JFK Overlook beginning at 3:45 p.m., and the last bus will leave Dam Site Park at 4:45 p.m. For more information, visit the Take the Lake blog at http://takethelake5k.blogspot.com, or call Cynthia Kasbohm at 501-206-5498, or e-mail CKasbohm@suddenlink.net.

(Above) Abigail Gates

CLINTON, Ark. (April 16, 2009) – Clinton High School sophomore Abigail Gates has been selected as the sixth winner in the “Discovering Tomorrow’s Leaders” program.  Gates is president of the Van Buren County 4-H Horse and Saddle Club.
Gates, 16, daughter of Lee and Teresa Gates, was selected for her participation and leadership in 4-H as well as school and community activities.  As a student in the Clinton High School’s Environmental and Special Technology (EAST) class, Gates founded and chaired the first Van Buren County Hometown Equestrian Organization Ride for Life on April 4.  She volunteered many hours recruiting and organizing other volunteers from the community for the event, which raised approximately $4,000 for the American Cancer Society through the county Relay for Life program.
The person who nominated Gates wrote:  “Abby’s attention to detail, her selflessness in the recognition of others, and her passion for life all make her an exceptional person.”
As sponsor of the “Discovering Tomorrow’s Leaders” program, Chesapeake Energy will donate a computer to Clinton High School in Gates’ name.  And as a weekly winner, she is now eligible to win her own laptop computer at a banquet for winners and their families next month.
The “Discovering Tomorrow’s Leaders” program is open to all students in Van Buren County.  People in the schools and communities can nominate students who belong to either FFA or 4-H and exhibit outstanding leadership qualities.  Two more weekly winners will be selected, and a computer will be donated to each winner’s school.
The nomination form runs weekly in the Van Buren County Democrat
and the Fairfield Bay News.  An online version of the form is also available
on the newspapers’ Web sites as well as the Web site of KFFB-FM Radio.  The
two newspapers and KFFB are media partners for the program.
“Chesapeake wants to recognize 4-H and Future Farmers of America students for their leadership and contribution to their communities,” said Robert Zeiler, manager of community affairs for Chesapeake in Arkansas.

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This Friday, the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism is once again encouraging Arkansans to “See Arkansas First” – an affordable way to enjoy R&R during the peak travel season.

The See Arkansas First program will be in Heber Springs this Friday April 24, 2009, encouraging Arkansans to take advantage of the wonderful attractions and activities available here in Heber Springs and the Greers Ferry Lake Area..

From some of the nation’s best caves and caverns to optimum mountain-biking trails, sweet retreats for couples to Greers Ferry lake and the Little Red River for fishing, canoeing or boating with your family and friends, there’s an array of things to see and do in the Greers Ferry Lake Area.

With partners from The Suntimes, KFFB 106.1 FM, River City RV, Parks and Tourism will stock the “AR-V,” a rolling billboard, with vacation information, refreshments and prizes. The AR-V will be at the Cleburne County Court House this Friday April 24, 2009 from 11 am to 1 pm. Participants can enter to win a TRX 420 Rancher 4×4 ATV donated by Honda of North Little Rock. Lewis & Clark Outfitters will provide outdoor equipment, including a Riot Quest 9 ½-foot kayak, Schwinn Super Sport hybrid bicycle and North Face camping equipment to some lucky winners.

Petit Jean Meats and Coca-Cola will provide refreshments from 11 am to 1 pm this Friday at the Cleburne County Court House, and Parks and Tourism representatives will offer ideas for you and your loved ones to make this Arkansas summer a vacation experience you’ll never forget. Listen to KFFB 106.1 FM during their live broadcast during their stop in Heber Springs.

For more information about See Arkansas First in Arkansas, visit Arkansas.com and ArkansasStateParks.com and thesuntimes.com and Kffb.com or call 1-800-NATURAL for a free Vacation Planning Kit.

The North Central Arkansas Fellowship of Christian Athletes presents:  Golf Classic!

Registration for the tournament will be held from 6:45 am to 7:45 am, and a gun shot start will be held at 8 am.

The even will be held on April 24, 2009, at the Searcy Country Club. They are looking for a few good SPONSORS! For more details, call 870-793-2378.

Old Independence Regional Museum

Hosts Family Day Event “From Sheep to Cloth”

Did you ever wonder where your clothing REALLY comes from? Which regional plants make good dyes?  How did our ancestors water-proof their clothing? How many spinners did it take to keep one weaver busy? When should sheep be shorn?  Why did people from long ago have so few garments?  Find the answers to these questions at the “From Sheep to Cloth” Family Day.  This free, fun-filled event takes place outside and inside the museum on Saturday, April 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.   Visitors will have the opportunity to purchase lemonade, sandwiches and bake sale items for lunch.

The morning begins with a meet and greet with the real “stars” of the event, the sheep!  Visit them on the side lawn of the museum and learn about wool sheep and listen to a reading of sheep stories.  After seeing where the wool comes from, visitors are invited to try their hand at wool washing, wool carding, and weaving.  Museum volunteers and staff will also lead demonstrations in natural dyeing and spinning wool.

After the wool has been processed, dyed, and spun, a garment can finally be started.  In the afternoon, visitors will have the opportunity to practice knitting a row or sewing a seam.

Amanda Nikkel, the museum’s Volunteer Coordinator, states “we will have a different activity or hands-on demonstration starting every half hour beginning at 10 in the morning and ending at 2 in the afternoon. We encourage families to spend the day with us learning about how our ancestors made clothing.”

Old Independence Regional Museum, located at 380 South Ninth Street in Batesville is non-profit institution serving 12-counties in north central Arkansas.   The Museum is open Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Sundays.  Admission is $3.00 for adults, $2.00 for seniors and $1.00 for children.  The museum is located at 380 South 9th street, between Boswell and Vine Streets in Batesville.  The Museum’s Gift Shop is open to the public and has an extensive collection of books, historical reproductions and gift items related to local history and culture for all ages.   Call 870-793-2121 for more information

Dr. Donald V. Weatherman left Lyon College 10 years ago as a professor of political philosophy. He will return in July as the 17th president of the college.

The Lyon College Board of Trustees approved Weatherman’s nomination as the next president of Lyon at its spring meeting today. He will succeed Dr. Walter B. Roettger, who is retiring in June after 11 years as the college’s president.

Weatherman served as the John D. Trimble Sr. Professor of Political Philosophy at Lyon from 1983 to 1999. He left Batesville to become vice president and dean of Erskine College in South Carolina. In 2003, he was promoted to executive vice president and dean. He also serves as a professor of politics at Erskine.

Dr. Terrell Tebbetts, who represented the Lyon faculty on the search committee, said, “Dr. Weatherman stood out from the other candidates because of the breadth of his leadership experiences, his knowledge of the Lyon community, and the respect the Lyon and Batesville communities hold for him.

“Because of his work at Lyon and in the Batesville community, Dr. Weatherman is returning to find a wealth of good will awaiting him,” Tebbetts said.

At Erskine, Weatherman is the chief academic officer and, int he president’s absence, the principal officer of the college. He is responsible for the faculty, curriculum, academic programs, library, academic records, institutional research, information technology, and an art center and museum. At various times, his responsibilities have included enrollment management (admissions/financial aid/retention), student services, and athletics.

At Lyon, Weatherman served as a division chair for several years and received the Lamar Williamson Prize for Excellence in Teaching in1986.

He earned a Ph.D. in American government and political philosophy from Claremont Graduate University, and his master’s degree from the same institution. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University at Los Angeles, Calif., majoring in political science.

Weatherman was a Bradley Resident Scholar for The Heritage Foundation for six months in 1988. He was one of the first to participate in this program designed to bring academics to Washington, D.C.

Before coming to Lyon in 1983, Weatherman held faculty position at the College of St. Catherine, the College of Idaho, and California State University at San Bernardino.

He has been a member of many academic and civic organizations in both South Carolina and Arkansas. He was a weekly columnist in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (1997-99) and the Batesville Daily Guard (1995-97). He has been a political analyst for The Index-Journal in Greenwood, S.C.

He has been an elder in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), as well as a church school teacher.

When he and his family lived in Batesville, he was a member of the White River Medical Center Regional Advisory Board, a member of the Batesville City Planning Commission, and was a troop instructor for the Boy Scouts of America.

He is the author of a book, Endangered Guardians: Party Reform Within a Constitutional System (Rowman and Littlefield, 1994), and has written numerous articles on politics and government that have appeared in academic journals, reference books and general publications.

He is married to Lynn Weatherman and they have two children,  David, a law student at the University of Memphis, and Andrea, a Converse College graduate who plans to move to Austria to study German.

The search for a new president of Lyon began last fall with the appointment of a search committee, chaired by Frank Lyon Jr.,and composed of Bill Bristow ’72, Katee Castleman ’09, Bruce Johnston, SarahOquist ’93, Terrell Tebbetts, Robert Young III, and Ray LaCroix Jr., chair of the Board of Trustees.

The committee hired Academic Search Inc. to assist with the process. The committee received 90 applications for the job. The search committee met with seven semi-finalists in Little Rock last week.

“The candidate pool was unusually rich and varied and included senior administrative officers from other national liberal arts colleges, comprehensive colleges and universities, as well as the private corporate sector,” LaCroix reported in a memo to the campus community this week.

“After a complete discussion of each candidate, our consultant asked us to rank all seven so that we might focus on those candidates we might include in our invitation for campus interview,” LaCroix said. “This exercise brought about an interesting outcome. Voting by secret ballot, we discovered there was unanimous support for a single candidate, an event, according to our consultant, never experienced before in his nearly quarter century of work in academic search.”

As a result, the committee decided to invite only a single candidate – Weatherman – to visit the campus.  LaCroix said, “To do otherwise, wer easoned, would be disingenuous, for while there were two or three others in the pool for whom support was expressed, none came close to the candidate who had received our unanimous support.”

Weatherman met with campus constituents earlier this week. His name was placed in nomination to the Board of Trustees Friday morning and he was approved.

One of the goals of the Jubilee Family Church Youth Ministries (JFCYM) is to provide a safe environment for after-school and summer-vacation programs for the youth of Independence County.  These programs are designed to be not only educational, but to also exercise and strengthen the mind and the body.

In keeping with that goal, JFCYM will soon begin construction of an outdoor, beach volleyball court. This court will be built to Olympic specifications, making it, probably, the only one of its kind in the state of Arkansas.

The primary purpose of this court will be to help facilitate a safe, supervised recreation/athletic/play/entertainment area for the youth and citizens of Independence County. In addition, being built to Olympic specifications makes 2 other scenarios possible:

Organized Leagues – Initial efforts are already underway to contact the volleyball    coaches of the local junior high schools, high schools, and colleges to get their input and involvement in organized summer leagues. There are 124 high schools in the state of Arkansas that compete in volleyball. That number does not include junior high or college teams in the state.  Most of the participants in these leagues are girls. While it is not known if there are summer volleyball programs in other parts of the state, it is known that this facility will make summer volleyball programs in Independence County a reality.  Summer leagues could be locally organized or could be affiliated with a national organization such as the United States Youth Volleyball League (USYVL).

Sanctioned Tournaments – This facility opens the door for the possibility of hosting U.S. Beach Volleyball Tournaments.  Ali Wood Lamberson, Director of Beach Programs for USA Volleyball, supplied JFCYM with diagrams and instructions on the construction of a beach volleyball court that meets Olympic specifications.  She has expressed a desire to discuss hosting events when the court is operational. This could bring much-needed tourism dollars into the Batesville economy, especially if the events are televised. These tournaments are part of the selection process for the Olympic team every 4 years.

Since Jubilee Family Church is donating the land, the paved parking area, and the utilities, the total cost for this project is only $20,978.00. That includes the construction of the court itself, the equipment, and the bleachers.

Mr. Howard House, of Batesville, kicked off the fund raising campaign with a donation of $1,000.  Contribution letters are being sent to individuals, businesses, and organizations in Independence County this week to raise the remaining funds. If you would like to contribute to this project or to get more information, please contact: Pastor Tony Hammack or Butch Kelley Jubilee Family Church Youth Ministries (870) 793-9124

Official Kris Allen Watch Party
6 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, April 21
Farris Center
University of Central Arkansas

The Kris Allen Kick Awesome Task Force would like to invite everyone to come out, view the next American Idol episode and VOTE for Kris Allen (a resident of Conway, a student at UCA and an all around great guy).

Those attending the watch party will have a chance to view the episode on the Silver Moon Cinema big screen, courtesy of the City of Conway Parks Department and Conway Corp. Prior to the show broadcast at 7 o’clock, radio station KUCA will be on hand to play Kris Allen’s performances on Idol. Live music will be performed during the two-hour voting period (by text or calling), which begins immediately after the show.

The watch party will be held in the Farris Center at UCA. Doors will open at 6 p.m., the show is at 7, and the voting will start about 8 p.m. and run for two hours.

With “Disco” as the theme for this week’s Idol show, attendees are invited and encouraged to come dressed in 70s attire and participate in a dress-up contest for a chance to win two tickets to the American Idol tour performance in Little Rock. Other prizes will also be given away.

Food concessions and Kris Allen T-shirts (with the Conway logo on the sleeve) will be available for purchase.

The task force will also have a special book – a gift for Kris – on hand for those attending to sign. Let’s support this special young man as he pursues his dream.