April 2021

If you didn’t know better, you’d easily mistake Franklin McLarty for one of a million other corporate guys — a banker, maybe, albeit one considerably less buttoned-down than stereotype.  You easily picture the Central High School grad on the sidelines…

In the quiet, unsuspecting Southern mountain town of Mena, you’ll find a small airport that has provided aviation services since World War II. Though it was once part of an international controversy, the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport has brought much…

College baseball has come a long way since Norm DeBriyn led Arkansas to its first College World Series in 1979, and the Razorbacks program right along with it. In 1970, DeBriyn took over a moribund Hogs baseball program that played…

Half a year after six Searcy shops were featured on a television program that conducts $500,000 in major makeovers, the COVID-19 virus struck the country, changing consumer habits and putting businesses into stressful survival situations. But five of the six…

Arkansas Money & Politics sat down with the owners of three local commercial print shops in Central Arkansas and asked them about the pandemic’s impact on business, techniques to save their companies and what the future holds. Magna IV Kristi…

In the annals of American aviation history, to say nothing of the history of Arkansas, few individuals stand taller than the willowy Louise McPhetridge Thaden. During the 1920s and 1930s, Thaden was one of the most famous and captivating figures…

When Jack and Norma Rose moved with their three young children to Dallas in the mid-1950s, Jack had no interest in airplanes and knew nothing about them. His people were farmers and loggers, and flying airplanes did not figure into…

In the four decades it’s been in existence, Omni Air Charter has withstood economic ups and downs, stepped-up regulatory presence and rising equipment and fuel costs. But 2020 was something altogether different, according to Toni Finkbeiner, co-owner.  “Initially, when we…

Growing up in Stuttgart, Bryan Hancock dreamed of becoming a pilot and flying airplanes for a living. He accomplished that goal, but circumstances later sent his life in a different direction. Today, though he still flies occasionally, he is the…

State Rep. Joe Jett has been a passionate fan of aviation his whole adult life. He worked as an air traffic controller amid the dramatic strike in 1982, has an airline-transport pilot’s license and is a single-engine flight instructor. On…