It makes sense that Carlton Saffa, Saracen Casino Resort’s chief market officer, feels like he’s hit the occupational jackpot. Still under 40 — he reaches that milestone in December — Saffa was the first Saracen employee when hired in 2019.…
August 2021
- August 2021Health CareHealthcareMagazine
The Little Hospital That Could: Baxter Regional Brings Big-City Care to Small-Town Arkansas
by Dwain Hebdaby Dwain HebdaAt just over 12,000 souls, Mountain Home, Arkansas, shares a lot of the same characteristics of hamlets across the Natural State and elsewhere. Except in self-image. While many small towns struggle with population loss, job stagnation and lack of opportunity,…
- August 2021BusinessBusiness servicesEntrepreneurshipMagazineSmall business
Cool Customers: Family-Owned R&E Supply Eyes Expansion
by Dwain Hebdaby Dwain HebdaAs Bill Miller, president of Little Rock-based R&E Supply, is quick to tell you, if there’s such a thing as a recession-proof, pandemic-proof, bulletproof business, it’s dealing in the air conditioning and refrigeration space in Arkansas. Even so, it’s not…
Earlier this year, Dr. Joe Thompson warned Arkansans not to get their hopes up for a quick conclusion to the COVID-19 saga. Thompson, a former state surgeon general under Govs. Mike Huckabee and Mike Beebe, is the president and…
- August 2021CultureMagazineSports/Outdoors
War Pigs: Odds Stacked Against Them Again, But the Fighting Razorbacks Have Returned
by Mark Carterby Mark CarterThe 19th-century transcendentalist and accidental libertarian Henry David Thoreau noted, presumably on a long walk, that perception trumps reality. What one looks at, he reasoned, matters less than what one sees. And college football fans in the 21st century “see”…
- August 2021MagazineSponsoredSports/Outdoors
The Reckoning: Game and Fish, Conservation Partners Unite To Save Flyway Hardwoods
by Mark Carterby Mark CarterLike many lifelong duck hunters, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Chairman Bobby Martin got his start hunting just about every Wildlife Management Area or river bottom that would hold a duck in east Arkansas. Since age 9, Martin has chased…
- August 2021Magazine
Changing Times: Top 6 Reasons Why SEC Expansion Will Help Arkansas Football
by Beau Wilcoxby Beau WilcoxIt took all of a few days for a curious, seemingly outlandish thing to become a reality. Texas and Oklahoma locked hands like Thelma and Louise and drove right the hell off the cliff of the Big 12. (Subsequent landslide…
- August 2021EducationMagazineNonprofitSports/Outdoors
Membership Has Its Privileges: School Connections Run Deep For College Donors
by Mark Carterby Mark CarterEconomists at the University of San Diego School of Business in December released the findings from a study that sought to determine why fans contribute financially to college athletics programs. And they found, among other things, that donors aren’t motivated…
Every city in Arkansas has a unique story to tell, but it’s hard to beat the legends of notorious mobsters and alcohol smuggling that swirl over the city of Hot Springs. Hot Springs was considered the unofficial moonshining capital of…
- August 2021Magazine
The Good, the Bad and the Funding: A Deeper Dive into Heartland Forward’s Arkansas Economic Feasibility Study
The recent Arkansas Economic Feasibility Study from Bentonville nonprofit Heartland Forward revealed the good and the bad of the state’s economic development picture.The state does many things very well but has much work to do in some areas, the study…