Heading out of Stuttgart, Jay Coker drives through the heart of Arkansas rice country, as he surveys the land around Lodge Corner, where his farmland is located. He grows contemplative about the present and future of the rice industry. A…
May 2020
A bird flew by the other day as I sat in my dining room-turned-office. Being a dining room-turned office as opposed to a patio-inspired workspace, this wasn’t ideal. Better a bird than a snake, I suppose. But the lesson of…
Employing more than 100,000 people, travel tourism is the No. 2 industry in the state of Arkansas with an annual economic impact of $7.6 billion. The Arkansas Hospitality Association (AHA) is the voice of the lodging, restaurant and tourism industries…
- MagazineMay 2020Transportation
Trucking Industry Awaiting the New Normal
by Mark Carterby Mark CarterArkansas Trucking Firms Adjust to Pandemic The great pandemic of 2020 has done many things: Strained the capacity of the health-care delivery system; forced a re-evaluation of the means through which higher education is delivered; richly rewarded investment in food-delivery and…
- BusinessFoodMagazineMay 2020
Food Fight – COVID-19’s Latest Victims: Arkansas Restaurants
by Dwain Hebdaby Dwain HebdaJerry Barakat, owner of upscale Little Rock steakhouse Arthur’s, took a reporter’s call at 5 p.m., an act that in itself underscored the dire state of the restaurant business in Arkansas. Five o’ clock is usually the preamble to the…
- BusinessMagazineMay 2020
Just What the Doctor Ordered: Catering Company Revamps, Finds Way Through COVID-19 Challenge
by Dwain Hebdaby Dwain HebdaJay Ramsey, co-owner of Rx Catering, will always remember Friday, March 13, as a date that lived up to its sinister reputation. “Our whole catering premise is 10 people or more; on Friday the 13th, [officials] said no groups…
- Health & ScienceHealth CareMagazineMay 2020Politics
Not Seeing Eye to Eye: Ophthalmologists and Optometrists Face Off About Eye Surgery Scope-of-Practice Issues
Which medical providers can perform certain types of eye surgery is a hotly debated issue in Arkansas. Optometrists defend Act 579 passed by the Arkansas General Assembly in 2019 as simply updating laws similar to those in some neighboring states…
This month, the red light that’s been holding up the Arkansas economy turned yellow. Gov. Asa Hutchinson began the process of slowly reopening Arkansas business. It’s not a full-speed-ahead green light just yet, and it shouldn’t be, but it’s something.…
- BusinessMagazineMay 2020
The Outsiders: David’s Burgers Bucks the COVID-19 Trendline
by Dwain Hebdaby Dwain HebdaAccording to Ryan Rooney, creative director, the company’s nine locations took a severe hit when the COVID-19 crisis began and as sales plummeted, it forced the layoff of some employees. “At the very beginning, we were pretty much like…
- MagazineMay 2020Media/Marketing
One Fan Site’s Approach: Inform and Entertain
by Trey Biddyby Trey BiddyIf there’s a coaching change, that means the fans consuming our Razorback content have likely been through a rough season or two in the first place, or there has been a huge negative divide in the fanbase. Including situations like…