Ozarks At Large
Tonya Lewis Lee helped bring Christopher Paul Curtis' novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham to Tv this month. Tonight the film is being shown, for free, at Bentonville High School and today we talked with Ms. lee about the project that premiered earlier this month on the Hallmark Channel.
Late last week, the federal Department of Health and Human Services accepted Arkansas's plan for Medicaid expansion. The city of Bentonville will give away compost and wood mulch this week. A couple of roads close or otherwise reroute in the River Valley starting today. And gas prices dropped slightly in Arkansas over the past week.
With this morning's montage, we say several goodbyes; to Summer, to a famed Yankees pitcher, and to one of our longest-tenured colleagues at KUAF. Here are our 10 pop culture references we used to say goodbye.
- "So Long, Farewell" from the Sound of Music
- Lou Gehrig's farewell speech
- "Goodbye my Lover" by James Blunt
- ET says his goodbye
- The famous words from Gone With The Wind
- "Hello, Goodbye" by The Beatles
- The Friends leave the apartment for the final time
- "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John
- Jim Carey tells his fare goodbye at the beginning of Dumb and Dumber
- Leaving Casablanca for the final time
- Johnny Carson bids his final farewell to the audience during his final time hosting The Tonight Show
The Arkansas Center For The Book this week made its selection for the 2013 If All Arkansas Read The Same Book Program. Kyle Kellams spoke with Vivienne Schiffer, the author of the novel Camp Nine, this year's selection.
State officials continue to seek a solution to the teacher insurance crisis in Arkansas. New numbers are out regarding Arkansas students' achievements on Advanced Placement tests. And, the Connecting Arkansas Internet Conference is being held in Little Rock this week.
You can go to a workshop at NWACC to learn about the state's Freedom of Information Act, or you can participate in one of many lake and other outdoor cleanups in the next few days.



Latest Edition of Ozarks at Large
Friday, May 9, 2014
Ahead on this edition of Ozarks, Michael Tilley talks about a new owner for some long-abandoned real estate in Fort Smith, and the official announcement of a Whole Foods in Fayetteville. Plus, Cletus Got Shot gets ready to perform at a few festivals in the next month.
A proposal to cut maximum unemployment benefit payouts moves forward in the Arkansas Legislature, as do discussions regarding expansion to the state's Medicaid system. And, the proposal for the state to provide several million dollars in financing for the Big River Steel project passes the state House, though representatives still need to sign off on a budget bill for the proposal to be final
April 15th is just around the corner and many of us are scrambling to file our income tax returns. To help out, the AARP Foundation has set up seasonal tax preparation centers across the country. We take you to a Fayetteville center to see how it works. To find an AARP Foundation tax aid center near you, click here.
"Henry the Fifth" by Brass Band Lutzelfuh
Dr. Donald Steinkraus says that insects use sound to attract other insects, much in the same way that public radio uses sound to attract listeners.
Becca Martin Brown of Northwest Arkansas Media gives us the heads up on when to catch Anything Goes, running through the end of the week at Walton Arts Center.
Patricia Limerick is considered a vanguard of the "new western history." She says that many questions should be asked when trying to balance living in the west with current attitudes toward energy consumption.
"Henry Portraits" by Anthony Phillips