Actor and director Kevin Costner testified about the importance of preserving and funding national parks and public lands during a field hearing Friday of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. Photo: Michael Hibblen
Just outside of Hot Springs National Park, a field hearing was held Friday by members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources who heard testimony and advocacy for passage of the Great American Outdoors Act 250. The bipartisan bill would reauthorize a law passed by Congress in 2020 that was designed to protect public lands and repair aging infrastructure.
U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Hot Springs, who chairs the committee, invited members from around the country to his district. He noted that 40 years before Yellowstone was designated as the United States’ first national park, Congress protected the thermal waters of Hot Springs in 1832. That created “America’s first federal reservation of a natural resource, making Hot Springs the birthplace of what a lot of people call ‘America’s best idea.’ Today, Hot Springs serves as a powerful example of what can happen when federal investment, local leadership and private partnerships come together.”
Westerman and Rep. Jared Huffman, D-California, introduced the reauthorization bill Wednesday. The measure would expand on the 2020 legislation, which Westerman said represented the largest investment in public lands infrastructure in generations, providing long-overdue resources to address deteriorating trails, campgrounds, visitor facilities and historic structures.
In Arkansas, Westerman said more than $52 million has been invested in projects at Hot Springs National Park, the Buffalo National River and the Dale Bumpers White River National Wildlife Refuge.
“Those investments have improved visitor access, strengthened recreational opportunities and supported some of our state’s most treasured public lands,” Westerman said, adding that “record visitation continues to place new demands on aging infrastructure.”
The new legislation builds on the successes of the original law, he said, while addressing lessons learned through its implementation. Deferred maintenance over several decades is also a problem that Westerman said still has not been rectified.
“While inflation and rising construction costs may make needed repairs even more expensive, we have also learned important lessons about how these funds are allocated, how projects are selected, how agencies measure deferred maintenance and how we can better leverage partnerships to stretch taxpayer dollars even further,” Westerman said.
The legislation would invest $1.9 billion annually in national parks, public lands and Bureau of Indian Education facilities for the next five years. Funding would come from private donations, onshore energy revenue and new fees paid by foreign visitors.
Among those who testified during the hearing was actor and director Kevin Costner, who has long advocated for preserving national parks, largely through his documentary films. He spoke about growing up in a family that did not have the money to travel to major tourist destinations, but made annual drives to national parks.
“We could afford the gas to get us to the mighty sequoias, the high Sierras, to Yosemite. It was better than Paris, at least for a kid with my imagination. We could fish in a lake, sleep in a tent next to a stream, wake up to the smell of bacon and an open fire. It seemed wild,” Costner said.
“What always struck me, but I couldn’t articulate as a child, was that it never changed. It was undisturbed. It was comforting to know when I came back, it would look the same every time. It was perfect,” Costner said. “Nature doesn’t need a lot of help being perfect. But getting to this spot would not have been impossible without a road, a marked trail, even our campsite was the perfect distance from the next camper.”
That infrastructure is critical to ensuring visitors have good experiences in parks, Costner said, but the signs of deferred maintenance are becoming increasingly apparent.
He also spoke of the role of explorer, geologist and physician Ferdinand Hayden, who led the first government survey of the Yellowstone region in 1871 and advocated for preserving the area. The following year Yellowstone was established as the nation’s first national park.
“The odds of that happening in the area and the era lived, and the forces that stood against it, at a time when America’s natural resources were up for grabs, free to be exploited, with little or no regard for the future — it was zero. But he did it,” Costner said. “He had a vision and the courage to champion preservation over profit.”
Nature remains vulnerable, he said, which is why he supports the legislation.
“While visitations continue to grow, many of our parks are struggling with aging roads, deteriorating trails, outdated water systems, historic buildings in need of repair and staffing shortages that make it increasingly difficult to protect these resources and serve the public. We need the people who care for these places,” Costner said. “There’s really no better time for us to reaffirm our commitment to these places that tell America’s story. Conservation can’t afford to be a partisan issue.”
In addition to restoring infrastructure, backers of the legislation say it would support 72,500 jobs nationwide and generate $26.4 billion in economic activity for communities neighboring national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and public lands. It also would promote transparency and accountability by streamlining contracting and procurement, expediting project reviews and requiring regular reporting.
Others testifying at the hearing included U.S. Department of the Interior Deputy Secretary Kate MacGregor, Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism Office of Outdoor Recreation Director Katherine Andrews, and Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks Executive Council Member Mike Ward.
The hearing was held at the historic Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa, which sits alongside Hot Springs National Park and provides direct access to the park’s trail system. The landmark hotel, which has hosted several presidents over the last century, has recently undergone extensive renovations.
After the hearing, Westerman acknowledged that despite having bipartisan support, the legislation is far from a done deal.
“It’s an act of Congress — there’s always a challenge — but I’m working with our colleagues in the Senate [to build support]. You saw the administration is supportive. It would be great in our 250th anniversary to somehow get this to President Trump to sign by July 4th. That would be a very tall task to happen, but it’s something we all care about and I think it could happen,” Westerman said.
I reported this story for Talk Business & Politics, The Glenwood Herald and the Fordyce News-Advocate.
A few times a year, Flap Jones, host of Little Rock Public Radio’s Not Necessarily Nashville, will take a week off and I get the joy of filling in, playing some of my favorite music. That’s what I did last night. There were also several important things to talk about.
AUDIO: Not Necessarily Nashville, June 13, 2026, 7 p.m. on Little Rock Public Radio’s KUAR-FM 89.1.
Recording the June 13, 2026 episode of Not Necessarily Nashville at my home in North Little Rock.
Willie Nelson released a new album on May 29 called “Dream Chaser,” so I played the title track. I also opened the show by playing a song from Willie’s 1996 album “Spirit,” which was released a few days before he stopped by Glenwood, Arkansas radio station KWXI/KWXE. I wrote about the 30th anniversary of that event for a story in The Glenwood Herald, and talked about that on the show.
I also played some Lucinda Williams two weeks ahead of her performance at the Arkansas Folklife Festival in North Little Rock on Saturday, June 27 at 8:30 p.m. on The People’s Stage. Blues legend Bobby Rush is the headliner the previous night. You can find a full schedule for the three-day festival at this link.
James McMurtry returns to Little Rock at the end of the month for two nights at the White Water Tavern on June 30 and July 1. Tickets for both shows are sold out, but the White Water often makes a few tickets available in the hours before shows, so anyone looking for tickets might want to contact the venue.
Not Necessarily Nashville playlist, June 13, 2026
Willie Nelson — “Too Sick to Pray” (Spirit)
Lucinda Williams (featuring Mavis Staples) — “So Much Trouble in the World” (World’s Gone Wrong)
New Grass Revival — “Do What You Gotta Do” (Friday Night in America)
Sam Bush — “Eight More Miles to Louisville” (King of My World)
James McMurtry — “South Texas Lawman” (The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy)
Rodney Crowell — “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight” (Acoustic Classics)
Joe Ely — “Cornbread Moon” — (Honky Tonk Masquerade)
Gary Stewart — “She’s Got a Drinking Problem” (The Essential Gary Stewart)
Merle Haggard — “I Won’t Give Up My Train” (My Love Affair With Trains)
Al Green — “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” (single)
Willie Nelson – “Dream Chaser” (Dream Chaser)
Commander Cody — “Looking at the World Through a Windshield” (We’ve Got a Live One Here!)
The first time I filled in hosting Not Necessarily Nashville for Flap was in 1990. At that time, she and I were both doing programs on Little Rock community radio station KABF-FM 89.1. She moved her show over to KUAR-FM 89.1 in 2009, shortly after I moved back to Arkansas to take a news job at the station. I’ve been her fill-in ever since. Occasionally we’ve hosted the show together or joined one another on the air during KUAR pledge drives.
Thirty years ago, Willie Nelson rolled into Glenwood, Ark. for an appearance on local radio combo KWXI-AM 670/KWXE-FM 104.5. A large crowd of cheering fans showed up with signs and red bandannas. Willie did not disappoint them, making the event on June 9, 1996 one of the most memorable days for the community.
Willie Nelson being escorted inside the Glenwood radio stations by Music/Programming Director Anna Donahue (right) on June 9, 1996. Photo: The Glenwood Herald
Nelson and four longtime members of his band arrived about an hour late aboard a pair of buses named Red Headed Stranger and Honeysuckle Rose III, according to a story by The Glenwood Herald. Stepping off his bus at Reggie Jones Plaza, where the radio studios were located, Nelson waved to the crowd and walked inside with harmonica player Mickey Raphael, rhythm guitarist Jody Payne and piano-playing sister Bobbie Nelson.
“We had to lock the doors, so many people were trying to come in,” former station owner Tom Nichols said this week while recalling the event.
They played live music for about 90 minutes with some banter between each song with Nichols and Music/Programming Director Anna Donahue. Afterward, Nelson ventured into the crowd and “courteously posed for pictures and stayed in the parking lot signing guitars, photographs, bandanas and anything else that was presented to him until no one was left,” the newspaper reported.
What inspired the legendary singer and songwriter to visit the city of less than 2,000 people for the promotional event was a letter from Donahue along with enthusiasm by Nelson for his new album “Spirit.” It had been released five days earlier.
“I talked it over with the band and we decided the best way to sell this album was door to door,” Nelson said on the air.
“Spirit” was his first album for British-based Island Records, which had never released an album by a country performer. It’s a stripped down acoustic record with a Spanish influence. It’s now considered a masterpiece and Nelson has said it’s his favorite album among his own recordings.
According to a story by The Glenwood Herald that ran a few days before Nelson’s visit, Donahue had written a letter the previous year to Waylon Jennings, a member of the supergroup the Highwaymen, which also included Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. The letter was in response to an interview in which they complained that despite strong concert attendance, radio stations were not willing to play new Highwaymen recordings.
She said record labels were only providing promotional copies of CDs to about 300 radio stations. “We would play the fire out of the CDs if we had them,” she wrote, “but our station, like about 2,500 other stations in the country, is not on the right list. We miss the days when radio and artists realized they needed each other and record labels treated radio stations the same.”
She was then contacted by a representative of Nelson in the fall of 1995 to set up the visit to Glenwood the following year as the kick off of a promotional tour for the album. But not everyone was convinced the music icon was really coming. Station owner Nichols says he didn’t believe it at first. “If truth be known, I was also skeptical,” reporter Mike McCoy wrote in his follow up article for the newspaper after Nelson’s visit.
Nelson and his four bandmates first performed every song from his new album. Donahue at one point told Willie that a song he had just played was a “two-box of hankies tear jerker.”
He responded, “Yeah, it’s a real wrist slasher,” to laughter.
Then Nelson began taking requests from listeners calling in and played some of his biggest hits and took. Songs included “You Were Always On My Mind,” “Seven Spanish Angels,” “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” and “Georgia.”
The newspaper described how Nelson “spoke softly, politely and was so modest one would never have known that this man had written songs for Patsy Cline and Faron Young, returned to Texas and stormed the nation from the Armadillo World Headquarters rock palace in Austin, and then gone on to star in movies with such stars as Robert Redford, Jane Fonda and Dian Cannon.”
KWXI/KWXE owners Polly and Tom Nichols pose for a photo with WiIlie Nelson. Photo: Tom Nichols collection
Nelson was originally scheduled to stay overnight in the community. He was to have arrived the night before the radio appearance, staying at Rivers Edge Bed and Breakfast in Caddo Gap. He was also planning to play golf at the Glenwood Country Club. But plans fell through and he and his entourage didn’t arrive until 7:30 a.m. on that Sunday morning. They still spent time at Rivers Edge to relax on the banks of the Caddo River and have lunch.
After the event at the Glenwood radio station was over and the last autograph was signed, Nichols says one bus with Nelson and members of his entourage left for Nashville where he was to attend an awards show. The other bus with members of his band turned back toward Texas where Nelson is based.
The two radio stations, which were once the broadcasting voice of Glenwood, are no longer in the community. After being sold by Nichols, the FM 104.5 signal was moved to Hot Springs where it’s used by a religious broadcaster. The most recent owner of the AM 670 signal, a Texarkana man, ended up in bankruptcy and the station is currently off the air. It’s unclear if the license has been officially surrendered to the FCC.
Now at age 93, Nelson has outlived his contemporaries, continues touring and released his latest album “Dream Chaser” on May 29.
This story was published in the June 5, 2026 issue of The Glenwood Herald. Tom Nichols is trying to find a recording of the broadcast so that we can share that audio here.
This is the online home of Michael Hibblen, managing editor of Newsroom Ventures, which publishes six Arkansas newspapers. I've worked as a reporter, editor and manager for newspapers, radio and TV stations for more than three decades, with this website telling the story of my career. Also featured are outside interests I've researched. The views expressed here are my own and might not reflect those of my employers.
Preserving the Rock Island Depot at Perry
Since 2017, I've been part of a group working to preserve the former Rock Island Depot at Perry, Arkansas. To keep it from being demolished, we raised money to move the depot to an adjacent lot, still alongside the tracks, which is now owned by the city. The building has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and our group has become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PRESERVATION OF THE DEPOT.
My Book
Released by Arcadia Publishing in 2017, Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas delves into the history of the railroad, which once had a huge footprint in Arkansas. The book features historic photos and tells the story of the Rock Island, which was shut down in March 1980. READ MORE ABOUT MY BOOK.
For 13 years, from May 2009 to December 2022, I worked for NPR station KUAR-FM 89.1 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. That included 10 years as News Director while continuing to anchor and report. You can read and hear reports from that time on Little Rock Public Radio's website.
