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Update on Effort to Preserve Former Depot at Perry, Arkansas

by | Mar 27, 2018 | Rock Island Railroad

The Perry depot in May 1965, photographed by Clifton Hull and recently scanned by Bill Pollard.

I’ve been working with the Perry County Historical and Genealogical Society as members have tried to come up with a plan to move and preserve the former Rock Island depot in Perry, Arkansas. The century-old building is an incredible relic of a different era in America when rails were the connection to the outside world.

After the Rock Island was shut down in 1980, that stretch of track became the Little Rock & Western Railway, which built a small locomotive servicing shed behind the depot. But today the shortline wants to build a new shop there and is giving the preservationists a limited time to move the depot. They’ve found a possible location a few hundred feet away, but an estimate for moving it is much more than they were hoping for. You can read my latest update, which includes a couple of recently scanned vintage images. Or to get more background on the project, including photos of the interior of the building, see my post from last August. The depot, which still has the semaphore train order signals, is the Rock Island’s last Arkansas depot still standing west of Little Rock.

Talking About the Rock Island on KUAR’s Arts & Letters

by | Mar 25, 2018 | Rock Island Railroad

Thanks to J. Bradley Minnick, host of the radio program Arts & Letters, for this exquisitely produced, hour-long look at the Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas. I was able to discuss the history of the railroad and include segments from several interviews I’ve recorded over the years with former employees. Featured on the program are L.T. Walker, Joe Rook, Guy Winters, as well as railroad historian Bill Pollard. Several pieces of original music are also included, which were specially recorded for this program. On the Arts & Letters web page you can also see a slideshow of several photos from my book “Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas.”

 

AUDIO: Hear KUAR’s Arts & Letters program on the Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas, which first aired on March 23, 2018.

AETN’s Arkansas Week Discusses Proposal To Make Schools Safer

by | Mar 3, 2018 | Arkansas Week

The most recent school shooting hit home for me as it happened in Broward County, Florida, where I lived for 12 years and where my ex-wife still works for the school district. Reaction to it and the creation of the Arkansas School Safety Commission by Gov. Asa Hutchinson dominated discussion on AETN’s Arkansas Week, with me serving as one of the panelists for the second half of the broadcast. The first segment featured state Sen. Missy Irvin and state Rep. Douglas House, then the second segment begins 12:35 into the program, which you can watch below.

RIP Cartoonist Mort Walker of Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois

by | Jan 28, 2018 | Radio

Mort Walker (www.mortwalker.com)

I was sad to hear cartoonist Mort Walker, who brought the world “Beetle Bailey,” which at one time ran in 1,800 newspapers worldwide,  died Saturday, January 27, at the age of 94. I interviewed him a few times in the early 2000s while working as a Miami-based reporter for CBS News Radio and the program America in the Morning, hosted by Jim Bohannon.

It was a difficult period for Walker as the International Museum of Cartoon Art, which he founded in 1974, was struggling to survive. By then it was located in Boca Raton, Florida, but failed to attract enough donations, while a couple of corporate sponsors had gone bankrupt. A plan to affiliate with Florida Atlantic University also fell through.

The museum had an extensive collection of items, most of which had been donated by other cartoonists. In 2002 he spoke with me about a last ditch effort to raise money to pay the building’s mortgage by auctioning off the museum’s most prized possession, the original hand-drawn pencil sketches for a silent film called Plane Crazy.

Hear my report for Westwood One’s America in the Morning on the planned auction in 2002 of Plane Crazy.

“It’s what we call our Mona Lisa. It’s Walt Disney’s very first drawings of Mickey Mouse back in 1928 right after Lindbergh made his flight and this was sort of spoofing his flight in a way,” Walker told me. The 36 sketches on six panels had been appraised at more than $3 million, but when bids came in well below that at an auction on May 19, 2002, it was taken off the market.

It was eventually announced that the museum would be closing its doors, and there were a lot of fingers being pointed about who was to blame in the failed venture. I called Walker, but when I reached him he didn’t want to record an interview. I pressed him a little, arguing that I had given the museum positive coverage over the years by reporting on exhibits, and he relented, giving me some very honest comments. I always respected him for that.

Hear my 2002 report for America in the Morning on the museum then closing its doors.

“Oh, it’s terrible, I feel like crying because we love this building. I helped design it, and we just thought we were going to be the mecca for cartoons all over the world. And we didn’t get the financial or emotional support in the city that we needed,” Walker said.

At that point there was discussion about what would become of the collection. A key goal, he told me, was that it remain open and available to the public. One idea was to move the museum to the New York City area, which he noted was more of a tourist destination than Boca Raton, but an effort to house it in the Empire State Building didn’t work out. In 2008, Wikipedia reports, Walker accepted an offer to merge his collection with that of Ohio State University.

In my interview six years earlier in 2002, Walker told me, “We’re very, very sad to leave Boca, and it’s a dream that I’ve been working on for 27 years and it just didn’t seem to work out here.”

On AETN’s Arkansas Week: Revenue Up, Reduction in Medicaid Rolls, Medical Marijuana

by | Jan 5, 2018 | Arkansas Week

Gov. Asa Hutchinson called it a good week for Arkansas, with an announcement of a big reduction in the number of people on the state’s Medicaid rolls and revenue coming in above forecast. The positive economic indicators could help him see passage of priorities during the fiscal session of the state legislature which begins next month. Also, an announcement by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions regarding the enforcement of federal marijuana laws has some scratching their heads as Arkansas works to implement a voter-approved medical marijuana amendment. I was a panelist on this episode of Arkansas Week, alongside political science professor Hal Bass of Ouachita Baptist University and reporter Lance Turner with Arkansas Business. The program airs on AETN, which is the local PBS outlet.