I’m excited that an interview I recorded with Willie Nelson 20 years ago is included in a new book. Willie Nelson on Willie Nelson: Interviews and Encounters, which was edited by Paul Maher Jr., is a compilation of transcripts of 31 interviews he has given over the decades about a broad range of topics. The book was released on Sept. 16 by Chicago Review Press.
Michael Hibblen interviewing Willie Nelson in Plantation, Florida on May 26, 2005. Photo: Candace West/Miami Herald
An editor’s note prefacing the chapter that featured my interview said, “One of the many causes supported by Willie Nelson is to combat global warming and crude oil dependence on foreign nations. Here he details to reporter Michael Hibblen his choice to use biodiesel fuel and the formation of BioWillie, his own biofuel company.”
I was working for the Miami Herald when I met Willie on May 26, 2005 as he was refueling three leased tour buses with biodiesel before a show that night with Bob Dylan.
“It’s fuel that can be grown by farmers, and I’ve been involved with the farmers for a long time. I see it as a way for those guys to have a better life — and at the same time it’s good for the environment. It also reduces our dependency on energy from around the world where we could become more self-sufficient,” Willie said.
The cover of “Willie Nelson on Willie Nelson,” which was released by Chicago Review Press.
At the time, he owned a biodiesel station called Willie’s Place, which was located along Interstate 35 in Texas between Dallas and Waco, about 15 miles from his boyhood hometown of Abbott. Behind the station was a six-acre facility capable of producing 3 million gallons of biodiesel fuel a year.
“It’s a truck stop that’s been there for a long time. My friend Carl Cornelius — the joke is that I won it in a poker game, and now I’m trying to lose it back. But it’s a great spot to promote biodiesel because we have a pump there, and we got some BioWillie there, and a big sign, and we’re doing a lot of business with XM Radio.”
A 750-seat theater and radio studios were eventually built there, but after a loan default, Willie’s Place went into foreclosure six years after our interview. It would become a standard truck stop known as Petro Carl’s Corner. The theater and radio studios, along with gold records and other memorabilia, are now gone.
After the interview, Willie performed that night with Bob Dylan at Fort Lauderdale Stadium. It was part of a tour that featured them playing at old ballparks around the country, which Willie told me was Bob’s idea. As I mentioned, they would be playing later that year at Ray Winder Field in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. It would close the following year and was eventually torn down. Likewise, Fort Lauderdale Stadium would be demolished in 2019.
AUDIO: Interviewing Willie Nelson on May 26, 2005 about his use of biodiesel while refueling his tour buses in Plantation, Florida. We also discussed the tour he was on with Bob Dylan, playing mostly in old minor league ballparks.
The text that was republished in the book came from this page on my website, while additional photos are also featured. Audio of the interview was broadcast on South Florida NPR station WLRN-FM 91.3, which had a news partnership sharing content with the Miami Herald.
In the last episode of Arkansas Week that I hosted while working at Arkansas PBS, discussions delved into two aspects of the criminal justice system: prison recidivism and drug addiction.
Joining me in the first segment of the Oct. 31 program were state Sen. Ben Gilmore, a Republican of Crossett, and Jim Bell, the owner of a reentry facility in Little Rock. Gilmore has sponsored prison-related legislation in recent years while Bell works to prepare inmates for their return to society.
Arkansas has one of the highest recidivism rates in the country, with data showing within three years of their release, about half of all state prison inmates end up back behind bars for new offenses or violating the terms of their release. The pattern is not only bad for inmates who don’t get the support needed to change their lives, but expensive for the state, costing about $2,200 a month per inmate.
Arkansas’s prison population is growing, with projections indicating an average annual increase of about 2% through 2035. State prisons have been at capacity for years, with about 1,500 inmates currently backed up in county jails. To accommodate the situation, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced a plan in October 2024 to construct a 3,000-bed prison in rural Franklin County.
Local residents were surprised by the announcement and to learn land had already been purchased by the state. Among their complaints were a lack of transparency and poor site selection. Test wells showed there isn’t enough water in the area to support the needs of a prison. Meanwhile the cost, which was initially said to be $470 million, has quickly grown to be about twice that.
In the second segment, state Attorney General Tim Griffin shared the story of addiction that eventually took the life of his brother Daniel. He’s working to raise awareness of the dangers of opioids through the “One Pill Can Kill” initiative, in which he has been speaking at college campuses across the state.
Arkansas PBS streamed several of those events, and I had been moved by hearing him describe what happened to his brother. After a botched back surgery 15 years ago, Griffin said his brother was prescribed powerful painkillers and quickly became addicted. While there were plenty of other unrelated issues I could have asked Griffin about, including the prison-related topics discussed in the first segment of the program, I wanted to limit our discussion to addiction and what he’s trying to accomplish now.
A few final thoughts on Arkansas PBS, added Dec. 14
My last day of work as Director of Public Affairs for Arkansas PBS was Nov. 12. Maybe I’ll discuss more about the circumstances of the end of my employment in the future, but it wouldn’t be appropriate now. I really enjoyed the past three years, which were filled with a lot of challenges and opportunities. In addition to overseeing Arkansas Week, I appeared on camera for pledge drives and organized our 2024 congressional debates. The staff of nearly 80 people really was like a family with employees being very supportive and protective of one another. Also, the level of talent in the building was amazing.
The key challenge in my department was not having editorial independence while attempting to produce a public affairs program with journalistic integrity. Being a state agency, my bosses at Arkansas PBS lived in fear of upsetting the governor’s administration or state legislators. The General Assembly has control over the station’s budget allocation and lawmakers often grilled managers during public hearings, sometimes with rather petty grievances. Also, the commission which has oversight over Arkansas PBS is made up of appointees of the governor, each serving eight-year terms. While this has always been the structure the station has operated under in its nearly 60-year existence, the sharply partisan tone of politics in 2025 has made it harder to function.
While leading weekly editorial meetings to discuss potential topics for Arkansas Week, top leadership often instructed us not to include some controversial issues, even if they were huge legitimate news stories. The episode above, for example, was the first time we had been allowed to question a state lawmaker about the proposed Franklin County prison, which had been one of the most discussed ongoing issues for the previous 13 months. When I began appearing on Arkansas Week in 2010 as one of the journalists taking part in roundtable discussions, there were no such restrictions or topics that were out of bounds.
A veteran broadcaster and five-term state legislator is the new head of Arkansas PBS. Carlton Wing started as Executive Director/CEO on Sept. 30, the same day he submitted his resignation for the district 70 seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives.
After less than two weeks on the job, Wing sat down with me on Arkansas Week to discuss his background and how he’s meeting with each member of the staff to prepare a plan for our future. While the end of federal funding has made this a challenging time for public broadcasting, there are immense opportunities ahead, Wing said.
In another segment of the program, I discussed the ongoing federal government shutdown and the impact it was having on agriculture. An economic support package was expected to have been announced that week by the White House, but was delayed, with administration officials blaming the shutdown. Joining me to talk about that were Dr. Hunter Biram, an agriculture economist with the UA Division of Agriculture, and Dr. Jeremy Horpedahl, director of the Arkansas Center for Research in Economics at UCA.
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.
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.
Preserving 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.
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.
