Between Editions

Sorry for the sparse postings so far this week. It’s been pretty hectic. Know anything good? Please feel free to share it with us by clicking the comment box below.

Weather wise, today was horrific for Arkansas. Seven dead, scores more injured, and damage scattered throughout the state. Posts have been sparse today because I’ve been updating weather reports to give everyone the latest info as it becomes available.

It doesn’t appear that we will be seeing any significant weather today in Union County.

If you have something on your mind, feel free to let ‘er rip in the comment box below. This may be my last post of the day. In case it is, have a good weekend, and maybe I’ll see you at one of the many events going on this weekend in El Dorado.

Remember, the Mayhaw Festival will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. tomorrow at the John Newton House, and Bugs, Bands & Bikes will be going on all day tomorrow downtown.

South Arkansas dodged a bullet today. No significant storms passed over our skies, thankfully. Other communities in Arkansas today haven’t been so lucky, as the AP story below indicates.

For the most current weather information from the National Weather Service, click here.

Photo credit: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, BOB COLEMAN. A 16-year-old girl was killed after a storm blew down trees destroying the mobile homes in the Choice Mobile Home Park early Friday morning.

Photo credit: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, BENJAMIN KRAIN. Rescue crews and employees of Caldwell Feed Co. search for valuables after a tornado strike along Highway 65 in Damascus.

By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press Writer
DAMASCUS, Ark. (AP) — Violent storms rolling across the nation’s midsection killed seven people in Arkansas on Friday, including a teenager who died when a tree fell into her bedroom and a father and son when a possible tornado hit their mobile home.

The 15-year-old girl died in the early morning as she slept and her 10-year-old brother suffered minor injuries when the storm, apparently with straight-line winds, hit their mobile home in a working-class neighborhood of Siloam Springs, on the Oklahoma border.

After sunup, the storms killed six in central Arkansas. More than a dozen people were injured. Tornadoes late Thursday and early Friday damaged homes in and around Kansas City, Mo., and also ravaged parts of Oklahoma and Texas.

The Arkansas deaths included the father and son dead in Conway County; one dead in Pulaski County, south of Little Rock; and three dead in Van Buren County. Conway and Van Buren counties also had
fatalities during a Feb. 5 tornado, which struck with winds estimated at greater than 165 mph.

“This year it just seems like we’re getting pounded,” Van Buren County Sheriff Scott Bradley said.
Randy Payne survived by hiding in a hallway at his aunt and uncle’s house in Damascus.

“It sounded like all hell was breaking loose,” said Payne, 38.

Back at their single-story ranch home, Payne and his family found trees down in their front yard, shingles blown off their house and standing water on some of the home’s floors.

Just south of Bee Branch, Van Buren County Sheriff Scott Bradley said a man, a woman and a preschool-
age child died when the storm hit their house.

“There wasn’t anything left,” Bradley said. “It was demolished.”

Another child who lived at the home had already left for school, escaping injury.

Deputies, firefighters and volunteers from the public were going farm-to-farm in the rural area to check on everyone.

Just north of Damascus on U.S. 65, the storm knocked over trees as it moved northeast, directly hitting the Southside Baptist Church. The new church, which neighbors said had not yet held services, lost its roof. Members of a work crew ran inside after a neighbor warned them of the coming storm. They said it was total silence as the storm approached.

“Everybody was afraid,” said Jesus Estrada, 22, a worker.

After the storm ripped through, he and others went down the street and helped firefighters help others out of their homes.

Conway County Sheriff Mike Smith said the father and his son died when storms hit near Birdtown. Brandon Baker, Conway County emergency services director, said six people with “pretty severe” injuries were taken to a local hospital. Ten to 20 homes were destroyed in a rural area, and more sustained damage.

State emergency officials said more than 100 homes were damaged in Cleburne County. Officials also received reports of property damage in Benton, Franklin, Howard, Newton, Pope and Van Buren counties.

The strong winds, rains and hail blew out electric service to nearly 6,000 homes and businesses. Entergy spokesman James Thompson said that as of midmorning, 2,067 customers at Harrison in north Arkansas were without power, 2,602 lost service in Russellville and 1,170 in Dardanelle, both in west-central Arkansas.

In the Kansas City area, officials said several people were injured, none seriously. About 40,000 lost power at the peak of the storm, which brought wind of up to 80 mph. Kansas City Mayor Mark
Funkhouser said 100 homes suffered significant damage in the city alone. Damage was also reported in the suburbs and in Lawrence, to the west.

In northeast Kansas City, dozens of homes had chunks of their roofs missing, and trees were knocked from their roots and laying along the roads and in ditches. Police blocked off roads surrounding the damaged neighborhoods Friday.

In Canton, Texas, local officials said an apparent tornado Friday ripped down power lines and injured two people in overturned vehicles. Details on their condition were not immediately available.

The storm hit as visitors were beginning to show up for a popular open-air market that draws thousands to the county seat each month.

At least two tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma late Thursday, including one near Ralston, though no injuries or significant damage was reported there.

The investigation into an alleged shooting incident involving Union County Justice of the Peace Jack Reynolds and an unknown person has generated a lot of chatter in an online forum — some of it pretty heated.

Several commentators on the forum, entitled “Jack Reynolds Shooting Spree,” are even calling for Reynolds to resign from the quorum court. Click here to access the site.

Currently, the investigation against Reynolds is in the hands of 8 North District Prosecuting Attorney Chris Thomason of Hope. Robin Carroll, 13th District Prosecuting Attorney, deferred the case to Thomason after the Arkansas State Police completed its investigation into Reynolds late last month.

Carroll cited a conflict of interest because he serves as legal counsel for the Union County Quorum Court, on which Reynolds sits. Reynolds is also the chair of the Union County Finance Committee and the El Dorado Water and Sewer Commission.

Thomason told the News-Times last month that his office is still reviewing the state police file on Reynolds to decide whether or not to pursue charges.

The facts in the case so far are this: In a March 17 letter addressed to Maj. Cleve Barfield, commander of the criminal investigation division of the ASP, Union County Sheriff Ken Jones said that Reynolds allegedly discharged a firearm at an unknown person.

Jones provided the News-Times with a copy of the letter last month, but information on when the alleged incident took place was not included, nor were any further details.

Jones said he deferred the investigation to the ASP because of a “conflict of interest.”

Let us know what you think.

Photo credit: Warick.

Have you ever thought about how much salt you intake during a typical day? Unless you have high blood pressure, probably not. Click here for an interesting piece on the saltiest foods in America.

There’s a clothing store called Steve & Barry’s that sells cool, fashionable threads for under $10. Yeah, don’t feel bad, I didn’t know anything about them either. The New York Times today has an interesting piece about how the new fashion chic is “cheap.”

Suits me. Click here for more. FYI, Steve & Barry’s has a store in the Hot Springs Mall.

I created a special page, which you can access by clicking here, for Joan Hershberger’s Hawaiian vacation stories. Enjoy.

The El Dorado-based oil firm announced today that its income in the first quarter of 2008 totaled $409 million, thanks in no small part to crude oil prices. That’s more than triple the amount of last year’s first quarter numbers.

Click here for more.

Meanwhile…Murphy USA continues to offer the lowest gas prices in the state. Just not in El Dorado, where they’re headquartered. Did I mention that El Dorado is Murphy’s hometown?

Gas prices in our city are nearly 20 cents higher.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Honda Motorcycles.
This is the Honda VTX1300C.

As you may well know, the Bugs Bands and Bikes event will be held this Saturday, May 3, at Oil & Heritage Park in downtown El Dorado. It’s an event worthy of your attendance, especially if you like good food, music and loud motorcycles. Mel’s Seafood will provide the crawfish.

The event inspired one Plano, Texas, man — known on his blog as “Gonzo” — to make a 266 mile one-way trip to El Dorado last year on his motorcycle. Click here for more about Gonzo’s journey.

Photo credit: www.superherohype.com

For those of you who can’t wait another day, Stars Cinema will be one of the theaters showing Iron Man starting on May 1 instead of May 2, the projected opening date. While I won’t be able to make it tomorrow, I’ll be there with bells on come Friday night.

Tickets are available at Stars.

Photo credit: Louisiana Lottery. Patrick Stamper is pictured with Louisiana Lottery President Rose Hudson after claiming the $1,622,375 Lotto jackpot from the April 19 drawing.

One, nine, 18, 28, 30, 40 — these are numbers that Patrick Stamper will most likely never forget. Stamper, of El Dorado, won more than $1.6 million on April 19 in the Louisiana Lottery with these lucky digits. After taxes, Stamper received more than $1.1 million. He purchased his winning ticket at Harde’ Mart No. 227 on S. Main St. in Junction City, according to lottery officials.

What a lucky guy. Click here for more.

The northern snakehead
State officials have confirmed the presence of the northern snakehead, an invasive species of fish, in Lee County. The snakehead, which is not native to Arkansas waters, was banned in Arkansas in 2002, but officials say the fish may have been brought into the state before the ban and cultivated as an Asian food species.

While there are no snakehead sightings on record for Union County or the rest of South Arkansas, other examples of areas where the species has reared its head indicate that population control is difficult, to say the least. According the Associated Press, Arkansas biologists are killing every confirmed northern snakehead they find, but officials say eradication will be difficult.

The fish is described by Game and Fish officials as a “top shelf predator” in Arkansas fisheries, with a fast reproductive cycle and the ability to survive outside of water for short periods of time, allowing the animals to move small distances over land.

“But they’re not some ‘Frankenfish’ that will attack people or chase them on land,” said Mark Oliver, assistant chief of fisheries for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, in an interview with the AP.

For information on the northern snakehead in Arkansas, head over to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s website.

Bill Halter

The Associated Press is reporting that Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, along with a state trooper and a member of his staff, helped a woman in a wheelchair off the porch of a burning home.

Halter, on his way to a meeting with Paragould’s mayor Wednesday, told a reporter for the Paragould Daily Press that he saw smoke rising from the house fire about 10:30 a.m., according to the AP. Family members for the unidentified woman needed the help to lift the woman away to safety after she fell out of her wheelchair.

Halter spokesman Garry Hoffmann told The Associated Press that after the men got the woman into the front yard, flames shot out of a doorway. Hoffmann said Trooper Ramey Lovan suffered a slight burn to his arm. Halter apparently escaped unscathed.

Halter said he was “just glad all these people are going to be fine.”

Today’s signing day at El Dorado High School. And, no, this has nothing to do with sports. For once, someone is focusing on education as the sole purpose for going to college, and I think that’s refreshing. More than 200 students from El Dorado High School plan to take advantage of the El Dorado Promise today by signing their intent to attend college next fall.

God speed, students, and may you all succeed.

By Larry Singer
For Between Editions
On Wednesday, April 24, a photograph I took appeared at the top of the front page of the El Dorado News-Times. It featured an El Dorado police officer, Andrew Russell, checking on the welfare of a homeless man, Richard Smith, who was resting on the grass at the intersection of Washington and East Center.

The next day a letter from one of our readers, who was critical of the photo, appeared on the editorial page.

The reader felt that the photograph was inappropriate.

I am both grateful and honored that this reader (a) looked at the picture, (b) thought about the picture quite a bit and (c) was so affected she actually sat down and wrote my editor a letter about the picture.

I don’t agree that the picture was unsuitable or improper for several reasons.

As a photojournalist, I believe my job is to tell stories with photographs, and this picture really did tell a story.

While, at first glance, the image seems to show a police officer harassing a homeless person, nothing, as the caption explains, could be farther from the truth.

I had no idea Richard Smith was at the intersection until someone, who did not identify himself, called me and said a photographer from the paper really needed to capture Mr. Smith on film.

Shortly after I arrived, Officer Russell pulled up in his police cruiser, got out and, to my surprise, the first words out of his mouth were, “Hi Richard, how are you doing today?”

After a brief conversation, during which Officer Russell determined that Mr. Smith, who has chronic, long term physical medical problems, did not require transport to a medical facility, he told Smith to try and take care of himself and drove off to serve and protect elsewhere.

That was the story.

A kind, caring police officer took the time to care about someone who some might say has fallen between the cracks.

When I asked Richard Smith if he had any problems with his picture being in the paper, he said he did not.

While seeing a man laying in the grass on a rainy day may make some people uncomfortable, I believe the kindness shown by one human being to another far outweighs any possible discomfort some readers may feel about the plight of the homeless.

Pictures of the homeless are never fun to look at, but in this case, they can be really worthwhile.

Larry Singer is a photographer for the El Dorado News-Times.