Michael Tilley's Riff Raff

Kyle Parker has a big, big, big pipe to play with.

That short starter sentence is silly double entendre that high-falutin’ folks will label sophomoric and wholly unnecessary until they take a few minutes to understand that what Parker is doing with his big pipe will — if used correctly — be a remarkable and rewarding equalizer for the Fort Smith region in academic and economic development circles. And that’s pure How It Is rather than paltry hyperbole.

First, let’s talk about Kyle Parker.

University of Arkansas at Fort Smith Chancellor Dr. Paul Beran hired Parker in October 2009 as the vice chancellor for Let’s Kick Ass with Technology. That’s not the official title but it should be. Parker, just a good old Fort Smith boy connected to an old school Fort Smith family, has been there and done that with technology. He’s one of several exceptions to remember when some pontificating hack wants to traipse out the tired complaining about the They who seek to keep Fort Smith bottled up in the Eisenhower years.

Back in 1989 before Al Gore invented the Internet, Parker started this little company that sought to put legal information in easy to access electronic form. How’d that work out? He sold Loislaw.com more than 11 years later for more than $100 million to Amsterdam-based Wolters Kluwer. He made all the right technology moves without benefit of a business-model precedent during the great technology shift that was the 1990s.

Twenty years after Parker formed Loislaw, Beran was struggling with how best to maximize looming technology opportunities and and how best to focus the overall use of technology on the growing UAFS campus. Parker, a member of the UAFS Board of Advisors, had a few ideas. Beran was able to convince Parker — who doesn’t need a job after selling a company for more than $100 million — to handle the technology struggles and opportunities.

So, here we are, back to Parker’s big pipe. Hopefully you, Kind Reader, know by now that a pipe refers to a large wired connection that allows billions of pieces of data to enter and exit the university in the same time it takes the federal government to spend a dime.

To be fair to Parker and the university, the pipe is technically not his and his job is more than just handling this huge pipe. Parker’s job is broad and complex and at great risk of oversimplification, his job has three primary parts: Maximizing and managing ARE•ON; connecting UAFS students, faculty and Fort Smith regional officials to each other and the world; and the practical management of UAFS facilities via ubiquitous and practical use of technology.

We might consider that Parker has the experience and strong belief in his own abilities to pull this off. He says his primary motivation is to ensure that UAFS students graduate with real world skills — to ensure that they hit the job market with a leg up on any graduate from any public or private university in the country.

“Look, I don’t need the money at this point in my life. I’ve been blessed beyond what I could have ever imagined. And I know this sounds cliche, but it’s straight up: I took this job to make a difference here and for the students,” Parker said.

To that end, he wants to do whatever academic bureaucracy will allow him to do to provide UAFS students with technology tools that are equal to or greater than those being used out in the real world of deadlines, competitive pressures and paychecks.

“It’s no longer acceptable, in my opinion, to teach them (students) theory. You have to prepare them to go to work on day one,” Parker explained.

Parker’s expertise will guide more than $1.2 million in technology improvements at UAFS in the near term.

Now, let’s talk about these three primary Parkerean tasks.

ARE•ON
It’s a big pipe. Seriously.

The Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network (ARE•ON) is an electronic network capable of pushing more than 10 billion bits of information through bundles of glass fibers at almost 186,000 miles per second. The almost $20-million system is designed to connect 11 Arkansas universities so the state may gain equal footing in the global competition for research and development, the commercialization of such R&D and for other broad education and socio-economic development purposes.

The potential difference between this new connection and the Internet as we commonly know it is the difference between the Internet as we commonly know it and Gutenberg’s press. Seriously.

Parker is tasked to ensure UAFS is firmly and usefully connected to ARE•ON, and vice versa.

“This is pretty powerful stuff. ... It matters not whether you are across the room or across the world,” Parker said of real-time connections allowed by the new network.

CONNECTIONS
Using ARE•ON, a UAFS professor could teach in real time an advanced math course to Arkansas high school students gathered in numerous connected locations around the state. Each move the professor makes on a special whiteboard would be displayed on a monitor at each location. Also, the lecture can be captured and played back. A student in Pine Bluff can capture a specific part of the lecture he or she doesn’t understand and e-mail it to the UAFS professor for clarification.

“The only thing missing will be the smell of the classroom,” Parker said. “But think about how much (money) they (state education officials) could save with that kind of efficiency.”

Similar technology also will allow similar electronic interactions with UAFS students. A student studying for finals can dial up an October lecture — lectures that could be categorized and searched by dates, topics, keywords, etc. — to better understand a calculus question or physiology puzzle or special welding technique used on precision equipment used in the oil and gas industry.

“Think about what that does to prepare our kids,” Parker said with the enthusiasm of a kid.

We might also consider that Japanese students in Fort Smith whose parents are employed by Mitsubishi may in real time engage in classes conducted in Japan. Or maybe Arkansas and Fort Smith officials are gathered in a UAFS conference room having a real time conversation with officials of a German company seeking more information on a Chaffee Crossing property. The conversation includes separate screens with detailed maps of property that includes specifics — converted into German — on size, utilities, planned or proposed infrastructure improvements and real time video from people on the ground who direct the camera to requested directions.

“Distance means nothing. It puts people in the same place,” Parker said of the technology.

It doesn’t require Parker’s background and experience to realize that the constructive uses of the ARE•ON pipe are limited only by the limits of our imagination.

PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT
Less than five months ago there was no immediate backup of what Parker calls “critical keystrokes.” The entry of student grades, financial data, faculty communication, etc., was updated on a less than daily basis in most cases. That now happens immediately.

Also, he’s moving to a virtual server system for computer labs on campus. He says that will “save thousands and thousands of dollars” in lower electricity costs and reduced maintenance and computer replacement costs.

Heating and air conditioning systems on campus are connected via technology. It is or will soon be possible to lock and unlock doors via a computer or mobile device on or off campus. Parker is working to create a wireless campus. With such a reach, Parker’s job includes ensuring the computer systems are 99.9% reliable.

“There is nothing on this campus that technology does not touch,” Parker explained. “We cannot afford for our systems to fail.”

And we cannot afford for Parker to fail. The smart money says he won’t get anywhere close to anything that smells like failure. But he is an excitable entrepreneurial bundle of energy working in what can be a suffocating world of academic bureaucracy often ruled by Ph.D.'s who use book smarts to build walls against street smarts.

Parker admits there are big differences between the private and public sectors. He notes that “ideas are the end of the process” in academia and “the beginning of the process” in the world of business and commerce. However, he thinks the times they are a changing.

“In the past, technology was looked at as an expense at a university. It was a necessary evil. It was not an investment seen as something that, like in the (business) world I came from, could pull revenue levers. ... But that’s changing and he (Beran) has me here for that,” Parker explained.

Let’s hope Kyle Parker ensures we’re all well connected and that he plays well with his big pipe.

Seriously.

And now for the Top 10 Fort Smith regional stories of 2020. Yes, 2020.

10. U.S. Rep. Philip Merry, D-Fort Smith, ends his fifth term as Arkansas’ 3rd District Congressman by announcing his retirement. Merry in 2010 stunned Arkansas’ political pundits — such as they were — by breaking the Republican stranglehold on the 3rd District, thanks in large part to a chaotic GOP primary following the departure of then U.S. Rep. John Boozman in his losing bid to seek the U.S. Senate seat.

9. Lowell-based J.B. Hunt Transport Services announces it will build a $75 million logistics center in Van Buren along the Arkansas River as part of a growing intermodal facility managed by the Regional Intermodal Transportation Authority. The center will serve as a corporate control hub for Hunt’s far-flung intermodal operations and will include a logistics software development and training center affiliated with the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.

8. Following the takeover by hospital services conglomerate Tenet/HCA, Sparks Health System and Summit Medical Center are consolidated, with an emergency medical clinic to be built in Van Buren and all other hospital operations to be moved to Sparks’ Fort Smith campus. The move is likely to result in the loss of 300 jobs.

7. Morril Harriman, the first to serve as president of the Fort Smith-Van Buren Area Chamber of Commerce, stepped down after five years on the job. Prior to taking the job in 2015, Harrison served as the former state senator from Van Buren, was director of the The Poultry Federation and worked eight years as chief of staff for Gov. Mike Beebe. Harriman said leading the effort to more effectively partner Fort Smith and Van Buren in community and economic development efforts was the perfect way to end his career in public service. Harriman said his only disappointment was in not finding a company to locate manufacturing or other operations in the large facilities that once housed Whirlpool’s Fort Smith operation.

6. Former TCW Media president and CEO Tom Kirkham was found in his large luxury catamaran near Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific. Kirkham was wanted for questioning over tax irregularities resulting from his sudden wealth from TCW Media. He had eluded authorities for more than three years. Authorities confirmed that the five women with him on the boat — including one woman who was one of the 73 eventually linked to Tiger Woods — were all there of their own choice and none were under age.

5. The U.S. Marshals Museum in Fort Smith posted a record 231,418 visits in 2020, the fourth full year of operation. Of those visitors, museum officials estimated that 41.5% — or about 95,000 —were from outside a 100-mile radius. The economic impact of the museum was estimated to be $31.5 million in 2020. The museum also served as the site for former Sebastian County Prosecutor and Arkansas Attorney General Dan Shue’s announcement to run for governor in the 2020 special election. Shue won in November, being the first person from Sebastian County to serve as governor since William Fishback in 1892.

4. Officials with the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith announced another record year of enrollment, with 11,786 full-time equivalent students in the fall 2010 semester. The student growth is one of the reasons behind unpopular eminent domain actions university officials said they were forced to pursue to seek land for new classrooms, student housing and a football field. UAFS Chancellor Takeo Suzuki confirmed the university was looking at the now empty baseball stadium on the Riverfront as a satellite location for the UAFS athletic department.

3. The 3,500 Riverfront Stadium in downtown Fort Smith saw its third independent league baseball team come and go in 2020, with Fort Smith officials saying they could no longer afford to provide incentives to recruit the financially-strapped independent league teams. Initially expected to cost $22 million, the stadium eventually cost $31 million and was never able to draw large enough crowds to support stadium operations since its opening in 2012. Efforts to support the stadium with other events and regional baseball tournaments helped, but not enough to keep the annual deficit from growing. Fort Smith voters in 2018 rejected an effort to increase the hamburger tax from 1% to 2% to help support the stadium.

2. A high-profile effort that included former President Bill Clinton and Lucy Jo Baker, the 2018 American Idol winner from Mena, failed to convince Congress to provide any meaningful funding for the construction of Interstate 49 through western Arkansas. The cost to complete the roughly 175-mile segment through western Arkansas has ballooned from about $3 billion in 2008 to $5.5 billion today. Baker, who said the effort failed because “we couldn’t show those Godless a#@bags in Congress that this would somehow line the pockets of their high-dollar suits,” partially apologized, saying she should not have linked members of Congress to the respectable colostomy bag industry.

1. After two years under the mayor form of government under Mayor Michael Tilley, Fort Smith citizens voted overwhelmingly to return to a city administrator-council form of government. With 77% of voters in a heavy turnout voting to return to a form of government they had rejected by a 53% margin in 2018, the search for a new city administrator began. Problems began when Tilley used more than $500,000 in city funds to open an office in Las Vegas. Tilley said that because what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, the Las Vegas office helped the city avoid FOI requests on sensitive economic development matters. Tilley was last seen delivering boxes of vodka and grapefruit juice to a large luxury catamaran docked in New Orleans.

We are edging closer to screwing this up.

That’s the feeling a few folks are getting with this ongoing and seemingly unguided discussion about improving quality of place assets in Fort Smith and Sebastian County.

What we are talking about, of course, is the potential for up to $40 million in quality-of-place projects designed to diversify what it is that makes life worth living in the Fort Smith region. A community is really two basic things. It’s a place to work and it’s a place to play. For years this community has performed relatively well on the work portion — think street tax improvements, water system expansion, Fort Chaffee — and not so well on the play portion.

But we get it, finally. It’s taken a couple of decades, but we’ve collectively accepted that we must do more to build or improve facilities for tennis, soccer, baseball, softball and a variety of other activities that keep us busy on the weekends and might frequently bring visitors to our fair city. We see the need to do something to maximize the unique jewels that are the Riverfront in downtown Fort Smith and Ben Geren Regional Park. And there is wider acceptance that arts and entertainment — think Second Street Live!, Fort Smith Symphony, Fort Smith Arts Center, etc. — require some measure of consideration in terms of possible taxpayer support.

Now that we get it, we’ve somehow convinced ourselves to rush headlong into the Do Something Now arena in which pretty pictures, a hyperbole-rich opportunity analysis and a hyperactive public relations campaign threaten to marginalize that poor soul on the back row who is unwilling to partake in the communion. (And to think, this all got started because we are about to face a serious funding shortfall at the Fort Smith Convention Center.)

Let’s consider a few points.

• We must measure twice and cut once if we want voter support of an aggressive quality of place plan.
The most successful voter initiatives in the past 15 years were: the $55 million plan that expanded the convention center, built a new public library system and completed the first phase of a riverfront development plan; and the $200 million voter approval to expand Lake Fort Smith AND build a new state park.

A key reason these efforts were successful is because private sector folks were tasked to research, develop and present sound plans to the Fort Smith Board of Directors. In other words, we took the politics and posturing and the politics of posturing out of the experience. We allowed citizens to filter the ideas and push those ideas to the board.

But this new effort is managed as if we all suffer from adult attention-deficit disorder and we can’t focus long enough to pour Ritalin in the water system. For example, to prioritize what might get funding or discussed, the city directors have been putting colored dots on flipcharts for chrissakes! The micromanagement and/or lack of discipline by the city board and city administrator has resulted in numerous groups getting their pet project put on the list for possible taxpayer funding. A person who has closely watched this effort unfold over the past several months noted recently: “This is turning into an elitist free-for-all. Good luck with getting that approved by voters.”

• We must measure twice and cut once if we want voter support of an aggressive quality of place plan.
And then there is this ballfield drama that could cost between $20 million and $35 million. The city of Fort Smith, the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Westphal Group are paying about $160,000 for an opportunity analysis to determine the best use of the 85 acres the Westphal family owns on the riverfront in downtown Fort Smith. This prime parcel of land to be anchored on the south by the U.S. Marshals Museum oozes with potential.

Proponents of building a baseball stadium for an independent league baseball team profess with great certainty that it will be The Catalyst for millions of dollars of private development along the riverfront. Unfortunately, the overwhelming evidence from decades of research into taxpayer-supported sports stadiums of all sizes in all sizes of communities suggests otherwise. (Link here to an interesting analysis of the issue by Times Record Sports Editor Scott Faldon. Turn your volume down first.)

Before we ask voters to warm to the idea of forking over up to $35 million for a baseball stadium, we might first present them an honest economic analysis — not to be confused with the aforementioned opportunity analysis. It’s called a business plan. Would you approach a banker or venture capital firm without a rational business plan? Nope. So don’t approach voters without the same respect.

Also, the taxpayer dollars shouldn’t pay the entire tab for the stadium. A private investor (or investors) should have some skin in the game. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10%-15% would be a good start.

• We must measure twice and cut once if we want voter support of an aggressive quality of place plan.
The conventional wisdom is that Fort Smith is full of aginners who don’t get it when it comes to a progressive quality-of-place vision. History suggests otherwise. Fort Smith folks more often than not reward city officials who get it right and propose a progressive and responsible quality-of-place vision.

• We must measure twice and cut once if we want voter support of an aggressive quality of place plan.
Let’s summarize:
— Measure twice, cut once.
— Don’t screw this up.
— Take care of the convention center funding shortfall first.
— Measure twice, cut once.
— Somewhere between measuring twice, not screwing this up and taking care of the convention center deficit FIRST, create at least one task force assigned the goal of working with city and Sebastian County officials to prepare a quality-of-place package that mixes an aggressive vision with practical economics. Give this task force no more than a year to meet its goal.
— Don’t screw this up.
— Do not give this task force colored dots and flipcharts.
— Measure twice, cut once.
— Once a plan is approved, conduct an aggressive 2-3 month voter education campaign prior to a vote.
— Measure twice, cut once.

Dear Gov. Mike Beebe:

Was pleased to hear of your planned visit to Fort Smith for the Martin Luther King Parade down Garrison Avenue. Hope you’re able to bring Arkansas’ First Lady. No offense, sir, but she adds a certain element of grace and charm to your otherwise well-polished political persona.

It would have been easier, and maybe even smarter, for you to attend the big Martin Luther King Parade there in Little Rock on Monday morning. Although that event is not a parade, we’ve been told. It’s a “Marade.” That’s a combo of a March and Parade. And maybe you’re in Fort Smith instead because a Marade sounds less fun than a Parade. A Marade, especially for those of us with a military background, sounds like work instead of fun. Also, the spellchecker wants to change Marade to Married or Marred. Unlike the folks in central Arkansas, the spellchecker does not offer an alternative to Parade.

Anyway, you’ll likely see a lot of friendly faces there at the parade, because even the conservative folks in the Fort Smith area can appreciate a good governor.

Speaking of good, it also is good of you to return Friday (Jan. 22) as the featured speaker at the Fort Smith chamber banquet. Beginning and ending your week in Fort Smith is certainly something thousands of area folks highly recommend.

As you look into the faces of folks at the parade and the chamber banquet, please know there is a growing level of belief behind the eyes and smiles that you’ve been and continue to be a good governor for this part of the state. We’ve had good reason with previous governors — Democrats AND Republicans — to not possess such belief.

What lies behind this growing appreciation? There is your support of the U.S. Marshals Museum, for starters.

There appear to be no doubts among those who recruited the national museum to Fort Smith that you were and continue to be an active supporter. And that’s the thing, sir — you’re an A-C-T-I-V-E supporter. We too often get politicians who support projects when the ribbon is being cut or the grand opening is held. But you’ve been there from Day One, with a $2 million check from your discretionary funds (taxpayer dollars, of course) to help get the effort from vision to reality. Those funds are directly responsible for the success so far in getting a building design approved, securing exhibit plans and launching the all-important fundraising effort.

It is on that fundraising effort you recently went above and beyond. Scuttlebutt is that the Dec. 18 Marshals Museum reception at the Governor’s Mansion planted the seeds for big dollars that will be harvested in the next couple of years. A few folks have said you and former President Bill Clinton “leaned heavily" but diplomatically on the about 180 folks who have the ability to write a six-figure check that won’t bounce. Let’s say that just 10% of those folks come through with at least $1 million. That’s not unreasonable. If so, you and the former President will have helped deliver $18 million to the $50 million fundraising goal.

Also, the word is that you spend many hours behind the scenes working to promote and secure funding for the museum. Those hours, according to folks in the know, reflects work of your own volition.

Another reason for the appreciation is the work of your administration — including Arkansas Economic Development Commission Director Maria Haley and her crew — to bring jobs to the Fort Smith area. Mars Petcare, Mitsubishi and Oxane are just a few of the recent examples. And while the Fort Smith region is WAY behind on lost jobs compared to new jobs, we should be more than 1,000 jobs better than we would without the three aforementioned companies. In other words, there are or will soon be about 1,000 area families enjoying the fruits of your labor. (We hope you’ll see fit to keep Fort Smith businessman Chester Koprovic on as an AEDC commissioner.)

Yet another reason we tend to like you more than previous governors is because of Morril Harriman. Mr. Harriman, your chief of staff and Running Buddy From Back In The Day, represented the Fort Smith/Van Buren area 16 years as a state senator. He knows us. We know him. He’s good people. Maybe this is silly, but there is some comfort in knowing that your right-hand guy won’t have a puzzled look on his face if a Governor’s office visitor says they live between Figure Five and Natural Dam.

Just a few paragraphs above, there was note about us being able to recognize a good governor. An election historian might object to such a statement and note that Sebastian County gave you just 47.08% of the 2006 vote in your first and successful bid for governor. That might somewhat be tempered in knowing that we gave Republican candidate Asa Hutchinson, a Fort Smith resident at the time, just 50.76% of the vote.

Or maybe not. The deal is, sir, that there is a growing faction of area folks who realize that our politics require larger parts Practical and smaller parts Ideology. Rep. Rick Green, R-Van Buren, for an example of Practical. (Although we are losing him temporarily to the nonsense that is term limits.) We’re trying to do a better job of being a reasonable player in Little Rock and Washington political circles. That doesn’t mean we will elect folks who always agree or support you. We’ll try to send folks who formulate objection based on rational discourse rather than knee-jerk pandering to a far-right element in town who confuse what is needed in Little Rock with what their preachers tell them is needed in Washington. (And we’d hope the liberal districts in Arkansas would seek the same practicality.)

Offering you praise and then commenting about the preferred nature of our local politics is not something in which a good journalist should engage. But I’ve never been much of a good journalist in the traditional sense, and my formal Press credentials were last seen in the desk of a local newsroom fervently managed by out-of-state number crunchers.

Nevertheless, all the above was just a way to say, enjoy the parade. And the banquet. And, more importantly, Thanks for everything — so far.

And one last thing. If you keep traveling east from the Parade route, you’ll see some highway construction between Barling and Fort Chaffee. The construction is on a VERY SMALL section of Interstate 49. No big deal, really, and the more than $3 billion needed to complete the tremendously important interstate between Alma and DeQueen has nothing to do with this essay. Just thought I’d mention it.

Arguably, the most effectively outspoken chairman of the Fort Smith Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors in recent history was Emon Mahony Jr., who once unapologetically alleged during a speech to a Fort Smith civic club that one of the audience members was a damned liar.

Now comes John McFarland, the chairman and CEO of Fort Smith-based Baldor Electric Co. — a global manufacturing company that posted $1.95 billion in the sales of electric motors and associated components in 2008, employs about 8,000 in 28 plants and has operations in more than 80 countries.

McFarland brings his type-A leadership personality full of can-do attitude and go-make-it-happen expectations to the chairmanship of a chamber that just less than 12 months ago could have competed well in a contest for the least credible and most ineffective organization in the region.

The general chamber membership got its first sampling of a sometimes edgy and frequently humorous McFarland during the chamber’s First Friday (Jan. 8) breakfast. The meeting served as the chamber’s first public unveiling of its 2010 goals.

There are two valid reasons to be surprised at McFarland’s decision to take the top volunteer leadership post at the chamber.

The first and primary reason is that Baldor is less than two years removed from effectively doubling the size of the company with its $1.8 billion acquisition of Rockwell Automation. Any large purchase and eventual integration of a company is tough, but shortly after the deal was consummated the U.S. economy tanked faster than sales of Rush Limbaugh Web site subscriptions at a birthday bash for Al Gore.

A second reason is there is a good chance the board chairman of an active chamber  will be placed smack in the middle of explaining and/or justifying a controversial chamber decision. For example, the chamber in the next 12 months might be asked to support an up to $40 million package of quality of place improvements financed with a short-term sales tax increase and a hamburger tax.

McFarland, like his legendary predecessor at Baldor, Rollie Boreham, doesn’t scare easy. Furthermore, he has taken a liking to Chamber President Paul Harvel. The jury is out as to if Harvel can turn the chamber into an effective organization with a foundation for long-term sustainability, but he has an impressive track record and is probably one of the top 10 most respected chamber executives in the country. (Why Harvel decided to take on the challenge of reinvigorating the Fort Smith chamber instead of taking a well-deserved and uber-comfortable retirement is a bigger mystery than why McFarland is the chamber chairman.)

“I’m here because of the leadership change,” McFarland revealed Friday morning. It was the first public confirmation that a key member of the Fort Smith business community was pleased with the chamber’s progress following the departure of former chamber president Tom Manskey.

McFarland further revealed that Baldor chose not to participate in the 2003 effort by the chamber that eventually raised about $4 million to support economic development efforts and chamber programs. Why no support? Because someone representing the chamber showed up in Baldor’s blue-collar manufacturing executive offices back in 2003 saying the chamber needed the money to move the local economy away from blue-collar jobs, McFarland explained. That’s like showing up at the local Baptist church seeking money to burn Bibles.

But that was then.

“I think we find ourselves in a very good position,” McFarland said after praising the past few months of work by Harvel, outgoing board chairman Roger Meek Jr., the chamber division chairs and the chamber staff.

Improving that position involves two of McFarland’s three self-imposed goals for his one-year term as chamber.

The chamber, according to McFarland and several of the other chamber division chairs who spoke Friday morning, needs to again raise money to support economic development efforts. But McFarland pledged the new funds will go for job recruitment and not to support ongoing or new chamber programs.

Another goal is to pursue the notion to create a regional economic development alliance. This is possibly a Harvel-driven goal. Harvel is credited as being part of a Little Rock leadership group that created a functioning alliance of chambers and communities in central Arkansas near the end of this more than 20 years as president and CEO of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce.

McFarland appears to see his one-year term as chamber chairman as a chance to get the community more engaged in state and federal politics. His most interesting and animated moments Friday morning involved political commentary. His top goal among his three goals is to develop and implement a governmental affairs program at the federal level.

“We’ve (the Fort Smith area) been underrepresented at the state level and at the federal level,” McFarland said, saying that improved federal connections could help secure money for Interstate 49 and the U.S. Marshals Museum project. “We also need them to stop doing some of the things they (Congress) are doing.”

Continuing, McFarland noted he should not make further comment, but then confidently barged ahead in wondering if people “get a lobotomy when they go to Washington.” The audience responded with laughter and heads nodding in the affirmative.

Attempting to keep the chamber centered, McFarland quickly responded by affirming the chamber will “be very careful to be non-political” in its efforts to improve connections in Washington and Little Rock.

To that point, McFarland opened his comments by noting it was so cold Friday morning that he saw two politicians with their hands in their own pockets. The laughter continued when McFarland noted that he wanted to say the politicians were Democrats, but his wife told him he shouldn’t single out one party because the Republicans are just as bad.

“So don’t tell my wife I said anything about Democrats,” McFarland said through a grin.

There were few grins years ago in that civic club meeting when Mahony was arguing his case for a $200 million expansion of Lake Fort Smith.

In the mid- to late-1990s, the crowd of folks uncomfortable with big ideas was larger than it is today. Mahony had a tough time convincing folks of the economic feasibility and community benefits — we hadn’t yet heard of and overused the “quality of place” catch-all phrase — of an expanded Lake Fort Smith. Now, with an expanded lake that promises 10 more years of meeting water supply needs than originally expected and home to a beautiful and expanding state park, it’s easy to forget the leadership struggles required to make it happen.

McFarland’s grin and edge and passion may be what Harvel is after. Harvel seems to have high expectations for this community and the chamber, and his decades of experience tell him such expectations often require leaders who aren’t afraid to get in the ring.

If Friday morning is any guide, McFarland’s term will be fun to watch, relatively fearless and potentially fruitful.

Or maybe that’s wishful thinking. It’s always possible we end 2010 with me being the damned liar in the room.

Editor’s note: This essay first appeared Dec. 28, 2008, on The City Wire. It continues to be an appropriate note to begin a new year.

It’s just another day, really. Another week. Another month. Another year, one hopes, above the daisies and dirt.

But this calendar shift comes with an unavoidable remembrance that, honestly, best serves by being unavoidable.

He called my sixth-grade teacher a sonofabitch. To his face. It’s a memory of everything visual coming to a slow motion, including the jaw drop of all living souls within earshot of the notification of SOB status. You know, like the memory of a car wreck.

Only years later did maturity tell me the emotion I felt then was that of discovering that this new kid in the class was a solid friend who had a better handle on life than any 13-year-old should. Because, as it turned out with further overwhelming evidence, that particular teacher was indeed an SOB.

To say he was not the typical student from the small town Arkansas elementary school is, considering the above story, stating the obvious. He was listening to KISS and trying to turn us on to this singer who had left Black Sabbath to create a new sound with a fresh young guitarist named Randy Rhoads. Ozzy, this soon to be dear friend would say, is the music your momma ain’t gonna want you to listen to.

Within weeks we were all on the Crazy Train, and sneaking tapes of this new sound from Ozzy Osbourne so our Southern Pentecostal parents wouldn’t think we were demon-possessed.

We only grew closer in the following years.

His family was less than solid. Mine was solid as granite. He was more street-smart than a wily Mafia veteran. I was book-smart without a clue about people. I knew the world between the pages. He knew the world outside the pages.

Looking back, it’s easy to see he wanted to be more like me and I wanted to be more like him. Our deep friendship was, most likely, the result of two souls with a clear appreciation of and unnecessary envy of our respective strengths and weaknesses.

We had numerous opportunities for mischief during high school and did our best to make the most of them. There was the plan to steal silverware, trays, salt-n-pepper shakers and other items from the school cafeteria and then return them at the end of the year in a big box. That plan failed when we were caught stashing our stash in the ceiling above our lockers. Mr. Dean Pitts, our principal, thought it was a clever gag and let us off light. He called us the “Fork-Lift gang.”

We were kicked out of the high school gym for causing a riot with our rival, the Clarksville High School Panthers. My friend and I received a standing ovation as we were heavily escorted out of the gym.

Again, the maturity of several calendar shifts suggested it was at that time came the understanding that the powers that be aren’t always the powers that should be.

My friend went off to join the military between our junior and senior years of high school. He was duty-to-country long before Washington, Nashville, Hollywood and NASCAR got in the flag-waving game.

We graduated high school. He went to work in a factory and I went to college. College granted me the chance to write for the student newspaper.

It was during that time my friend reminded me that our best high school memories were the result of going against the grain; of challenging the prevailing positions of proper protocol. With maturity beyond his years, my friend suggested I responsibly and credibly note the chinks in the Establishment Armor.

And so it was that I began calling the system an SOB. To its face.

The guy in charge of academic affairs at my college wanted to remove me from the student newspaper. The guy in charge of the athletic department wanted the same. The student newspaper that year won more awards than in any previous year.

And then he was the best man at my wedding.

“Sure. If that’s what you really want,” he said when I asked him to stand by me at the ceremony. “But you need to know that these women get goofy when the ceremony ends.”

Again, he was right.

But goofy has been fine, and the marriage, despite the obstinacy from the husband remains strong.

Leukemia, however, is the real SOB. It grabbed my friend in 2002.

My last face-to-face memory of my friend is toking with him — the marijuana helped ease his pain from the chemo and internal destruction caused by the bad blood cells — and talking about how we challenged the establishment whenever it deserved to be challenged and the few times we challenged it just for the hell of it.

My friend died just a few days after my second daughter was born. He was at MD Anderson in Houston when his wife told him my second child was yet another daughter.

“He is so screwed. Tell him to watch out for guys like us,” I heard him respond weakly from the background of the cell phone call. It was the last thing I ever heard from my friend.

And yet, in those final two sentences, he imparted one last piece of wisdom: He knew we could be the SOBs for which we had little tolerance.

It’s been a little more than six years since we buried Randy Tumbleson. These notes of Happy New Year remind me of Randy and the fact that the powers-that-be more often than not deserve to be called an SOB.

So, as you turn the page on your New Year, watch out for guys like me. We’ve got little patience for you SOBs.

This growing consensus among the citizenry that we might consider more Walk and less Talk with respect to additions and enhancements to our regional quality-of-place assets is both welcome and fragile.

It’s a fragility we might secure with plans that are practical and feasible. It’s a fragility beyond the efforts of all the King’s men if propaganda pushes the interests of a few over the best bang for the collective buck.

We don’t want to screw this up.

At long last, we possess a willingness by folks in the area to come together and make big things happen. A little more than a decade ago we voted to tax ourselves for the $200 million expansion of Lake Fort Smith — which also required a hefty payout for a very nice and new state park. Earlier this decade we said yes to converting our two-year college to a four-year university. There was the successful push to save the 188th. Ditto for landing the Marshals Museum. And from the Damn-Near-Impossible files, we get the political leadership in Crawford and Sebastian counties to agree to the creation of a regional intermodal authority. Even more recent was this remarkable effort to place 12,000 wreaths at the Fort Smith National Cemetery that went from idea to reality in less than 8 weeks.

We are in a transition. Economic reality has finally permeated the thickness of our conservative body politic. Many in the area now realize that economic development is about far more than access to big buildings, railroads and waterways, decent schools and cheap labor. We’ve discovered — or at least I’d like to believe it so — that if you sell your community as a cheap place to do business, then you get businesses that only see and treat your community as a cheap place.

Part of this transition includes the belief that economic development is external AND internal; it’s about including a societal element, which results in a socio-economic development mode that considers the value of life outside the workplace; and, therefore, it’s about creating a community just as eager to welcome and cater to the creative fury of non-conforming entrepreneurial talent as it is eager to pursue the traditional blue-collar job recruitment plan.

We don’t want to screw this up.

It may be that Fort Smith Mayor Ray Baker’s incessant and appealing chant that “Life is worth living in Fort Smith, Arkansas,” eventually forced us to think about what makes life worth living. And maybe somewhere amidst the white noise of superficial cheerleading we realized that what makes life worth living for Mayor Baker may not be what makes life worth living for that young entrepreneur who might be the next Gates, or Jobs or Walton or Hunt or Samuel McCloud or Robert A. Young Jr., or Collier Wenderoth or Kyle Parker or Chester Koprovic or any number of men and women who made their life worth living (and created jobs) in the area during economic realities of decades past.

The macro view is, arguably, that we have two basic long-term options. The first option is that in 20 years a majority of the jobs in our regional economy are beholden to the whims of folks in other states or countries. The second option is that in 20 years a majority of the jobs in our regional economy are controlled by people who live, work and play in this region. If you like best the second option, then you understand why we can’t screw this up.

So now we find our political leaders in Fort Smith and Sebastian County talking earnestly and collaboratively about possible quality-of-place projects — in the price range of $30 million to $40 million — designed to diversify what it is that makes life worth living in the Fort Smith region. Mentioned in this talk are various projects (a baseball stadium; new facilities for tennis, soccer, baseball and softball; park enhancements; indoor sports facility; etc.) to be located at Ben Geren Regional Park, the Riverfront in downtown Fort Smith and certain city parks. An effort to financially bolster the Fort Smith Convention Center will (should) be part of the mix.

The mix is important. We don’t want to screw this up.

At risk of oversimplification, our socio-economic development success depends on the following four broad categories (in no particular order):
• Education assets
We have a dynamic and responsive university new enough to not be too weighed down with academic bureaucracy. Also, we’ll need to continue our push for public schools that can be as good as the federal and state public school system rules allow.

• Arts and entertainment
The region is in need of a diverse range of arts and entertainment options. We’re not there yet, but it’s not from lack of trying. What constitutes such diversity? For the sake of discussion, let’s include gun ranges to ecotourism to regional art shows to big-name concerts and first-run off-Broadway theater. And then we need good restaurants (locally owned, preferably) and a good bar scene (respectable venues with popular regional music acts in town on a consistent basis). Art shows, good theater and a drink with a good meal and/or good music doesn’t sound much like economic development, but it most certainly is.

Also, we must continue to focus — through supportive/minimal regulation and/or oversight from local governments — on developing a “hip” urban core that appeals to the 20-40 age group who want to live, work and play in or near a downtown environment. Fort Smith, Ozark and Van Buren have much potential in this area. Greg Nabholz, a Conway businessman who also works as an advocate for non-traditional economic development, recently told The City Wire: “The bottom line is, if you don’t have that cool downtown, you’re out of the (high-wage economic development) game.”

• Infrastructure
High-wage and low-wage jobs all require a dependable water supply, quality road network (I-49), expandable landfill and electronic (broadband, wireless, etc.) connections. Failure in any one of the aforementioned is unacceptable.

• Connections
This is an area in which we suck. We must do more to build strong connections to business, cultural and government leaders in Little Rock, Northwest Arkansas and Washington. Yellow-dog Democrats and Right-wing Republicans are of no help in correcting our dysfunctional connections.

As you might note from the above list, quality of place is important because we score well in two (Education and Infrastructure) of the four categories. We can’t screw this up.

Which is to say, we have to be careful about what we believe from consultants, knowing that a consultant paid by a person(s) who seeks Result ABC will almost always deliver Result ABC. Excitement about possibilities is great, but it’s never a substitute for a rational dissection of hoped-for prognostications.

Which is to say we might consider forming a commission or task force of non-politicians to come up with a financially feasible quality-of-place investment plan. Our more successful efforts — the Lake Fort Smith expansion, for example — used such an approach.

Which is to say we shouldn’t fall into a trap of artificial deadlines. We need action, but if it takes 18 months to come up with a good plan, that’s much better than trying to push a bad plan in the next 6 months.

Which is to say we should not allow fear to dilute our resolve to think big in terms of pushing a quality of place plan. We didn’t back away from the big fights in expanding our water supply, keeping the 188th and landing the Marshals Museum. We are a great people in a great region, and we are capable of great progress.

Which is to say, we’ve proven we can avoid screwing up when not screwing up is important.

It’s important, again.

Editor’s note: What follows is an essay originally posted Feb. 1, 2009. Please accept our apology for the repeat. Tilley didn’t have time for anything new as he was competing for the job of field goal kicker for the Cowboys.

Friends and relatives who are old enough to know better are becoming more active on this Facebook thing.

One can be guilted into creating a Facebook profile to respond to friends and relatives who send Facebook invitations. They want you to write on their “wall,” or officially be their “friend” or share photos or join a six-degrees-of-separation network. More to the point, they want us to participate in an electronic hypothesis that tests a friendship: If you join the Facebook cult and interact via Facebook protocol, then our friendship is secure.

And the Facebook options and buttons and links and other things that help you expose every little nook and cranny of your life seem too much and too complicated. There are a lot of “sharing” options on Facebook and I just know I’d end up swapping my wife for one of those ShamWow! towel thingies. That would be a bad deal, especially if I had to pay the shipping and handling costs.

Anyway, a friend recently “tagged” me with 25 random things. He sent me a list of 25 random things about himself which then obligated me to respond with 25 random things about myself. Unclear on the concept of being “tagged” with an obligation without also being part of the negotiation, I responded by affirming our friendship outside the Facebook venue and expressing an unwillingness to share myself with the world. (Sharing opinions on public matters via The City Wire is not the same as exposing private thoughts on Facebook.)

Then, I “deactivated” my Facebook profile. Consider me a Facebook fugitive. If my friends want to share something with me, there is e-mail, cell phone, landline phone, the U.S. mail and the always welcome face-to-face visit in which bartenders are involved.

However, this Facebook episode did stimulate an idea for this week’s Riff Raff essay.

Here now, Kind Reader, are 25 random thoughts about random things. This list requires no action or obligation from either party and likely has no real value to either party; you know, sort of like the economic stimulus stuff coming out of Washington.

1. Someone should pass a state law barring the next Arkansas governor from having the “bee” sound as the final syllable in his or her surname. We had 10 years of Huckabee and likely will have eight years of Beebe. Eighteen years of that consonant-vowel pairing is enough.

2. There ain’t enough parking spots at the Fort Smith Public Library.

3. By the time you get a Fort Smith animal control officer to respond, the animal is in Jonesboro.

4. With Congress attempting to use the economic “crisis” to inject federal government into damn near every aspect of our lives, couldn’t they at least replace Jerry Jones with Roger Staubach?

5. When local TV stations hire new weather reporters, the new employee orientation should include how to pronounce Alma, Lavaca, Pocola and Poteau.

6. The best thing about Barack Obama being President is that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can’t now legitimately complain that minorities can’t get ahead in America. (Not that Jackson or Sharpton ever legitimately complained about anything.)

7. Martha Harps rolls are one of the few food products that live up to the hype.

8. Would Al Gore please shut the &%# up?!

9. I take it as a personal affront that the U.S. Marshals Museum board did not consider for their fundraising effort my offered slogan: “Home is Where You Hang Your Outlaws.”

10. Elephants produce about 50 pounds of dung a day, which is a reminder that if you deal with big things in life, expect a lot of crap. From above.

11. It’s time to reform the structure of county government in Arkansas. Any system of local government that is at its foundation just one or two evolutionary steps from the political machinations of a time when ensuring power was more important than encouraging progress is long past due for an overhaul.

12. We’ve had yet another brush with bad weather that again makes the overwhelming case for the need to bury utilities. The safe bet is that we instead bury our heads.

13. Wouldn’t it be neat if Fort Smith-based Baldor Electric Co. built a new corporate headquarters complex on the old Phoenix Village property?

14. Looking for good chili on a cold day? Try Krazy K’s in the Brunwick Place in downtown Fort Smith. (Update from Feb. 1: Not enough folks sought the chili. Or other menu items. K’s closed.)

15. It’s interesting how we legislate and regulate our poisons in this country. It’s OK to destroy your body and mind with alcohol and nicotine, but not marijuana.

16. That most religious leaders throughout history were snakes or asses is not surprising when learning that the snake and the jackass are the only animals in the Bible to speak to humans.

17. If someone told me only 10% of the legislators at the 87th Arkansas General Assembly really know what is going on, I’d be tempted to believe it.

18. It’s just a matter of time before an individual or group begins a consistent clamor for a different form of Fort Smith municipal government.

19. Inflation is in the green room, primping to be on stage for our next national economic “crisis.” At some point the oversupply of misdirected dollars will get underneath price points and push them north. The smart folks will be on the right (liquid) side of rising interest rates.

20. Does anyone under 50 shop at Sears?

21. The best cold beer from a tap in Fort Smith? Logan’s Roadhouse. The worst food service at a Fort Smith restaurant? Logan’s Roadhouse. Go for the beer. Eat elsewhere.

22. The way to acquire the $3 billion needed to build Interstate 49 through western Arkansas is to levy a $10 fine for each person or sports commentator on the plethora of Razorback football radio call-in shows who use the phrase, “It’s a rebuilding year.” We’ll be pouring concrete before Petrino’s third season.

23. Continuing with the theme in the previous random thought, here’s a phrase you’ll never hear someone say on those Razorback football radio call-in shows: “Hey, no big deal. It’s just a game.”

24. The author is Christopher Hitchens and the book is “Letters to a Young Contrarian.” Read it.

25. Those old men in AC/DC can still rock.

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate ... we can not consecrate ... we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
— portion of the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln

Green and red created stunning lines of salute amid the brown, white and gray of grass, stone and sky. The 12,000 wreaths laid against each headstone at the Fort Smith National Cemetery on Saturday reflected the mixture of intangible respectful remembrance with the cold order of military precision.

To not be moved briefly or frequently with a need to fight back tears or fight a lump in the throat, or to even have a breathless moment, would be to have no visceral appreciation of the historical and necessary sacrifice our fellow citizens and soldiers made for country, family and you and me.

However, reflection finds that a source of the emotion is possibly an equal part admiration for the thousands of volunteers who helped pull off what was just an idea less than eight weeks ago; a civic love, if you will, for the hundreds who gave their time and money to ensure that this community of communities would follow through on an idea to acknowledge immeasurable honor with the simple act of placing a wreath against a headstone.

Indeed, as Lincoln noted, their is little we can do within our “poor power” to make more sacred the few acres we have devoted to the burial of our military men and women. While it is wholly appropriate we act to remember their sacrifice, our remarkable collective actions to place 12,000 wreaths is as much for the living as it is for the dead — which is Lincoln’s encouragement that from the “honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”

This effort has increased such devotion in the hundreds of area school children and young adults who helped the “Christmas Honors” project succeed. Parents with small children were seen at the cemetery quietly explaining the significance of the wreath or what it was Grandpa or Uncle or Aunt did in service to country. And those who believe such devotion is a diminishing commodity must have been heartened by the often overwhelming and always orderly crowd that gathered to help prepare and place the wreaths.

Perhaps the biggest lesson, if not reminder, in all this is how our communities came together to accomplish for the first time this tremendous task of directing logistics, finance and people as if it were a traditional and privileged job we do every month.

So it is, then, that the men and women buried at the Fort Smith National Cemetery continue their service by providing us the opportunity to increase our constructive connections to the living through our dutiful devotion to honor the dead.

May the circle be unbroken.

Folks in the Fort Smith area are so hospitable that they’re likely to forgive Melody Trimble for never having visited Graceland.

That Trimble readily admitted — “I drove through but never stopped.” — to not making the holy and wholly American pilgrimage suggests the new CEO of Sparks Health System will be relatively transparent in her new post.

It’s in the new post in which Trimble also is likely to enjoy our collective and gracious benefit of the doubt for a few months — maybe even the first year — as she works to ensure that Naples, Fla.-based Health Management Associates begins to benefit from its $138 million purchase of Sparks Health System. At some point, however, she’ll make tough, unpopular and potentially misunderstood decisions. A person doesn’t get to manage more than 2,000 people and about 250 doctors within a system that sees around 13,000 patients a year and enjoy universal approval.

The self-proclaimed “Army brat” officially walked into her new office Dec. 1. Her initial goal is to walk every square inch of the large Sparks complex get to know the people and processes. She says a CEO can’t adequately function without “meeting the people on their turf, because it’s all about relationships.”

A short-term goal is to move the hospital’s administrative offices to the main hospital facility. The offices are now in a building separate from the hospital. Her primary long-term goal indicates she has no fear of creating high expectations.

“You want a headline? Here’s your headline: ‘Sparks will be known for the most outstanding quality and service,’” Trimble explained.

Well, CEO Trimble, we’ll hold that headline in our headline holder thingamajiggy and hope we soon get a chance to use it.

But who is this Trimble person? And who does she think she is coming here talking quality and service and office-moving and only driving through Graceland? I mean, how does one drive through Graceland, anyway?

For starters, Trimble knows John. Although she was born at Fort Belvoir, Va., she spent many of her formative years in the eastern Kentucky area around Paintsville. She knew John and his family before he was one of “The Unforgettables” or Coach Pelphrey. Trimble was there to send off the newlyweds when John married Tracy. Tracy’s sister has babysat for the Trimbles.

“I’ve made a few calls,” Trimble said with a grin when asked if she’d thought about having Coach Pelphrey come to the hospital for an event. (Although, considering Pelphrey’s season so far, she might want to hurry.)

Trimble is the only daughter among four brothers. Her husband Michael is a former Realtor, and is working to move portions of the family to Fort Smith from the Venice, Fla.-area. They have two daughters. Mary is an emergency room nurse and has a little boy, Hunter. The other daughter, Michaela, is a sophomore at the University of Florida who plans to be an attorney and writer.

Trimble the CEO doesn’t have a favorite sports team. She asks her husband who he likes and that’s who she roots for.

She says her favorite U.S. president of the 20th century is Ronald Reagan.

For Christmas, Trimble wants “all my little ducks (family)” in one home. “Moving here (to Fort Smith) was our Christmas present,” she said, adding that she already loves the mountains and valleys and other area scenery. Her husband is looking for a place to build a home. She wants a big fireplace. They have spent little time in the previous two homes they built, but Trimble wants to settle here. “I know I’m here for the long-term,” she said.

Given the chance to do nothing for a weekend, Trimble would do something quiet and simple. “I love quiet. ... I love to read. I could sit on a mountaintop and do that.”

If she was stuck for an extended period of time in some remote location and could only bring a sampling of music from three artists, Trimble selected Il Divo, Kenny G and “anything Christian rock.”

Here, Kind Reader, is our first hint of trouble with this new CEO. She claims to be a country girl with simple tastes yet is willing to be tucked away with the sounds of Kenny G, Christian rock and Il Divo — a Euro-pop opera group, for chrissakes! One might have expected Skynyrd or Haggard or at least something you might listen to while at a bonfire or a tailgate party or to merely experience some measure of auditory pleasure.

She said in the Dec. 2 interview it would be a close score, but Florida would beat Alabama for the SEC championship. (Wrong, and wrong.)

Her favorite guilty pleasure food is butter pecan ice cream at Braum’s.

When given the choices Star Trek and Star Wars, Trimble says the better science fiction franchise is Star Trek.

Her two pet peeves are “people who do not follow up on promises,” and “people who don’t think of others first.” So, if you ever promise Trimble that you’ll think of others first, well ...

Trimble would operate an orphanage for kids if she were not employed in the medical field.

The most famous person she ever met was a person she didn’t realize was famous. It was in an elevator many years ago when she began to chat up this tall guy. They had a brief but friendly talk. When the ride ended, Trimble’s friends wanted to know if she got Troy Aikman’s autograph. She had not.

The best advice she ever received was to just be herself.

“You have to go with ‘The Duke,’” Trimble responded when asked who did the better Western movies, John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.

Her favorite city to visit is not New York, Chicago, Las Vegas or any big city. It’s Radcliff, Ky., just outside Fort Knox. It’s where her mother lives.

“Blindside” is the last movie (as of Dec. 2) Trimble saw in a movie theater. “That is an amazing movie. That’s going to be a home run,” she said of a movie about football.

Trimble may work out, but we’re all going to have to pitch in and help boost her sports knowledge. And maybe as a birthday present we also pitch in for tickets to Graceland.