Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, and welcome to know the news. This is Becca Martin Brown. For the next 20 minutes or so, the arts and entertainment editor at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
I am joined today. Bye. For dear people who are, I hate to say the old guard, but I'm going to the old guard of northwest Arkansas arts, as am I, because I'm about to retire. And we're going to talk about everything that's happened over the last 35 years. You may be old by the time we're done.
I'm going to let them introduce themselves so you can match voices to people, and then we're going to chat.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Shall we start to your left?
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: I'm Susan Young. I'm the retired outreach coordinator from the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, and I am delighted to help honor you in this milestone event.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Becca I'm Zeke Taylor, artist from Eureka Springs. Been in northwest Arkansas and active in the arts since 1975, and I, too, am honored to be here.
[00:01:21] Speaker D: BEcca PaTrIcia RElf, I'm the arts learning specialist at Walton Art center, but I met Becca in the theater, and there I would see her in the theater at the plays of Roger Gross University Theater or in local plays, Ozark stage works, arts, live plays, and then at Walton Art center. And every time I see her in the theater, it is pure joy.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: She has the grin on her face she has now. And joining us by zoo Ed McClure.
[00:01:54] Speaker E: I'm saying hello from Rogers, Arkansas. Sorry I can't be there in person. I am the artistic director for Arkansas.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Public Theater and the founding director for Roger's Little Theater.
[00:02:06] Speaker E: That's correct.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Okay, so tell people in 1988 what the arts scene looked like in northwest Arkansas. Was the hole for the Walton Art center even there yet?
[00:02:21] Speaker D: I think a brick building was there, but it was kind of a scary, it could have been occupied, but you couldn't see it. And it was not a block that I would walk down. I just wouldn't walk in that area. And there were lots of bars and lots of fun. But no, it was kind of a strange and spooky corner there until the big hole and then a big art center that belongs to everybody now.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: And when they dug the big hole, folks, none of us ever thought there'd be an art center there. We thought it would be a big hole.
Nobody outside. The planners, I think, believed in it until they saw actual building going up.
[00:03:09] Speaker D: I believed in it and really wanted something that would house good performing and visual arts. Our community in the 1980s, history, visual art, murals, great painters and painting, the live performing arts, choral music, poetry, writers, novelists, all of those artists were here, and it was an exciting time to meet artists on the street and to see artists anywhere you might want to go.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: And, Susan, Shiloh Museum was that little building that used to be, what, the library in Springdale?
[00:03:48] Speaker B: It was the old Springdale Public Library. And if we're talking about 1988, I wasn't even at the Shiloh Museum as an employee yet. I was a visitor there, which brought me to love that place. But, yeah, the same location where the museum is today had its own big hole that was dug when the old Springdale Library moved to Murphy park. Then that building, that old building became home to the Shiloh Museum, and I wasn't there to witness it. But I'm told by staff members that were there that when the bulldozer pulled up to start demolishing the old library building or the old museum at that time, it was just a push, just a little push, little nudge, and the building came down. So, yeah, I arrived on the scene at the museum in 94, and I guess that's when I came to know you for real. I had known you before that from the newspapers and the little Queen articles and such, but, yeah, 94 is when I started at the museum.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: I remember being at the museum the day they locked the old front door. I took the picture, and Maudine Sanders was the one who turned the key to lock the front door.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: That's an iconic photo in the museum's archives.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure it's mine. I'm sure Bickford was there, too, but I'm pretty sure it's mine.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Just back story. Maudine Sanders was an icon in Springdale history, a co owner of the Springdale News. And I have to say this. I recently reviewed an article for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. That's the online encyclopedia, and it was on the Springdale News. And whoever wrote that article did not say one word about Maude and Sanders nor Jim Morris.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: Excuse me.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: I fired back and said, I will come down there and pitch a huge fit if this does not get rewritten to include those two very important people in Springdale News history and in Springdale history and background.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Jim Morris was the editor of the Springdale News when I went to work there in 1988, as I think we called it, either lifestyles editor or living editor. So I guess now I'm the dying editor.
Anyway, he was old school journalism. He used to tell a story about trying to report on a school board meeting that they wouldn't let him in. So he stood outside the window and reported on it.
So he was the old guard and seek. What was Eureka like?
[00:06:30] Speaker C: I moved there in 87, so I was there from the beginning of 88.
I moved there because Eureka Springs was an arts colony. I mean, there were lots of artists there. But shortly after I moved there a couple of years, the May Festival of the Arts, a month long festival was established and that brought a lot of tourists, art tourists and publicity to our area.
And since that time we've, the opera at inspirational point has always been there. But soon we're going to have a brand new $34 million facility for the opera, thanks to the Walton Family foundation.
And since that time, Eureka Springs School of the Arts has been developed.
The writers colony has come along. All these. We have all kinds of arts in Eureka Springs. And this past year, the Eureka Springs Museum of Art opened, which honors more than a century of artists that have lived and worked in Eureka Springs all the way up to today.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: And Ed and I knew each other in the very early days of Roger's little theater because I did lighting design for a show that we did at what then eventually became Haas hall. Except at the time it was an old folks home. And every time we plugged the lights in, we prayed.
[00:07:56] Speaker E: Yeah, the electricity wasn't optimum. But we, I'm trying to remember. It seems like we did two or three shows there and then we, and then that was like our first season in 86, 88. I can't remember. I was just, just now when you guys were talking about dates, I had to get up and walk over to my undergrad diploma on the wall because I couldn't even remember when I graduated college. But now I'm up to speed. But yeah, that was the first time that I think we met. And then we had several folks that we had in common and we would just always see each other.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Actually, I think we met because you were dating a reporter at the Benton County Daily Democrat. But I'm not going to say that out loud because Kathy might listen to this.
So talk about what theater was like. I mean, if you wanted to go see what to us was professional level theater, you went to university theater.
[00:09:03] Speaker D: The university theater was a wonderful place with a great tradition by wonderful theater directors like George Kernodle. And when I first came here in 1980, Roger Gross, my spouse, was the first chairman of the department. He was a very good director from the California Shakespeare Festival. And he directed a lot of Shakespeare and a lot of Broadway musicals. Not only a big splashy Broadway musical, but the little odd musicals like fantastics or musicals by Bertholdt Brecht.
George Carnotle directed Shakespeare and other wonderful directors. Kent Brown not only directing big successes like Fiddler on the Roof, I choreographed that. That was a limited run, but such a successful play that it sold out before it even opened. And terrific singers and dancers that later made their career in the arts and entertainment business all performed on that. And audiences loved going to those performances. Not only did they have community audiences to see live theater and a season of theater, but they would do performances, both a theater for youth, both fun, oh, fun, silly young plays, but also they would do Shakespeare for schools. So it would be like the emperor's new clothes. That's kind of a fable, that's a legitimate play, or the ugly duckling or something fun, silly and musical for very young audiences and then more substantial work for young student audiences. Then in Barnhill, big dance companies would come, not in my time, but before I came here. The great dancer Jose Limon came and performed, and they would perform in Barn Hill. But since Walton Art center has been built, very big dance companies, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre of Harlem, all of these very grand New York based and world based dance companies, dance companies from around the world come and perform here. So the opportunity continues to grow.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: I think one of the points that I want to make because I'm old is that we weren't living here in like an art vacuum before the Walton Art center or before Crystal Bridges.
Shiloh Museum dates back 68, I believe.
And Roger's little theater was starting in the late eighties. And unfortunately, there's nobody here from art center of the Ozarks, but art center of the Ozarks was busy, and people dressed up and went to the theater. You dressed up, you made reservations, you went in, and you didn't have a phone. You went in and you looked at the people around you and you said hello to George and Portia Kernodle. And I remember seeing Vicki Hilliard in Evita.
[00:12:25] Speaker D: Yes, yes. What a great singer. What a star. That was a beautiful performance. I saw that, too.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: There has never been another performance anywhere that I've seen of Evita that was better than she was.
[00:12:39] Speaker D: And there was a beautiful gallery across from the university theater. So having a chance to see visual art before you see a play or in the intermission of a play at Shiloh Museum, there was a regular group of great storytellers, storytellers in a traditional way. And I was a member of that group for a short time, and they would have storytelling festivals.
Films were made in the Ozark region. Really good films, the Blue and the gray. That was a huge project. Gregory Peck, Colleen Dewar, Stacy Keach, many, many others were here in our town, and other small independent films were made in the 1980s and continue to be made in our beautiful Ozark region.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: So get off my lawn. We had all this before.
So, Ed, talk about the journey of Roger's little theater to Arkansas public Theater, which is now pretty much acknowledged as professional theater. You just don't get paid.
[00:13:43] Speaker E: Well, it was just a whole lot of really wonderful people that felt like they wanted to have performing arts in Rogers. And the list is long, long, long. So many people gave up so much time and so much energy and, you know, worked. And, you know, when we started, we would have to take our show on the road because, you know, we didn't have a dedicated home.
I remember the first year we did funny thing happen on the way to the forum, and it was at Northside elementary without air conditioning, and it was hot, and they had one of those poultry fans in the gymatorium, or whatever you want to call it, and that's where we did the show. But just a lot of really great people that have worked and continue to work all this time, almost 40 years, to make this a reality and make it available for not only audiences, but for performers who want to perform.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: When did it become. Oh, I just bumped the thing I wasn't supposed to bump. I'm sorry. When did it become Arkansas public theater, and when did you get a home at the Victory Theater, even though you're homeless again right now?
[00:15:13] Speaker E: You know, I should have had that information when we, I can't even remember when we moved into the Victory theater. I feel like we've been in there for ten years or so, I think.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: At least.
[00:15:29] Speaker E: But I think it's probably been longer than that.
That changed the game for us a lot, and it made it easy to do a better job of creating seasons and having more diversity and being able to do popular stuff, but also do stuff that we thought people needed to see. So that was a real benefit, a real blessing when we were able to do that. Now that we're homeless because of the tornado, we're sort of back to doing the guerrilla theater that we kind of started. You know, the kids that are in rent, they've been, they've been meeting Tuesday nights and, you know, singing at the Methodist church or the, another church in Springdale, just wherever we can find rehearsal space.
And then we're picking back up because we'll be performing rent at the medium.
I can't remember the dates. I've got them right here.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: August 8 through 11th.
[00:16:37] Speaker E: Yeah. Thank you. So we're.
We're really excited to get that show up and in front of audiences.
I've never seen a group of people who have so much energy, so much talent, and so much willingness to just do it and to do the show and to want to do it despite all the setbacks. So I am truly, truly honored and blessed to be a part of it because it's a real labor of love, and I love the show, and I love this cast so much.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: And I'm going to run over and chat with them Tuesday evening about what you do when you're less than a week away from opening. And then there's a tornado.
It's kind of happened to you twice because it also happened right in the middle of meteor shower with the pandemic.
[00:17:36] Speaker E: Yeah. Meteor shower was the longest running play that we did. We were ready to open Covid hit, we closed down.
We put it back on. The season, had to, I think, recast one person in the four person show. And then we did it. And it was just. It was delightful. Such a Steve Martin script. Just a really, really funny show.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Lisa Turpin, who is like the business manager for Arkansas Public Theater, said, look, we're theater people. We do things.
We're going to have a show, which is so true. If you ever want to hire someone for any kind of job and you want to know that they're going to show up and do the job, I suggest hiring theater people, because I've had two or three work for me as reporters, and they were the best I ever had.
So, Zeke, Eureka Springs was tiny and quiet.
[00:18:39] Speaker C: It was.
And it's no longer tiny and quiet. Our season has been extended. Not only it starts really in January with Mardi Gras events, which go on and on.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Used to be January or February, you might as well not plan to go to Euta Rica.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: And after Mardi Gras comes along Valentine's Day, which is a big draw, too. But then when we get into the swing of things like May, that's when the arts part of it kick in. And for the past 32 years, we've had the White street studio walk on the street where I live.
I'm one of the original organizers, and that, too, brings to people in town.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Oh, it's like, it's that event where in my hometown, it was farm city days.
It's the event that you go to and you see everybody that you haven't seen all winter and it's so exciting. And then you buy art and take it home and, you know, that's what we hope happens.
[00:19:39] Speaker C: And it usually does.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: It always happens in my car. I don't know anybody else's.
[00:19:43] Speaker C: I know it is given as a chance to showcase a lot of Eureka Springs artists that participate. There's usually 40 artists showing on the street that night. And that's just one event in the May festival of the arts.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: And galleries come and go, but right now bruise is like the place to be.
[00:20:05] Speaker C: Right. John Rankin curates shows there and they're well attended. And also it's a place to showcase Eureka Springs artists. A lot of times there'll be 30 to 40 people showing in one show in one location.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: And it's up a month at least. I think the current one's up all of July into August, into August. So it's time for people to go and see it and to run into each other and to chat, which I think is the common ground here is that not only do we go to see the art, but we go to see the people that we know are going to be there.
[00:20:40] Speaker C: Right? And that's one reason I moved to Eureka Springs, because I knew that there was a large art colony. I wanted to be among my peers working in the studio. It's a lonely profession and that has given me and other artists a chance to commune, to support each other, which it's a great feeling to be there.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Were you and Eureka when they filmed past the ammo there?
[00:21:03] Speaker C: No, I moved there shortly after. But I did go over some and got Tim Curry's autograph in my rocky horror picture show book.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Oh, I'm so jealous. If I had one thing to do over, I'd have gone over there when they were filming that and chased Tim Curry till I caught it.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: Oh, I did.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: And you can take that any way you want to.
[00:21:22] Speaker C: I caught him in front of the post office.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: That wasn't what I had in mind.
[00:21:25] Speaker C: Yeah, I had that rocky horror picture show book. And he said, oh, you've got the Bible, haven't you?
[00:21:32] Speaker A: And they took the whole. They took the municipal auditorium and they put a fake front on it and then they blew the fake front up. And I worked over there on a film called Mister Christmas 2000. 2001.
Wouldn't have missed the opportunity.
Too old to do it again. Cause I was working three days a week at the paper, driving over on Wednesday night and working four days over there.
[00:21:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I saw you out the window. Some stitch of my house. Yeah, one of the sets was on elk. That's right, just around the corner. Yeah. We've also, oh, probably, I don't know, eight or nine years ago, Crystal was filmed in Eureka Springs, and there was Billy Bob Thornton.
It was filmed down the hall from my house. So I would walk down and watched the filming for quite a bit. It was exciting, too.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: So of all of the people that you've met doing what you do.
[00:22:33] Speaker D: What.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Was the one that made your little heart go pitter patter?
[00:22:39] Speaker C: That's sort of a hard question for me. I've met a lot of people that really have the pitty patty heart, but probably, I think, Jamie White.
I went to a media presentation at Crystal Bridges. There was probably, I don't know, 20 people there or so.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:22:59] Speaker C: And he guided us through his exhibition, and it was a joint exhibition with Andy Warhol. And so I stepped right to him because he would talk to me and talk about the Andy Warhol exhibit. You know, he was a friend, so that, that was an exciting event for me.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Wow.
Ed, was it our playwright friend, Mister Softy?
[00:23:23] Speaker E: Well, I, you know, we've had some, some folks that, you know, come from a professional background that, you know, perform at Arkansas public Theater.
Just be honest. You know, the whole, just the thing about theater, just the community, just everything about it, you know? And it's like, you know, it's cliche to say it's like a family, but it is. But then it's, it's a constantly changing family because you're doing different projects with different people, but you're, you know, it's, you know, usually 30, 45 days, just hard work, work, work. And then it's overdeveloped. And then you try to find ways to sort of resurrect that great feeling you had when you worked on a project together. But, you know, lightning never strikes twice. But that's okay, because the next project, you'll find new and delightful things from different people. You'll find new people, you'll learn different ways to do things, and you'll continue to learn and hopefully make art that people want to see. And that's important. And it has the ability to perhaps effectuate change in our community.
And so I just, it's fun, but I think it's also important. I think the arts are important because they give us humanity. And that's so important these days.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Tell our friends that are listening who might not know who Oren Safdie is.
[00:25:09] Speaker E: Orin Safdie is the son of the Mister Safdie that is the architect for Crystal Bridges. He was here for the grand opening of his dad's building many years ago, and he contacted our theater and said, would you have any desire to do a scripted reading of one of my plays? And we're like, yeah.
And from that. From that connection, we've done three of his scripts that have been.
At least two of them have been world premieres. The first one we did, we did a. Did a professional production of that and brought in three New York actors to do that.
And then the other two were local. But he's been very generous to us. He's very kind to let me read his scripts and to be willing to let us do some of his shows.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: And again, think about it.
Think about it. This is not. It's all around you. It's all around you. So did famous people come to the Shiloh museum and wander in? Of course. You and I know who the most famous person is.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you what this is bringing up for me, and you can see if we're on the same track. So I was not directly involved with this, but I remember the day when our photo archivist, Marie Demarokas, came back to the offices and said, guess who just contacted me looking for a photo. The staff of Ken Burns. It was when he was working. It wasn't Ken Burns himself, but still, that was huge. And it was when he was doing the film on prohibition and they were looking for a moonshine photo.
Of course, you go to the Ozarks, right? Because that's the stereotype. And we had a photo that was actually used in that film. And how did we come to acquire that photo? So famous people. Yeah. Once the guy that was the deputy on Dukes of Hazzard came in, he was here for the rodeo.
But I'm defining famous in a different way. So, yes, that Ken Burns connection.
But then how did we come to have, at Shiloh Museum this photograph of two purported moonshiners in Kingston, Arkansas, Madison county? How'd we come to have that photo?
[00:27:43] Speaker A: I wonder if you can.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Here is my hero, my person. When you talk about your, who was your person?
Wayne Martin.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: My father in law.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Yes. And you never did that? You never. There was never a conflict of interest, Becca, in all of those, in all that time that I knew you and knew Wayne. But Wayne is, bar none, the finest Ozark historian I have ever. I will ever know. He was a logger from Madison county. He grew up in Madison county. He knew the history. He listened to the old timers when he was a kid, he knew the history far beyond his own age. He was respected.
When Shiloh Museum wanted to find out, do some history project or oral histories. You couldn't just go out to Madison county and start knocking on doors because you're from off. I'm a fifth generation Ozarker, and I'm still from off.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: You're still from off.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: But if Wayne went with you and gave you the introduction, you're in. Because people knew him, loved him, trusted him. So when y'all talk, I'll match Wayne Martin with any famous movie star ever. As far as the impact that that person.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: I am not gonna cry. Not gonna cry.
Yeah, she's right. And it all started because Wayne's.
I've gotta get this right.
Grandmother had a store in Pettigrew called the mini Barker drugstore, and Granny never threw anything away.
And Bob Beesom, who was director of the Shiloh museum, heard that they were cleaning out the store and going to have an auction. And Bob came scooting out there faster than any cliche you can come up with and went through every box and corner. I mean, they had, like, coffin hardware in boxes that had been shipped to them to sell that had never been opened.
You know, everything you could ever think of. And dad and Bob forged a great partnership to have Petty Goudais out there and bring people out there to hear about the history of Petty grew, which was the terminus for the Santa Fe railroad.
It went from Fayetteville out there, loaded up logs, and then turned around and went back to Fayetteville and sent the logs off to wherever.
So Susan and I were looking at each other going, I know what she's going to say, and I know it's going to gut me. And it did.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: And if I can circle back to. To little Shiloh Museum and the arts, and you, Becca, you always have given in your career, Shiloh museum, the same treatment that you give to a university production to the glamorous world of the arts, a little history museum to put us in that same respect.
I know it is. I know it is. But to give us that in the paper, you didn't change your voice. The voice is the same whether you're talking about Crystal Bridges now or Shiloh Museum.
I don't know how many times I said when I worked at the museum. Becca Martin is our lifeline because we're a city museum. We don't have a big publicity budget. We can't go buy full page ads about this little exhibit on quilting in the Ozarks or about petty Grey, this homecoming in Madison county. So for Becca to devote that space and skill and treatment as only Becca can do with her voice, it was huge. Was huge for us.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Thank you.
Before I ask Patty this who is the most famous person question, I'm going to jump Susan's and tell you that there was never a soul that I was more excited to see on stage, off stage to get a chance to talk to than Roger Gross, who knew more about Shakespeare and could tell you so that you knew it.
And not to mention the fact that they had the cutest dang love story. It was as cute as Taylor and Travis because they'd do Shakespeare together and just look at each other. So it's that whole thing that. Okay, I got to have lunch with Ted Neely when he was at the Walton Art center on a tour of Jesus Christ superstar. We had greek salad.
I got to have cocktails with Jonathan Fred Barnabas College. Yes. And if you're young and listening to this, you don't know who that is. There was a gothic soap opera on tv when we were all kids, all the people at this table. And it was the coolest thing. You raced home from school to see it. And Barnabas Collins was the vampire everybody hoped would bite them.
And he came to the art center of the Ozarks and did a one night program.
And he came to a cocktail party at Harry Ann, Kathy Blundell's house.
And this little kid from Kansas who used to leave my bedroom window open hopefully got to chat with him live and in person.
And it's amazing and stunning. And it's still no more amazing and stunning than getting to watch Roger and Patty do shakespeare.
[00:33:42] Speaker D: Well, I got to live in a world of great theater artists, and you kind of described them. The arts and entertainment has dancers, beautiful men, gorgeous women, singers, acrobats, transvestites, animal trainers, everything. But the most thrilling person that I always wanted to see was you, Becca. Why? Because you're available. You know what's going on in the arts and entertainment before anybody else does. You're there. You're approachable. You have a joy of seeing the visual and performing arts. You're the funnest person to talk to after you hear the song or see the dance, because you have the intelligence and language to understand what is being shown on that refined moment on stage and to make sense of it for the most ordinary person. And I know that's why Roger loved you so much, because you understood what was going on in the theater. And you have the language and are able to express it for almost anybody. So thank you for being my thrill and my delight in arts and entertainment.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: You guys are really going to get me now.
Guys, I'm going to tell you at the end of this podcast what I'm going to be doing.
I will continue to have a segment on Kuaf. It's going to be a little bit different and it kind of has to do with the things we've been talking about. Today I will be writing some for the paper, and I'm going to have a part time job at the Museum of Native American History doing nothing but say hi. Welcome to our museum. Let me tell you about the 10,000 objects across 20,000 years that one guy, David Bogle, has collected to make a museum, which is like the piece de resistance of everything we've been talking about. That one guy from here made a museum.
And it's amazing and it is big city quality.
So if there was a point in all of this other than to let me say thank you to all these people, it's don't just go to Crystal bridges or the Walton Art center, look around because there's so much more.
Go to Eureka Springs for the White street walk. All of us who go every year will say hi to you. We promise.
Go see Zeke's work. Go see Arkansas Public Theater where they do work that is professional quality.
Go see a small museum.
There's a great one in Cane Hill.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: Beautiful, historic Cane Hill. Yeah.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: And when you see Doctor Pat at the Walton Arts center, run up to her and hug the stuffing out of her because she has guided more children into loving the arts than I could possibly ever count. And that's our future. Guys, thank you for listening to know the news. Thank you to Pat Ralph, Zeke Taylor, Ed McClure, Susan Young, and to our producer Blake Sutton for my swan song. See you later.
[00:37:21] Speaker E: Love you, Becca.
[00:37:22] Speaker C: Love you.
[00:37:28] Speaker F: Tease you a little bit about what's coming up this weekend.
While many people seek affordable housing in this area, one Fayetteville landlord reports that someone is fraudulently listing the landlord's rental property on Facebook Marketplace, which is enticing those interested in renting to send hundreds of dollars in application fees to a scammer. Reporter Stacey Ryburn will have a story on this. Sounds like a must read to me. Benton County Reporter Thomas Sisinti brings us up to date on the May 26 storm recovery efforts, including the latest damage estimates and how much financial assistance FEMA has provided so far. An Arkansas waste disposal company spread more food processing waste on land in Crawford county, then its permit for the practice allows because neighboring states are cracking down on the practice. Doug Thompson explains whats happening in the land application industry and the impact on Arkansas from the river valley. Sadie Lacicero will tell us about a University of Arkansas Fort Smith student who is halfway through a cross country biking trip raising money for an awareness of people with disabilities. And Monica Brick writes about an effort to bring a new set of water slides. Now here's news to the Parrot island water park at a significantly discounted price.
And what's up arts one presents is doing beauty and the beast.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: So if you have a ton of.
[00:38:52] Speaker F: Little kids who need to go see the best Disney love story ever, it opens next weekend and the story is on this week's cover on Sunday. And what's up? There's also a story about a new exhibit at the momentary that includes a six foot mirrored Nefertiti head disco ball and an airplane hanging inside the gallery. There's also a story about the new director of theater at the community school of the Arts in Fort Smith, tons of music, as always from Monica Hooper.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: And.
[00:39:31] Speaker F: Today, if you check out the sup page, the weekly page that comes out on Friday, you can read my farewell because today will be my last day at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Morning News Springdale News, NWA Media thank you all for all the years that you've read what I write, listened to what I have to say. I appreciate you all so much and I'll see you out and about in the arts community.
Thanks for listening to know the news.
