Giggity Leadership?

I found this sign on the SAU campus today...wow! You might be asking yourself, "What the...?!?" I know I did.

This sign points the way to the Leadership Academy associated with the SAU's Becoming a Mulerider program (BAM!).

The BAM! website explains that:

"Nothing even comes close to all of the fun, good times, new friends, learning, and excitement that you’ll find at the Southern Arkansas University Leadership Academy..."

and that the "Leadership Academy is a 48-hour leadership experience designed to enhance your career at SAU. Southern Arkansas University is committed to providing students with opportunities to become involved with the campus and the community...Leadership Academy offers you the opportunity to begin this involvement and to continue your high school success into college life and beyond...At Leadership Academy you will have the opportunity to meet and interact with campus leaders, to explore the inner workings of university organizations, to improve your time management and team building skills, and to tap into your leadership potential."

All this reminds me a lot of parts of My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, an ethnography I use in my Cultural Anthropology class at SAU. In My Freshman Year anthropologist Rebekah Nathan (or Cathy Smalls) explains that university programs all over the nation are falling over themselves to create a sense of "community" along with a air of fun, spontaneity and individuality...the thought is that a greater sense of community will increase student retention.

Of course the problem is that real communities are forged on shared experiences and the modern university (wanting also to cater to your sense of individuality) offers an ever expanding set of choices to students...requiring common experiences is vastly unpopular...hardly any students share a set of classes or experiences that link them together--even in small colleges like SAU...talking with my students, the REAL communities that last are ones based on shared experiences--sports, Greek and even sometimes experiences within your major (depending on the major)...The image of Quagmire above selling "fun" and "individuality" along with "leadership" and "community" strikes me as a bit odd and contradictory...and...well...stretching it a bit...it might be better to be truly spontaneous and fun (instead of evoking an image of fun)...that might forge some university community...but then again, real spontaneity and community can be a dangerous thing in the eyes of some...maybe we better stick to Quagmire...

Arkansas Cage Fight !?!

A July 8th posting from The Smoking Gun has a bit of information that involves southwestern Arkansas...and Arkansas's national image.

Lured by $1 beer and the prospect of "hot chicks" and "hardcore fights," thousands of Arkansans were duped last month into appearing as extras in comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's latest staged mayhem. Cohen and his confederates organized cage fighting programs on consecutive days in Texarkana and Fort Smith. Both cards ended with two male grapplers (one was identified as "Straight Dave" and wore camouflage) tearing each other's clothes off and, while in underwear, kissing down their opponent's chest. This man-on-man action triggered Fort Smith fans to throw chairs and beer at the ring, according to one cop present at the city's Convention Center. [Click here and here to read bulletin board messages posted in early-June by miffed mixed martial arts fans who attended one of Cohen's Arkansas productions.] Cohen is currently filming a follow-up, of sorts, to his smash 2006 film featuring Borat, his fictional Kazakh journalist. The new film stars another of Cohen's creations, Bruno, a gay Austrian journalist who favors mesh t-shirts and interviews subjects about fashion and entertainment. The June 5 Texarkana promotion was adverstised as "Red, White, and Blood." The June 6 matches in Fort Smith were dubbed "Blue Collar Brawlin'" as seen in the below poster. Ads on craigslist--like this one--noted that attendees had to be over 21 and suggested that fans arrive early "for $1 BEERS!" Cohen & Co. underwrote the cost of beer, which usually sells for $4 at the Fort Smith facility. "Blue Collar Brawlin'" drew about 1500 fans, who were greeted by signs stating that the event was being filmed. Attendees were also not allowed in with cameras or cell phones and some were asked to sign releases...

While I was in Malvern for the Arkansas Archeological Society summer dig this year, Davis Markus (a UF student who was helping me out at the dig) noticed that there was going to be a cage fight in town during the weekend of Malvern's Brickfest...We did not go, however...now I wonder what it would have been like if we had gone...real cage fight or sureal cinema?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0708081bruno1.html

Nature's Fury in the Natural State

Last night tornadoes hit central Arkansas--North Little Rock & Benton to be precise...

I'd just like to point out that over the past two months, parts of Arkansas have seen an EF4 tornado during a storm outbreak that killed 13, a foot of snow, upwards of a foot of rain and near-record flooding...

Who have we pissed off?

Wynn-Price: Hidden Gem in Garland City

Earlier this month I received a call from a Skip Bernard who was working with a museum organization out of Shreveport, but he lived in Doddridge, Arkansas...to make a long story short, the organization was interested in a historic building in Garland City (in Miller County just east of Texarkana)...this historic home was already on the National Register of Historic Places (since 1992), but it was not in the Arkansas state archaeological site files...moreover, the nomination actually stated that the site could benefit from archaeological work...so they called me...That's how I came to know about the Wynn-Price House.

Last week I met Skip over at the house, and let me say that it a hidden gem in Garland City...to steal words from the AHPP website, "this grand Greek Revival design, luxurious in both plan and elevation, was undoubtedly constructed largely from materials shipped up the Red River from New Orleans and elsewhere (we know that the marble for the two fireplaces was so ordered). The tall imposing two-story portico with its flanking single-story 'temples' must have been one of the most majestic edifices in the region"...it is certainly one of the most complex Greek Revival houses that I have seen in Arkansas...Ironically, I HAVE visited the African-American cemetery associated with the Wynn-Price plantation (known as Wynns Cemetery)....but when I visited it last year (with Anthony Clay Newton), we had no idea that a huge antebellum mansion lay just around the corner...go figure.

The description below is a brief excerpt from the AHPP website entry for the Wynn-Price House...below you also find links to my photographs of the structure and the AHPP entry...I look forward to investigating this house--and its associated plantation--in the near future.

As is frequently the case in Arkansas, attempts to study even significant characters in local or regional antebellum history are frustrated by a lack of primary sources. Reconstructing the life and activities of William Wynn is no different, though we do know through census records, slave ownership records and deed information that he was a successful farmer, and probably growing cotton, the staple crop of the Red River valley during this period. However, when considered within the broader context of American and regional history during the period of 1835 (the first documented date of William Wynn's arrival in the Red River area) to 1861, the primary sources that do survive support certain additional conclusions about Wynn's investment activities and his hopes for the "city" of Garland as a major commercial river and overland transportation crossroads...Though the site probably also retains potential to reveal further information about the occupation of the site by William Wynn, his two sons (the 1840 Lafayette County census indicates two males between the ages of 20 and 30 living with him, though not necessarily at this site) and his slaves, a professional archaeological investigation of the site remains to be done. Such investigation, upon completion, may justify additional areas of significance for the property.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcbrandon/sets/72157603949469598/

http://www.arkansaspreservation.org/historic-properties/_search_nomination_popup.asp?id=5

The Obama-Arkansas Connection

Below is an article by Joy Russell of the Madison County Genealogical & Historical Society. It appeared in the Friday, February 15th, 2008 issue of the Madison County Record.

The current national newscasts are filled with the names of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the top two Democratic candidates for President of the United States of America. The Clintons have been well known to Arkansas residents since the mid-1970’s with Hillary Clinton serving as Arkansas’ First Lady from 1979 to 1992 when her husband, Bill, was Governor of the State. The Clintons were married in Fayetteville on Oct. 11, 1975, and their daughter, Chelsea, was born in Little Rock on Feb. 27, 1980.

However, Obama also has roots that run deep in Northwest Arkansas. Obama’s great-great-great-great-great grandparents were Nathaniel and Sarah (Ray) Bunch, who came to Arkansas about 1840 and settled near Dinsmore, about three miles south of Dry Fork. The community of Dinsmore is in the extreme northwest corner of Newton County and is only about a half-mile from both the Carroll and Madison County lines.

Nathaniel Bunch was born on April 23, 1793, in Virginia and served in the War of 1812 under General Andrew Jackson. Family legends say he took part in the Battle of New Orleans. Soldiers who served in the War of 1812 were given “land bounty certificates,” which entitled them to claim 80 acres of land from the government, and it is believed that Nathaniel Bunch used his land bounty certificate to claim the land that he settled in Arkansas.

Anna Bunch, born in 1814, was the daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah. She married Samuel Thompson Allred in Tennessee and they moved their family to Newton County, Arkansas, about 1845. They were the great-great-great-great grandparents of Barack Obama. Nathaniel and Sarah Bunch, Samuel and Anna (Bunch) Allred, and Samuel’s parents, John and Phoebe (Thompson) Allred, are all buried at Liberty Cemetery near where the Bunch family settled at Dinsmore. There are many graves of the Bunch and Allred families in this cemetery, most of whom are relatives of Barack Obama.

Frances A. Allred, daughter of Samuel and Anna, was born in 1834 and married Joseph Samuel Wright. On Aug. 11, 1869, Margaret Bell Wright was born to Frances and Joseph. Margaret married Thomas C. McCurry in Chautaugua County, Kansas, on March 13, 1885. Margaret and Thomas McCurry were the great-great grandparents of Obama, and their daughter, Leona McCurry, married Rolla Charles Payne in 1922. Both Leona and Rolla were born in Kansas, lived there, and are
buried there.

Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Lee Payne, was born to Leona and Rolla in October 1922, and married Stanley Armour Dunham in 1940. Their daughter, Shirley Ann Dunham, married Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., in 1960 but they were divorced in 1963.

Their son, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born on Aug. 4, 1961, and is now an Illinois senator vying for the U.S. Presidency. Barack Obama still has many cousins in this area, including the Bunch, Holt, Combs, Hargis, Wright, and Stamps families. Further information on the genealogy of Barack Obama can be found at the Madison County Genealogical and Historical Society.

The Fate of the Woodruff House...

Listed on Arkansas’s 2007 "Most Endangered Places" by The Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas, the Woodruff House remains one of Arkansas’s most notable properties...Unfortunately, it stands a very serious chance of being lost forever, unless larger forces intervene.

First, the back story (drawn largely from The Quapaw Quarter Association's web site). In 1851 Mr. William E. Woodruff, founder of The Arkansas Gazette, bought 23 1/3 acres of land, then just outside the city limits, on the East side of the city. His family was growing so rapidly he wished more rooms for them, also to gratify his own desire and love for a desirable country home, and the leisure and privacy that such a home afforded him. Facing Ninth Street, near College Street, he built a beautiful substantial two and one-half story thirteen room, brick home, full of comfort and so roomy (7,000 sq. ft.) that not only his own family, but many friends and many strangers found pleasure visiting within its walls. The immediate enclosure about his home and garden occupied ten city blocks (today it has been winnowed down to three lots).

When the Federal army took possession of Little Rock, the Woodruff House was confiscated. This lovely old home, with the exception of two rooms allowed for Mrs. Woodruff to occupy, was used for the white officers of a black Union regiment as their headquarters, and later used as a hospital for Federal officers. After the war, the family occupied it again until Mr. Woodruff died on June 19, 1885. After Mr. Woodruff's death the home became the property of the oldest child, Alden Mills Woodruff, and he and his family occupied it for a period of five years, from July, 1886, to March, 1891.

At the turn of the century, the house was remodeled into apartments, and fronted on East Eighth Street. In September, 1921, it was purchased for a home for business girls and was renamed “The Business Girls Cottage Home." It was last used as apartments, but a fire in recent years damaged some of the rooms. It now needs total restoration.

Its prime location near the Clinton Presidential Center, the headquarters of Heifer International, and the future Lion’s World Services for the Blind Headquarters, puts it at possible risk of being eventually demolished for a hotel, condos, or other retail establishment. However, an even more immediate threat is the high level of vagrant activity in the area. Preservationists are all too painfully aware of what happened to the historic Mosaic Templars Building in March of 2005--destroyed by fire. The same fate could befall the Woodruff House as well if immediate steps are not taken to secure and protect the property.

It would be a tremendous loss for Little Rock and the State of Arkansas if this home was not preserved and refurbished.

I am, of course, a bit biased...I am interested in the Woodruff House from not only a preservation perspective, but also an archeological one. The Woodruff House is a prime example of what my colleague Leslie C. "Skip" Stewart-Abernathy has calls an "urban farmstead." The house once had a substantial garden to the east of the structure, and north of the house was the servants' quarters, a wood yard, a large chicken house, barns, and other ancillary structures one would expect to find on a nineteenth century farm of the genteel class. On the west side was a large laundry house built over a large cistern, which furnished the water for washing. Farther to the West extending to Rector Avenue was a fine orchard, cornfield, potato patch, and so on. Archeological excavations at the Woodruff house could not only shed light on the daily life of the Woodruff family--an important family in Arkansas history by all measures--but it could also give us insights into the workings of these urban farmsteads, the trauma of the Civil War in Little Rock, the dawning of the modern, consumer age and what life was life for those enslaved in the urban South.

The Arkansas Archeological Survey is looking for ways that we can help save and conduct research on the Woodruff House as we speak. And I hope to report in the near future that either myself of Dr. Stewart-Abernathy will begin work on the project soon...In the meantime, consider donating to The Quapaw Quarter Association's effort to save the Woodruff House...

click here to donate

The Huckster

David Sixbey and James Willis (both former SAU history faculty--one I drink coffe with, the other I shoot pool with...depending on the time of the day), alerted me to the appearance of a letter of Tom Forgey's (yet another retitred SAU history faculty member..he's also a former Arkansas lawmaker and Deputy Sheriff) in the most recent issue of Arkansas Times. It made me smile, so I thought I would pass it along...

The Huckster

After listening to Bro. Huckabee's declaration that he is not running for vice president because he always runs "for the gold, and not the silver" I am reminded of his race for lieutenant governor (Silver? Bronze? )

As an opportunist he prevailed, barely. And the rest is history.

If the Republicans are goofy enough to try an unnatural coupling of the Bro. with Giuliani (a New York-Arkansas axis) they ought to look at what happened in 1928 when the Democrats tried that with Al Smith (New York) and Joe T. Robinson Arkansas.)

The Bro. should slip quietly into retirement, oiling his arsenal of guns — a Weatherby rifle, a Browning shotgun, a Barelli duck gun and his most beloved, a rusty 20-gauge shotgun (guess which one he paid for).

Tom Forgey
Magnolia

see the original at:

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=1f8ba15c-dba7-4954-ab84-4551ae7b7db9

John Barleycorn Lives, Part 2

Last night...I took visiting friend and researcher Carl Carlson-Drexler to Bayou Bistro after a long day looking at Civil War-related sites in Hempstead and Nevada Counties...

and I bought my first legal Magnolia beer! I said I would believe it when I saw it so...John Barley Corn Lives!

Who Are the Hoo-Hoo?

Just a touch north of my station territory in Clark County is the town of Gurdon, Arkansas. Gurdon seems to be known for two things--the mysterious Gurdon Light and the International Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo.

I'll write a bit about the Gurdon Light in a later post (maybe around October), but let me explain a bit about the Hoo-Hoos...

The International Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, Incorporated is a fraternal and service organization whose members are involved in the forests products industry (not just lumber, but also truckers who ship the stuff, journalists who print on the stuff, etc.)...The organization was founded in 1892 in Gurdon and now has members in such far flung places as Australia, New Zealand, Maylasia and South Africa...The order publishes the Hoo-Hoo Log and Ta1ly Magazine quarterly. There were 7,300 members in 1994.

The order was founded by a group of timber industry men who were trapped on a train in Gurdon tring to get to a Yellow Pine Industry conference in Camden, Arkansas...While they waited for their delayed arrival, they formed a new order...It was decided to call the new order the "Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo", and not the "Ancient Order of Camp Followers" as one founding father suggested.

These guys were way ahead of their time in terms of post-modern-style humor...the Hoo-Hoo was designed to be a parody of a faternal organization and was intended to fight superstition and conventionalism...What I love about the Hoo-Hoo is that they have a sense of humor about their organization...The chief executive officer of Hoo-Hoo is the Snark of the Universe (formerly the Grand Snark of the Universe). The Board of Directors includes the Chairman, Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, the Seer of the House of Ancients and the Supreme Nines. The Supreme Nines include the Supreme Hoo-Hoo, Senior Hoo-Hoo, Junior Hoo-Hoo, Scrivenoter, Bojum, Jabberwock, Custocatian, Arcanoper and Gurdon. The Hoo-Hoo emblem is a black cat with its tail curled into the shape of a figure nine.

If you ever go by Gurdon...stop by the International Headquarters...

Hey...I've done lots of timber-sale-related archeological surveys...I wonder if they'd let me in the order?
---
Hoo-Hoo Links

http://www.hoo-hoo.org/
http://www.hoo-hoo.org/pdf/HHI-History.pdf
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1199

Purple Hull Peas and Tiller Races...

Well...I'm back from the Arkansas Archeological Society summer archeological training program (AKA the "summer dig")...this year it was hosted by my sister station (Henderson State University) and we excavated two Archaic (6,000 old) sites near Malvern, Arkansas...I had a good time.

While I was there I took note that Malvern holds the "Malvern Brick-Fest" every June. Brick-Fest is a celebration of the town's claim to "Brick Capital of the World" (the Acme Brick plant produces 30,000 bricks per hour). But Brick-Fest pales in comparison to the events about to take place this weekend in Emerson, Arkansas...just south of Magnolia in southern Columbia County...this weekend is the PurpleHull Pea Festival...

There is a lot going on at the festival....there's the PurpleHull Pageant, the PurpleHull Pea Gospel Singing, the PurpleHull Pea Auction, the Walk for World Peas (I love that one), the World Cup PurpleHull Pea Shelling Competition...but the undoubted highlight is the World Championship Rotary Tiller Race...that's right....I said THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROTARY TILLER RACE.

Shane Waller of Junction City races toward the finish during
the World Championship Rotary Tiller Race, part of the PurpleHull Pea
Festival in Emerson on Saturday. Waller won last year's championship.
Photo by ib1yysguy on Flickr.

The race started as a joke at the very first PurpleHull Pea Festival in 1990, but it has evolved into a monster...There simply is no other event like it. The web site proclaims that it is "...unique among motor sports, we like to say it is the highlight of the tiller racing season. 'Course, to the best of our knowledge, our one-day event is the tiller racing season."

Racing divisions include Stock, Overall Stock, Modified, Powder Puff, and Super Dirt Slangers...the rules specify that all Tiller Pilots (yes, that's what they are called) much be in control of their tillers as the cross the line and...and how is this for playing into stereotype...all participants must wear shoes.

Wait....it gets even better...During the race, a team of Tiller Girls roams the crowd...as there is no admission charge, they take up donations....The Tiller Girl who collects the largest total amount of donations earns points toward winning the title of "Tiller Goddess." Check out the 2001 "Tiller Goddess" Christie Dupree pictured to the right.

So, if you're down my way in late June...you've gotta come see this...If you can't check out the website: http://www.purplehull.com/index.htm

The El Dorado Promise

I don't know how much of the "outside world" has heard about this, but The El Dorado (pronounced "El Door-ay-doe" in southwest Arkansas) Promise is an icreadible scholarship program available to students who granduate in El Dorado, Arkansas. Murphy Oil Corporation created the Promise to give El Dorado students an additional opportunity to pursue higher education.

The Promise provides graduates of El Dorado High School a tuition scholarship that can be used at any accredited Arkansas public university or community college, or any accredited private or out-of-state university...that's right ANY college or university...its not needs-based or anything...

Check it out at: http://www.eldoradopromise.com/

Happy Holidays from Magnolia!

The image in this post is SAU's signauture Bell Tower all "lit up" for the holidays (it usually looks like this).

It's hard to believe that I'll be finishing my first semester as the AAS-SAU Research Station Archeologist...time goes by quite quickly.

My first semester here I've dealt with the Cedar Grove Collection theft, started raising money to secure and refurbish our station and the future SAU Museum and begun the process of reviving the Kadohadacho chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society. I attended three conferences, gave two conference papers and did two public talks, three radio interviews and several TV and newspaper interviews. I attended two weekend public outreach events (Texarkana Archeology Fair and Civil War Days at Old Washington) and wrote an article and a book chapter.

By far, my favorite parts of this semester have been getting to know my station territory with the help of Vernon Perry, Anthony Clay Newton and Peggy Lloyd...I've gotten to see a lot of sites (both prehistoric and historic) and a WHOLE LOT of cemeteries.

To all my friends and family--both in Magnolia and elsewhere--Happy Holidays!