March 2023

The first grade at Park Elementary presented the play, “Squirm” on Friday, March 10 at 1 p.m. at the Park Elementary Cafeteria. The cast of characters was as follows: The Itsy Bitsy Spider - Addalynne Pugh, Little Miss Muffet - Kinley Jo Ahrent, Earthworm 1 - Aubree Price, Earthworm 2 - Brooklynn McMasters, Flatworm - Owen Anders, Hookworm - Rykar Teel, Bristleworm - Bentley Mc-Collum, Queen Spider - Chloee Malone, Wolf Spider - Graysen Conway, Daddy Longlegs - Noah Scheer, Black Widow - Chloe Roofe, Hobo Spider - Daxton McQueen, Brown Spider - Jayme Fulton, Garden Spider - Parker Stroud, Snake - Layla Young. Children playing the Bats were: Zeb Bippus, Earl Meredith, Ansley Gallion, Asher Carpenter, Layla Kremers, Zander Yandell and Sadie Leach. The characters of the Children were: Drake Green, Bryce Morrow, Avery Nelson, Keilyn Mihalek, Emalyn Graham, Hadley Leonard, Dixie Poole, Kenzi Masterson, Clifton Collett, Owen Kirby, Wyatt Russell, Chevy Stewart, Gannon Ladd, Jonathan Horton, Natalie Bashears, Lathan Cox and Mia Hodge.

Few people have found ways to make learning about independent clauses and the correct uses of commas compelling. Instagram, Twitter, and texting have made proper punctuation seem like a chore, something English teachers make you do. I still use my memories from 9th grade learning about indefinite articles to put myself to sleep at night. And all of the teacher- speeches about how knowing proper grammar to write professional emails will come in handy, isn’t enough to make grammar engaging for students. Not even the promise of a strong quiz grade is enough to compensate for the tedious work of learning grammar, or as I like to call it, the algebra of English class.

When I was growing up in NE Arkansas, I saw the things around me and viewed them at face value. They say that wisdom comes through study and time. I will add experience, adversity, and age. For approximately the first 30 years of my life, I cared little for where I had come, I was far more interested in where I was going. Believe me, I thought I knew that, but later I discovered it didn’t always work that way. In about 1969, I became interested in family history. At first, it was a casual interest, but when I started to learn more about it, I couldn’t help but see serious parallels with my life and my ancestors. The similarities became deeper and broader the more that I studied them. I was so very curious as to why, but as yet, I knew nothing about DNA. I won’t elaborate on details, but this little column has not the room for that. A couple of nights ago, my wife, Kerry and I were watching Henry Louis Gates Jr, in a segment of his PBS series Finding Your Roots. Two of the men he was doing the family search for had literally no idea of where they came from or who. When the books were closed, they both were quite emotionally charged with the realization of how they were so like some of their forebears, and in their lives, how they had behaved in similar ways as their progenitors. I found this myself. We have a much different environment than those great-grandparents or even grandparents. The world revolves at a much faster pace now. But if you go back and study them it is easy to see, sometimes, a part of yourself in their manners, in their lives and goals. We are not the results of a single person’s genes, but a mud-pie of many. When I got deeper into my study of my ancestors, I began to see a difference in myself. I found a change in my self-image. I gained a new confidence. In truth, as I got to know them, I found a new wisdom in myself that had been stored in an unmarked container, deep in the shelves of myself. I found that so many were brave men and wome

LITTLE ROCK – As the legislative session enters its final weeks, activity is in high gear. The highlight of the week was the final passage of the governor’s historic reform of Arkansas education.