April 2025

School Notes

The Corning School Board met at 5:00 p.m. on April 21 with four members present. Chris Shourd was unable to attend. The board approved the minutes followed by the approval of the financial report as presented. The board approved the 2024 Legislative Audit followed by the approval of certified and classified salary schedules for 20252026. Next the board approved the renewal of student insurance from Monarch Management/

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FROM SCRATCH WITH JEN JEN

There’s a moment at every graduation party—somewhere between the balloon arch and a third loop of “Pomp and Circumstance” by the band—when the crowd starts to shift. The speeches are over. The grad has posed with everyone from grandma to their old T-ball coach. And then, like animals sensing a distant watering hole, the masses turn… toward the buffet table.

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Rambling Vines

The other day we were talking about school children selling things and I confessed that if I have the money on me and… if they take the trouble to come knock on my door… I will likely buy whatever it is that they are selling whether I need it or not. But if they try to sell over the telephone or have their mothers doing all the work, I’m really not too interested. I never did much selling when I was in the Elementary grades, mainly because I couldn’t be trusted. See, I had this habit of selling only until something better would come along, then I would just quit and spend what money I had collected. When the teacher started tallying up, I would be in big trouble because I would be out of Cloverine salve or packets of garden seeds but have no money to account for them. About two or three instances like that at school and after a week of threats to call Pistol Pete to come lock me up, mama would convince me that I was traveling on borrowed time and that she better never again find items to be sold in my book satchel. I also got in pretty well over my head one Summer on a punch board acquired from a woman down the street. The deal was to take the punch board around town asking people to punch. They would pay so much (anywhere from one to 29 cents per punch) and after the board was all punched out, the golden seal would be removed to see who had won the grand prize, Shucks, after a couple of days my curiosity took over and I sneaked off alone and raised that golden seal. Then I had to do away with the punch board. On this deal it was different, very different! I didn’t even get into too much trouble. Mama and the woman who let me have the punch board had it round and round and mama even threatened to call the law to come take her away to the calaboose because at that time punch board had been outlawed for children under a certain age, even though we still sneaked off to Clyde Lasater’s Grocery Store every time we go our hands on a penny, trying to win the chocolate rabbit or whatever was the grand prize at that time. We always took a delegation of witnesses along and here we would be all ganged around the candy counter with maybe one or two pennies, trying to decide which might be the lucky punch.

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HENRY C HALL

Henry C Hall of Corning, Arkansas, passed from this life on April 18, 2025, at Arkansas Methodist Medical Center in Paragould, Arkansas. He was surrounded at his bedside by his family. Henry was born May 3, 1947, in Naylor, Missouri, to James Floyd Hall SR and Allie Sue Lyons Hall. He graduated from Naylor HS class of 1965 and was a member of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Oxley, Missouri. Henry worked at several jobs throughout his lifetime. He was a farm hand in the Success Arkansas community, drove a semi-truck, and was employed by LA Darling in Corning, Arkansas, for 25 years as a certified welder and a forklift driver. He retired in 2012. Henry loved to barbecue, garden, hunt, fish, and watch the hummingbirds as they migrated. Henry married Lynne Grayson, the love of his life, on July 16, 1966. They were married in Harville, Missouri, and he is survived by his wife of 58 years. Through this union, they were blessed with one daughter, Danea Hall of Richmond, Texas. Other survivors include two sisters, Anne Brooks(Ronald)of Florissant, Missouri, and Maxine Stow of Rolla, Missouri, and sisters-in-law, Sandra Hall of Doniphan, Missouri, and Janette Hall of Poplar Bluff, Missouri. He is also survived by several nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents, his brothers Arville, Jessie, James Floyd Jr, and Louis, and his sisters Rosamond Whitley, Virginia Bruce, and Mary May.

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