LITTLE ROCK — BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE: The old bleachers at the Junior Deputy Sheriffs of Pulaski County’s sports complex on Cantrell Road were recently removed and upgraded with actual seats with backs and armrests - from the old Ray Winder baseball field.
WAKE-UP CALL: The July/August issue of Food Network Magazine features its choice for best breakfast from each of the 50 states. Their pick for Arkansas? The banana pancakes from circa 1940 The Pancake Shop on Central Avenue in Hot Springs.
IN A UNIQUE STATE:
Arkansas Curiosities by Janie and Wyatt Jones of Conway has been released by Globe Pequot Press.
The $17.95 paperback touts “quirky characters, roadside oddities and other offbeat stuff.”
The Joneses’ first book, Hiking Arkansas, was also published by Globe Pequot Press, which specializes in regional travel.
SECOND STRIKE:
The story - the mysterious death of Scottish businessman Garrick Wales, found dead in his parked car near the Little Rock Airport in May 2004 - is now six years old but so bizarre it’s still being recounted.
Nearby, police found a box containing four of the world’s most poisonous snakes - a green mamba, a black mamba, a forest cobra and a twig snake.
Back in October 2008, Investigation Discovery Channel’s Extreme Forensics featured Little Rock Zoo reptile keeper Randal Berry in a segment on the death. Berry and police were called in to handle the snakes. An investigation revealed Wales purchased the snakes online from a dealer in Florida and died after being bitten by one or more of the snakes after he’d retrieved the box from the airport.
Now, Oxford Films of London will arrive in Little Rock in a few weeks to film for a re-creation of the incident set to air as a TV special in the fall.
While here, they will film exterior shots of the zoo and Berry working with venomous snakes.
BROADCAST NEWS:
In other TV-related news, Dan Faires of Springdale is one of 12 contestants on this season of HGTV’s Design Star competition.
Faires, 26, majored in biology at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville but now works in construction.
Meanwhile, a documentary on Daisy Bates, the newspaper publisher and civil-rights activist who served as a mentor to the nine black students who desegregated Central High in 1957, is in the works.
The film has been picked up by PBS’ Independent Lens and is scheduled to air in February 2012.
Sharon LaCruise of Brooklyn, N.Y., spent the last six years creating the film and is nearing completion.
Paper Trails appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact Linda Caillouet at (501) 399-3636 or at lcaillouet@arkansasonline.com.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/30/2010