Farm Bureau voters re-elect two at top
Delegates to the 79th annual Arkansas Farm Bureau convention Friday re-elected Manila farmer Randy Veach as president and Rich Hillman of Carlisle as vice president.
Two new board members will join five others who were re-elected to the seats on the bureau’s board.
Veach, 63, who farms cotton, soybeans, rice, wheat, corn and milo in Mississippi County, was elected to a sixth term as president.
Hillman, 50, who also was reelected to his sixth term, is a sixth-generation farmer who grows rice, soybeans and wheat in Lonoke County.
New members of the Farm Bureau board include Sherry Felts of Joiner and Joe Thrash of Conway. Re-elected board members include Troy Buck of Alpine, Jon Carroll of Moro, Mike Freeze of Keo, Bruce Jackson of Lockesburg and Gene Pharr of Lincoln.
The board later chose farmer Joe Christian, 50, of Jonesboro as secretary/treasurer.
The Arkansas Farm Bureau is a nonprofit, private farm advocacy organization that includes more than 192,000 families in the state.
- Glen Chase
4 students at UALR win marketing prize
Four University of Arkansas at Little Rock students won a $5,000 prize in the National Marketing Challenge sponsored by Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe for their proposal for a new advertising and marketing campaign showcasing the Little Rock area.
Trey Woodruff, Danielle Hendrix, Tori Cecil, and Diamond Lewis, all UALR seniors, developed an overall media plan using a hypothetical $30,000 budget that included a 30-second TV ad, a 30-second radio ad and a print ad.
On Thursday, the students presented their plan to Taziki’s President Jim Keet, Taziki’s Arkansas President Tommy Keet and Jane Wayland, dean of UALR’s college of business.
The UALR students were co-winners of a Nov. 15 competition with a team from West Virginia University.
There were 31 teams in the event.
- Glen Chase
Index gains 4.14, sets all-time high
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, gained 4.14 to 330.89 Friday - setting a new all-time closing high.
Friday’s gain halted two days of retreat by the index, which has hit several highs in recent weeks.
Acxiom shares rose 6.75 percent; First Federal Bancshares rose 3.73 percent; and Home BancShares rose 2.93 percent.
For the week, nine stocks rose and eight fell.
P.A.M. Transportation posted the largest weekly gain at 12.2 percent.
Deltic Timber fell 4.4 percent.
Volume for the index was 19.9 million shares.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business, Pages 25 on 12/07/2013