THEIR HAPPY ENDING: So how are reporter Cathy Frye, 43, and photographer Rick McFarland, 58, longtime, award-winning, married employees of this newspaper who made international headlines earlier this month with their own dramatic tale - a hike gone bad in the Texas desert - doing after their ordeal?
The two were lost for days without food or water in Big Bend Ranch State Park. McFarland, at his wife’s insistence, made his way out and found help.
Frye was rescued two days later and hospitalized, suffering from severe dehydration and exposure.
They returned to work about two weeks ago.
“I still get tired by midafternoon or evening, but I also get a little stronger each day,” Frye says in an email. “My abrasions and puncture wounds (from my many tumbles and the cactus) are healing.”
Her biggest problem?
Tiny, hairlike cactus needles still are in her hands and mouth from eating cactus.
“Each night, I’ve been soaking my hands and then using [duct] tape on them,” she says of the removal method she found online.
It’s helped, but she may resort to another online remedy - hot wax.
“Rick has been great about pulling out the hard-to-reach needles,” Frye says, adding that he recently removed a long one from her foot. “He deemed me an uncooperative and combative patient, but getting that thing out really hurt!”
The pair have been sending thanks to their search-and-rescue teams and to everyone who offered kind words and prayers.
And, yes, she’s going to write about the experience in this paper. The article, probably a series, will be a full account of the ordeal, from both their perspectives and those of rescuers and medical personnel.
AND THE WINNER IS: KSSN-FM, 95.7. The Little Rock-based country music station has won the 2013 Country Music Association’s Broadcast Awards’ “radio station of the year - medium market” category, besting four others.
BIG STYLE, SMALL SPACE: Garden expert and designer P. Allen Smith shares his 1,650-square-foot guesthouse at his Moss Mountain Farm west of Little Rock in an eightpage, 15-photo spread in October’s Southern Living.
The article, “Smaller but Smarter,” details how he filled the cottage with style while keeping costs down, limiting the project to 150 days to complete and a cost of $150,000.
KID STUFF: Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of Tontitown, stars of TLC’s reality show 19 Kids and Counting!, have written books, so we knew it was only a matter of time before the children got into the act. Oldest daughters Jill, Jinger, Jessa and Jana now have one of their own. Growing Up Duggar: It’s All About Relationships is set for a March 4, 2014, release by Howard Books.
CLARIFICATION: Diane Keckhaver of Mountain Home, who was in last Sunday’s column about Black Oak Arkansas, says her memories of vacuuming up white powder on a tour bus driven by her husband, Chuck, involved another band he worked for.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 10/27/2013