RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: Joe Fox, who has owned Community Bakery in Little Rock for 30 years, is receiving national exposure. He and his business are featured on Office Depot's website as the "Small Business Spotlight" for April.
Fox and his bakeries, downtown on Main Street and in west Little Rock, appear in a two-minute video segment in the Business Solutions Center section of the national office-supply chain's website.
How did Fox land on Office Depot's radar? His niece, who works in the company's Atlanta headquarters, knew Fox was a customer of the store and threw his name into the hat.
The video, filmed over two days by crews from Atlanta and New York, includes interviews with Fox and two of his employees as well as footage of the production and sales of the bakery's products. Visit tinyurl.com/kzw8vs5 to view the segment.
OPENING DOORS: In response to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act recently passed in Arkansas, Tales From the South -- Paula Morrell's locally produced and nationally broadcast radio show -- has partnered with artist V.L. Cox to create a series of shows on discrimination titled "End Hate: True Stories Told by the LGBT Southerners Who Lived Them."
This Friday, the show plans to visit the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Cox and Morrell will set up a table and recording equipment alongside Cox's End Hate art installation of doors (recently displayed at the state Capitol) and record stories of discrimination told by visitors to the memorial. Those stories will find a home on Tales From the South's website and social media, and perhaps a radio broadcast.
Morrell and Cox have been raising funds online to help pay for their trip.
BLACK AND WHITE AND DEAD ALL OVER: If It Ain't Broke, Break It: How Corporate Journalism Killed the Arkansas Gazette was released Feb. 25 by the University of Arkansas Press. The book's author, Donna Lampkin Stephens, worked at the Gazette for six years covering recreation in the sports department until the paper closed.
She is now a professor of journalism at the University of Central Arkansas and the producer of films The Old Gray Lady: Arkansas's First Newspaper and The Crisis Mr. Faubus Made: The Role of the Arkansas Gazette in the Central High Crisis.
The 300-page paperback retails for $24.95.
SIGNING OFF: After 14 years on the air at KURB-FM, B98.5, morning show co-host Jeff Matthews has left the radio station to work in public relations for Conway Corp. in Conway, where he lives. During his years at B98.5, he also worked part time for Conway Corp., doing football and basketball broadcasts. Friday was his last day at B98.5.
Matthew's co-host, Lisa Fischer, remains at the station, and a search for her new co-host is underway.
Contact Linda S. Haymes at (501) 399-3636 or lhaymes@arkansasonline.com
SundayMonday on 04/12/2015