Alderman plans bid for county treasurer
PINE BLUFF -- Third-term Pine Bluff Alderman George Stepps has announced that he will run for Jefferson County treasurer in 2016.
Incumbent Treasurer Elizabeth Rinchuso has not announced whether she will seek re-election, and no other candidates have announced for the office.
Stepps, a former district manager for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration's Southeast Audit District, said he is right for the job because he understands the challenges the county faces with its finances.
"I spent more than 30 years supervising a staff of 26 tax employees that covered 13 counties and five out-of-state areas, including Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi," Stepps said in a news release.
"We've got to improve the county's finances, there's no other way to put it," Stepps said in the release.
Stepps earned a master's degree in counseling from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He also has a bachelor's degree in business administration with a minor in accounting from Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College -- now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
$22,000 grant pays for airport projects
PINE BLUFF -- The Pine Bluff Regional Airport has received a grant from the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics for paving improvements at the facility.
State Rep. Mike Holcomb of Pine Bluff, who presented the check to airport manager Doug Hale, called the grant "good news for us in southeast Arkansas. We've got something good here with the airport, and it is something we all need to support."
Hale said the check was part of a larger grant, with the airport's share coming in at just more than $22,000.
The funds paid for recently completed improvements, including a new seal coat and new paint marking around hangar 10, new pavement and remarking around the terminal building, along with parking lot refurbishments around the former armory.
Holcomb said the state funds come from a tax on the sale of aircraft, aviation fuel and aviation-related products. The money is then given back to airports across Arkansas in the form of grants.
$53,291 funds work of UAPB researcher
PINE BLUFF -- Karl Walker, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, has received a grant for $53,291 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
Walker's research will explore the relationship between unique sequences of amino acids in proteins and their 3-D structures, according to a UAPB news release.
"Proteins perform many vital functions within cells, and as a result the malfunction of a protein or network of proteins has been implicated in many human diseases," according to the news release.
His research project is called "Context-Dependent Dihedral Angle Sampling with Protein Folding Simulations."
Walker's laboratory develops models and tools for analyzing structural genomics and proteomics data. He has also collaborated on bioinformatics research projects with researchers at the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at Arkansas State University and the University of Arkansas for Medical Science's Myeloma Institute.
State Desk on 09/05/2015