OPINION

OPINION | REX NELSON: Big doings in De Queen

Jay Bunyard is one of Arkansas' leading broadcasters. He owns 17 radio stations across the state and syndicates statewide programs. Bunyard has always called De Queen home.

I receive an invitation from Bunyard each year to speak to the De Queen Rotary Club. I had to cancel last year's trip due to the pandemic. My travels resumed in late April once my entire family was fully vaccinated and haven't let up since. Those travels included the Rotary Club talk in De Queen, which is near the Oklahoma border in southwest Arkansas.

We tend to focus on the Delta when talking about population losses, but southwest Arkansas is also bleeding population. Sevier County, which includes De Queen, saw its population drop from 17,058 in 2010 to 15,839 in 2020. That's a 7.1 percent decline. De Queen's population fell from 6,594 to 6,105, a 7.4 percent decline.

As for adjoining counties:

• Polk County fell from 20,662 to 19,221, a 7 percent decline.

• Howard County fell from 13,789 to 12,785, a 7.3 percent decline.

• Hempstead County fell from 22,609 to 20,065, an 11.3 percent decline.

• Little River County fell from 13,171 to 12,026, an 8.7 percent decline.

De Queen was founded as a railroad town. What became the Kansas City Southern line was the vision of Kansas City businessman Arthur Stilwell. He wanted a railroad that would connect Kansas City with the Gulf Coast at Port Arthur, Texas.

In search of capital for his project, Stilwell went to Holland and met a coffee merchant named Jan de Goeijen. De Goeijen helped him sell $3 million in stock in order to finish the railroad.

"When a route was chosen, people moved in with tents and shanties," Billy Ray McKelvy writes for the Central Arkansas Library System's Encyclopedia of Arkansas. "The town was named for Stilwell's benefactor, de Goeijen. The name was later changed to De Queen, which was easier for Americans to pronounce."

During my travels across Arkansas, I enjoy visiting with people who are working to make things better, even in the face of population declines. I've always found De Queen to have a number of such people. Take those who have worked tirelessly to ensure that this rural county still has a hospital.

Dozens of rural hospitals have closed in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas during the past decade. In February 2019, De Queen Medical Center closed due to financial struggles, mismanagement and fraud on the part of its out-of-state-owners. The county took over the license from those owners.

Steve Cole is chancellor of Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas, which has its main campus at De Queen. The two-year college began as Cossatot Vocational-Technical School in 1975, It was renamed Cossatot Technical College in 1991 and became part of the University of Arkansas System in 2001.

Cole led efforts to get a one-cent sales tax proposal on the ballot to fund construction and maintenance of a new hospital. Sevier County voters approved the initiative in an October 2019 special election. Almost 86 percent of those who turned out at the polls supported the ballot issue.

The $24 million, 42,000-square-foot facility is being built just north of De Queen and will open next April. Construction began last fall, and the hospital's first chief executive officer has been hired.

"We've put together what I consider a dream team of companies to make sure the project is finished on time," Cole says. "A seven-member board is already in place to oversee the hospital, which will have almost 120 full-time employees and an annual budget of between $12 million and $15 million. This is only going to work if the citizens use it, and I think they will."

This is poultry country, and poultry companies that operate in the area have stepped up. Tyson Foods has donated money for a helipad, and Pilgrim's Pride has donated funds for a walking trail.

"We average eight ambulance runs a day to Nashville," Cole says. "Now, we won't have to transport those patients so far."

I also visit in De Queen with members of a group known as EDGE, which undertook an ambitious petition drive during the summer heat and pandemic last year. They got a proposal on the November 2020 ballot to make Sevier County wet.

Using the motto "vote for growth," EDGE saw its proposal pass with 68 percent of the vote. Beer and wine are now being sold in convenience stores across the county, and two licenses for retail liquor sales will be issued. Sales-tax revenues are rising.

"We started EDGE in late 2018," says Monica Pearce. "We used 2019 to meet with business owners and obtain their support. We had just started gathering signatures to get the issue on the ballot in 2020 when the pandemic began. We had about 500 signatures at that point and only eight people working in our core group. We wanted 2,500 signatures.

"I had the idea of drive-through signatures, so we put up a tent in a shopping center parking lot and staffed it seven days a week for weeks on end. More than 90 percent of our signatures came from that location. We only raised about $3,000 at the start of the effort, but another $5,000 came in at the end."

When the one-cent tax for the hospital passed, it was estimated it would bring in $170,000 a month. Now it tops $200,000 most months thanks to the beer and wine sales along with more people shopping for additional items at home rather than outside the county.

"Once the pandemic began, people got used to shopping here rather than driving to Texarkana," Cole says. "That's a trend I would like to see continue."


Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

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