On the first of December a century ago, the Arkansas Gazette ran quite an intriguing little story atop Page 1. The headline: "Tries Out Effect of Bite by Spide…
In 2008, a mouse got onto the stage of the Arkansas Children's Theatre at the old Arkansas Arts Center. This mouse really, really wanted a cookie.
Let's play Obfuscation.
Let's play Obfuscation, the little game where I give you some of the definitions of a common word, and you recognize the word -- or not.
In 2008, the Little Rock Zoo acquired two chimpanzees raised as pets in a human home. Mikey, 6, and Louie, 5, came from a Maryland woman who had dreamed of bec…
The little game is indebted to reader David Kelley for his timely observation Nov. 13 that the answer "retire" fit all the clues but is not a noun as well as a…
Yates Standridge was a taciturn, violent son of Newton County whose many escapes from Arkansas jails, prisons, prison farms and prison camps in the early 20th …
Who here knew that a verb meaning to steady or reinforce using a rope, chain, rod or wire was "guy," our Nov. 6 word?
In October 1913, the Arkansas Gazette published a letter from Mrs. R.H. Rosamond, widow of one of Yates Standridge's victims. Her letter described what she wit…
Reviewers usually notice only the most recent books. We participate in a group delusion that book lovers all read very, very quickly and have already been thro…
Displaced and denied their favorite prey by logging, relentlessly winnowed by hunting, a few wolves still padded quietly about Arkansas in the 1920s. Loathed, …
Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport was still Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, when explosives-sniffing dogs landed in its parking lots in 2004.
Tuesday, Nov. 7, will see the release of two heart-stirring new contenders for space on the nursery bookshelf.
The Arkansas Health Care Association crowned its first State Senior Queen in two years Oct. 17, in a pageant at the Little Rock Marriott. Started in the 1980s,…
Let's play Obfuscation.
A century ago, one of Arkansas' good old-fashioned career criminals completed a 15-year prison sentence and was officially freed to return to his leafy home in…
Now students, take out a piece of notebook paper and write your name in the top left-hand corner.
Let's play Obfuscation.
1923 was quite the year for C.T. Davis, poet and editorial paragrapher of the Arkansas Gazette.
A meme lurking around social media aptly illustrates the hazard of genealogical research.
Once upon a time there was a newspaper column titled Read to Me, and it was about books for little kids.
The Oct. 18 ribbon-cutting for the new North Plaza and Judy Lansky Pavilion revived memories of another opening at the Big Dam Bridge 17 years ago.
The little game we call Obfuscation goes like this: I give you some definitions of a common word, and you recognize the word. Or not.
Let's play Obfuscation.
Will you recognize the common word described by all these definitions?
Here are the second- and third-place high school essays in the 2023 Arkansas Peace Week contest.
The 80-ton Songahm Martial Arts Gate beside the Statehouse Convention Center was crafted 17 years ago by five teams of South Korean artisans to honor a martial…
In 1923 Arkansas, L.E.A. Yeager was a man with a plight. Or was he two men? Certainly two very different characters were portrayed in newspapers at the time.
Style is publishing the winning art and essays from this year's Arkansas Peace Week statewide contests for schoolchildren.
Here are the seventh- through ninth-grade second- and third-place winning entries in the 2023 Arkansas Peace Week statewide essay contest. Look here for the 10…
Who here knew that "hutment" meant camp, our Sept. 25 word?
Reading 100-year-old editions of Arkansas newspapers, Old News stumbles across extraordinary ordinary lives. One such case is L.E.A. Yeager, former lawman. Yea…
Let's play a game of Obfuscation.
One hundred years plus five days ago, a curious incident occurred at the prison known as The Walls in Little Rock: A convicted murderer walked free, because sh…
If Americans know anything at all about Calvin Coolidge, U.S. president No. 30, they know he had a pet raccoon.
When you've got a date that's living in infamy, every so often you just have to take it out and weep all over again.
Let's play Obfuscation.
Americans showered Grace and President Calvin Coolidge with a veritable zoo of White House pets, from birds and a bear to a hippo, a wallaby, two lions and ple…
On Sept. 8, 2007, the Bella Vista Animal Shelter staged a dachshund race at the Loch Lomond softball field in Bella Vista. From this little event the Wiener Ta…
Let's play a game of Obfuscation.
As I write this, the thermometer outside my window reads 104 degrees. 104 degrees is ... not the hottest daytime temperature ever recorded in Little Rock. The …
One hundred years ago this week, the nation's new first family was adjusting to life in the spotlight. It liked them, but they didn't like it.
Vice President Calvin and Grace Coolidge were visiting his father in Vermont when President Warren G. Harding died suddenly in San Francisco. That was Aug. 2, …
The 5-month Fox singing contest "American Idol" was riding high in Nielsen ratings when a slim, 23-year-old church worship leader from Conway charmed his way i…
Office seekers in Arkansas dodge and weave through a gantlet of potentially embarrassing Kodak moments. No cagey candidates want to be caught on camera extract…
Oh, the press, the press. What terrible people they all are.
Let's play Obfuscation, a game in which I give you some of the definitions of one common word, and then you recognize that word. Or not.
One hundred years ago, high-profile citizens of Little Rock were irritated by a rash of anonymous letters.
