NORTHERN LIGHTS PARTY

FORT SMITH — Retired but ever-busy home interior designer Earl Douglas had just eight hours to work his magic.

After rearranging most of the heavy antique furniture in Dr. Kit Moulton’s three story home and covering the main rooms and stairway in poinsettias, Douglas and his host opened the door to nearly 100 Fort Smith Public Schools Foundation supporters the chilly night of Dec. 10.

Moulton, a fourth-generation physician in Fort Smith, has lived at 3201 Free Ferry Road since 1984, when the site of the Fort Smith Public Library across the street was still a bird sanctuary. At his request, the Christmas cocktail party was a memorial to his father, the late Dr. Everett Moulton Jr.

Tickets were $35 each, but it was less of a fundraiser than an event to bring attention to the foundation’s designer showhouse. Douglas has assembled a team of 13 volunteer design professionals from Fort Smith to Bella Vista to outfit rooms in Nadine Miller’s house at 3 Free Ferry Heights. The house will open for a month beginning April 1 and is expected to bring in up to $85,000 for the foundation, Douglas said.

The nonprofit foundation, like others in the area, seeks to enhance students’ school experience by funding learning programs the district can’t afford.

Some foundation board members who attended the Christmas party at Moulton’s home were vice president Michael Hadley, Kathy Babb, Bob Cooper Jr., Claude Legris and Becky Womack. Fare, provided by board members, included a tasty chicken liver pate by the foundation’s executive director, Rebecca Yarbrough.