Sister act

LITTLE ROCK — Our state’s tiny town of Gilbert and the not much bigger parish of Bride, off the British coast, come together in a tale of two cities that Charles Dickens never imagined.

Gilbert, population 28, is a jounce north of Marshall in Searcy County. Tourists venture off U.S. 65 to rent cabins and canoes at the more than a century-old Gilbert General Store.

Bride, population 300, clings to the northeastern corner of the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. Tourists cross the waves in ferries to look at ancient Celtic ruins, and according to the island’s website, “hear tales of giants, fairies and brownies.”

Half a world apart, the two places have much in common. Fish, for example: catfish and bass from the Buffalo River in Gilbert, herring, as in pickled herring, and boiled spuds and herring on the Isle of Man.

Most of all, these two are united by the international diplomacy of Evelyn Langston Terhune, 62, of Gilbert.

Terhune helped Gilbert and Bride get to know each other as newly connected sister cities in 2005. Besides raising sheep, she knew how to make video connections over the Internet.

Today, Gilbert holds the title of smallest sister city in the world, and Terhune is newly appointed as state coordinator for Sister Cities International, headquartered in Washington.

The job makes her “a liaison between local cities and the D.C. office,” she says, as she plays matchmaker for other places in Arkansas on the lookout for friends overseas.

“It usually starts out as a cultural and educational exchange,” she says. “It’s ideal for a college town. And it usually works out, through friendship and trust, as an economic advantage as well.”

LOVE IS OUT THERE

For the out-of-the-way city that is, perhaps, a little shy - a bit hesitant to reach out for fear of rejection, of heartbreak, well - Gilbert stands as proof that love is out there.

“Because of our size, it took years,” Terhune says. Big and famous cities tend to match up with other places of similar renown: Los Angeles with Mexico City; Chicago with Athens, Greece; Gilbert with ... hello?

“We’d never heard of the Isle of Man,” she says. But Gilbert’s quest for a sister city of comparable size and circumstance led, finally, to the same conclusion the Vikings reached 12 centuries ago: Way over there is an island that looks interesting.

And, say, is it.

The Manx breed of cat - the cat with no tail - comes from the Isle of Man, where it is known to generations of seamen as the champion of oceangoing mousers. Making up for the island’s lack of cat tails, the native Manx Loughtan sheep baaa-ck up their threats to charge with a formidable set of four horns. Two horns point up; two more curl down.

“I would not raise Loughtan,” Terhune says - too many horns - but she is proud of her Loughtan wool blanket, a gift from Bride.

Gilbert will be sending Bride a handmade quilt that depicts the town’s landmarks, as Terhune describes: the general store, cafe, fire station, community center, old school (closed), post office (no home delivery) and church (of no denomination, “you just go to church”).

The cities exchange Christmas gifts, Terhune says. They swap recipes. They compiled a fundraising cookbook, Our Best to You.

From one of the book’s nearly 300 recipes, Terhune turns out husband Albert’s favorite “slim cakes,” Isle of Man-style thin pancakes. Cookbook sales go toward sending high school students from in and around Gilbert to Bride.

To come is a sign identifying Gilbert as the sister city of Bride, she says, and a delegation from Bride to visit Gilbert next year in celebration of the town’s centennial.

HANDS ACROSS THE WATER

“It’s easier for us to open doors,” says Sherman Banks of Little Rock, past president of Sister Cities International. “We’re not appointed diplomats, we’re just citizens.”

Banks’ 2004-06 term of Sister Cities presidency took him as far as Egypt and Morocco, and he remains an active volunteer.

Successful matches call for more than government decision-making, fact-finding and paperwork, he says. The relationship “is municipality to municipality, but it cannot be sustained unless you have the communities involved.”

Banks remembers when Terhune asked him to Gilbert to talk about Gilbert’s chances of finding a sister. The only cafe in town was closed, so Terhune invited everybody to her house for dinner - the whole town.

“Of 35 people in the town at that time, 28 showed up,” Banks recalls. “We all sat around her house in a big circle and talked about Sister Cities.”

He told them the same as he advises all municipalities, that “size has no bearing. It all depends on your level of interest, and what you want to focus on.”

A city with a seaport, for example, might have the ultimate goal of a trade agreement with a foreign partner. A city with something to export might be looking for customers. The ambitious mayor might hope to bring home a company from overseas.

What Gilbert and Bride found in common at first, he says, was water - the Buffalo River and the Irish Sea - enough water, it turned out, to build on.

AN OCEAN AWAY

Across the ocean, in Bride,the name of Gilbert, Ark., might be better known among the island’s farmers than it is in Arkansas.

The town’s website (bridecommissioners.co.im), cites Gilbert on the home page, and shows a picture of the Gilbert Cafe.

“We receive regular updates from the area,” the site boasts.

Lisa Sims, clerk to the Bride Parish Commissioners, describes a community much like Gilbert - off to itself, maybe, “but it’s not lonely.” And there’s the church.

“It’s such a wonderful parish community,” she relates.

The same as folks in Gilbert have to leave town to tend to business in Marshall, population 1,300, people in Bride take a bit of an airing to Ramsey, population 7,000, where the clerk lives.

“We don’t have a pub or post office [in Bride], so everyone comes to Ramsey for that,” she says.

“I don’t think I’ll be coming to Gilbert anytime soon,” Sims regrets.

Terhune has been to England, but never yet to Bride - but no matter.

Sisters don’t have to live in the same house, or the same country, to be sisters.