A united Arkansas

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

I was honored last month to speak during the annual meeting of the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation, one of the largest gatherings of its type in the state. As I looked across the massive ballroom of the Marriott Hotel in downtown Little Rock, I realized there were representatives from all 75 Arkansas counties.

And as I watched photos from various parts of the state flash on a big screen, it struck me what a diverse state geographically this is. There were dozens of people in that room that I knew by name. While varied geographically, we remain small in population. There are at most two degrees of separation in Arkansas.

Yet as I look ahead on this first day of a new year, there are danger signs on the horizon that threaten to divide us. Between the 2000 census and the 2010 census, 39 Arkansas counties gained population and 36 lost population. Some of the changes were dramatic. Benton County in Northwest Arkansas experienced a 44.3 percent increase, and Faulkner County in central Arkansas had a 31.6 percent increase. Monroe County in east Arkansas lost 20.5 percent of its population. While there are exceptions-Jonesboro and Craighead County are booming, for instance-most of the counties that lost population were in south and east Arkansas.

I’m dismayed when I read online comments that invariably follow stories about where the University of Arkansas will play home football games. There were comments coming out of Northwest Arkansas that spewed vitriol at Little Rock, painting an untrue portrait of this state’s economically vibrant capital city as a depressed, dangerous place. From other parts of the state came comments disparaging Northwest Arkansas and the people who live there.

With fewer than 3 million residents, we’re too small to have people in different regions squaring off against each other. My lone New Year’s resolution on this first day of 2014 is to use the writing and speaking outlets I have to educate people about the state and help bring us together in the process.

I recently attended a two-day event on the shores of Beaver Lake near Rogers and had the chance to visit with an eclectic group of business leaders. I’ve written before about what I view as the three game-changing periods in the evolution of Northwest Arkansas. The first saw the growth of Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt and other homegrown companies. The second came about because of Wal-Mart’s decision that many of its vendors should have a physical presence near the company’s Bentonville headquarters. That resulted in thousands of new Arkansas residents.

The third revolution is just beginning. Call it the Crystal Bridges effect. We’re starting to see the ripples from that world-class art museum with the high-end hotels and upscale restaurants in downtown Bentonville.In the years to come, we’ll see more nice hotels, fine restaurants, boutiques, art galleries and spas. Bentonville will become a sort of Aspen without the snow, where high-income people come to spend a few days.

That’s a development that should excite all Arkansans.

I was struck during that two-day meeting by comments from the vendor community. On the positive side, all said they love living there. But even those who had been there for several years seemed to know little about the rest of the state. Weekend road trips to Little Rock, Hot Springs, Mountain View, Heber Springs, the Delta and other spots seem in order.

As we move into 2014, there are three major forces that can hold us together as an Arkansas family despite the demographic trends that are remaking forever the state where I was raised. The first isa strong governor who understands every part of Arkansas. This year will see the first governor’s race since 1966 in which there is not an incumbent or at least a strong front runner to start the race. We must elect someone who can unite us.

Arkansas has been blessed with a good run of governors since Winthrop Rockefeller took office in 1967. When I would attend National Governors Association meetings as a reporter and later as a member of a governor’s staff, I often would wonder how certain people had been elected as governors of their states. It then would dawn on me that I was spoiled.

The second thing that can hold us together is a vibrant statewide newspaper. At the risk of sounding like the company man (I haven’t worked at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette full time since 1996, mind you), I can tell you that Arkansas also is blessed to be one of the last states with a newspaper that reaches into every corner and devotes its resources to covering real news. It’s a positive thing that people in Blytheville can read obituaries from Texarkana. It’s a plus that people can wake up on a fall Saturday morning in McGehee and read about a football game played the previous evening in Siloam Springs.

The third thing that can bind us is ensuring that we teach students in the public schools about this state’s fascinating history and geography. The public schools are under a lot of pressure these days, but in this area we could do a better job. Each legislative session sees fellow Democrat-Gazette columnist Tom Dillard and other historians show up at the state Capitol and argue for more stringent Arkansas history requirements. It’s too often an uphill battle. Here’s hoping their 2014-and yours-is a great one.

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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial, Pages 17 on 01/01/2014