ASU, NYIT certified
for medical school
Arkansas State University and the New York Institute of Technology were awarded pre-accreditation by the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation for an osteopathic medical school in Jonesboro.
Dr. Barbara Ross-Lee will relocate to Jonesboro full time to serve as the Arkansas State medical school dean. She has been serving in that role for the New York campus.
Pre-accreditation now allows the school to begin hiring faculty and staff.
"This is an extraordinary development for the future of not only our institutions, but more importantly for the citizens of Arkansas and the Delta," Arkansas State University Chancellor Tim Hudson said in a news release. "We're grateful to NYIT for seeking to expand its proven, highly regarded osteopathic curriculum for the benefit of students in this region."
-- Chris Bahn
Banker sheds shares
of Ozarks for $4M
Ross Whipple, a director with Bank of the Ozarks, has sold almost 100,000 shares of the bank's stock for almost $4 million in the past week.
Whipple, the former chairman of Summit Bank of Arkadelphia, sold 70,300 shares of Bank of the Ozarks stock Wednesday for nearly $40 per share and a return of $2.8 million.
From April 16 until Monday, he sold another 25,900 shares between $40 and $40.50 per share for a total of more than $1 million. He sold almost 2,600 shares April 17 at $39.85, for a total of about $103,000.
Since September, Whipple has sold almost $30 million of his Bank of the Ozarks stock.
He sold Summit Bank to Bank of the Ozarks last year for about $216 million, about 80 percent of which was in Bank of the Ozarks shares.
Whipple still owns about 1.3 million shares of Bank of the Ozarks, valued at $50.1 million.
--David Smith
State index up 1.63
to close at 404.84
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, rose 1.63 to 404.84 on Thursday.
Shares of P.A.M. Transportation Services Inc. rose almost 4 percent. Shares of the company hit a new 52-week high of $67.61 during intraday trading.
Simmons First National Corp. dropped about 2.7 percent.
USA Truck Inc. shares rose 1.2 percent.
Windstream Holdings Inc. shares dropped 1.4 percent.
Dillard's Inc. shares rose 1 percent.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business on 04/24/2015