Dear Otus,
Will the Stephens family not rest until absolutely everything in central Arkansas is named after them? I just read where they brokered a deal that'll move the Arkansas Arts Center from MacArthur Park to a new facility in North Little Rock with their name on it.
But how will that affect the maritime museum on the riverfront?
-- Hoyt Thornton Jr.,
Prattsville
Dear Hoyt,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and to have the opportunity to gently chide and admonish you and all other cavillers out there who are looking the Stephens gift horse(s) in the mouth.
Granted, if one was given such a potentially expensive gift as a horse, I think the first thing one would do would be to inspect its mouth to determine the horse's age and general health. It's just gauche to do so in the presence of the gifter.
The expression about seeming ungrateful when receiving a gift dates to St. Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) and his Letter to the Episcolopiansin AD 400, where he wrote, "Noli equi dentes inspicere donati." That translates to, "Donated horses' teeth are not to be examined." It's rude. It's like checking the price tag on a birthday present at your party.
I have it on excellent authority that every member of the Stephens family has the best teeth that money can buy. No expense was spared on orthodontia.
And it is a little known fact that Warren Stephens, chairman, president and CEO of Stephens Inc., earned extra money while an undergrad at Washington & Lee University by acting in Ultra Bright commercials -- 11, in all, between 1976 and 1979.
He still gets royalties from Colgate-Palmolive for the four in which he appeared with Cheryl Ladd. Ladd was "the Ultra Bright Girl" shortly after she became famous as one of Charlie's Angels.
Young Warren's big line: "Whiter-looking teeth are just one tube away." It won an Integrated Campaign CLIO Award in '78.
That winning smile and can-do attitude stood Warren in good stead when he joined his father's (Jack Stephens) and uncle's (Witt Stephens) investment firm in 1981. By 1986 he was running Stephens Inc. and well on his way to becoming a billionaire and the generous patron of the arts and public benefactor that we all know and love.
There is no better way to leave one's legacy than to bequeath a community with public buildings and facilities. The community honors the patron by naming it after him.
Thus it has come to pass, Hoyt, that central Arkansas has been blessed with the award-winning 25-story Stephens Building (the glimmering jewel of downtown since its completion in 1985), and the commodious all-purpose Jack Stephens Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Little Rock is also fortunate to have the Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, the Jackson T. Stephens Campus of the Episcopal Collegiate School, and the Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center.
That brings us to North Little Rock and the planned $100 million bookend to the Stephenses' development of the riverfront.
At the western end we already have the magnificent state-of-the-art Dickey-Stephens Ballpark, home of the Arkansas Travelers. North Little Rock got this fine facility in 2007 after Little Rock allowed Ray Winder Field to become infested with possums.
The Stephens family donated the land and the $8,000 custom-made mascot costume for Otey the Possum. It was sort of an inside joke.
For the east end between Main Street and Verizon Arena and extending southward across Riverfront Drive to the Arkansas River, Mayor Joe Smith and the Stephens family have announced plans for a magnificent new facility to replace the aging and inadequate arts center now squatting in MacArthur Park.
The Warren Amerine and Harriet Calhoun Stephens Arkansas Arts Center, I'm told, will make Crystal Bridges look like a roadside souvenir stand.
The property encompasses the overcrowded Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum, which has had to turn away visitors due to lack of space. That won't be the case by the summer of 2016, once it has moved into the vacated arts center building in MacArthur Park. The building may be inadequate as an arts center, but it's perfect for the Maritime Museum.
The park is a natural location for the Maritime Museum since the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History is already in place, as well as the magnificent Korean War Memorial.
The show piece of the new location will be the USS Razorback. The submarine currently in the Arkansas River will be moved to the 1.7-acre lake in the park. In addition, a dock will be built for the future location of the USS Hoga tugboat of Pearl Harbor fame.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you to thank the Stephens family for this brilliant win-win solution to two problems.
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Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email:
HomeStyle on 02/28/2015