Stories by Mike Masterson
RSSClamping Jaws on hit season
Most Arkansas wouldn’t know 81-year-old John Williams if they saw him strolling Fayetteville’s Dickson Street. Yet they really do know him very well in their hearts and minds through his gifts of enduring and endearing music that virtually everyone across the planet recognizes. Continue reading...
More on permit
Grounds to revoke?
I was waiting at week’s end to hear what Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks will do with that ball bouncing in her court. Continue reading...
Agog over farmer’s essay
I’m still aghast and agog at the eloquent guest-writer essay by Newton County hog CAFO co-owner Jason Henson published on last Saturday’s Voices page. Continue reading...
Subject of concern
While the Farm Service Agency was guaranteeing the federal loan to C&H Hog Farms and concluding the farm posed no significant environmental impact to the Buffalo National River, the state’s Department of Health was expressing concerns over polluting the river with dangerous pathogens from swine waste, according to a letter dated March 21, 2013. Continue reading...
Love of a lifetime
Value of our moms
The record-setting snow and cold winds are long gone and Mother’s Day has arrived. Continue reading...
Court battle looms over hogs
It was inevitable that forces intent on preserving the ecology of the pristine Buffalo River would challenge the government’s approval of that industrial hog farm at Mount Judea. Continue reading...
Reflective reunion
There was no way to know our annual May reunion would be a weekend assailed by three cold days of wind, rain and snow. Continue reading...
Abuses continue
Our veterans suffer
Merciful father, will the rain of patient abuse and neglect at the veterans home in Fayetteville never end? Continue reading...
CAFO crowd overflows
The vast meeting room inside Fayetteville’s Public Library was overflowing at the dinner hour Wednesday. Each seat was occupied. Continue reading...
Not so different
If we somehow could meld creative Fayetteville and artistic Eureka Springs into a single vibrant community, this new “Fayettesprings” has a kindred city only a day’s drive west along Interstate 40. Continue reading...
Policing the police
Guns at a pool hall?
A reader asked how I felt about Fayetteville Police Chief Greg Tabor allowing two off-duty policemen from out of town, who brandished sidearms in a local pool hall while swilling shots of alcohol, to walk away without being arrested. Continue reading...
Don’t hog the Buffalo
It wasn’t the familiar game-day refrain of “Wooo, Pig! Sooey! Razorbacks !” echoing across the University of Arkansas’ Fayetteville campus Tuesday at noon. Continue reading...
Citizens uniting
When it rains environmental concerns in the Ozarks, also known as God’s Country, it really does pour. Continue reading...
Too early to rejoice
Nothing to envy yet
Jim Cooper, past president of the Arkansas Health Care Association and himself a nursing-home owner, told Gwen Moritz of Arkansas Business how bright the picture has become for state nursing-home owners since Medicaid significantly increased the reimbursements for each resident. Continue reading...
Not its hog farm, says Cargill
There’s some confusion over over just how many hogs the controversial industrial farm near Mount Judea in the Buffalo National River watershed will house in a confined space, and the expected results of that ill-advised enterprise. Continue reading...
Not the first conflict
During the mid-1980 s, a farmer with one or more big financial backers convinced the then-Department of Pollution Control and Ecology (now Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality) to approve a permit that would establish a landfill near the little Ozarks community of Pindall about 20 miles (as the hog walks) from Mount Judea. Continue reading...
Stock rises in trade
NWA pitching woo
The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce is pursuing an international venture that hopes to attract students, aspiring young business leaders and partners from Panama, Colombia and Brazil to experience the appeal of Northwest Arkansas. Continue reading...
Venting to Cargill
Those who visit the website hosted by Cargill Inc., based in Minnesota, realize this privately held multinational corporation values a perception of environmental responsibility, especially among we prospective customers from the hinterlands. Continue reading...
Stuff I don’t understand
File this under things I don’t understand. At first I had to check the date to make sure I wasn’t reading an April Fool’s joke. Continue reading...
CAFOs for dummies
A war between fact and opinion is waging between the National Park Service and the U.S. Farm Services Agency over the environmental assessment submitted with the loan for that concentrated animal feeding operation on a commercial hog farm in the Buffalo National River watershed near Mount Judea. Continue reading...
Meanwhile, back at the farm
In the public dispute over protecting and preserving the Buffalo National River watershed, the corporation behind the controversial industrial hog farm approved near Mount Judea in Newton County has been virtually anonymous. Continue reading...
Easter’s multitudes
Serving all walks of life
The cavernous hall at Fayetteville’s Central United Methodist Church was again humming like a beehive on the Saturday before Easter as the 18th annual M&N Augustine Foundation’s Easter Feed opened its doors for a free meal at 11 a.m. Continue reading...
Deal truly smells
Readers sound off
It’s abundantly clear that the 600-plus-acre C&H Hog Farm permitted by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality and granted a loan by the U.S. Farm Services Agency to operate with 6,500 swine near Mount Judea and its school deep within the Buffalo National River watershed has struck the deepest nerve within many Arkansans. Continue reading...
Musical prophecies
Making it as a musician is as difficult a career as even the best can achieve. I see the truth in that, considering I’ve heard lots of fine music over the years by still-unheralded talents in places where I least expected to find it. Continue reading...
Hog farm flub
How’d that happen?
I can’t understand how our state’s Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Services Agency (FSA) would even consider approving the C&H Farms proposal for a commercial hog farm near Big Creek, a tributary of the Buffalo National River. Continue reading...
Symptom of deeper problems
The big headline in the Fayetteville paper the other day by Doug Thompson told a story that should shock all of us who remain concerned with how ailing veterans are still being cared for inside the Northwest Arkansas veterans home. Continue reading...
Our Buffalo and the hog farm
Those in Northwest Arkansas during the late 1990s likely recall the firestorm of public outcry to the state’s politicized decision (eventually reversed) to permit a landfill on one side of Hobbs Mountain near Durham. Continue reading...
Public service has a price
Attorney and state Rep. Bob Ballinger, a Republican from Hindsville, has discovered that life in the glass house of elected public service carries with it the hefty price of baring one’s personal affairs. Continue reading...
Valley Inn reborn
Restaurant resurrection
I smiled after reading that the Valley Inn café in little Hindsville apparently has new owners and will fire up its oven and grill come April. Continue reading...
Lessons from the river
Daylight saving time has kicked in. The hardwoods lining the White River below Bull Shoals Dam are about to burst into the lime green of early spring. Continue reading...
Million-dollar baby
Pauline’s last doll
Among those I met during my recent lunch at the unique Flippo’s Senior Social Center in Johnson was Pauline Triplett Beckman, a feisty 98 years young who, as it turns out, also once wrote a newspaper column. Continue reading...
Still touching lives
Your reactions
That recent column in tribute to my uncle, former Third District Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt of Harrison, clearly tickled some personal nerve endings and brought back memories for numbers of readers. Continue reading...
A refuge for seniors
The only thing unique about the cottage along Wilkerson Street in Johnson is the sign that explains what’s happening inside: “Flippo’s Senior Social Center, Stimulating the Mind and Body.” In the community adjacent to Fayetteville, this center is the only privately owned home of its kind in Washington County. Continue reading...
Inferno from within
Spontaneous combustion
LITTLE ROCK — Can humans spontaneously combust into a fire that burns slowly, yet superheated enough to convert their bodies to ashes without setting all around them ablaze? Continue reading...
Always life terms
Sex abuse of children
LITTLE ROCK — Just making sure I have this latest travesty straight in my tiny brain: A Level 2 registered sex offender convicted back in 1993 of sexually assaulting a sweet little 6-year-old girl gets released under whatever jurisprudent rationale applied two decades ago. Continue reading...
Nonpartisan makes sense
LITTLE ROCK — It’s about time an Arkansas legislator proposed that we do away with political affiliations in our sheriffs’ offices. Continue reading...
A deserving uncle
Still a public servant
LITTLE ROCK — If each of us lives long enough, it’s inevitable that we watch those we’ve cared about steadily, invariably depart this life one by one. Continue reading...
Truth over bias
Crime lab values
LITTLE ROCK — Should a crime laboratory exist to serve the investigative needs and agendas of law enforcement, or to respond to a higher calling, namely the objective truth? Continue reading...
At the NWA home show
LITTLE ROCK — The parking lots were packed and spillover vehicles were patiently waiting for spaces at the Holiday Inn Convention Center in Springdale a week ago. Continue reading...
A game of inches
When a foot isn’t
LITTLE ROCK — A Springdale resident has joined the national fray in deciding to sue the Subway chain when the sandwiches he ordered in that town supposedly came up slightly shorter than the company claims. Continue reading...
Be a professional
Failing the ‘mama test’
LITTLE ROCK — First, the three deputies strapped the 25-year-old suspect charged with a few relatively insignificant misdemeanors into a restraining chair inside the Benton County jail. Then came a swift kick or two to the man’s one freed leg and the pepper spray. Continue reading...
Coroner gets a boost
LITTLE ROCK — A wise man once told a naive young reporter that he believed the five positions any political machine needed to control an average-sized Arkansas community were the sheriff, a banker, the probate judge, the local media and the coroner. Continue reading...
1,000 miles away
Upriver, Downstream
LITTLE ROCK — I’d heard the talk, seen the catchy commercials. But I’d never driven two hours northward on Interstate 540 to the Downstream Casino Resort. I’d finally decided to see what’s behind all the hubbub over this place opened four years ago by the Quapaw tribe. Continue reading...
The tempests of life
LITTLE ROCK — As always, lots of issues and events swirling in the state today. What say we fly through several together? Continue reading...
To escort our deceased
LITTLE ROCK — The population explosion from 240,000 to 479,000 across the urban corridor of Northwest Arkansas in just two decades has brought understandable growing pains. Continue reading...
Protecting the children
LITTLE ROCK — It’s reassuring to see schools in Northwest Arkansas and statewide taking the initiative to better secure buildings for their students and employees. Continue reading...
Sheriff fits better down here
LITTLE ROCK — A Wisconsin sheriff recently spawned a public tornado by issuing a radio ad that encouraged Milwaukee-area residents to become trained in properly handling firearms so they can defend themselves while waiting for police to respond to a call for help. Continue reading...
Barney Fife lives
LITTLE ROCK — Benton County Sheriff Kelley Cradduck must have rolled his eyes real big the other night when former Washington County Constable Tommy Clowers was booked into jail after a real deputy who carries more than one bullet arrested Clowers on a charge of impersonating a police officer. Continue reading...
A prodigy shines
One enchanted evening
LITTLE ROCK — A cacophony of oddly detached refrains from dozens of instruments being tuned swirled through the massive Walton Arts Center auditorium last Saturday at 7:25 p.m. Continue reading...
Honoring initiative
Inspiring youth
LITTLE ROCK — In 1979, Congress established an award program honoring personal development in young Americans between the ages of 14 and 23. After 34 years surprisingly few parents and educators seem to know about such a cherished award. And that’s regrettable. Continue reading...
