Razorbacks statue to honor '64 team
FAYETTEVILLE -- A monument honoring the undefeated 1964 Razorback football team will be mostly done by Sept. 1, with the approximately $2 million project to be dedicated in a ceremony sometime this year, a University of Arkansas, Fayetteville spokesman said.
The family of Dallas Cowboys owner and UA alumnus Jerry Jones is paying for the sculpture through a portion of a gift announced in 2015, said university spokesman Kevin Trainor.
Jones was a member of the 1964 team named national champions by the Football Writers Association of America.
The "Wild Band of Razorbacks" features six-foot tall bronze Razorbacks, six in all, with the full monument approximately 20 feet high and 30 feet wide, according to information released by UA. It will be placed in the northeast entry plaza of Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, Trainor said.
Dick Idol designed the sculpture, which also features work by custom manufacturing company Acutech Works and various subcontractors, Trainor said. Both are based in Montana, according to online information, and the estimated $2 million cost "covers design, construction and all things related to the project," Trainor said in an email.
Idol was selected for the project "based on recommendations and his previous body of work," Trainor said, noting work done by Idol for North Carolina State University.
A statue of Frank Broyles, moved to allow for stadium renovation work, will return to the north end near the newly constructed Broyles Athletic Center, Trainor said.
New 1-mile trail to be on hill site
FAYETTEVILLE -- Construction is scheduled to start in late September on new natural-surface trails on the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville campus, said Eric Boles, director of UA's Office for Sustainability.
Roughly a mile of trails, along with treated wooden steps, will be built in a wooded area known as the Oak Ridge hillside, near buildings that are a part of UA's Sam M. Walton College of Business.
The project cost is about $200,000, Boles said. It is being paid for with a $355,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation.
Boles said the plan is to add more trails on UA property, with one to run near Fayetteville High School.
The Oak Ridge hillside, about a 3.5-acre area, has informal trails now, with the new trails to be open to both cyclists and pedestrians, Boles said.
He noted ongoing construction of the nearby Stadium Drive residence halls, which are being built to house more than 700 students, UA has said.
"We're about to have more students going up and down that hill, we think," Boles said.
Fayetteville-based Progressive Trail Design is designing and building the Oak Ridge trails.
Science grant aids infection research
FAYETTEVILLE -- A $498,983 National Science Foundation grant will support researchers at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences studying ways to fight antibiotic-resistant infections.
The grant supports an effort to study silver nanoparticles, which are sometimes used in clothing because of anti-microbial properties that help fight odor.
Two UA faculty, Yong Wang and Jingyi Chen, as well as Mark Smeltzer, a UAMS professor of microbiology and immunology, are seeking ways of using powerful imaging technology to better understand how the tiny particles interact with E. coli bacteria.
Researchers will also study how changes in nanoparticle size, shape and surface affect their effectiveness, according to UA.
Alsous selected for poetry award
FAYETTEVILLE -- Zaina Alsous has been named the winner of the 2019 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize.
The University of Arkansas Press will publish Alsous' poetry collection, A Theory of Birds, next fall.
The press partners with the Radius of Arab American Writers to award the $1,000 prize to a first or second book of poetry written in English by a writer of Arab heritage.
Alsous is "a daughter of the Palestinian diaspora," UA said in announcing the award. She was born and raised in North Carolina and is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Miami.
Metro on 08/19/2018