OPINION

OPINION | REX NELSON: The path forward

In a column earlier this month, I quoted extensively from an article by Arkansas historian Guy Lancaster, who spelled out how the attack on the U.S. Capitol had many of the same characteristics as the lynch mobs that were all too common in Arkansas through the early 1900s.

Lancaster, editor of Central Arkansas Library System's Encyclopedia of Arkansas, has now hit another home run with an essay he wrote for Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

"There's one question about the collective soul of Arkansans whose answer continues to elude me," he writes. "Why don't we take ourselves more seriously? The question may also be phrased thusly: Why don't we think we're worth the effort?

"What I mean by this is that Arkansans collectively tend to expect very little from political or corporate leaders in terms of creating and maintaining institutions and amenities that will better the lives of those who live here. Our commitment to our own well-being can be summed up in the popular phrase 'thank God for Mississippi,' connoting how our efforts constitute the bare minimum for keeping us above dead last.

"Let's look at our twin, Michigan, which became a state in 1837, the year following Arkansas' own ascension to statehood. Twenty years before statehood, in 1817, the Territory of Michigan already established what's now the University of Michigan, which by 1866 had become the largest university in the nation. By contrast, what's now the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville was founded in 1871, 35 years after Arkansas became a state."

Lancaster goes on to point out that the 1850 Michigan Constitution called for creation of an agricultural school "as soon as practicable." What's now Michigan State University was established five years later. Arkansas didn't get around to establishing four district agricultural schools -- now Arkansas Tech University at Russellville, Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, Southern Arkansas University at Magnolia and the University of Arkansas at Monticello -- until the early 1900s.

"Even then, our sole university opposed the measure, not wanting any publicly funded competition in higher education in the state," Lancaster writes.

Michigan, to be fair, had economic and geographic advantages over Arkansas. And it wasn't a slave state. Still, Arkansans have been their own worst enemies throughout the state's history.

Lancaster writes: "The issue of race pervades Arkansas' own history and helps to explain, in part, the state of the state -- leaders didn't want to establish institutions that might be of benefit to African Americans, even if those institutions would help their poorer, white constituents.

"However, other states have been riven by the manufactured conflicts of race and have still managed to foster some form of collective pride. In Texas, that pride can border on downright arrogance."

I've long asked myself why we don't demand more of our government leaders, civic leaders, businesses and nonprofit institutions. A friend in south Arkansas, who has been extremely successful in business, refers to it as the "just miss" syndrome.

"We try to do certain things in a first-class manner, and we just miss," he says.

Lancaster and I discussed this before he wrote the essay. I gave him the example of the Arkansas wine country around Altus as part of the "just miss" syndrome. I visited the booming wine-producing region in the Hill Country of Texas and couldn't quit asking myself why Arkansas' wine region wasn't attracting larger crowds.

Our wine country is more naturally beautiful than what Texas has and boasts a heritage dating back to the 1800s. Then it dawned on me. No Arkansas entrepreneur has built a boutique inn in the middle of the vineyards with a well-known chef in an adjoining restaurant. If you want to spend the night near the Arkansas wine country, you stay in a nondescript chain motel at Clarksville or Ozark.

With all due respect to two towns where I have friends, my wife has never suggested a romantic weekend in Clarksville or Ozark. You get the point. We have a special region that people from across the South and Midwest should be visiting, but we just miss.

"We miss so many opportunities to tell our story to the wider world (and benefit economically from doing so) precisely because, it seems, we Arkansans have been convinced that we lack any real story to tell," Lancaster writes. "We don't understand how stories work. . . .

"For the most part, we here in Arkansas wait for some foreign investment to lift our people up, or maybe for the Walton family to drop some small sliver of their billions upon us. And in the meantime, we barely float about Mississippi (and, in fact, fall beneath it in comparison on many fronts).

"Our talented youth, as they do in similar states in the United States and poorer countries across the globe, leave for greener pastures. Learning our stories and telling them, as well as investing in the idea of Arkansas as a special place in its own right, more than just a site for resource extraction, are, I'm convinced, the keys to curing much of what ails us. If we don't take ourselves seriously, if we don't think that we are worth the effort, then no one else will, either."

Arkansas is positioned to do well once the pandemic ends. More Americans will be looking for places with natural beauty, friendly people and a lower cost of living. As we continue the crucial task of getting broadband Internet service to all areas of the state, Arkansas is poised to be an attractive location for resettlement.

We must realize, though, that there are certain quality-of-life amenities that young, highly educated people demand these days. In a place with limited financial resources, we must identify our strengths and then focus on those strengths rather than going off in directions in which we'll never catch up with other states.

What do we do well in Arkansas? We do the outdoors well. That means we must protect and enhance the natural resources that attract those who hunt, fish, paddle streams, hike, ride bicycles, bird-watch, hang-glide, rock climb and take part in other activities.

People will come to Arkansas as tourists and spend their money. Others will move their families here because of these superb quality-of-life amenities. It has been encouraging to see Tom and Steuart Walton, the grandsons of Sam Walton, understand the importance of outdoor recreation and make investments statewide. But they can't do it alone.

I've often asked, for example, why the state's two biggest retirement funds -- the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System and the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System -- don't invest in outdoor recreation opportunities.

Another area where we must demand better is the quality of those who hold public office. For whatever reason, Arkansas business and civic leaders haven't done their part when it comes to recruiting quality people to run for office, then helping them win. After years of neglecting this civic responsibility, the size of what I refer to as the Know Nothing Caucus in the Arkansas Legislature has grown exponentially.

I know good men and women in the Arkansas Legislature. I consider several of them friends. But too many are there for the wrong reasons.

The overall quality of our Legislature is the lowest it has been in the almost 50 years I've been reading about, writing about or participating in what goes on at the state Capitol. It has reached crisis proportions. Now is the time for those who care about the future of Arkansas to step up. The 2022 elections will be here before we know it.

Let's vow as Arkansans to demand more going forward -- of ourselves, of our corporate leaders and of elected officials. There's so much untapped potential here.

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Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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