Recent stories by Rex Nelson
REX NELSON: Dream big, Batesville
When I was young, I loved thumbing through Newport High School yearbooks from the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Those yearbooks had a prominent spot on the bookshelf of our family home in Arkadelphia. M...
November 11, 2018
The next great downtown
The most encouraging trend I've seen during my travels across Arkansas this year is the increasing number of communities reviving their downtowns. After decades of watching businesses abandon downtown...
November 11, 2018
REX NELSON: Des Arc redux
It's raining hard outside and turning cold. There's a crowd inside at T.J.'s Kountry Kitchen on Main Street in Des Arc. The old building that houses the restaurant is adjacent to the structure my gran...
November 10, 2018
REX NELSON: Battle of the Ravine
When my parents were students at what's now Ouachita Baptist University in the 1940s, the school's president was James R. Grant. When I was a student at Ouachita in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the...
November 7, 2018
REX NELSON: Attracting private dollars
The Clinton Presidential Center is crowded with visitors as I walk through the building on a Friday afternoon. I'm here to see the White House Collection of American Crafts, which was commissioned by ...
November 4, 2018
REX NELSON: Paul Guess' vision
World War II had come to an end, and the economy was booming in parts of America. Young men returned home from the war, and many of them became the first in their family to attend college thanks to th...
November 3, 2018
REX NELSON: Old Mike and the light
When I was growing up in Arkadelphia decades ago, a popular road trip for teenagers involved driving to Prescott to see Old Mike and then swinging back through Gurdon to check out the black cats atop ...
October 31, 2018
REX NELSON: Little Rock matters
ROGERS -- Given the weather--it's raining hard and it's chilly--I'm pleasantly surprised at the size of the crowd. It's a Friday at lunch, and I'm speaking to the Rogers Chamber of Commerce.
Two membe...
October 28, 2018
REX NELSON: Bliss and Glee downtown
I can hear the excitement in Jane Rogers' voice as she shows me through the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden in downtown Little Rock. Rogers has been active for years in Sculpture at the River Market, ...
October 27, 2018
REX NELSON: Charlie May's Johnswood
The weather is almost perfect for sitting in the backyard of the wood-and-stone home near where Cantrell Road crosses Interstate 430 in west Little Rock. The home, known as Johnswood, was well outside...
October 24, 2018