menu_open
Rex Nelson

Rex Nelson

Arkansas Online

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

State of the arts

Has there ever been a small state with as much money being invested in the arts as is the case in Arkansas right now? I can't think of one. We start...

latest 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The lithium boom

Billed by The Wall Street Journal as an exclusive, the story in the May 22 edition outlined developments that could have huge implications for south...

yesterday 7

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Letters to Dan

Don House has spent four decades photographing and writing about the Arkansas Ozarks. From his base in Hazel Valley in rural Washington County, he has...

31.05.2023 6

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Mike Trimble’s magic

I 'm among that fortunate group of Arkansans who read Mike Trimble's stories and columns in the Arkansas Gazette. Running out to the driveway to pick...

28.05.2023 8

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Celebrating Arkansas pie

It's a beautiful spring Saturday, and I'm eating pie. Not just one piece of pie, mind you. A lot of pie. The occasion is the third annual Arkansas Pie...

27.05.2023 5

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The truck won

I took on a pickup in Atlanta, and the truck won. Our family was in Georgia for a festive series of events. My son Evan was receiving a law degree and...

24.05.2023 8

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Spring at Poison Spring

The south Arkansas woods were filled with gunfire on that spring day in 1864 as Confederate troops ambushed a Union foraging expedition at a place...

21.05.2023 9

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The visionaries

In retrospect, it's clear that former Pulaski County Judge Floyd G."Buddy" Villines was a visionary. Villines was county judge for 24 years, serving...

20.05.2023 8

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The sweet life

It's fitting that Shelley Short, president and CEO of the Arkadelphia Regional Economic Development Alliance, is ordering something sweet with her...

17.05.2023 6

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The new Henderson

Chuck Ambrose, chancellor of Henderson State University at Arkadelphia, is impressed by the resilience of his students. "They went through a pandemic...

14.05.2023 8

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Back from the grave

It's time for my interview with Henderson State University Chancellor Chuck Ambrose, but something has slowed us down. It's the first day of March...

13.05.2023 6

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Mountain of opportunity

It's time to escape Little Rock and celebrate the fact that legislators have gone home following a session that could only be described as divisive...

10.05.2023 30

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

To the mountaintop

Following the worst legislative session of my lifetime, I need a trip to the mountaintop. I head for Petit Jean Mountain. Hoping for a day of...

07.05.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

An Ozarks introduction

When I lived on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in the 1980s, one of my favorite annual events was the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National...

06.05.2023 30

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The Ozarks authority

On a winter day in 1992, Brooks Blevins walked into a cramped, windowless office in the attic of the Alphin Building on the campus of what's now Lyon...

03.05.2023 3

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Good roads

I'm riding through what once was Fort Chaffee with Keith Gibson, a west Arkansas business leader and member of the powerful Arkansas Highway...

30.04.2023 8

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Celebrating Arkansas food

I wrote last year about a trip I took with Jamie McAfee, the chef at the Pine Bluff Country Club, to the legendary Dixie Pig in Blytheville. After...

30.04.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The hall of famers

When we began the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame in 2017, we decided to keep it exclusive. I can think of almost 100 restaurants in Arkansas that deserve...

29.04.2023 8

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

More than a stepchild

Andrew Rogerson, the chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, announced his resignation in August 2019. It was a time of declining...

26.04.2023 40

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Starving higher ed

For a couple of weeks during this year's legislative session, education dominated the conversation at the state Capitol. But it was all of the K-12...

23.04.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Central Avenue musings

The Colonial Pancake and Waffle House, which has been a fixture for six decades in Hot Springs, is packed on this Friday morning. It's spring break...

22.04.2023 8

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Funding for the future

I'm at a large round table with a group of Arkansas business and civic leaders. We're sharing lunch and discussing economic development. Sitting next...

19.04.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The Kingsland Cash

Arkansas has received a lot of positive publicity because of its decision to place statues of Johnny Cash and Daisy Bates in the U.S. Capitol's...

16.04.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Northeast corner cashes in

Later this month, we'll mark the anniversary of the deadliest martime disaster in American history. On April 27, 1865, the steamboat Sultana exploded...

15.04.2023 8

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The Arkansas optimists

It's easy to become depressed if one focuses on politics and government. At the state Capitol, the Know Nothings controlled the legislative session,...

12.04.2023 30

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Arkansas comes last

When David Pryor was governor from 1975-79, he kept a plaque on his desk that read "Arkansas Comes First." In these first three months of the Sarah...

09.04.2023 7

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The game-changer

It was one of those holidays that mainly benefit bankers and government employees (George Washington's birthday, to be exact), and the streets of...

08.04.2023 5

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Loving a house

I love old houses. I know a city is a good place to live when its residents work hard to preserve and restore historic properties. However, I've never...

05.04.2023 3

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Celebrating a century

Dr. Thomas William Hardison, physician for the Fort Smith Lumber Co., had a dream. He thought company holdings on Petit Jean Mountain should be a...

02.04.2023 20

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

End of an era

Arkansas lost more population per capita than any other state from 1940-1960. At the beginning of that period, this state had seven seats in the U.S....

02.04.2023 7

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Luckenbach and us

We left our son's apartment in Austin early that morning to begin our exploration of the Texas Hill Country. My wife is a native Texan and, like me,...

01.04.2023 7

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Jerome and Rohwer

I enjoy driving the rural roads of southeast Arkansas, a historic region that has been losing population for decades. It's quiet here, and I find...

29.03.2023 2

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Moores the merrier

March 12 marked the 50th anniversary of the death of one of the most influential county sheriffs in Arkansas history, Robert Moore Sr. of Desha...

26.03.2023 6

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

A judge’s obsession

As an Arkansas history aficionado, I love Fort Smith. I can spend a full day downtown, hanging out at Fort Smith National Historic Site and the...

25.03.2023 6

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The vital component

Earlier this year, the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau (LRCVB) released a tourism master plan for the state's largest city. The plan noted...

22.03.2023 5

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Asa’s new role

I wrote a lot about the Democratic Leadership Council when I worked in Washington, D.C., for the Arkansas Democrat in the 1980s. That's because a...

19.03.2023 6

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The little things

Several hundred people gathered one afternoon last month at the Statehouse Convention Center as the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau (LRCVB)...

18.03.2023 4

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The Lyon roars

Social media has its drawbacks--far too many to name here. When used correctly, however, it can connect us with interesting people. I've long used my...

15.03.2023 1

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

A naturalist’s paradise

We're the only boat on the water this Thursday afternoon at Grassy Lake. It's a naturalist's dream, as if someone took a piece of the Florida...

12.03.2023 6

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The Arkansas Cash

I received an email from Wayne Cash, a distant cousin of Johnny Cash, just as I was finishing a book on Johnny. I've written about Wayne before. He...

11.03.2023 3

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The Lee Ronnel story

In December, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra announced the largest individual gift in its 56-year history. The gift came from the estate of Lee...

08.03.2023 2

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The Lyon legacy

On Jan. 26 at The Breakers, a posh Palm Beach hotel, Arkansas' Jane Lyon was in the spotlight. The occasion was the annual Eclipse Awards ceremony for...

05.03.2023 7

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

A downtown wish list

When city officials, donors and other dignitaries gather next month for the grand opening of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA), it will be the...

04.03.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The countdown is on

We’re getting close to the April 22 grand opening of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA). The museum hasn’t attracted half the publicity that...

01.03.2023 1

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Winter at Wingmead

My mother was a daughter of the Grand Prairie, born in Des Arc in 1925, two years before the Great Flood inundated east Arkansas. Rice was becoming an...

26.02.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

A waterfowling paradise

It's a warm January morning as I step out of the main house at Wingmead. It's 5:30 a.m., and Tim Doepel, who has managed wildlife on this 15,000-acre...

26.02.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

City on a ridge

Some of the richest farmland in America surrounds Eudora, the Chicot County town that was the subject of last Sunday's column. That column focused on...

25.02.2023 5

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

The quicksilver rush

In April 1930, an 18-year-old farm boy named Crown Cox was hunting near the Little Missouri River in western Pike County when he noticed a rock with a...

22.02.2023 1

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Home to Eudora

Like many children in a landlocked state, my sister and I wanted to go to the beach each summer. Our father, who spent long weeks during the school...

19.02.2023 10

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

Dragonwagon cooks

I'm not much of a cook, but I'm looking at recipes and getting hungry. Those recipes are in Crescent Dragonwagon's delightful 30th anniversary edition...

18.02.2023 20

Arkansas Online

Rex Nelson

c3b0982d3ce4062237146199f92d7564