Bell Tower, Spring 2011

8 Chef Eddy’s Blues / 12 Surgical Tech / 18 Drennen–Scott / 30 Alumni Weekend

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The Alumni Magazine of the University of Arkansas - Fort SmithBell TowerBell Tower

Getting back outdoorsafter a spinal injury wasn’t enough for

RANCE BIGHORSE ’84—now he helps others do the same

REEL INSPIRATIONREEL INSPIRATION

C1r1_UAFS_SPSU11:covers 1&4 6/13/11 2:05 PM Page C1

COVER PHOTOGRAPH by Kat Wilson ’96

The Diamond Lions fought just to stay above the .500 mark for the first part of the 2011season before suddenly catching fire in mid-April and winning 10 of their last 13 games to finish the season at 25-21, a marked improvement over last year’s 13-21 record. JuniorKyle Thompson (above) pitched the wildest game of the season, a 21-3 pummeling of the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in front of home fans on a balmy spring afternoon at Crowder Field.

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IN THIS ISSUESPRING/SUMMER 2011 volume 2, number 1

15 18

2 FROM THE CHANCELLORConnecting education with careers

3 @UAFORTSMITH Alumni letters

4 GRAND + WALDRONtuition | volunteers | parking | fountain fixed | photo exhibit | blues collection | fashion |remote BAS | student support

11 5Q Dr. Williams Yamkam, political aficionado

12 SENSE OF PLACE Pendergraft 339

14 KNOWLEDGE BASE Chef David Wagner on pork roulades

15 EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY Dr. Dennis Siler, English professor/master luthier

16 LIONS LOWDOWNmen’s golf | Hal Smith ’49 | toy toss | Ashley Arnold ’11 | spring signings

fea t u re s

18 IF THESE WALLS ... Now a museum, the Drennen Scott House in Van Buren tells the remarkable stories of frontier power-broker John Drennen, the generations that followed him,and the region itself. By Eric Francis

24 RANCE BIGHORSE HAS A SMILE ON HIS FACE After a truck accident left the former Westark pitcher numb from the chest down, his love of woods and waters helped pull him through. By Ty Stockton

28 ALUMNI + FRIENDSgrowing together | class notes | Rebecca Hurst ’01 (UC) | alumni weekend 2011 | regional receptions | Rennetta Carter ’87 | Steve Lovick ’83 | student alumni

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2 BELL TOWER spring/summer 2011

From the Chancellor

As those of you who live herein Greater Fort Smith proba-bly don’t need me to tell you, the heavy equipment isrolling again on our campus.

It seems like it wasn’t more than a fewweeks ago we finished the new parking lots,pond, and playing field on the east side ofWaldron Road (see p. 5), and now the exca-vators, dozers, loaders, and dump trucks arealready back.This time, they’re clearing land for the

construction of the Learning and ResearchCenter at Boreham Library, a 40,000-square-foot addition along the south side of theexisting library that will more than doublelibrary seating, add 214 new computer sta-tions, make room for more than 50,000 newvolumes, and create a 24-hour study areaand computer lab.The addition—and concurrent refit of

Boreham—are long overdue. In the 24 yearssince Boreham was completed, UA FortSmith’s student headcount has more thandoubled, we’ve emerged from being a two-year college into a full-fledged regional uni-versity with close to 40 different majors forbachelor’s students and 47 total courses ofstudy, and we’ve gone from zero on-campusresidents to more than 700, with room forseveral hundred more.With all this growth, it’s fair to ask—as

some have—whether we might be forgettingwhere we came from and what made theinstitution strong.I want to assure you that we’re not. In

fact, the focus of this institution remainslargely the same as it has always been—edu-cating students for real work in the realworld, or, as our new vision statement putsit, “connecting education with careers.”

The difference is that the level of trainingand education required for those careers hasincreased. So out of our two-year CADDprogram has emerged a four-year computeranimation degree. Out of our two-year nurs-ing program grew first an online, associate-to-bachelor “completer” program and then afull BSN program. And out of our two-yearassociate of applied science programs came aunique completer degree for working adultswho want to complete a bachelor’s, theBachelor of Applied Science (p. 9).For better or worse, times change, and

in order to continue serving the higher education needs of Greater Fort Smith asthis institution has done for 83 years, wehave to change with them. I’m proud of theway we’re doing that, and I hope you are too.

PAUL B. BERAN, Ph.D.Chancellor

Connecting Education with Careers

^Bell TowerSpring/Summer 2011Volume 2, Number 1

The University of Arkansas – Fort Smith

CHANCELLORPaul B. Beran, Ph.D.

VICE CHANCELLOR FOR UNIVERSITYADVANCEMENT

Marta M. Loyd, Ed.D.

DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI AFFAIRSElizabeth Underwood

EDITORZack Thomas

CONTRIBUTORSRobert Bell, Eric Francis,

Jessica Martin, Ty Stockton

PHOTOGRAPHERKat Wilson

ART DIRECTORJohn Sizing

www.jspublicationdesign.com

ADVISORY BOARDDr. Paul B. Beran, Chancellor;

Dr. Ray Wallace, Provost; Dr. Marta M. Loyd,Vice Chancellor for University

Advancement; Dr. Arleene Breaux, Vice Chancellor for University Relations; Dr. Lee Krehbiel, Vice Chancellor for

Student Affairs; Elizabeth Underwood,Director of Alumni Affairs; Jeff Harmon,

Director of University Marketing and Communications

BELL TOWER is published semi-annually by the

University of Arkansas – Fort Smith Alumni

Association, P.O. Box 3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913,

for alumni, friends, and faculty of the University.

Tel: (800) 532-9094. Email: [email protected].

Web: www.uafortsmithalumni.com.

SEND ADDRESS CHANGES, requests to receive

Bell Tower, and requests to be removed from the

mailing list to [email protected] or UA Fort

Smith Alumni Association, P.O. Box 3649, Fort

Smith, AR 72913.

LETTERS ARE WELCOME, but the Publisher

reserves the right to edit letters for length and

content. Space constraints may prevent publica-

tion of all letters. Anonymous letters will not be

published. Send letters to belltower@uafortsmith.

edu or Bell Tower Magazine, P.O. Box 3649, Fort

Smith, AR 72913.

Views and opinions expressed in Bell Tower do not

necessarily reflect those of the magazine staff or

advisory board nor of the University of Arkansas –

Fort Smith.

Contents ©2011 by the University of Arkansas –

Fort Smith.

^Find Us on the Web! Can’t wait six months for your next issue of Bell Tower? Visit us at www.uafortsmithalumni.com/belltower for exclusive web-only content!

ZACK THOMAS

Chatting with Jeff Taylor ’11 at this spring’schilly Homecoming tailgate.


@Belltowermag

OUR KIND OF LETTERI want to let you know that I got my BellTower today and finished reading it thisafternoon. I really enjoyed the reading, andthere was a variation in the articles. Thepublication was awesome, and I will be looking forward to future issues. Thanks for all you do for the college.

BILLY CATER ’10, RN, NREMT-Pvia email

Thanks, Billy. Check’s in the mail. —Ed.

THOUGHTS ON MCKENNONI greatly appreciate your article on Maj.Pierce McKennon, USAAF, and his accom-plishments [“Too Glorious to Last,”Fall/Winter 2010]. I have read of him inother places, but your article treated him asthe main subject, which he greatly deserved.Had he been in the Navy or the Marines, hewould have been awarded the Medal ofHonor after becoming an ace, but the

brass of the USAAF thought that he andothers like him were just doing their duty.What a shame!

CLARENCE C. COLLUM ’83, LTC FA U.S. ARMY (RET.)

Fort Smith

BASKETBALL IN THEBASEMENT?My father, Doyle H. Cole ’42, was a memberof the basketball team (captain of it, in fact)when it was still the Westark Lions. There is now a UAFS basketball scholarship in hisname. He also played high school tennis,basketball, etc. in Fort Smith.

My mother told me when I was youngerthat at one time the Lions played in the base-ment of the Parker Courthouse. I may beremembering things wrong, but it wouldhave been near the beginning of World War II.

Do you have anything in your archivesabout the Lions playing in the basement of

the Courthouse? If not, perhaps you candirect me to someone who can help. It’s apart of my family’s history we want to beable to pass along to our children.

LAURA GARCIA ’77, RNLittle Rock

Readers with information for Ms. Garcia canwrite or email us at the magazine and we’ll passthe info along. —Ed.

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?We’d love to hear from you! Tell uswhat you think of the magazine,respond to an article, suggest an idea for a future issue, or ask uswhatever burning question comes to mind. Email your letter [email protected] or mailit to Bell Tower Magazine, P.O. Box3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913.

Alumni Association

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith

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October 14 - 15, 2011

All alumni and friends of UA Fort Smith, Westark, and

Fort Smith Junior College are welcome!

Save the date!

2nd Annual Alumni Weekend

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Grand+Waldron CAMPUS NEWS AND NOTES

Community PrideNON-TRADITIONAL STUDENT Carl DeBose, who helped weed the play area, trim the hedges, and clean the rain gutters at Es-ther House, a temporary residence for home-less women and their children, was one of 90 or so students who fanned out across Fort Smith for Lion Community Outreach Day on a muggy Saturday morning in April. Others painted inside and outside at Boys & Girls Club locations, sorted cans at the Regional Food Bank, tidied up the Humane Society’s cemetery grounds, put together booths for the Heritage Festival at the Fort Smith His-toric Site, and cleaned the Salvation Army’s warehouse. It was the eighth year for the annual student volunteer effort.

UA FORT SMITH offi cials expect to receive about $23.08 million in state funds for fi scal year 2012, a slight increase from $22.94 mil-lion in FY 2011 but, if enrollment forecasts prove accurate, another decrease on a per-student basis.

In fact, state dollars per full-time-equiv-alent student have decreased at UA Fort Smith—as they have at most public universi-ties across the nation—from a high of $5,113 in 2001 to less than $4,000 today. Adjusted for infl ation, the decline has been even greater—roughly 40%.

To help meet growing demand (full-time-equivalent enrollment has grown by some 25% over the last three years) while state funding lags, the university recently an-nounced an approximately $175-per-semester increase to in-state tuition and fees. The other universities in the University of Arkan-sas system announced similar increases.

UA Fort Smith, though, remains among the most affordable four-year colleges in Ar-kansas—and among the most effi cient. Despite

receiving less state funding per student than any other university in the UA system, UA Fort Smith is thriving—not just enrolling more stu-dents, but offering more programs, recruiting stronger faculty, building better facilities, and enjoying a growing academic reputation.

As state support continues to decline, though, and enrollment continues to grow—and, along with it, operating costs like pay-roll, utilities, insurance, and maintenance—tuition and fees must cover an increasing portion of the university’s operating budget. In fact, 2011 was the fi rst year in decades when revenue from tuition and fees exceeded state revenue.

The trend continues. In FY 2012, tuition and fees (including non-credit tuition and non-mandatory fees) are projected to cover about half of the University’s $61.1 million budget, while state appropriations will cover less than 40%. Revenue from a local sales tax, sales and services, investment income, grants, and private philanthropy provide most of the remainder.

Tuition Increase to Help Offset Lagging State Support

Carl DeBose was one of nearly 100 students who pitched in to help local nonprofi ts and charities for April’s Lion Community Outreach Day.

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Total operating revenues per student (green) come from two main sources—state funding (blue) and net tuition and fees (red). As state funding has declined since 2008, tuition and fees have covered a growing percentage of the cost of a UA Fort Smith education.

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points of pride Reappointed to three committees of the Arkansas Bar Association, Lynn Lisk, who directs UA Fort Smith’s Legal Assistance/Paralegal program. They include the Stand-ing Committee on Paralegals, of which he is a charter member, and the Mock Trial and Law Related Education committees. Lisk is also regional director of the Bar Associa-tion’s High School Mock Trial Competition.

Decorated with 46 individual awards, including 12 fi rsts and 15 seconds, in catego-ries like Computer Applications, Business Law, Strategic Management, and Marketing Analysis, the UA Fort Smith chapter of Phi Beta Lambda, an organization for students preparing for careers in business, at the PBL state leadership conference in April. All 23 members who attended qualifi ed to com-pete at the national conference this summer in Orlando, and Dr. Latisha Settlage was named Arkansas PBL Adviser of the Year.

Reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly in a starred review, adjunct faculty member Matthew Henriksen’s debut book of poetry, Ordinary Sun, which PW called “one of the most strik-ing collections from a small press this year.” Another reviewer, Kelly Forsythe, writing in Newcity Lit, says the collection, released this spring, is “easily one of the most sensi-tive and symbolically complicated books released thus far in 2011.”

Granted to the UAFS chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, the International Honor Society in Education, funding for fi ve middle level edu-cation students to not only give illustrated book talks to students at Butterfi eld Junior High in March, but also to present a $200 gift certifi cate for books to the school’s librarian. The Literacy Alive grant was se-cured by senior Margaret Hall, chapter vice president.

Selected in January to serve on the Environ-mental Science Peer Review Committee for the Fulbright Specialist Program, biology pro-fessor Dr. Ragupathy Kannan, who will evalu-ate the credentials of U.S. scholars applying for Fulbright grants to pursue short-term collaborative projects at universities abroad. Kannan himself spent six months in his native India in 2007 as a Fulbright Scholar.

Invited to perform at the Region 6 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in San Antonio in February, the UAFS produc-tion of Imogen, an original play by theater

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”““It’s the right thing to do and the right time to do it.”—CHANCELLOR PAUL B. BERAN on the decision to offer a pair of full scholarships that will allow Japanese college students from the region devastated by March’s quake and tsunami to fi nish their education at UA Fort Smith.

More Parking, Plus a Pond and Playing FieldIT ONLY TAKES FLIPPING through a few old yearbooks or student newspapers to fi gure out that abundant parking has never been one of UA Fort Smith’s best features. But with enrollment growing steadily and expected to break 8,000 this fall, the situation was becoming critical.

So administrators decided to fi nally break ground on the undeveloped block on the east side of Waldron Road, across from the old technical buildings and today’s Pendergraft Health Sciences Center, creating 382 additional parking spaces.

There’s much more to the project than asphalt and curbs, though. In fact, the new parking lots cover only a small part of the block, while the rest remains green.

A lighted walking trail winds around two ponds connected by a small waterfall and rimmed with huge pieces of local limestone quarried near Hackett. An arbor near the lower pond makes a pleasant gathering spot for students and the community alike. And east of the ponds, a new regulation soccer fi eld will be ready for intramural sports this fall and possibly intercollegiate play in the future.

In addition to 382 much-needed parking places, UA Fort Smith has a new pond, path, and soccer fi eld.

UA Fort Smith BELL TOWER 5



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We didn’t plan it, but for some reason this issue ended up populated by lots of couples who fi rst met at UA Fort Smith/Westark/Fort Smith Junior College—Rance Bighorse and his wife Linda (p. 24), Rennetta and Terrence Carter (p. 31), and a bunch more in the class notes starting on p. 28.

Then there’s Jacob ’09 and Hillary Welch Kleck ’10, who even had their engagement photos shot on campus (left). A mechanical engineering major and an electrical engineer-ing major, they met working a National Engineers Week event in early 2008 and married a week after Hillary’s graduation in May 2010.

Did you meet your better half at UA Fort Smith (or Westark or FSJC)? Tell us about it, and we’ll share your story in a future issue. Mail stories and pictures to [email protected] or Bell Tower magazine, P.O. Box 3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913.

Lion Love StoriesTELL US ABOUT IT

Water Boys EVERY SPRING, students taking Cameron McKinney’s Advanced Pro-gram Logic Controllers write intricate programs to control the laminar jet foun-tain installation in front of the Baldor Technology Center.

Trouble is, it’s been years since the fountain actually worked, so the students got to watch the results of their program-ming only as a computer simulation.

Until this spring, that is, when juniors Harold McKeown and Adam Schwartz decided they’d prefer to see the real thing. Pretty soon, they’d struck a deal with Plant Operations—if they’d to the work, Plant Ops would buy the parts.

After three or four years of disuse and Fort Smith weather, the complex plumbing, circuitry, and machinery were rusty, deteriorated, and badly in need of … well, two guys who knew about that kind of stuff to make up their minds they were going to fi x it.

And just in time for fi nals, after weeks of wet, chilly, knuckle-skinning work, McKeown and Schwartz had the fountain fully revived, with all 25 nozzles sending their weirdly solid streams arc-ing improbably through the air.

Next time you’re around campus, swing by and enjoy it for a few minutes.

Juniors Harold McKeown (left) and Adam Schwartz spent much of the spring semester repairing the laminar jet fountain in front of Baldor.

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OPENING IN FEBRUARY IN THE SMITH-PENDERGRAFT CAMPUS CENTER, “FOCUS on the Fort: Three Photographic Perspectives” showcased the work of university photographer Kat Wilson, provost Ray Wallace, and humanities and social sciences dean Henry Rinne.

Wilson, a Fort Smith native, showed gritty, panoramic portraits of her father and his acquaintances. Rinne concentrated on “the built environment—how humans create and shape their spaces.” And Wallace shot the city’s sculptures and statues, from the conspic-uous to the forgotten.

The exhibit was sponsored by the Chancellor’s Coalition for the Visual Arts, which collects and exhibits works of art for the benefi t of UA Fort Smith students and the larger community.

Focus on the Fort

Nickel & Dime Diner, Rinne

Aiding the Wounded, Wallace

Like the Chancellor’s Coalition on Facebook to hear about upcoming art openings, receptions, and exhibits.

Garrison Avenue Bridge, Rinne

(continued from page 5)


program director Bob Stevenson, with junior Laura Wineland in the title role. One of just six productions from the entire region—Ar-kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas—performed at the festival, Imogen previously scored a boatload of awards at the state level, including the cov-eted Directors’ Choice award, which brought with it the fourth regional nomination in fi ve years for the UAFS theater program.

Named one of just 85 researchers this year to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, adjunct faculty member Dr. Mike Looper, a renowned scientist with the USDA’s Agricultural Re-search Service at the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center in Booneville, who has authored or co-authored more than 160 articles with titles like “Infl uence of toxic endophyte-infected fescue on sperm char-acteristics and endocrine factors of yearling Brahman-infl uenced bulls.”

Published this spring by the College of Business, the inaugural issue of Advances in Business Research, the university’s fi rst peer-reviewed journal. Edited by Dr. Mohamed Zainuba, the annual journal includes work by business scholars from universities across the country, many of whom convened last fall at the Fort Smith Convention Center to present their research to fellow authors, the UA Fort Smith business faculty, and hundreds of business students at a two-day symposium that is planned to become an annual event.

Placed third in an intense, fi ve-hour pro-gramming competition at the Mid-South Conference of the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges in April, one of UA Fort Smith’s three-person computer program-ming teams—senior John Hollingsworth, junior Adam Shaver, and freshman Sebastian Bossarte, who competed against teams from across Arkansas and four other states.

Honored with the Linda A. Wardhammar Kaleidoscope Award at the Central Frater-nal Leadership Conference in St. Louis in February, UA Fort Smith’s fraternity-sorority community, for its Crosswalk Safety Aware-ness Program in partnership with university police. The award, given annually to only one fraternity-sorority community in North Amer-ica, recognizes innovative and progressive initiatives. The UAFS Greek community also received an award for maintaining an average GPA (2.71) above the university average.

points of pride

Kerry, Wilson ’96



Grand+Waldron

BY THE TIME he passed away in 2007, Fort Smith radio personality and walking blues encyclopedia Jim “Chef Eddy” Mc-Cormick had amassed one of the best blues collections in the South—more than 1,700 CDs, ranging from Depression-era progeni-tors like W.C. Handy and Bessie Smith to contemporary bluesmen and women like Keb Mo and Susan Tedeschi.

McCormick lived to share the music he loved and the stories behind it. His radio show, “Chef Eddy’s Blues Revue,” aired weekly on KLSZ Rock 100.7, and he was a central fi gure in the Riverfront Blues Festival and several similar events. A 1970 Westark graduate, he also taught a blues enrichment series on campus.

Now, in a way, McCormick is sharing the blues again. Late last year, his family gave his entire collection to UA Fort Smith, where the CDs are available for checkout from Boreham Library by not only students, but anyone with a Fort Smith library card.

“We feel honored with the opportunity to donate a small piece of his legacy to the UA Fort Smith library,” says McCormick’s sister, Paula Udouj. “Jim loved the community, and the community loved Jim.”

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Everybody Gets the BluesChef Eddy’s collection now at UAFS library

Monte Moore Babitzke ’64 (second from left) and her friends CB Graham, Mary Koncsics, and Gayle Hatwig didn’t fi nd out until they’d already arrived at New York’s Palace Theater to see the Broadway musical adaption of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert that feather boas were de rigueur for the show. In the lobby, though, a couple of other theatre-goers at least let them borrow their boas for a picture.

The friends, along with 20 other travelers from the River Valley, were on a four-day tour of New York with UA Fort Smith’s Center for Lifelong Learning. They also visited the Statue of Liberty, ate at Sardi’s, explored Times Square, surveyed the city from the Top of the Rock, and caught Mary Poppins on Broadway.

“We had a blast,” says Babitzke. “Can you tell?”

TrashionFashion

Jim “Chef Eddy” McCormick left behind a world-class blues collection that now resides in UA Fort Smith’s Boreham Library.

INCOMING FRESHMAN Michaela Shaw walked the runway at Second Street Live this April during Trashion Fashion Experiment 011in a dress made by her older sister, sopho-more studio art major Savanna Shaw, from white duct tape and more than 450 cupcake

liners. The evening art exhibit/fashion show featured dozens of wildly imaginative garments made from discarded and recy-clable materials—bubble wrap, phone books, paint chip cards, cereal boxes, air mail envelopes, grocery bags, Burger King cups—by students in Chadd Wilson’s 3D Design classes. MORE ONLINE: at www.uafortsmithalumni.com/belltower.



“WE TOLD THEM they’d never have to come to campus for anything, and we hold to that promise even through commencement,” says Dr. Leroy Cox of students earning the Bachelor of Applied Science degree from UA Fort Smith at campuses throughout the state. “Plus, we feel it’s important to honor them in their own communities.”

To that end, Cox hits the road at the end of each semester with Dr. Georgia Hale, dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology, and Stacy Loseke, program coordinator in the Delta region, for a multi-city commencement tour, showing up at one graduation ceremony after another to confer degrees on their students. “It’s kind of like ‘have robe, will travel,’” says Cox, who directs the BAS program.

This May, the three visited East Arkan-sas Community College in Forrest City, the U of A Community College at Batesville, Mid-South Community College in West Memphis, and Phillips Community College of the U of A in Helena. (UA Fort Smith also offers the BAS degree in partnership with seven other colleges in the state.)

In many instances, UA Fort Smith’s unique “completer” program represents the only realistic shot at a baccalaureate degree for working adults bound by jobs, families, or fi nances to places without four-year col-leges nearby. “When you live in Helena, Ar-kansas, the closest university is three hours up the road, and you know you can’t do that,” says Cox. So UA Fort Smith brings the university to the student through a combina-tion of online courses and “attending” classes in Fort Smith via live videoconferencing.

The downfall of previous attempts to offer degrees at Arkansas community col-leges—particularly in the Delta—was that there often weren’t enough students on a given campus for classes to “make,” leaving students idle. But with new distance-learn-ing technologies and smart administration, remote BAS students—even if there’s only one of them on a given campus—can prog-

ress steadily through the program.Most BAS students—both remote and

in Fort Smith—are working adults who already have an Associate of Applied Science degree. They’ve typically gone as far as they can with the AAS—a technical degree that doesn’t dovetail well with traditional B.A. and B.S. degrees—and found themselves professionally stalled for lack of a bacca-laureate, while less experienced employees with freshly minted four-year degrees get supervisory positions.

The success stories are numer-ous—graduates going on to law school

and other graduate programs, moving to managerial positions within their compa-nies or more lucrative positions in other organizations, even one who called Cox recently to report that she’d just accepted a new six-figure job.

But of course professional advance-ment isn’t the only measure of success. “We recognize that advanced education does not guarantee employment,” says Cox. “But we’re making a way and providing an oppor-tunity where there was none before. That’s the broader impact.”

‘Have Robe, Will Travel’Applied Science faculty hit the road to confer degrees on distance-learning grads

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Grand+Waldron

IT CAN BE AN ACT OF real bravery—committing to a college education when your family doesn’t fully understand what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, or, worse, thinks you’re making the wrong choice. And then, once the decision is made, forging ahead through a foreign landscape of

FAFSAs and pre-reqs and drop/add dates can be just as daunting.

Of course, it’s not that way for every fi rst-generation student, but it is for many of them. So it should come as no great sur-prise that they don’t all make it through the gauntlet of fi nancial obligations and family

pressures and competing priorities to gradu-ation. Then again, it shouldn’t be surprising either that all it takes to signifi cantly improve their chances is a bit of extra guidance and support.

The new Student Support Services program at UA Fort Smith, funded through

a grant from the U.S. Department of Educa-tion, aims to provide that support for fi rst-generation students, low-income students, and students with disabilities.

Once enrolled, they complete a man-datory two hours a week of tutoring or concentrated study (plus all the additional

free tutoring they want), meet with program advisors four times per semester, and attend workshops on subjects like budgeting, study tactics, and calculator skills.

Students like fi rst-generation freshman Kyleigh Solley benefi t from the structured approach. “There are a lot of times when I don’t feel like I have the time,” she says, “but when you have to go to the [program] offi ce and sit down to study, you get stuff done,” she says.

Solley also appreciates the help she gets navigating the college environment. “When your parents don’t go to college, you get there and think, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I even supposed to do?’ You just don’t know how it goes.”

So far, she seems to be settling in just fi ne—already ahead of schedule to graduate with an education degree in 2014, keeping her grades up, working part-time in the fi -nancial aid offi ce, hoping to teach and coach high school basketball.

Although fi rst-generation and low-income students still aren’t nearly as likely to graduate as others, Student Support Services programs across the country are producing more students like Solley every year. Nation-ally, the percentage of fi rst-year participants returning to school for a second year rose steadily from 67% in 2001 to 82% in 2008. More participants are earning degrees, too.

One of those is Nicole Stuart, a product of the Student Support Services program at Ouachita Baptist University who went on to earn her master’s in higher education and now works as a retention advisor in the UA Fort Smith program. In fact, all three full-time staffers in the program were fi rst-generation students themselves.

So was program director Amanda Se-idenzahl, who started out in Talent Search—a close cousin of Student Support Services—and ended up with a master’s degree and now an opportunity to, as she puts it, “show students that their dreams can become real-ity,” just as hers did.

‘Kyleigh, Meet College. College, Kyleigh.’New program introduces fi rst-generation students to campus life, academics

The Student Support Services program eases the transition into college for fi rst-generation students like Kyleigh Solley, fi lling out paperwork with program director Amanda Seidenzahl.

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“When your parents don’t go to college, you just don’t know how it goes.”



“Growing up in Cameroon, I had this idea of America as the ultimate democratic system,” says Assistant Professor of Political Science Williams Yamkam. “My main reason for be-ing here is that I just wanted to experience that, wanted to breathe the fresh air.”

Yamkam came to the U.S. as a student in 2001, ultimately earning his doctorate at Wayne State in Michigan before coming to UA Fort Smith. Endlessly fascinated by American

politics, he attended both the Republican National Conven-tion in Minneapolis and the Democratic in Denver in 2008.

In an era of partisan dogma, Yamkam preaches the impor-tance of an educated, critical electorate and does what he can to create it. “In the classroom,” he says, “you work toward that goal of just making people think on their own and not necessarily rely on what they hear.”

5Q POLITICAL AFICIONADO: Dr. Williams Yamkam K

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1From your unique perspective, what’s the most striking thing about our

politics?What is really inspiring to me is that here, no matter how intense the political debate is, at the end of the day people respect the rules and believe the political system can resolve those confl icts. In some African countries, you’ll have groups disagreeing over a politi-cal issue, and the next second, you see them taking up arms and fi ghting each other.

2In an age of heavily biased media, how do you get the “real” news?

Just being aware of the possibility of bias, be-ing aware that what you get from the media might not necessarily be true is a start. Now that we have a democratization of informa-tion—with talk radio, blogs, and so forth—you can at least fi nd different perspectives. And based on your own analysis, you can come closer to the truth. In a sense, the de-cline in the trust of the media by the Ameri-can people could be a good thing because it could at least galvanize news consumers to do more of their own homework. So we could wind up having a better citizenry that will

be more able to keep their political leaders in check.

3What’s the most interesting campaign you’ve ever followed?

The democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was one for the ages. When she lost in Iowa, all the pollsters, all the pundits said it was over. The day before the New Hampshire primary all the polls suggested she was going to lose it, too. But then at a town hall meeting someone asked her a question, and she teared up. Literally overnight, that reached democratic women and mothers in New Hampshire, and they stormed out to the polls. And she won the primary. It was a complete shock. No one had predicted that, and it wasn’t captured by any of the polls. Those are the types of races that are really fun to watch.

4Does our system of government still work today?

When you read our founding documents, you just kind of marvel at the foresight the founding fathers had. They really put an emphasis on an educated citizenry to make

sure the system would remain vibrant. That’s very, very important, because at the end of the day, the voters are the boss and they need to know whether the person they hired to do x, y, and z is doing those things. If not, they need to fi re him or her and hire somebody else. And you can’t do that by just sitting back and not paying attention to what’s going on.

5Care to go out on a limb and predict who wins the presidency in 2012?

What I will say is that despite the fact that the economy is still shaky—usually a very bad indication for an incumbent—Barack Obama’s approval rating is fairly good. Now that doesn’t mean that he cannot be beaten. I think it all hinges on who the Republican Party nominates. They can’t come up with someone who can be easily discounted as far to the right or extreme—like Sharron Angle, who lost to Harry Reid in Nevada when she should have been a shoo-in. No one can pre-dict at this point—the outcome may depend on some completely unforeseen factor—but Barack Obama is certainly vulnerable.



Three fl oors up in the southwest corner of Pendergraft, the Surgical Tech Lab just might have the best view on campus. The people who spend the most time there, though, don’t get to see much of it. They’re too busy practicing the skills they’ll soon use in real operating rooms, where they’re responsible for a dizzying variety of high-tech equipment and instrumentation.

1. Executive director: Dr. Sydney Fulbright, who runs the surgical technology program, fi rst scrubbed in at the old downtown St. Edward hospital in 1974, fresh out of an associate degree program at the University of Central Arkansas, and has spent a good part of the subsequent 37 years in operating rooms. Along the way, she picked up a second associate degree from Westark, a bachelor’s in nursing, a master’s in nursing, and a Ph.D. in health science. Direct but good humored—and a bit motherly toward her students—

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PENDERGRAFT HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER 339:The Surgical Technology Lab



she has taught full-time for 13 years now but maintains her certifi cation as an operating room nurse and keeps her skills up practicing alongside students in local hospitals.

2. Surgical Technology Practicum I:Prospective surgical tech students complete a year worth of science-heavy general educa-tion before applying to enter the intensive second year of the program. Once admitted, they spend two days a week in the classroom and, for the fi rst nine weeks, the other three

days in the lab for Practi-cum I, learning about sterile technique, operat-ing room setup, patient positioning, instruments, equipment, hospital hierarchy, and cultural quirks related to surgery. After that, they move on to the hospital, where they’ll do 20 hours a week of clinical practice—starting at a jaunty 6:15 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—for the remainder of the program. The other two days of the week are spent on campus, learning about disease processes and surgical procedures. “Whether it’s something they’re actually going to be doing or not, they still need to learn everything that’s going on in that room,” says Fulbright.

3. Surgical model:During Practicum I, local surgeons visit the lab to perform mock surgeries—hernia repairs, appendec-tomies, breast biopsies, tubal ligations—while students pass them instru-ments, run equipment, and maintain the sterile fi eld. For maximum realism, they operate on detailed models with rubber blood vessels and foam tissue layers—skin, fat, muscle, and fascia, all represented

by different colors and densities. “The main thing is for students to learn how to interact with the surgeon,” says Fulbright. “They’ve seen these surgeons on TV screaming and throwing things, and it’s just not that way. They have to learn to see them as colleagues working together for the patient.”

4. Protective clothing: Modern safety standards mandate more protection than ever in the OR. Reinforced gown sleeves resist blood better, and face shields keep

splatters out of eyes. Gloves come in different thicknesses, but students always wear the heaviest ones. “They’re a little bit clumsier at this point,” says Fulbright, “so they have to wear the ones that are more puncture resistant.”

5. Surgical instruments: There are liter-ally thousands of different surgical instru-ments, most of which are named not fortheir function or appearance—which would make things too easy—but rather for the doctors who invented them. So instead of curved forceps, they’re Kellys. Or Cushings, or Raneys, or any of a hundred other doctors’ last names. To make matters worse—or at least more confusing—the names are highly localized. “Students may learn this instru-ment as a light Kelly at one hospital,” says Fulbright, “but they go across town and it’s called a collar clamp, and then they go to another part of the country and all the instruments are called something else.”

6. Suturing supplies: Natural thread made from silk or from cow or sheep intestines is still used in some applications, but most of today’s suture—the thread used for sewing patients up—is synthetic. Absorbable suture, which naturally degrades and disappears with time, is used in quick-healing areas like bowels. Non-absorbable is used for suturing things like heart vessels, where, Fulbright says, with her usual understatement, “it would be best if it didn’t absorb and let go.” Local hospitals donate most of the lab’s zillion different kinds of suture and other supplies—everything from syringes and gauze to stuff with cringe-inducing names like bone wax and spinal needles.

7. Laparoscopic equipment: Laparoscopic surgery—operating on the abdomen by video camera through small puncture holes rather than a big incision—cuts recovery times down dramatically. The abdomen is fi rst in-fl ated with CO2 to create working space, and then long tubes called “ports” are inserted through the abdominal wall. Special cam-eras, lights, and instruments slip through the ports and into the abdomen, and techs direct the camera while the surgeon operates. “All these students now grew up playing video games,” Fulbright says, “so they catch on to this stuff in no time.”

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Knowledge Base

DAVID WAGNER’S THIRD dish, lamb chops with feta cheese tapenade over parme-san risotto, may have cemented the win, but it was his fi rst, brie-stuffed pork roulades, that set the tone for the competition.

Wagner, Sodexo’s executive chef at UA Fort Smith, was cooking against Randy Page, the food-service company’s executive chef at Arkansas State, in a “Battle of the Chefs” at the Lion’s Den dining hall in April.

Set up to imitate TV’s Iron Chef—complete with a surprise secret ingredient (imported cheeses), a judges’ panel, and a live audience of students—the showdown required the chefs to fi re off three dishes apiece, on the clock and under pressure.

Wagner walked away with a narrow vic-tory and an invitation to ASU for a rematch. He’ll also take on a chef from the University of Tulsa in the fall.

After seeing the secret ingredient, Wagner and sous chef Jody Casher came up with the roulades on the spot. “You can’t go wrong with fried pork and cheese,” Wagner says. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

Served over a red wine reduction and drizzled with scallion oil, the roulades look and taste extravagant, but they’re surpris-ingly simple. Serve them as a main dish for three or four, or slice them into thinner “pinwheels” for appetizers.

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Pork tenderloin, 1 to 1-1/2 lbs.About 4 oz. brie cheese1-1/2 cups fl our4 eggs, beaten with a splash of milk2 cups bread crumbs or panko

1 bottle good pinot noir1 shallot, minced1/4 cup heavy cream1/4 lb. butter, at room temperature

2 cups chopped scallions or green onionswhite pepperAbout 2 cups extra virgin olive oil salt

PorkSlice pork tenderloin into 1/2-inch-thick “steaks.” Cut brie into French fry-shaped strips. Pound slices of tenderloin to about 1/4 inch thick. Season pork to taste with salt and pepper. Roll each pork piece around one or two strips of brie, tucking the ends in like a burrito if possible. Dredge rolled pork in fl our, then dip in egg mixture, then coat with bread crumbs. Deep fry pork until internal temperature reaches 155 degrees. OR pan fry until golden brown on all sides, then bake at 400 degrees until done.

Red Wine SauceCombine wine and shallot in saucepan and bring just to a boil. Reduce heat, whisk in cream, and simmer until reduced by about two-thirds and liquid will coat the back of a spoon. Strain out minced shallots if de-sired. Whisk in butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Scallion OilAdd scallion or green onion and a little salt and pepper to blender. Blend on high while drizzling in olive oil until mixture is a thick liquid.

BRIE-STUFFED PORK ROULADES (sounds like “roo-lahds”)



“I voice every piece

of wood ... you just

can’t do that in

a factory.”

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY Dr. Dennis Siler, English professor/luthier

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Hear how it rings?” asks Dennis Siler, thumping a thin piece of spruce that will eventually become a guitar top.

And, strangely, it does, with a clear, lingering resonance. “When I build a guitar,” Siler says, “I voice every piece of wood so it’s balanced. You just can’t do that in a factory.”

Which is why the fi nest guitars are still hand-built, pretty much as they have been for the last couple hundred years, in a painstaking, esoteric, weeks-long process that lies somewhere be-tween craft and art. Siler learned it just out of high school as an apprentice to a Nashville luthier, then ran his own shop in Conway for a time before getting married and taking a job that yielded a steadier income.

Now, he works in his garage in Van Buren and doesn’t often fi nd the time to build guitars. An ebony fi ngerboard inlaid with an intricate mother of pearl design—cut freehand with a jeweler’s

saw—rests on a workbench surrounded by a scattering of strange hand tools, but that’s for a special project, a guitar he’s making for his musician son.

Finished instruments lie around Siler’s shop, too—a delicate-looking maple dulcimer, a banjo built on plans from an old Appalachian instru-ment maker—but these days he makes mainly Native American-style wooden fl utes from the lengths of exotic-looking lumber leaning against the walls—rosewood, ebony, purpleheart, padauk, koa, black walnut, curly maple.

They’re a nice little sideline—musicians and collectors buy them for upwards of $100—but that’s not why he started making them. He started making them for the same wonderfully simple reason he fi rst started making stringed instruments: because he wanted one. “I heard a guy play a fl ute like this,” he says, “and went, ‘Wow, that’s cool! I’d love to have one,’ so I built it.”

Dr. Dennis Siler in his garage workshop with a banjo made according to plans from an old Appalachian builder.



UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS - FORT SMITH ATHLETICS

Lion Golfers Second in Conference TourneyAFTER FINISHING NO HIGHER than fourth place in eight of the nine regular season tournaments, the men’s golf Lions rallied when it counted, claiming second place among seven teams in April’s Heart-land Conference Tournament in Round Rock, Texas.

Matt McKown, a junior from Van Buren, and Patrick Willey, a junior from Conway, each shot a 3-over-par 219, tying for sixth in the three-round tournament. The team shot a 17-over 881, fi nishing 11 strokes behind Newman University. The Lady Lions fi nished

the tournament in fourth.Consistent performances throughout

the season for the Lions earned McKown and Willey each a spot on the Second Team All-Heartland Conference, while Josh Alford, from Marion, was named Heartland Confer-ence Freshman of the Year.

With McKown, Willey, and Alford all returning, plus women’s standouts Sidney Tallon and Jami Hendrix, the 2011-12 season looks promising—especially with UA Fort Smith scheduled to host the Heartland Tournament. —Jessica Martin ’10

Junior Matt McKown shot a 3-over-par 219 in the three-round Heartland Conference Tournament, tying with teammate Patrick Willey for 6th among 35 golfers.

Hello, Darling!

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The Good Kind of ‘T’Technical fouls don’t tend to be happy occasions, but when refs called the in-evitable T on the Lions after a deluge of stu! ed animals covered their home court last December, Coach Josh Newman accepted it with a smile.

Fans had been asked to bring stu! ed animals to that night’s game against UA Monticello and throw them onto the court when the Lions fi rst scored. A thousand toys were gathered for the Salvation Army Angel Tree.

In keeping with the charitable spirit of the night, the Lions went on to give the Boll Weevils an 81-91 win.

MORE ONLINE: Check out the video at www.uafortsmithalumni.com/belltower. —Jessica Martin ’10

FORMER SAINT LOUIS CARDINALS catcher Hal Smith, aka the Barling Darling, got a big welcome from UAFS cheerleaders, men’s and women’s basketball players, and, of course, Numa during Homecoming at the Stubblefi eld Center in February.

The night before, Smith has been inducted into the UAFS Athletic Hall of Fame, along with men’s basketball star Darrell Walker, who went on to a long career in the NBA as both a player and head coach; Lady Lion Alisa Burris, who helped lead the team to its fi rst national championship before joining the WNBA; the late C.A. Fawcett, a dedicated friend and fan who founded the college’s fi rst booster club in 1974; and Jim Wyatt, who, alongside fellow Hall of Famer Gayle Kaundart, coached the men’s basketball Lions to the national tournament fi ve times and later served as Westark athletic director for 16 years.

It may seem strange for a Major League ballplayer (and coach and scout) like Smith to be greeted by the basketball teams. But in fact, the Barling Darling played guard for the Lions back in the late ’40s—when the school didn’t have a baseball team—leading the team in per-sonal fouls during the 1947-48 season but also “developing a free-shot eye that more than once pulled the Lions from behind,” as the Numa yearbook put it.

CREDIT: KAT WILSON ’96

Lions Lowdown

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WHEN HER COACHES LEARNED before the start of last season that UA Fort Smith would have to remain a provisional member of NCAA Divi-sion II for a second year—making the university ineligible for postsea-son play—senior guard Ashley Arnold was given the option to red-shirt.

That would have allowed her to return next season to play for a Heartland Conference champi-onship, but Arnold chose instead to stick with her team this season as one of only two seniors, keeping the Lady Lions focused on establishing themselves as fi erce contend-ers in the conference. And that’s exactly what they did, fi nishing the season at 20-5 overall and 11-1 in conference play.

Even without a Heartland Conference championship, the 5’8” guard from Mountainburg leaves UA Fort Smith with an impressive record, having helped lead her team to a Bi-State Conference Championship, an NJCAA Region II Tournament Championship, and a third-place fi nish at the NJCAA National Tournament.

Arnold also made UA Fort Smith history as

the fi rst player ever to play four seasons for the Lady Lions, starting every game of her junior and senior seasons. Of the 120 total games she played, though, she saved the best for last, scoring a career-high 28 points, hitting

6 of 10 from outside the arc, and notching fi ve rebounds, three assists, and seven steals in

39 minutes of playing time against Ecclesia College. The Lady

Lions won 97-52.Perhaps most

importantly, Arnold worked just as hard in the

classroom as on the court, earning

a Sally McSpadden Boreham Scholarship and a consistent place on the university’s All-Academic

Team on the way to her bachelor’s degree in busi-

ness admin-istration.

—Jessica Martin ’10

CareerNumbers

Games120 Points714

Assists219

Rebounds347Steals171

Brainy BunchHanding out the annual All Academic Awards at the Stubblefi eld Center in February was a big job, as the university recognized 49 student-athletes maintaining a GPA of 3.0 or better. That’s nearly 40% of all UAFS athletes. Throw in the 36 cheerleaders, pom squad members, and athletic band musicians carrying a 3.0 or better, and you’re looking at a pretty brainy bunch. The single team with the highest average GPA? Women’s tennis.

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One for the BooksAshley Arnold ’11 makes history as fi rst Lady Lion to play 4 years

Senior guard Ashley Arnold led the Lady Lions in steals and three-pointers during her last season.

Spring Signings Add Defensive Depth, Paint PresenceIT WAS A WATERSHED season for head coach Josh Newman’s Lions, who fi nished the year at 19-10, a dramatic improvement over last year’s 9-18 mark. That trend should continue next season with the spring signing of two impressive forwards and a moun-tainous center, Chase Hilton.

“Chase will give us a presence that we honestly have not had in my fi ve years,” says Coach Newman of the 6’11” Hilton, who averaged 19 points, 10 rebounds, and six blocks per game his senior year. “To put it bluntly, Chase is a huge young man.”

The Lions also signed Chuk-wukere Ekeh, a 6’9” power forward from Little Rock who averaged nine points, seven rebounds, and three blocks last season for the Central Tigers, despite battling a hip injury. Ekeh has also been awarded a pres-tigious Chancellor’s Leadership Council Scholarship.

Dusan Stojanovic, from Serbia, is the younger brother of current player Djordje Stojanovic. The younger Sto-janovic, says Newman, “is a terrifi c passer, ball-handler, and driver for his size,” but it’s his athleticism and defensive skills that have the coach-ing staff most excited.

The Lions open their home season November 16 against Southeastern Oklahoma.

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Now a museum, the Drennen-Scott House in Van Buren tells the remarkable stories

of frontier power-broker John Drennen, the generations that followed him,

and the region itself.

Now a museum the Drennen-Scott

IF THESE WALLS...




WHEN JOHN DRENNEN of Van Buren died in 1855, he could count among his successful ventures a shipping company, a railroad, retail stores, banking, real estate, fi nance, and being tapped as an Indian Agent by President Zachary Taylor. He had been a delegate to the Arkansas Constitutional Convention, a business partner of Sam Houston, a member of the Arkansas House of Representa-tives, a second to his friend Albert Pike in a famous duel, and had essen-tially founded the town of Van Buren, donating the land for the courthouse and square.

Not bad for a guy who got his start selling fi rewood to steamboats.

Drennen and his descendents—the Scotts and today’s Bullochs—make up one of frontier Arkansas’s most infl uential families. But unlike some of his contemporaries—Pike and Houston, for example—Drennen never rose to great public prominence during his life.

His entrepreneurial ventures, though, helped set the economy of western Arkansas in motion during the 1800s, and his family’s home, the Drennen-Scott House, remains a well-preserved reminder of just how po-tent Drennen’s business acumen was, there on the edge of Indian Territory.

Frontier Wealth“He was driven,” says Tom Wing, director of the Drennen-Scott House. “We often hear the word entrepreneur today, but John Drennen was a true ‘entrepreneur’ in the time in which he lived. He was a successful business-man, whose secret was diversity. His personality lent itself to risk, but a

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by Eric Francis

Perched on a low blu! overlooking the Arkansas River, the Drennen-Scott House grew gradually from a one- or two-room “saltbox” built in 1836 into one of the most luxurious homes on the mid-19th century western frontier.



controlled risk.”To wit: Drennen was reputed to be a gambler of some profi ciency.

In fact, the family still has 12 silver mint julep cups he made, and family lore says that each cup was made from 25 silver dollar coins—every last one of which he won at the horse races.

Outside of his gambling prowess, Drennen’s ability to make money on almost any venture he set his hand to resulted in wealth and infl uence that outstripped what the typical resident of 1800s

Van Buren could expect.“It provided him and his family options,”

Wing says. “By the 1850s, the family was living in extreme wealth for a frontier family. This was not ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”

No, but it started out modestly enough, says Dr. Henry Rinne, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at UA Fort Smith. Drennen originally built a one- or two-room “salt box” in 1836 on top of a hill overlooking the river.

Then, as his fortunes and his family ex-panded, he added onto the original struc-ture—a second bedroom and hallway in 1839, the parlor and an offi ce on the east end of the house a year later, a third bedroom at the west end in 1845. What emerged wasn’t like the homes of plantation owners, with their columned entrances and grand staircases, but a true frontier house—long and low, with high ceilings, tall windows and a broad, deep porch.

Yet within its modest facade were the appointments of wealth and power: fi ne furniture, delicate light fi xtures, wallpaper, huge mirrors, grand fi replaces. And when Drennen’s daughter Caroline and son-in-law Charles Scott inherited the house, they continued the practice of appointing it with the fi nest accoutrements.

For example, step into the parlor and look up. Around the top of the walls runs an elegant frieze depicting birds and fl owering branches. But this is no simple mural painted by a talented local.

The Drennen-Scott House is a treasure of history in part because John Drennen’s descendants got rid of very little during the more than

John Drennen’s great-great-great-granddaughter Caroline Bercher and her relatives still treasure the dozen solid silver julep cups that Drennen had made from silver dollars he won betting on horses.

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It was originally created by artist Mary E. Trivett of Cincinnati for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition—the Chicago World’s Fair—and hung in the Arkansas Pavilion where Fannie Scott, Caroline and Charles’s daughter, served as “Arkansas’s Daughter” and greeted guests. At the end of the World’s Fair, she had part of the frieze removed so she could take it home with her.

Historical TroveWing says there are many such family stories—some, like the frieze, which have been authenticated, others that still lie in the gray area between fact and fancy—that make Drennen and his descendents one of the area’s most fascinating families. But why is it he remains so

little known in Arkansas history?Even Drennen’s own descendants knew

little about him until the start of the restora-tion project. “The only thing I knew about John Drennen was that he was the founder of Van Buren, and I didn’t really believe that at the time,” says Caroline Bercher, his great-great-great-grandaughter.

“In one regard, the family kept his life closely guarded,” says Wing. “Another is he died before his work was fi nished.”

Drennen was 48 and returning from a trip to Pennsylvania when he fell ill with yellow fever and died in an Indiana hotel. His body was returned to Van Buren for burial, and Albert Pike wrote the epitaph that can

still be read on his monument.In the years following Drennen’s death, the family was originally

able to live well on the proceeds of his business interests. But fi rst the Civil War and then the Great Depression took their tolls on those interests, and the family circled the wagons and did what they had to in order to survive.

And one of the most important things they did during those lean years, said Wing, was to hold on not only to the house John Dren-nen had built but also to the original furnishings and decorations. In fact, they held onto them for fi ve generations and more than 150 years—until 2005, when Mary Bulloch, who lived in the house at the time, passed away and left it to her children, Caroline Bercher, Scott Bulloch, and Drennen Bulloch, all great-great-great-grandchildren of

150 years they inhabited it. In fact, the main parlor (above) appears virtually unchanged since 1895.

By the time of his death at 48, through hard work and an entrepreneurial spirit, John Drennen had amassed an incredible fortune, equivalent to per-haps $25 million today.

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John Drennen.Grants from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources

Council (and partnerships with the Arkansas Department of Heri-tage and the City of Van Buren) allowed UA Fort Smith to purchase the house and the 26-acre property, and also to carry on, in effect, the nearly 17 decades of work the family had done to preserve its own history and the history of its community and nation. “By UA Fort Smith stepping up and getting the grants,” says Wing, “the house, the property, and the collections inside are going to be able to stay together, essentially forever.”

Priceless as family heirlooms, the home’s contents also represent a phenomenal historical trove for the university and the public. That legacy includes letters, the family silver, the 1848 Bible (up to date with every birth and death), and the cradle that John Drennen’s chil-dren and grandchildren were all rocked to sleep in.

Because the family never moved—except for a few years during and after the Civil War, when they relocated to Little Rock—the fur-nishings and other contents were never packed in wagons or trucks,

The Drennen-Scott Historic Site isn’t just a museum; it’s also part of the UA Fort Smith campus. As part of the renovation, a fully equipped classroom was added, as well as a student workspace for preparing exhibits and conserving objects and documents.

Most of the students at the site are history majors in UA Fort Smith’s unique Historical Interpretation Concentration. Interpreters, says Dr. Henry Rinne, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, must not only be trained historians but also gifted

communicators, capable of both informing and entertaining the public.

One of the best is Drennen-

Scott Site Director Tom Wing, who conducted tours and educa-tional programs at the Fort Smith National Historic Site before joining UA Fort Smith’s faculty in 2004. Wing works closely at the

site with students and interns, who prac-tice their skills orienting visitors, leading guided tours, and staging “living history” presentations.

Archeology students also work at the site, conducting a dig in the backyard area, where they sift through the rocky soil for artifacts from the old servants’ quarters and carriage house that once stood there.

Not Just a Museum, a Classroom Too

Archeology classes (above) search for artifacts on the property, while students in the Historical Interpretation program, directed by Tom Wing (right), lead tours and prepare exhibits.

As valuable as the home’s historic furnishings are, many of its other contents are at least as important for the stories they tell about the life and times of family that owned them—and the place they lived.

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never hauled up staircases or around corners, never crammed into moving boxes. That explains in part why they remain in such good condition.

But it wasn’t just that the family never moved furnishings and decorations from one house to another; they hardly even moved them around inside their own house. If you step into the parlor of the Drennen-Scott house and hold up a photo of it from the late 1800s, you’ll see the same fi ne furnishings, the same elaborate mirrors, the same 1878 Steinway square grand piano—all in virtually the same spots they occupied back then.

Exceptional FamilySo, what can these furnishings—which were acquired by the Arkan-sas Department of Heritage at the same time UA Fort Smith pur-chased the house and land—tell us about the family that lived there?

Plenty, says Jennifer Carman, a certifi ed appraiser and president of J. Carman Inc. Fine & Decorative Art, who was retained by the family in 2005 to catalog the full collection. For starters, she says, they are all “impressive, representative examples of their craft”—pieces like a circa 1760 longcase clock that Carman says “would be at home in any exhibition highlighting the works of English clockmakers.”

The items acquired over the years reveal a lot to Carman about the family: “Their style and adventure, their activities, their taste in lit-erature and apparent love of family dining and entertaining, and their love of service to this state and nation.” They also show the family was accustomed to very fi ne furnishings, exhibiting sophisticated tastes and an awareness of what was the latest style both on the Continent and in major American cities.

But, says Carman, “What makes this collection so extraordinary is that within the walls of the Drennen-Scott property these items take on a new life, as storytellers conveying the lives and times of this exceptional Arkansas family.”

It’s a role that Drennen’s descendants are pleased to see their fam-ily possessions play. “I hope a visitor will see that Van Buren and our family played an integral part of Arkansas history in the infancy of Arkansas statehood,” says Drennen Bulloch.

“I hope [visitors] realize,” says Caroline Bercher, “just what a spe-cial place it is and what treasures are there in the house and that the house itself is a treasure, too.”

Now, after a six-year, $5.5 million acquisition and renovation proj-ect by UA Fort Smith, the Drennen-Scott House is once again ready to become one of the premier homes on the state’s western frontier. The university held a dedication for the house May 10 with the descendents of John Drennen in attendance to toast the success of the restoration—using, appropriately, John Drennen’s own silver mint julep cups.

The Drennen-Scott Historic Site is open for visitors on Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 5 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. It’s located at 221 N. Third St., near down-town Van Buren. Admission is free.

Goat Hair and Other Architectural Details

For six years now, UA Fort Smith has led a remarkable e! ort, funded by more than $5 million in grant money, to renovate the Drennen-Scott house, working to strengthen and secure the structure while simultane-

ously preserving its historic character and details.In restoring the old lath-and-plaster interior walls, for

instance, an artisan actually mixed real goat hair into the plaster for reinforment, just as it was done originally.

And although the roof had to be reinfored, the old un-skinned logs cut to support it back in 1836 are still in place and visible through portals in the walls. The original rough-hewn timbers beneath the fl oor can likewise be seen through a trap door.

An opening in the wall of another room shows layer upon layer of material—the wood lap exterior of the original house that was left in place when the room was built on, rough boards covered in patterned cloth “wallpaper,” and then a lath-and-plaster surface added later.

During the restoration process, contractors and craftsmen preserved as much of the historic struc-ture as they could, only adding reinforcement to maintain the building’s structural integrity.


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HE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. There just wasn’t enoughroom between the edge of the rural Texas road and the fracturing truckbarreling around the corner toward him. The heavy oil truck traffic hadpushed a berm of gravel up on the outside of the curve, and it grabbed hisright front tire, just as he’d known it would.

Only a few seconds elapsed between that moment and the moment theUPS truck he was driving came to rest in the watermelon field beside theroad, but those seconds changed his life.

Rance Bighorse ’84 had been a star athlete, a pitcher for WestarkCommunity College and then Pan American University, and only daysbefore his accident, he had been pitching for the Reynosa Broncos in theMexican League. Those days were over in a heartbeat.

Ten weeks later, the 26-year-old Bighorse was in Craig Hospital inDenver, fighting—with the help of his therapists—to pull himself upright inbed. The accident had left him with no use of his body below his chest.Everything below his fifth thoracic vertebra was numb. But that didn’tmean he didn’t feel any pain. He had plenty. Every inch he raised himselfbrought a fresh wave of it.

He repeated the mantra instilled in him by his coach at Pan American,Al Ogletree: “You get out of it what you put into it.” He gritted his teeth and recited it again in his mind. “You get out of it what you put into it.”Through the tears in his eyes and the ringing in his ears, he could see andhear his wife, Linda, and the therapists cheering him on as he got closer toa sitting position. Finally, he was upright. And then he passed out.

Nothing But TimeIn the days and weeks to come, Bighorse kept repeating that mantra. Hewas an athlete—an athlete with a spinal injury, but an athlete nonetheless.He knew results didn’t come without a lot of hard work. And it didn’t takehim long to figure out what he wanted to get out of it.

While he was working with the recreational therapy department at

RANCE BIGHORSE

HAS A SMILE ON HIS FACE

by T Y S T O C K T O N

After a truck accident left the former Westark pitcher numb from the chest down, hislove of woods and waters helped pull him through. Today, he spends his time teachingothers with mobility impairments to enjoy the outdoors, and more often than not,

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Craig, he thought back to the time before hisworld was turned upside-down. He recalledthe times in his life when he’d been happi-est—strapping a shotgun or a fishing rod tohis motorcycle and going hunting or fishingwith a childhood friend. As he grew up—went to college, got married, got a job—hehad often wished he’d had more time forhunting and fishing. Now, he realized, hehad nothing but time.

Back at home, he bought a semi-auto-matic 20-gauge shotgun and a manualskeet thrower—a spring-powered contrap-tion to sling small, Frisbee-shaped claytargets into the air—and started teachinghimself to shoot again.

In his chair, holding himself up withhis left hand while his gun rested acrosshis lap, he yanked the cord on the thrower.

Then, with the target already whistling away fromhim, he grabbed his shotgun, swung it to his shoul-der, and fired—all with only his right hand whilestill bracing himself with his left. “I don’t have themuscles in my stomach and back to let me sit upstraight without support,” he says, “so I have to useone hand to hold myself up and the other to shoot.”

He fell sometimes.It wasn’t easy to cockthe thrower, and oncein a while, he’d tip outof the chair and ontothe ground. Or he’doverbalance while hewas swinging up toshoot at a target, andhe’d topple out onto the ground. And then he’d getup. It was a legacy from his baseball days—quittersnever win, and winners never quit.

In Sickness and in HealthAs he was teaching himself new ways to enjoy theactivities he used to love, Bighorse moved back toOklahoma, near his hometown. When he got there,he rekindled his friendship with his old friend GregWilson, whose father, Bill, was CEO of Fort Smith’sPradco fishing lure company. At the time, Pradcowas a major sponsor of the Paralyzed Veterans ofAmerica Pro Bass Trail.

“Greg told me Pradco’d provide everything I’dneed for the Bass Trail,” Bighorse says. “My firsttournament was in Oklahoma. It was absolutely the

best learning weekend I’ve ever had.”That weekend in 1996 wasn’t free of anxiety,

however. Bighorse watched other anglers movingthemselves around in their boats, and he wasn’tsure he’d be able to do what they could do. It wastempting to take the easy route, to give up and gohome before he’d even started, but his wife, Linda,talked him into giving it a try.

It turns out Rance wasn’t the only one in thefamily who couldn’t stand the thought of giving up.Linda and Rance both knew the statistics: When aspouse is paralyzed, the divorce rate is 95 percent.But divorce never crossed Linda’s mind. She tookher vows seriously—especially the part about “insickness and in health.”

Linda knows when she needs to push Rance,and she gives him exactly the right amount ofencouragement. She gave him the nudge he neededthat weekend on the Pro Bass Trail, and it kickedoff a series of bigger and better opportunities.

For the next several years, the pair traveled withthe Bass Trail, and, as Pradco bought up a numberof hunting equipment companies, Rance alsobecame a pro staff member of companies likeKnight & Hale game calls. As his notoriety grew, so did his opportunities. “I’d never wish a spinal

injury on anyone,” he says, “but it’s opened doorsthat never would have been opened if I hadn’t been hurt.”

‘A Smile on My Face’One of those doors opened on Michael “Shorty”Powers, the founder of Turning Point, a nationalorganization whose mission, in part, is “to developself-esteem and confidence in the physically chal-lenged population through participation in adaptedoutdoor adventures.” Powers, who lost the use ofhis legs at 17, believes there is great healing powerin nature—a belief Bighorse, by then, felt just as strongly.

Powers asked Bighorse to join Team Challenge,his competitive fishing team, and soon the two men

“I’d never wish a spinal injury on anyone, but it’s opened doors that never would have been opened if I hadn’t been hurt.

Bighorse, conferring on themound with catcher MikeTheige ’83, pitched two seasons for Westark andtwo more for Pan AmericanUniversity in south Texas.Later, he played minorleague pro ball in Mexico for the Reynosa Broncos.

”

Rance and Linda JohnsonBighorse ’84 (on theArkansas river in 2011, top, and in Edinburg, Texas, in 1985, bottom) met at Westark and have remained a truly formidable team ever since.

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were working together both on the water and off.After 10 years helping with Turning Point, in 2001,Bighorse decided to start his own chapter inOklahoma. He named it Turning Point IndianNation and focused on Native Americans whofound themselves in situations like his.

“When they get hurt, they draw inside them-selves,” Bighorse says. “I wanted to show them theycan still do a lot of the things they used to do—theyjust have to do them a little differently.” SoBighorse, over the years, has taken them fishing,water skiing, skeet shooting, kayaking, and camp-ing. His organization also has a hunting lease, andlast season, seven of the eight people he took to thelease got a deer.

But the activities themselves are only a means to an end: being around others who share an expe-rience that just can’t be fully understood by thosewho haven’t been there themselves, no matter howhard they try.

On a fishing trip with one young man, Bighorsetaught him not only how to catch more bass, buthow to break down his wheelchair and put it intothe cab of his truck himself, instead of dependingon someone else to help in and out. “He goes every-where now,” Bighorse says. “There’s no keepinghim home. Every day of deer season, he was outhunting somewhere. Those are the things that really put a smile on my face.”

‘Until You Don’t Fail Anymore’“So many people and so many goodcompanies have given to me, and I feltit was time to give back,” Bighorsesays of his desire to help people—bothable-bodied and injured—find ways tosucceed at whatever they want to do.He and Linda took over the localbaseball field a few years ago, andthey’ve devoted a good deal of theirtime to helping local kids get achance to play baseball.

“There are times I still get mad, mad,”Bighorse says. “I don’t necessarily see itas a bad thing. I can still get motivated byit. I still play catch. It gets a little frustrat-ing—people want me to work with theirkids, but I can’t show them. I have toexplain it, or I find someone who lookslike he knows what he’s doing, and I getthat kid to do it while I tell him how.”

But his old baseball coach’s words stillring true, no matter the circumstances. You get out of it what you put into it.

“You can’t do anything without hard work,” hesays. “That goes hand-in-hand with this kind ofinjury. I learned to shoot again, made myself strong,and I was never afraid to practice, sweat, fail. Justkeep trying until you don’t fail anymore.”

An avid hunter, Bighorse pursues not only deer but also wild turkeys, doves, and other gamebirds. In 2008, a friend, Brian Beauchamp,photographed him at sunrise during a turkey hunt near Miami, Oklahoma.

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Leading by example,Bighorse teaches TurningPoint members that with a little adaptation, they can enjoy plenty of outdooractivities—not just huntingand fishing, but also water-sports, camping, and more.


1970sJames Riddle ’70 retired in

2007 after more than 35 years

with KFSM-TV, a job he landed

with the help of a classmate,

Taylor Joyce, who at the time was

an anchor at the station. His wife

passed away in 2004 after the

two had been married just five

years. It was Riddle’s first mar-

riage. He now lives in Clarksville.

Monica Heinrichs Vaughan’75 holds a bachelor’s in voiceperformance from the University

of Houston, a master’s in voice

from Rice, and a law degree from

Houston. She has performed with

the Houston Grand Opera, prac-

ticed law, taught music, and

advocated for students with dis-

abilities. She has two sons—an

attorney and a musician.

Rev. Doug Beasley ’79wasrecently chosen by the national

office of the Pi Kappa Phi frater-

nity to serve as Ritual and

Spiritual Advisor to the UAFS

chapter. He was a member in the

’70s at UCA after transferring

there to finish his bachelor’s in

music education.

1980sKaren Bettis Abernathy ’80,holds bachelor’s and master’s

degrees in special education and

lives in Broken Arrow, Okla., where

she co-owns a landscaping busi-

ness with her husband, Steve,

and serves as road manager for

Rockin’ Acoustic Circus, the band

for which her youngest son plays

mandolin. One of Abernathy’s

two daughters plans to transfer

in the fall to UAFS.

Tom Jarmon ’83works full-timeas a nurse in a local hospital.

Lori Loum Patten ’88 lives inTulsa, where she has worked as a

registered nurse in the ER, cath

lab, recover room, surgery, and

quality department, as well as

teaching advanced cardiac life

support.

1990sHeath Roach ’98 is working onhis master’s degree at Liberty

University. He lives with his wife,

Mollie Weaver ’99, and their three sons in Sapulpa, Okla.


Alumni+FriendsDON’T KEEP US WONDERING!Let us—and the people you went to school with—know what you’ve

been up to! Please take five minutes to sit down and tell us what you’ve

been doing since your time at UA Fort Smith, Westark, or FSJC. Tell us

about your job, your family, your hobbies, your adventures, your plans—

whatever you want to share with other alumni. We love to get photos

too, and we’ll happily run them in this section.

Be sure to include your name (and your name while you were in

school if it has changed since then) and the year you graduated or the

years you attended. Email your class note to [email protected] mail it to Alumni Office, UA Fort Smith, P.O. Box 3649, FortSmith, AR 72913.

Let’s Grow Together

In May, I had the honor ofwelcoming more than 650 newgraduates into our alumni

family. Among them was 72-year-old Maureen Didion, finally earningher bachelor’s 55 years after takingher first college class. And JoshuaBull of the 188th Fighter Wing, whohopes his degree will help himbecome an officer. And Dana Broad,who will use her double major andcampus leadership experience asan accountant with Ernst & Young. And Clint Johnson, aChancellor’s Leadership Council scholar, who enters seminarythis fall.

That same kind of diversity is represented in our AlumniAssociation. Every day I meet alumni who are scholars, militaryleaders, faith leaders, and lifelong learners. As different asthey are, they all share the same story: they were influencedby special professors, they forged lasting friendships (ormaybe even met their spouse), and they left here with a solid,practical education. Whether you attended FSJC, Westark, orUA Fort Smith, chances are you share it too.

That common experience is part of what makes alumnitravel so much fun, and we’ve recently forged partnershipsthat allow us to bring you some very exciting opportunities. We’ll also be offering great new insurance discounts throughthe Association.

A new website is just around the corner, too. We hopeyou’ll get to try out the online registration function when you sign up for our 2nd Annual Alumni Weekend, October14–15. Stay tuned to www.uafortsmithalumni.com.

Finally, please take a moment to let us know how we can make the Association better. You don’t have to wait for an event or magazine to share your ideas. You can reach me anytime at (479) 788-7026 [email protected]. Let’s use all this newtechnology—or the old phone call—to grow together!

Sincerely,

ELIZABETH S. UNDERWOODDirector of Alumni Affairs

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2000sTammy Thiele ’05 teachesmusic at City Heights and King

elementary schools in Van Buren,

gives piano lessons “on the side,”

and participates in Fort Smith

Chorale.

Brook Lang ’05married AaronBorengasser Feb. 19, 2011, in Fort

Smith.

Cara Bird Morland ’06 and

Daniel Morland ’06welcomed

Remington Eli on Oct. 21, 2010. He

weighed 6 lbs., 13 oz. and was 19

1/2 in. long.

Katie Schluterman ’07, UAFSStudent and Young Alumni

Coordinator, married A.J. Kratzberg

Feb. 19, 2011, in Fort Smith.

Jenna Rainwater Pierce ’07and Michael Pierce ’05wel-comed a baby boy, Sawyer Lee,

on Sept. 21, 2010. He weighed 7

lbs., 9 oz. and was 20 3/4 in. long.

Alison Potts ’08 started work-

ing toward her managerial MBA

at the University of Arkansas in

2010. She also serves on the

graduate student advisory board.

Breanne Brake Gustin ’08 and

Ben Gustin welcomed Leah Mae,

a baby girl, on Jan. 23, 2011, in

Oklahoma City. She weighed 7

lbs., 4 oz.

Amy Carter ’09 and BrockWilson ’10were married Dec. 18,

2010, in Poteau, Okla.

2010sChris Bader ’10works in U.S.

Congressman Steve Womack’s

district office in Fort Smith.

An exclusive travel experience for alumni and friends of UA Fort Smith, Westark, and Fort Smith Junior College.

September 19 - 27, 2011

Alumni Association

University of Arkansas - Fort Smith

For more information, contact Elizabeth Underwood at the UA Fort Smith Alumni Association toll free at (800) 532-9094,

[email protected], www.uafortsmithalumni.com/travel.

Cruise aboard a deluxe, exclusively chartered, state-of-the-art vessel from the mythical relics of Athens, Delos and Troy, across the glistening waters of the Aegean, to the bustling bazaars and sparkling mosques of Istanbul. Visit Greece’s history-rich islands—Pátmos, Rhodes, Delos and Santorini. Along Turkey’s enchanting coast, stroll the marble-paved boulevards of Greco-Roman Ephesus and visit the site of fabled Troy. Extend your journey with a Pre-Cruise Option in Athens and a Post-Cruise Option in Istanbul or Cappadocia.

Cruise for seven nights, from Athens, Greece, to Istanbul, Turkey, with calls at Delos, Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes and Pátmos, Greece; and Kusadasi (Ephesus) and Çanakkale (Troy), Turkey.

Relax in spacious and elegant outside accommodations with private bathroom and individual climate control.

Enjoy international and regional cuisine served daily with complimentary wine and beer during lunch and dinner.

Explore four UNESCO World Heritage sites—the House of Dolphins on Delos, the Old Town on Rhodes, the Cave of the Apocalypse on Pátmos, where St. John wrote the Book of Revelations, and the remarkably preserved Greco-Roman city of Ephesus.

Learn about local language, culture, history, literature, and mythology from faculty, local residents, expert English-speaking guides.

¸

Experience Island Life in Ancient Greece and Turkey


LION FILE


‘Tremendously Beneficial’As an accounting student in the late ’90s, Rebecca Hurst ’01(UC) was pulling double-duty, working at the same time shewas attending school, and the University Center at WestarkCollege allowed the flexible scheduling she needed. “Whichwas great for me,” she says. “It was just a really nice, opencampus. It was very easy to acclimate to, and it was a goodfoundation to start things off.”

One instructor who helped lay that foundation was DavidCraig. “I took him for statistics and economics,” Hurst says,“and I feel like he brought a real-world approach to class andteaching.”

Hurst also got valuable experience from Frances Ralston’stax courses, which required a surprising amount of writing. Itfrustrated many students, but in the long run, learning towrite from a tax law perspective, says Hurst, “really proved tobe something that has been tremendously beneficial to me.”

After graduating magna cum laude from Westark’sUniversity Center in 2001 (her degree was officially fromArkansas Tech) and from the law school at the University of Arkansas in 2005, Hurst headed to New York University,where in 2006 she earned a Master of Laws in Taxation.NYU’s is widely considered to be one of the top programs of its kind in the country.

Back in Arkansas, Hurst was hired as an associate atFriday, Eldredge & Clark, LLP in Fayetteville, where shepractices estate and tax planning. She is also an adjunctprofessor at the UA School of Law and last year was namedto the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s 40 Under 40list. —Robert Bell

KAT WILSON ’96

Alumni+Friends

Start Planning Now for Alumni Weekend 2011!Want to be sure you find thepeople you knew on campuswhen you come to UA FortSmith’s 2nd Annual AlumniWeekend, Oct. 14-15? Sign upfor a Reunion Group Social, wheregroups like former athletes, Cub Camp staff, Chancellor’sLeadership Council members, PhiBeta Lambda members, educa-tion majors, the Class of 1956,and so on can catch up over horsd’oeuvres and refreshmentsbefore dinner Friday.

The other big AlumniWeekend news is that UA FortSmith’s spring Homecoming has been rescheduled for fall, sothe biggest student celebrationof the year will coincide with the biggest alumni celebrationof the year. Think tailgating, pep rallies, a bonfire, a wagonparade, and all kinds of gamesand fun.

Oh, and it’s cheaper this year,too—just $45 for Friday dinner,

Saturday lunch and dinner, awine and cheese reception, aconcert, a play, talks from distin-guished faculty, tickets to theHomecoming volleyball game,and, of course, a super awesomeT-shirt.

Watch the mail for your invitation coming soon, andremember that Alumni Weekendis for all alumni and friends of UAFort Smith, Westark, and FSJC. Ifyou don’t receive an invitation for some reason butyou’d like to join us, please don’thesitate to give us a call.

Give us a call too (or send us an email) if you’d like to helprecruit alumni for one of theReunion Groups—or if you’d like to suggest another group.We always need AlumniAmbassadors to help us get the word out. Contact AlumniDirector Elizabeth Underwood at (800)532-9094 [email protected].

Rebecca Hurst’01 (UC) at the

Friday, Eldredge& Clark Officesin Fayetteville,

April 2011.

KAT WILSON ‘96

A noon barbecue at the Bell Tower was one of the highlights of lastyear’s Alumni Weekend. This year the party will move to the Lion’sDen for a Homecoming tailgate.



LION FILE

Rennetta Ealy Carter ’87 has a sweet, lively laugh, and you hear it often when she talks about things she loves. Her husband, Terrence, for example.

In 1985 she was still Rennetta Ealy, newly arrived atWestark Community College. It was a Sunday, move-in day,and she and other members of the women’s basketball teamwere getting settled in the little house they would share across from the old gymnasium. Another newstudent, a fellow named Terrence Carter whoalso played basketball for the Lions, happenedto be there that day.

“Oh, yeah, he was good looking,” she recalls

of her first impression, with a quick flurry of laughter. “Nice. He was nice.”And almost before you can say “hoop dreams,”she and that nice, good-looking young man were a couple.“Probably in two months,” she says with a laugh as bright assilver. “It didn’t take long.”

It helped they shared a lot in common, like small-townroots. He grew up and went to school in Sparkman; she wasfrom Damascus and attended Guy-Perkins. Their fathers

were both deacons and Sunday school leaders in their churches.

Rennetta said it didn’t take long before sheand Terrence realized they would get married.“Maybe I’m not saying from day one,” she said, “but after a while.”That marriage is now approach-ing its 23rd anniversary, and the Carters look backat their time at Westark as the foundation of theirlifelong love.

Today they live in Arkadelphia. Rennetta is a market assistant for Walmart, working with 15 storesin southern Arkansas, and Terrence is the director of the Upward Bound program at Ouachita BaptistUniversity. Rennetta is also enrolled at OBU, pursuing

the bachelor’s degree she didn’t finish after graduating from Westark.

So while they were courting, did these two ever take to thebasketball court to see who was the better player? “Ha! Goodquestion, that’s funny,” she says, laughing heartily. “I would say he is.”

And she laughs again—the kind of laugh that says it doesn’treally matter who’s better, because they’re both on the sameteam. —Eric Francis

WWW.UAFORTSMITHALUMNI.COM

Rennetta Carter ’87 with husband Terrence ’87 at OuachitaBaptist University, May 2001, and on the court in 1985, listeningto first-year coach Louis Whorton.

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On the Road (Again)For the second year in a row, the alumni staff hit the road inearly spring to host Regional Receptions, this time at theGilcrease Museum of the Americas in Tulsa, the DallasMuseum of Art, and the Markham Gallery at the Walton ArtsCenter in Fayetteville. We didn’t want our local alumni to feelleft out, though, so we took a busload of them with us to Tulsa,where they, along with Tulsa-area alumni, toured the museumwith UA Fort Smith art chair Don Lee (at right, talking with Jo’76 and Doug Carson ’83, and adjunct art instructor AlanaEmbry) before sitting down to dinner with the Chancellor andFirst Lady. MORE ONLINE: See all the Regional Reception pho-tos at www.uafortsmithalumni.com.

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Alumni+Friends

LION FILE

Erstwhile ArcheologistAs most recent graduates can tell you, finding a job is all about supply and demand, and back in 1980, the supply of archeologists exceeded demand. That’s what led Steve Lovick ’83, ITdirector at Rheem Manufacturing, to change his career course radically, with a degree fromwhat was then Westark Community College.

Lovick had earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in anthropology, focusing on archeology.He’d been published in academic journals, was recognized in his field, and had accepted ascholarship to the doctoral program at Southern Methodist University.

“The problem was, most of the academic positions in colleges and universities were takenby the older generation, and there was really a shortage of jobs for archeologists,” Lovick says.

He felt a bit discouraged about his prospects, but had always enjoyed working withcomputers, crunching archeological statistics using the nascent personal computers of the day.

The Iowa native had married a woman from Fort Smith, and when he was visiting, hedecided to head up the hill to the University of Arkansas to check out its programming course.

Lovick found it to be “more of a theoretical program. In other words, after you would gothere, you would come out and you wouldn’t really know how to program, but you’d know all of the engineering stuff behind it.”

He wanted something a bit more practical. “So I went out to Westark,” he says, “and they had a superb program, with excellent instructors.” He enrolled, and about 18 months later hehad earned another degree.

He even taught several computer courses at Westark for three years after graduating,before taking a job with Rheem and working his way up to the top IT position.

So how has life in Fort Smith been over the last 20 years?“It’s been good to me,” Lovick says, “and Rheem has been excellent and the degree I got

from Westark has paid off in spades.” —Robert Bell

Steve Lovick ’83 at Rheem Manufacturing,

May 2011.

What a Year!After just over a year of existence,

UA Fort Smith’s Student Alumni

Association—which works to

increase student awareness of

the Alumni Association while

infusing ideas of tradition, leader-

ship, and volunteerism—is among

the strongest groups on campus.

In this spring’s NUMAS—an

evening awards program recog-

nizing excellence in student

organizations—the SAA was

first runner up for Student

Organization of the Year, and

advisor Katie SchlutermanKratzberg ’07was named

Advisor of the Year. The associa-

tion was also recently named

Group of the Week by the

National Center for Student

Leadership.

The SAA, which is led by an

eight-member board and is open

to all students, hosted a remark-

able 28 events in its first year,

including Grad Bash, Finals

Feeding Frenzy, Numa’s Birthday

Bash, Senior Day at the Bay, and

more. The association also pub-

lished the 87-page Traditions

Book, chronicling campus tradi-

tions and promoting school spirit.

MORE ONLINE: See the T-

Book at www.issuu.com/ua_fort_smith.

ZACK THOMAS



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^ THANK YOU, RAY—When Ray Baker passed away March 4, he left Fort Smith indelibly changed for the better. For 46 years as a public school teacher he had educated, inspired, and entertained perhaps 10,000 of our children. And for two decades as mayor he had served as an unwavering booster and perpetually enthu-siastic ambassador for the place he loved.

Along the way, he often lent his buoyant presence to events at UA Fort Smith, scatter-ing his rose petals for everything from aca-demic conferences to athletic celebrations to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life (photo) in 2009.

Baker was an alumnus, too. Not surpris-ingly, in 1959, as a second-year Languages and Communication major, he served as student body president and was voted “Outstanding Man of Campus” by his fellow students.

Of course, he was also involved in seeming-ly everything else on campus, serving as Red Cross president, Student National Education Association president, Drama Club treasurer, Future Teachers of America vice president, and ad salesman for the yearbook—just for starters.

In naming him to the FSJC student Hall of Fame, the editors of the 1958 Numa wrote, “an untiring worker … Ray has truly earned his place in the Hall of Fame.” Indeed he has.

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The particular exuberant sparkle that would stick with him throughout his lifetime as an educator and a public leader was already clearly visible in Ray Baker’s eyes in 1959, when he and Sarah Myers were named “Outstand-ing Man & Woman of Campus” and appeared in a full-page photo in the Numa yearbook.

A Look Back

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Bell Tower, Spring 2011

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Transcript of Bell Tower, Spring 2011