Work has been underway on runway lights and the taxiway lights for a little over a week after the Searcy Municipal Airport received an Arkansas Department of Aeronautic grant.

“It [the work] started the day we got the grant,” which was Jan. 15, airport Manager Roger Pearson said.

As far as the time needed to complete the project, Pearson said he has asked for all hands on deck to try to get it done.

Concerning progress on the project, Pearson said “they’re doing real well, if anything, they’re ahead of schedule. “The foundation is down but the slab is not down.” BWC of Searcy is handing construction of the hangar,

The placement of singlewide mobile homes in more than one part of town was one of the topics discussed at a special town hall meeting last week, and city officials are expected to look at an ordinance concerning it at tonight’s Kensett City Council meeting.

Kensett Mayor Allen Edge said everybody at the town hall meeting “decided it would probably be a good thing” to allow more singlewides into different parts of town.

“There would be stipulations on why they need to be at least 12 foot wide” Edge said. “Of course, they [those wanting singlewides] would have to follow all the rules and regulations that are in place.

Dating back to 2011, Edge said he tried to get singlewides allowed in more places but “it got shot down that night during the council meeting.”

It was mentioned by a resident that singlewide mobile homes should be allowed in different places because a lot of single people want to come in to the Kensett community and if they have kids, they would help improve school enrollment. Edge noted that the Kensett Elementary School has 103 fewer students than last year.

“I think this is a step forward to clean up town but also to be able to bring people here,” Phillips said. “We don’t have a lot of people moving into Kensett and I just think this is a good opportunity to open it up and maybe just open the door for people to move back here.”

RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – The Great American Conference will reveal the All-Decade teams for the 13 sports – football, women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross-country, volleyball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s tennis, softball, baseball and men’s and women’s golf. The league will also announce a “Program of the Decade” for the 13 sports. This award goes to the team that earned the most points and the highest percentage of points based on the league’s two All-Sports trophies. With its four GAC Championships, Harding was the GAC’s Team of the Decade for women’s cross-country.

At the prompting of a Searcy business owner, city officials are considering ways to prevent panhandling and littering in the city.

Kim Wyatt, owner of Kim’s Cutz, spoke about the issue at the Searcy City Council’s agenda meeting Thursday night.

“There’s a lot of people in our city who are really discouraged by the panhandling and the littering and no one really knows what to do about it,” she said.

According to Wyatt, there has been trash at the United Methodist Church’s parking lot at 304 N. Main St. for over two weeks due to “good citizens” giving food to panhandlers who don’t eat the food and leave the trash.

Wyatt said she has received several private messages from people who send pictures of the panhandlers at the bank with their money or buying lottery tickets and cigarettes.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Lyon College women’s basketball team has been one of the hottest teams in the country over the last month and is currently riding a 12-game winning streak. Standing at 14-1 on the season, the Scots shot up the rankings from No. 18 to No. 10 in the third NAIA Division I Women’s Basketball Coaches’ Top 25 Poll of the season, which was released by the national office on Wednesday. It is the first time the Scots have been ranked in the top-10 since the final poll of the 2016-17 was released on March 8, 2017.

Last summer, Beebe’s Bruce Jones found himself in a tug of war with a grizzly bear.

The national arm-wrestling champion said he got a call a little over a year ago and was asked if he wanted to be on The Discovery Channel’s new television series, “Man Vs Bear.” His response was “Sure, why not?”

Jones was flown to an area just outside of Park City, Utah, to be one of several contestants who would be pitted against one of three bears.

Jones enjoys a good competition, and the concept of the show “just sounded cool,” he said. “So I was all in.”

He added that he and the contestants alongside him didn’t know what they were getting into when they signed up for the first season of the show, which began airing in December

His experience on the show is “hard to explain,” he said, “because it’s almost unbelievable a little bit, but it was definitely really exciting to be a part of it. How many people are able to say that they competed against a grizzly bear?”