By Steve Brawner. © 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

When Daniel Solis was eight-and-a-half years old, he told his dad he wanted to own an arcade someday. “Hold on,” his dad said, leaving the room and returning with a sketch pad, where the two drew out the plans. 

Now 55, Solis owns The Vortex Classic Arcade in Sherwood, featuring 230 vintage arcade games and pinball machines. PacMan, Ms. PacMan, Galaga, Frogger and Donkey Kong are all there. For $10 at the door, a visitor can enjoy unlimited play all day.

“We ended up with about 90% of what we drew, my father and I,” Solis said. 

Solis, the youngest of seven children from northern California, grew up preparing himself to own an arcade. Whenever he visited a place with a game, he’d try to talk to the person who knew something about it. He learned where to get parts. He saved two years to buy his first cabinet game and promptly ruined it by spilling a drink on its circuit board. His dad, Robert, bought him a different game.

“He died about 10 years before I was able to open it, so he didn’t get to see the end result,” Solis said of his dad. “But he always believed in me, and I think without that support from the second I told him what I wanted to do, I don’t think I would have made it.” Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner, © 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

When school board members and administrators have a question about school law or board policy, they ask Lucas Harder, Arkansas School Boards Association staff attorney. He’s a legal expert, and he’s legally blind. 

Harder’s ability to cite chapter and verse of a particular statute or piece of legislation has made him a trusted source of information and an object of awe for ASBA conference attendees.

Harder, 37, was born blind in his right eye with limited vision in his left. He could read regular-sized print at four inches and said he wasn’t really hindered. 

Then at age 13, he suffered a total retinal detachment that left him blind for nine weeks. Doctors removed his lens, which left him farsighted and substantially more limited. A membrane formed where his lens had been. Doctors removed it, but it returned. He became totally blind his high school senior year in October 2005. 

Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

My side of the family gathered in Wynne for our Christmas celebration Dec. 23. It was a wonderful time of gift exchanging, Papaw’s grilled steaks and Grandma’s cakes and pies. Five years ago, my wife, Melissa, and I had to skip it.

That was the year she was big and pregnant with our daughter, Hope, originally due around Christmas and ultimately greeting the world on January 10, 2020. We couldn’t risk traveling that Christmas, so we sent our older daughters, Mattie, then 18, and Abigail, then 15.

Hope was an unexpected blessing at an unexpected time. I was 50, and Melissa was 44. Our new daughter came into the world only a couple of weeks after my college roommate became a grandfather. In fact, many of my high school and college classmates have reached that stage. A few people who have seen Hope and me in public have commented about my “granddaughter” before I joyfully set them straight. It’s a great ice-breaker when I tell people that my daughters are 23, 20 and … four. I like adding that little pause. Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Christie Erwin did not know when she sat down in a rocking chair in January 1993 that her life was about to change, and that she would help reduce the number of foster children in Arkansas waiting to be adopted from 700 to 200. 

But she has, and that’s why she’s this columnist’s Arkansan of the year for 2024.

Erwin is the founder and executive director of Project Zero (www.theprojectzero.org). This year alone, that organization had helped connect 125 foster children with adoptive families as of November. Foster children are those the state removes from their homes because of neglect, abuse and/or unsafe conditions.

Project Zero, which she started in 2011, does this through an online Heart Gallery featuring photos and powerful videos that tell the kids’ stories, and through events like the Candyland Christmas December 7.

The latter brought 143 waiting kids and 48 prospective families to Little Rock’s Fellowship Bible Church for food, fun, gifts from 250 people, and, most importantly, a chance to connect. Last year’s event resulted in 17 adoptions. Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner

Christmas gatherings at my parents’ house are not to be missed between the gifts, the fellowship and mom’s desserts. Four years ago, three of us missed it.

Those would be my then-50-year-old self, my then-44-year-old wife, and my daughter, Hope, soon to be born. 

Melissa was due to give birth any day, and we couldn’t chance going into labor on the interstate. We three stayed home while our other daughters, Mattie and Abigail, went without us. They were 18 and 15.

I’ve shared Hope’s birth story before in this space, so here’s the abbreviated version. We spent the first part of 2019 as foster parents taking care of two sisters under two years old. We also sometimes took care of their under-three-year-old sister. We loved those girls, but the baby especially stole our hearts. She started crawling on our floor. 

Maybe those little ones put Melissa into a motherly way. She unexpectedly got pregnant, shocking us all. We named the baby Haven. 

The next few months were a whirlwind. We had a miscarriage. The foster children returned to their birth parents but soon would be permanently removed. They ended up in new homes – the two oldest in one, the baby in another nearby. Melissa unexpectedly got pregnant again, which we greeted with resignation believing another miscarriage would surely follow. In fact, she thought one was happening. But there was a heartbeat at the doctor’s office.

Which brings us to Jan. 10, 2020, when we welcomed Hope into the world.  Continue reading →