Cross County’s creatures of character

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

How does a public school reinforce character traits like humility and integrity without wading into the culture wars or crossing into parental territory? The Cross County Elementary Technology Academy may have figured it out.

Located about 45 minutes south of Jonesboro, CCETA weaves seven such values into its daily learning activities. 

“The way we think of it is, character education is not something else on your teacher’s plate,” said Kathryn Pruiett, the school district’s character education master teacher. “It is the plate that everything else rests on.”

Superintendent Dr. Nathan Morris decided years ago that the school district needed to be more intentional about teaching character along with academics. A committee started determining what that would look like at the elementary school. The school surveyed teachers and parents about the values the community wanted to instill. 

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A $40 trillion debt party?

By Steve Brawner

© 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The national debt reached a new milestone last month. Did anybody notice? 

Maybe a party would help.

Sam Sicard, president and CEO of First National Bank of Fort Smith, offered that suggestion in a text message Tuesday. 

The day before, the national debt had reached $37 trillion.

Sicard, who has tried to call attention to the issue for years, texted, “Let’s plan a ‘Hit $40 trillion’ party for next year.”

He was being sarcastic about planning a party, but not about the concept. 

“Bottom line is we need to find ways to grab voters’ attention, and parody of the recklessness is another approach,” he wrote. Continue reading →

One Ph.D’s dent in plastic pollution problem

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

You probably don’t need another huge global problem to worry about. At least Shannon Speir is doing something about this one. 

Speir recently helped lead a study of how microplastics travel through streams, and how storms affect that process. She’s a Ph.D. and assistant professor of water quality in the University of Arkansas’ Topsoil and Environmental Sciences Department.

Plastics pollution may or may not be on your radar screen when there are so many other big, potentially terrible things happening. But it’s a very real problem nonetheless. 

The world is producing hundreds of millions of tons of plastic each year, and it doesn’t biodegrade. Instead, it slowly disintegrates over many years into microplastics and smaller nanoplastics. These get into the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe.

As a result, these tiny plastics particles exist throughout our bodies. They get into our bloodstreams. They travel through a pregnant woman’s umbilical cord into her unborn baby. One recent study led by the University of New Mexico found that the microplastics found in deceased people’s brain tissue had increased by 50% from 2016 to 2024, and that people who had been diagnosed with dementia had more plastic than people who hadn’t.  Continue reading →

Loss of family farm leads Shoffner to challenge Sen. Cotton

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

Hallie Shoffner, a sixth generation farmer, quit farming this year after she created six different spreadsheets and realized that, in this agriculture economy, there was no scenario where she could turn a profit. Faced with that prospect, she sold the operation and instead is campaigning for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Tom Cotton.

Shoffner officially launched her campaign as a Democrat for the 2026 election Tuesday. Dan Whitfield, who unsuccessfully sought the party’s nomination in 2022, has also said he is running.

Shoffner, 37, grew up on her family farm near Newport and spent the last nine years running the operation. She raised rice, soybeans, cotton, corn and grain sorghum. The married mother of a six-year-old also is the founder and owner of Delta Harvest. That’s a business that connects small- and midsize farmers such as specialty rice growers with food buyers. Her experience losing her farm is a big part of her campaign.

“We are living in a time in which hard work does not mean a good life anymore because we live in an economy that’s rigged against real people,” she said. “We live in an economy that helps corporations and politicians, and that does not work for real Arkansans. And as a sixth-generation farmer who knows what that’s like, if I can’t farm, I’m going to fight for the people of Arkansas.” Continue reading →

Blytheville now U.S. home to Cold War’s story

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

For Americans over age 45, our childhoods were defined in part by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. We grew up knowing the next war could destroy the world, and it could happen with the press of a button.

Now Blytheville is becoming the central place to remember that era as the home of the National Cold War Center.

The center still has a long way to go from being constructed, but it’s making progress. Dr. Christian Ostermann, the new executive director, said it has raised $7 million of the initial goal of $75 million. It soon will start a major fundraising campaign. Continue reading →