I went to high school on top of a cemetery. And if that isn’t creepy enough, there’s a tombstone in the basement and apparently we have a ghost. I graduated from Springfield High School in Illinois in 1971. The school was built on the old Hutchinson Cemetery. Most of the graves were moved to Oak Ridge, but apparently they didn’t get everybody. Human remains were found when the school was built in 1916. Then in 1983, workers digging for an elevator found a small tombstone. No name, just “Our Daughter” and “Cut down but not destroyed.” No remains were found with it, and that tombstone is still in the school basement. Somewhere along the way she became known as Rachel, the ghost of Springfield High. There have been stories for years about strange noises, cold spots and an elevator that opens by itself. When it does, you’re supposed to say, “Thanks, Rachel.” And apparently not everybody’s experience with Rachel is just a strange elevator. People at the school have said they’ve actually seen her, including one of the school resource officers. I spent four years walking those halls and Rachel never introduced herself to me. Now I’m back in Springfield for my 55th reunion, and I have to admit, I’m looking at my old high school a little differently. Rachel, if you’re still there, I think I’ll just let you stay in the basement.

Blessed and Good Sunday to all of you. Sunday morning seems like a good time to tell you about one of the most recognizable sights in Arkansas. High on Magnetic Mountain overlooking Eureka Springs stands the Christ of the Ozarks, a 67-foot-tall statue of Jesus that has been watching over these Ozark hills since 1966. And when I say big, I mean BIG. It stands about seven stories tall. You can see it from miles away in places around Eureka Springs, but there is something entirely different about standing at the foot of it and looking up. The statue is on the grounds of the Great Passion Play at 935 Passion Play Road in Eureka Springs. You do NOT have to attend the Passion Play to see it. Visiting the Christ of the Ozarks itself is free, and it is open to the public every day of the year. If you've never been, put it on your Arkansas list. Whether you go because of your faith, the history, or simply because you want to see one of Arkansas's most famous landmarks, it's worth seeing at least once. There's just something about seeing Jesus standing above those beautiful Ozark mountains that a photograph really can't capture.

On our way to dinner for our final high school reunion, 55 years after we graduated. I rarely come back to this town except for hs reunions, so tonight is bittersweet knowing I may never see some of these people again. Earlier we toured our old high school, now being gutted and rebuilt. Very little was recognizable except this mural which has been on the outside wall since the school opened in October 1917. My dad walked these same halls beginning in 1938. Lots of memories in that building. There’s a ghost in this high school and I will tell you that story tomorrow Hold your friends close you never know in the last time as you may see them.

So this 1932 Chevy Confederate Landeau Phaeton is another vehicle. I just saw that is going to travel 200 miles on route 66 for a old car convention. The owner said only 1600 of them were ever made. This one’s been completely redone with power steering.

Seymour’s big date in Springfield took a historical turn. He took his girl to see Abraham Lincoln, and naturally Seymour decided he needed to dress for the occasion. Stovepipe hat, Lincoln beard, the whole works. His date even showed up with her long dark hair. And yes, they stopped at Lincoln’s tomb, where there’s a long-standing tradition of rubbing the nose on Lincoln’s bronze bust for good luck. That nose has been rubbed so many times it shines bright gold. I’m pretty sure Seymour rubbed it. Probably twice. Once for himself and once to make sure he gets a second date. Nothing says romance quite like two rocks, Abraham Lincoln and a little borrowed luck.

Another true story today Imagine making it all the way through high school, being handed a diploma, and still not being able to read. I once taught a 29-year-old woman who had graduated from high school in Biloxi, Mississippi, even though her teachers knew she couldn’t read. When Barbara Bush was First Lady, one of the causes she championed was literacy. That inspired me to join Literacy Volunteers of America, where I was trained to teach adults to read. I eventually taught three adults, and it remains one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done. Teaching an adult to read is very different from teaching a child because adults who cannot read have usually spent years learning how to hide it. They learn to recognize pictures, signs, colors and other clues to get through everyday life. One of the excuses we were taught to recognize was someone saying they had forgotten their glasses when asked to read something in a store. Imagine spending your adult life constantly finding ways to keep people from discovering that you can’t read. That 29-year-old woman was one of my students. Another was an older gentleman who had grown up working in the cotton fields of Mississippi. His parents told him he didn’t need to learn to read because he was going to work in the cotton fields anyway. My third student was a woman who had grown up extremely poor in the Black community of the Mississippi Delta, where educational opportunities simply had not been available to her. I think about those three people from time to time because learning to read changed so much more for them than what was written on a page. Suddenly they could read a newspaper, fill out a form, understand a sign or read something in a store without making an excuse. They didn’t have to depend on somebody else or try to hide anymore. There was a freedom in that. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but knowing that I helped three adults learn to read is something I will always be proud of.

Charles Ducking, 76, is back as a guest at Grady’s Bed & Breakfast in Polk County, Florida. “Well, I can’t show you my driver’s license cause it’s suspended cause DUI. And I have been drinking a little bit right now. This here is my rum I’m drinking” -Ducking told PCSO Deputy.

Good evening everyone! This is post 69 in the Kansas history series, today’s story is a doozy. It’s on Dr. John Brinkley, who was infamous for a certain procedure that he practiced on patients that led to his nickname, “The goat gland doctor” (You have been warned 😅) Enjoy!

Good Saturday morning, y’all!!! Grab yourself a big mug of hot, black coffee! Today we’re taking a one-day break from Korea. September 19, 1949: The End of Montford Point Seven years earlier, the first Black Marine recruits had started arriving at a segregated training camp outside Camp Lejeune called Montford Point. More than 20,000 Marines would train there before it closed in 1949. Today, we’re going to talk about some of them! Semper Fi!

Hey hey Good Saturday to you all Do you like rice? You may know that Arkansas leads the nation in rice production but did you know why and how it got started? I just learned that Arkansas’s rice industry grew out of a hunting trip and one farmer willing to gamble on an idea. William H. Fuller of Carlisle saw rice growing in Louisiana and noticed how much the soil resembled Arkansas’s Grand Prairie. His first three-acre attempt in 1897 didn’t amount to much, so he went to Louisiana, learned how rice farming worked and came home to try again. In 1904, Fuller planted 70 acres and harvested 5,225 bushels more than enough to win a $1,000 challenge offered by Hazen businessmen. Other farmers took notice, and rice fields began spreading across eastern Arkansas. Arkansas went on to become the nation’s leading rice-producing state since 1973, and rice became our official state grain in 2007. All of that history traces back to a farmer who saw possibility in Arkansas soil where others saw pastureland.

🔥IMPORTANT THREAD!! YOU COULD BE NEXT!!🔥 The following shows the ACTUAL email that put my husband in federal prison for FOUR MONTHS in Miami with Peter Navarro. I will also include commentary from my husband, PLUS, the relief we are requesting. This is the best pathway for a remedy so that the Constitution can be restored (1st and 5th Amendments in particular) and further damage isnt built upon this tower of lies, slander and complete disregard for facts, truth or rule of law. I have been asked by so many folks -- How can I help? Repost. Quote Post. Send it to any decision maker you are in contact with. And DO NOT stop. I cannot thank you all enough for the steady stream of encouragement and prayers so many folks have sent our way. Truly. It is humbling and I am forever in your debt. Now, I need your help. Please. This abuse simply must end. REPOST. QUOTE POST. CONTACT. Thank you for your attention to this matter! 🙏 #JusticeForJack# @POTUS

So the people that I live around like to kill critters that are in the yards, they kill possums, foxes skunks, raccoons, rabbits, and armadillos, and they don’t eat any of them. They just killed them because they think they are nuisance. But these people literally moved to the Ozark national Forest so I don’t know why they’re killing what normally lives there. Anyway, my husband found an armadillo that had been shot and was dying. Apparently it was shot the other night when I heard 22 go off around 10 PM and had no idea that they had shot it and wounded it and it crawled into our flower bed in the front of our house to die. I mean either kill it right away and get rid of it. Don’t wound it and let it go die somewhere. That’s just mean it’s just damn mean. Why do people move to places and they want to get rid of the wildlife where they live? Can you please explain that to me?

Well, Seymour had a blind date at lunch today. One of my classmates who came for the reunion brought along her little girl rock, and apparently Seymour was smitten the minute he saw her. I have to give him credit. He was a perfect gentleman. He minded his manners, behaved himself, and even managed not to eat all the chips and salsa. For Seymour, that’s practically a marriage proposal. By the end of lunch, he was already making plans. He promised his new lady friend that tomorrow he’s taking her somewhere very important. He won’t tell her where. I know where. And I’m not telling either. Stay tuned.

My husband and I were out driving the back roads of Arkansas when we came across this little fellow tied to a fence line in rural Crawford County. Now, I’ve lived long enough to know that when you’re wandering around the Arkansas countryside, sometimes it’s better not to ask questions. We slowed down, looked at him, looked at each other, took this picture and kept driving. We don’t know who put him there or why they put him there. And I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what happens if somebody cuts him down. Arkansas is never boring,

Its the weekend! Good Saturday to all of you. You might know that Arkansas is known for being chicken country. My husband and I were talking, and I told him I thought I should do a post about how Arkansas became such a huge poultry state. I asked him, “Who started all of that here, Tyson?” He said, “No. Lane Poultry". His family is from Grannis, and his own grandmother was one of the first local farmers to raise chickens for Clift Lane. That stopped me in my tracks because, like most people, I had always heard the Arkansas poultry story told as though Tyson started everything. From rags to riches to bankruptcy to DOJ investigation. Around 1952, Clift and Dorothy Lane began processing chickens at their home in Grannis. They later bought the old railroad depot, added a rendering plant in 1962 and a hatchery in 1968. After acquiring Arkansas Valley Industries, Lane Poultry became one of the largest poultry companies in the state and a major employer across western Arkansas. Lane Poultry was hardly some little chicken operation in Grannis. Before financial trouble forced the company into Chapter 11 reorganization in 1982, Clift and Dorothy Lane had reportedly built one of the largest privately owned poultry companies in America, with 19 plants across six states and approximately 12,000 employees. What followed included years of bankruptcy litigation, congressional scrutiny and Department of Justice investigations, although the available record describes declined prosecutions rather than an actual DOJ prosecution. Tyson acquired Lane Processing in 1986, and that acquisition helped make Tyson the nation’s leading poultry processor. John Tyson certainly deserves his place in Arkansas history, but he didn’t build this state’s poultry industry by himself. Clift and Dorothy Lane and farm families like my husband’s belong in that history too. History usually remembers the name left on the building. It tends to forget the people whose names were taken often were the farmers who helped build the business in the first place.

Flashback Friday When I joined the Marine Corps, I was 5'4" and weighed a whopping 103 pounds soaking wet. I had never owned a girdle in my LIFE. Then I got to boot camp. Welcome to the United States Marine Corps, where apparently my 103-pound body needed to be sucked in and brought under control. We had to wear a girdle under our uniform, along with a slip. And yes, we wore pantyhose not stockings with those little garter attachments you see on older girdles. I remember thinking, exactly WHAT are we trying to hold in here? My internal organs? But regulations were regulations. You put that girdle on, pulled on the pantyhose, added the slip, got into uniform, and went about your business like wearing three layers of underwear was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And this was the SOUTH. In the HEAT. You were going to be properly dressed, properly pressed, properly covered and apparently properly compressed. Women Marines from my era will understand this one.