AUG. 27 — SEPT. 2, 2008
It was a GOOD week for …
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. A 16-year-old Wynne boy confessed to setting fire to a kitten. The kitten was euthanized, the boy was charged under Arkansas’s toothless animal-cruelty law. Special-interest groups like the Farm Bureau and the Poultry Federation have blocked passage of a real animal-cruelty bill.
BARACK OBAMA. On a motion by Hillary Clinton, he was chosen as the Democratic presidential nominee “by acclamation” at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
NEIGHBORLINESS. Arkansas again provided shelter for people displaced by a hurricane, though the arrival of Gustav evacuees by medical airlift and bus was a great deal more orderly than the experience after Hurricane Katrina.
The PULASKI COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT. It seems likely to record its first enrollment increase in years thanks to a new elementary school in Chenal Valley, Little Rock’s prime growth area.
ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY. Its football team’s first outing under the Red Wolves insignia was a big one — an upset of Texas A&M at College Station.
BOBBY PETRINO. The new Hog coach is 1-0 after a win over Western Illinois. But for a last-minute touchdown, Petrino would have appeared in a different portion of this feature.
It was a BAD week for …
LU HARDIN. With taxpayers, professors and journalists calling for his scalp, the errant president of the University of Central Arkansas resigned. But it could have been a lot worse. The UCA Board of Trustees agreed to give Hardin a $700,000 buyout and almost a year of paid sabbatical.
CURRAN HALL. Thieves stole two copper downspouts, the second time in a month that the historic building in downtown Little Rock was hit by copper thieves.
The LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT. Still it dithers on moving forward on building middle school classrooms for the pent-up demand in western Little Rock.