Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

So, what does a sports columnist do on a Razorback off-week, and when the Red Wolves also don’t play on Saturday but on a Tuesday night? Well, he could go to the UCA game with Lamar University in Conway at 6 p.m.

Or, before that, he could judge cheese dip.

This seems more like onetime Arkansas Gazette sports columnist Kelley Bass’ domain (though I did follow him at the Arkansas Times in heading up dining and entertainment pages), but I’ll get to join a group Saturday beginning at noon judging the World Cheese Dip Contest.

After moving the contest around from Dickey-Stephens Park to War Memorial Stadium and trying to hold it while cheese-dip lovers also watched the Hogs on a really big screen, John McClure and the other organizers chose the Razorbacks’ off weekend for the 2012 taste of Little Rock and Arkansas’ gift to the world. This year, the contest will be held outside the Clinton Presidential Center and the Clinton School of Public Service, just east of Interstate 30 downtown.

The winners will be presented their awards at 3:30 p.m. The event benefits Little Rock’s Harmony Health Clinic, a free healthcare provider for the uninsured and under-served.

After that’s all done and we’re stuffed on every variety of cheese dip and Velveeta is flowing out our ears, what’s a judge to do?

For me, it’s heading to Faulkner County for some Bears football and then a Webelos campout deep in the woods near Greenbrier with my 10-year-old.

I typically abhor Arkansas football open dates, especially in the middle of a Hog upswing, but not this year.

*  *  *

The Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame will be honoring two state coaching greats with Arkansas Razorbacks connections in coming weeks.

Harold Horton, a former Razorbacks player and coach and the recently retired executive director of the Razorback Foundation, will be feted with a special reception Friday, Oct. 26, from 6-8 p.m. at the hall of fame museum on the west side of Verizon Arena in North Little Rock.

The DeWitt native was a longtime assistant to Frank Broyles and coached for three years under Lou Holtz at Arkansas, but Horton’s coaching career reached its zenith in the mid-1980s when he led Central Arkansas to a pair of NAIA national championships and helped carve out the path that led the Bears to eventually move to NCAA Division I-A football.