It took more than a fortnight, but Gov. Asa Hutchinson had reason to do "The Floss" after winning his second term in November. Frank Scott Jr. won his Battle Royale after Little Rock voters elected him as their mayor in December.
Worst Corporate Autopsy
The March 22 public release of the “Review of the Failure of Allied Bank” provided grim and puzzling insight on the demise of the former Bank of Mulberry 18 months earlier.
The 40-page report by the Office of Inspector General of the Federal Reserve System attributed the cause of death to mismanagement by the father-son team of Lex and Alex Golden.
Referred to only by their titles of “special assets officer” and “president,” the Goldens were criticized for their insider abuse and self-dealing as “dominate management officials,” along with their unsafe and unsound business practices.
Despite recommending removal, prohibition or civil money penalties against the Goldens, federal regulators and the State Bank Department allowed them to stay until the bank failed, costing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. almost $7 million.
Best Excuse for Committing a Crime
Donna Herring said she created a fake will because she thought she was doing what Matthew Seth Jacobs would have wanted.
Jacobs survived the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010 and had received sizable settlements before he died at age 34 in a one-car accident in January 2015. In her filing in U.S. District Court in El Dorado, Herring said that Jacobs had talked about his intentions to make sure her daughter, Jordan Alexandra Peterson, now 23, was “taken care of” should anything happen to him.
Herring pleaded guilty in January to a federal charge in connection with a scheme to create a fake will and is expected to be sentenced in 2019.
Worst Booze News (at Least for Liquor Store Owners)
Liquor stores throughout Arkansas have seen total sales fall an average of 5.5 percent since expanded sales of wine in grocery stores went into effect Oct. 1, 2017, according to a report released July 9. “The introduction of wine in grocery stores has impacted every liquor store in Arkansas,” said the report, by THEREinsights, a data analytics company based in Little Rock. “Overall, the average liquor store saw a total sales decrease of 5.5%.”
Best Booze News
Small-batch craft distillers are becoming a “thing” in Arkansas, with the revelation this year of plans for a number of them, including Delta Dirt Distillery in Helena-West Helena, Crystal Ridge Distillery in Hot Springs and Hot Springs Distilling, also, naturally, in the Spa City.
The Old Country Store at 455 Broadway Street in Hot Springs is being transformed into the new location for Crystal Ridge Distillery. Delta Dirt Distillery’s future plans include this location, left, in downtown Helena.
Worst Attorney
The now former attorney Matthew Henry waived indictment and pleaded guilty in September to wire fraud in U.S. District Court in Little Rock in connection with stealing more than $400,000 from a client.
Henry, who operated his Henry Firm in Little Rock, used his client’s money for business and personal expenses, according to the information sheet filed in federal court.
Henry, whose practice area included real estate, has a Feb. 20 sentencing date.
Best Uprising
Hundreds of pharmacists from around the state defied the fire code when they filled massive Room A of the Big Mac Building on the state Capitol grounds in February to demand regulation of pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen between health insurers and pharmacists.
It worked. The Arkansas Pharmacy Benefits Manager Licensure Act was enacted in a special session in March.
Worst Restaurant Management
After months of delays, the John Daly Steakhouse finally opened in Conway in September 2017, with hopes of becoming the flagship of a national chain.
But it couldn’t even survive to its first anniversary.
The restaurant closed in July, creating a tangle of legal issues for Conway businessman Sam McFadin, a founder of the restaurant, and the S.A.M. Group LLC, the company behind the steakhouse. The S.A.M. Group is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the minority owner of the group, Adam Waldron of Dardanelle, was sent to jail, where he stayed for more than two weeks on a civil contempt charge for making false statements in one of several collection lawsuits against the S.A.M. Group and the restaurant.
Worst Slow-Motion Crash
Little Rock’s One Bank & Trust concluded its nearly 61-year run as an ongoing enterprise where it operated for 24 consecutive quarters: in the red.
This summer, the $255.8 million-asset lender was folded into First National Bank of Paragould after operating seven years under supervision/control by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Best Sweetheart Deal
Bill and Carolyn Schwyhart enjoyed rent-free, utilities-paid living as caretakers of a grand 9,484-SF home in Rogers for nearly four years.
The curious arrangement ended in March when the Schwyharts moved to Texas after creditors came knocking and court action ensued over the mysterious ownership of the house.
The Schwyharts professed to not know much about the benefactor who gave them free rein over the residence they once owned outright. Creditors believe the couple, hidden by corporate veils and a daisy chain of lawyers, are the true owners of the manor in the gated Pinnacle Country Club development.
Worst Political Ad
“Girl, white Democrats will be lynching black folks again.”
That was a woman’s voice in a radio ad favoring U.S. Rep. French Hill and suggesting that a vote for his Democratic opponent would doom black men falsely accused of rape.
The ad was financed by a political action committee, Black Americans for the President’s Agenda, which wanted black voters to identify with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed despite an allegation of sexual assault in the 1980s.
Worst Defense Strategy
Milton R. “Rusty” Cranford, who ran a chain of mental health clinics and several lobbying firms at the same time, was arrested in February after an informant warned the FBI that Cranford was looking to hire a hit man to eliminate an associate who had pleaded guilty in an embezzlement and corruption case in Missouri.
At the time of his arrest, according to federal prosecutors, Cranford “possessed a 45-caliber derringer-style pistol, which was still in the box, and had in his backpack a large sum of cash, specifically, $17,700.00, all in one-hundred-dollar bills.”
What’s more, Cranford had “sought to liquidate assets” and “was living at a house belonging to an associate, to which he could not be connected by any public records.” He had also “altered his appearance by growing out and coloring his hair.”
Best Ongoing Legal Battle
The courtroom battle over the broadcast license of KMYA-TV, Channel 49, is heading toward its third year in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
The litigation among investors in the Soul of the South Network remains a roadblock to a would-be $2.7 million sale.
Exactly who owns/controls the license for the Little Rock station remains the crux of the dispute.
Best Video Memory
Donna Axum Whitworth’s comic shift from lofty soprano to earthy chanteuse in a video from the 1964 talent competition in Atlantic City that helped her become Arkansas’ first Miss America. Whitworth, an El Dorado banker’s daughter who became a longtime TV favorite in Little Rock and Texas, died in November at 76.
Best Tribute to a Reporter
“He is the only journalist I’ve ever known who I’m quite sure never made a single mistake, not even a transposed number,” columnist Ernest Dumas on his old Arkansas Gazette colleague Jerol Garrison. Known for his precision as a reporter and as director of communications for Arkansas Power & Light Co., Garrison died in September at 86.
Worst Taco Slogan Ever
“Oy vey, Mama, that’s a good taco!” Believe it or not, that was the tagline for ads planned by out-of-staters for the Fort Smith market decades ago when Dan Kirkpatrick of Kirkpatrick Creative was working a Taco Bell account there decades ago. He replied, “Have you ever been on Garrison Avenue in Fort Smith?”
Worst Zero-Calorie Beverage
Roger Williams of Energy Security Partners promises you’ll be able to drink the clean diesel fuel he hopes to brew from natural gas in a multibillion-dollar gas-to-liquid fuel plant on the drawing board for Jefferson County. “GTL diesel is nontoxic and biodegradable,” said Williams, the Little Rock development firm’s CEO. “You could even drink it, though I wouldn’t recommend it. It has no nutritional value.”
Best New IPO
New public companies based in Arkansas were a rarity during 2018.
The lone entrant was BSR, an $870 million-asset real estate investment trust headquartered in Little Rock that quietly made its debut as a public company by way of Canada.
Shares from the company’s $135 million initial public offering began trading May 18 on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: HOM.U).
The 13.5 million-share offering was used to shed $122.3 million of debt secured by BSR’s portfolio of 47 market-rate apartment projects.
Worst Delivery
USA Truck Inc. of Van Buren — now known as USAT Capacity Solutions — had a bugger of a time getting new tractors delivered to the company.
Company CEO James Reed said during a second-quarter earnings call in July that just 41 of 135 ordered tractors had arrived. By the end of the third quarter, that number had crept up to 245 of 350.
The reasons are original equipment manufacturers have a backlog of orders to fill and, incredibly, because of a lack of drivers able to deliver the trucks to USAT. Even Reed found it a little funny.
“[T]he most comical, but kind of infuriating for me, has been that there have been trucks available, but they — the OEMs — literally do not have drivers to deliver the trucks, which sounds crazy,” Reed said.
Best Lingering Bank Buy
The proposed acquisition of Community State Bank of Bradley is now at 18 months and counting. The disposition of the deal for the $15.7 million-asset Lafayette County lender is linked with another lingering item.
The bank’s parent company, Allcorp Inc., has spent nearly 2½ years in bankruptcy court. The move was directed by Allcorp’s largest shareholders: Lex and Alex Golden.
Worst Stock Report
In September, consulting firm Off Wall Street issued a low pricing recommendation of $35.95 for ArcBest Corp. in Fort Smith, after which the company stock price dropped 6 percent from $49.25. The company responded quickly — more to a follow-up report by StreetInsider.com that cited accounting problems — by saying there were no irregularities in ArcBest’s accounting. Later, company Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Fieweger called media reports “wrong and defamatory.”
And ArcBest’s stock? By Oct. 24, it had continued its plunge to $34.77 and has mostly remained below $40 since.
Best Easy Drive
America’s Car-Mart Inc. of Bentonville announced in January it was giving former CEO Hank Henderson a “special retirement bonus” of $1.1 million.
Henderson stepped down at the end of 2017 after 30 years with the company. He achieved a modicum of celebrity as the face and voice of Car-Mart’s “Drive Easy” commercials.
Henderson won’t be totally retired, of course, as he will receive $2,000 a month as a consultant from Car-Mart and $40,000 annually as a member of the company’s board of directors.
Drive easy, indeed.
Best Guilty Witness
U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks said he sentenced former state Rep. Micah Neal to home detention and probation — instead of as much as 135 months in federal prison — because of the help Neal provided in the prosecution of co-conspirators Jon Woods, Randell Shelton Jr. and Oren Paris III, all of whom were sentenced to prison.
“The court has never seen the level and extent of cooperation demonstrated by Mr. Neal in this case,” Brooks said. “Literally Mr. Neal’s cooperation is largely responsible for many of the indictments, guilty pleas and convictions. It has been pervasive.”
Worst Brand Question
“How do you pronounce that?” a restaurant server asked customers wearing the new Bank OZK logo on their shirts.
It’s O-Z-K, an homage to Bank of the Ozarks, the former name of the biggest bank headquartered in Arkansas.
Worst Hospital Bill
Izard County Medical Center received a letter from Computer Programs & Systems Inc. of Mobile, Alabama, saying the health care provider owed $606,407 on an outstanding balance and needed to pay it by 5 p.m. on Aug. 10. If the payment wasn’t received, the hospital wouldn’t have access to its patients’ electronic medical records, a development that would essentially close the hospital. Before the deadline, the 25-bed hospital filed a lawsuit in Izard County Circuit Court asking for an emergency restraining order to prevent CPSI and its wholly owned subsidiary, Healthland Inc., from pulling the plug on the electronic records. The hospital received the restraining order and the case is pending.
Best Parking Space
In what was an empty parking lot at North Little Rock’s McCain Mall, Tacos 4 Life opened this month and a Purple Cow, the Little Rock burger-and-milkshake chain, is under construction next door. The restaurants are leasing the space from Dillard’s Inc. of Little Rock, in what’s becoming a trend of malls using their vast parking areas for dining and entertainment venues.
Best Dog
The Benton Police Department shared in the $726,340 that was found in a 2016 Toyota Tacoma in July thanks to Rocko, the department’s drug-sniffing hound.
Rocko indicated the money was connected to drugs, but the three people in the truck all disclaimed ownership of the cash. So the property was seized. When no one came forward to claim the money, the federal government kept it. The police agencies that seize money usually end up getting to keep a portion of it.
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