Worst Year
536. Fooled you, didn’t we?
No, Michael McCormick, a historian of the medieval period, told Scientific American that 536 takes the honors. “Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536,” the magazine said.
“A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night — for 18 months.” The cause was a volcanic eruption in Iceland. “Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2,300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved.”
Two more volcanic eruptions, in 540 and 547, followed, and then in 541 an outbreak of the bubonic plague, the Plague of Justinian, killed one-third to one-half of the eastern Roman Empire. And thus were the “Dark Ages” born.
Now, that article appeared in 2018, before the current troubles, but still, 2020 would have a ways to go to match some of those previously mentioned bad years.
Of course, 2020’s not over yet.
Best Relaxation of Rules
That might be the state’s decision to permit the delivery of alcohol after Gov. Asa Hutchinson declared a state of emergency on March 11 because of the pandemic. The retail liquor industry in Arkansas has said it will be asking the Legislature to allow delivery permanently. Liquor stores around the state and nation saw a surge in sales in the early days of the emergency.
Best Straight Talk
Walmart Inc. CEO Doug McMillon didn’t mince words when he spoke at the company’s virtual shareholders meeting.
The meeting, Walmart’s 50th, was held in June shortly after George Floyd was killed by a policeman kneeling on his neck in Minneapolis. It was held two days after Black Lives Matter protesters rallied in the Bentonville square, where the Walmart Museum is located.
“The killing of George Floyd is tragic, painful and unacceptable,” McMillon said in a prepared opening statement. “It is important that we all understand that our problems as a nation run much deeper than one horrible event. The pain we are feeling reminds us of the need to support each other and come together. Until we as a nation confront and address these hard realities, we will never achieve the best of what we can be.”
Walmart was later one of the many companies in northwest Arkansas that took the leadership pledge of the Northwest Arkansas Council, committing to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Worst Office Pool
The COVID-19 pandemic was hard on meat producers since the nature of the processing work at plants requires employees to work in close quarters for maximum efficiency.
When the pandemic began to affect a Tyson Foods pork processing facility in Waterloo, Iowa, a plant manager allegedly took a cynical view. A lawsuit filed by family members of workers who had died of the coronavirus alleged that plant manager Tom Hart started a betting pool on how many employees would become infected.
Tyson Foods responded quickly to the allegations, suspending Hart and other plant executives without pay and hiring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct an independent investigation which led to seven terminations.
“The commitment and passion that our team members exhibit every day is core to who we are at Tyson,” Tyson Foods CEO Dean Banks said. “We were very upset to learn of the behaviors found in the allegations, as we expect our leaders to treat all team members with the highest levels of respect and integrity.”
Best Exit
Dan Cushman retired as CEO of PAM Transport Services Inc. in May after 11 years at the Tontitown company.
When Cushman left the office for the last time, company employees lined the parking lot to give him a surprise send-off.
“That just punched my heart,” Cushman said. “Hoo. I can’t believe they did that.”
It wasn’t a surprise that the genial Cushman, 65, had endeared himself to his employees. When reached by Arkansas Business later that day, Cushman was already on a lake with a fishing pole in his hand, enjoying retirement.
“It’s time to relax,” Cushman said. “It has been a 40-year journey. I bleed PAM.”
Best Biking-Hiking News
The Walton Family Foundation coasted in with a $20 million matching grant to help fund completion of the 84.5-mile Delta Heritage Trail. The largest grant ever for Arkansas State Parks provides a momentum boost for the final 40.1 miles of the showcase biking-hiking trail.
Best New Industry Prospect
Standard Lithium of Vancouver, British Columbia, proved that it could sift lithium from south Arkansas’ underground waters and process it into top-grade material for making lithium-ion batteries. Its $10 million pilot plant in El Dorado helped Standard achieve “proof of concept” using the brine infrastructure of Lanxess AG, which mines bromine from the same waters. Standard also proved a refinement processing plant it expects to connect to the Arkansas facility to eventually serve the burgeoning electric vehicle market.
Worst Loss to El Dorado
The Lanxess news is especially welcome because Murphy Oil Corp. announced in May it was closing its 86,000-SF El Dorado headquarters and moving its 82 jobs to existing offices in Houston. Chairman Claiborne Deming cited an oil price collapse related to the pandemic and said the decision went hand in hand with cutting capital expenditures by 50% and executive pay by 22%. “The El Dorado office closure is particularly painful and difficult, because the company was founded here by C.H. Murphy Jr. and has been an integral and important part of the community for many years,” CEO Roger W. Jenkins said.
Best New Industry
Arkansas’ medical marijuana industry, which made its first sale in March 2019, had sold $190 million worth of cannabis at 31 licensed dispensaries. That’s nearly 29,000 pounds of marijuana, with the state continuing to add to its roster of dispensaries and cultivation sites. Arkansas voters approved medicinal weed in a 2016 statewide election.
Best News in News
Arkansas Business Publishing Group owner Mitch Bettis bought Scott Publishing of Fort Worth in November, snapping up a like-minded publisher catering to moneyed, educated and influential audiences. He also announced that the government had forgiven ABPG’s $824,600 Paycheck Protection Program loan, giving it financial flexibility heading into the deal. Former Tulsa World Publisher Gloria Fletcher will run the Texas operation, which publishes five titles.
Best Job Security in Newspapering
Eliza Gaines took over as managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in March, becoming the first woman to run the venerable paper’s newsroom. Her father, Walter Hussman Jr., is the paper’s publisher and chairman of its parent company, Wehco Media Inc. of Little Rock. The paper now prints papers for home delivery only on Sundays, offering digital subscriptions and iPads for readers to access the paper online.
Worst Quarterly Loss
Dillard’s Inc. of Little Rock reported a $162 million loss during its quarter that ended May 2, the worst in the retailer’s 81-year history. The company attributed the loss to the global pandemic.
Best News for Solar Power
The Arkansas Public Service Commission ended four years of wrangling over pricing rules for solar power in June, deciding to keep compensation high for solar electricity put back onto the electric grid. The ruling went against utilities seeking to give solar customers far less than the current rate they pay for the excess power through net metering, the system that credits the bills of customers with solar systems. The second-best news for renewable energy was the presidential election in November of Joe Biden, a green power supporter.
Best Disappearance
When a former in-house attorney sued Walmart Inc. earlier this year, several news outlets reported on it.
But when Arkansas Business checked in on Shane Perry’s case a couple months later, all traces had vanished from the Administrative Office of the Courts’ CourtConnect website. In fact, the docket sheet for the suit didn’t even pop up in Benton County Circuit Court, making it appear as if the case had never existed.
A clerk at the circuit clerk’s office said the case had been sealed and no information was to be released, including the name of the judge handling the dispute. Before the case was locked down, the public filings showed that attorneys for Walmart had requested that it be sealed because of the “sensitive nature of the information” in Perry’s complaint.
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