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Arkansas Business 30th Anniversary

Kevin Lewis used his bogus bonds as collateral in 2007 to buy this $1.2 million, 6,700-SF home in west Little Rock. (Photo by Jason Burt)
Business Services / Insurance / Investments

Process Server Relates ‘Look of Terror’ on Face of Bond Scammer Kevin Lewis

Kevin Lewis wasn’t a high-profile guy until he started attracting lawsuits and the attention of federal investigators in connection with allegations of bank fraud involving multiple lenders. The day-to-day whereabouts of Lewis might be as enigmatic as the man, but Andy Myers can tell you where Lewis was on Feb. 3. That’s the day he caught up with Lewis at his parents’ home in Searcy. read more >
State Rep. Jay Bradford, D-Pine Bluff, has switched houses but not sides in the “any willing provider” debate. (Photo by Michael Pirnique)
Business Services / Government & Politics / Health Care

‘Any Willing Provider’ Bill Returns, This Time Without Wilson Off to Races

A bill that has occupied lawyers for a full decade might have been a mere blip in the state’s long legislative history had Nick Wilson, the powerful and ultimately disgraced state senator from Pocahontas, not been so eager to get to the horse races on one particular day in February 1995. read more >
Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and president of Wehco Media.
Media & Marketing

10 Years After the War: Is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Really ‘The Best of Both’?

On Oct. 19, 1991, the newly christened Arkansas Democrat-Gazette landed on doorsteps and in the newspaper boxes of the state’s new media landscape. Having whipped its nemesis, the Democrat-Gazette pushed ahead, working to take in advertising dollars left homeless when the Gazette collapsed and selling the mantra, “The Best of Both.” read more >
Arnold Mayersohn, left, chairman of the  board of Sterling Stores Inc., with company co-founder Dave Grundfest Sr. and President Dave Grundfest Jr. in 1971, eight years before a plane crash marked the beginning of the end.
Media & Marketing / Public Companies / Retail

1979 Crash Hurried Magic Mart’s End

It’s easy to forget now, but Wal-Mart wasn’t always the dominant discount retailer in the world. As late as 1979, the Bentonville chain arguably wasn’t even the dominant Arkansas discounter. That effectively changed the morning of Friday, Dec. 21, 1979, when a Cessna 421 twin-engine plane carrying three vice presidents of Sterling Stores Inc. slammed into a fog-covered hill 4 miles southwest of Locust Grove, near Batesville. read more >
Millionairess Melanie Steele’s last real estate purchase was this house at 3 Cantrell Road, which she purchased in July 2001 for $335,000. (Photo by Mark Wilson) | Originally published in Arkansas Business on April 10, 2000.
Insurance / Investments / Legal

Who is Melanie Steele… And Why Is She Buying All This Stuff?

Since the beginning of the year, Melanie Steele has paid $1 million for a home in Chenal Valley; $385,000 for a house in Canal Pointe and $92,000 for the lot next door; $357,500 for a house in the Lakewood section of North Little Rock; and $80,000 for a house that she then moved off its lot in Indian Hills. All in cash. read more >
In June 1997, a man walked into the Conway office of Spirit Mobile Homes and kidnapped Johnny Allison. “It changed my whole complexion on life,” Allison said. “My calendar was booked that week and I had lots of things to do, and suddenly nothing was important.” The wife of Allison’s friend Alex Lieblong, inset, had previously been kidnapped by Slack.
Banking & Finance / Business Services / Legal

Kidnapped! Johnny Allison Describes Shocking Incident That Changed His Life

Johnny Allison, the manufactured-home magnate who apparently was kidnapped June 5 by escaped convict James Avery Slack and escaped by crashing his car into a dump truck, spoke to Arkansas Business about the ordeal after returning home to Conway last week. read more >
Arkansas Business Editor Gwen Moritz, photographed by Andrew Kilgore, 2014. Inset: an advertisement for Hot Springs National Park from a 1985 issue of Arkansas Business, photographer unknown.
Agriculture & Poultry / Banking & Finance / Business Services

Flashbacks of Arkansas Business’ First 30 Years (Editor’s Note)

To celebrate Arkansas Business’ 30th anniversary, the staff decided to pull out and reprint some of the stories that we felt were the most important, the most interesting and the most fun. Arkansas Business is still reporting on the state economic scene with business executives as its readership, sticking to its mission of providing the revealing, memorable and important business news available in Arkansas. read more >
The late Dr. Stacey Johnson of Mountain Home (inset) once owned and practiced at this medical building, where the alleged Medicare fraud occurred.
Business Services / Government & Politics / Health Care

Signs of $14.7 Million Medicare Fraud from Mountain Home Doctor Date Back for Years

If Dr. Stacey M. Johnson of Mountain Home had not died earlier this year at 63, he likely would have been charged with overbilling Medicare by $14.7 million, according to a criminal investigator’s affidavit that was recently made public. read more >
This giant silver tree by sculptor Roxy Paine sits at the entrance to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by Alice Walton (inset) in Bentonville. (Photo of Crystal Bridges by Michael Pirnique)
Education / Investments / Media & Marketing

An Interview with Alice Walton: Crystal Bridges An Expression of Love

Articles about Alice Walton and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art have tended to focus on big numbers: an $800 million endowment, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of artwork, 200,000 SF of museum space, 250,000 visitors expected to visit the Bentonville showplace yearly. What the stories haven’t done is explain why Walton, the only daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, chose art as her way to give not just to northwest Arkansas but to the entire world. read more >
Government & Politics / Insurance / Investments

International Swindle Guts Old Southwest

A sham transfer gutted the reserves of the four-decades-old Old Southwest of Jacksonville and made Arkansas a minor player in a scandal that has broadened to include $350 million in missing insurance assets, ensnared Catholic charities tied to the Vatican and spawned an international manhunt. read more >
Starbucks on Kavanaugh Boulevard in Little Rock is one of the places displaying a flier seeking missing CDI Contractors executive John Glasgow. (Photo by Michael Pirnique)
Business Services / Construction / Investments

John Glasgow to Dillard’s: ‘Call Off the Dogs’

The relationship between the management of CDI Contractors LLC of Little Rock and half-owner Dillard’s Inc. was under tremendous stress in the days before CDI’s chief financial officer disappeared on Jan. 28. read more >
Banking & Finance / Business Services / Health Care

M. David Howell’s Debts May Total $60 Million

M. David Howell, the former bank CEO in Little Rock and Fayetteville who died in a Beverly Hills hotel on Oct. 23, may have received $60 million or more from investors to whom he promised exorbitant returns, sources have told Arkansas Business. read more >
A golden Aztec motif was one of several fantastic designs being considered by Arkansas Casino Corp.
Business Services / Construction / Energy

Despite Name, Arkansas Casino Corp. Operator Closely Tied to Texas, Idaho

As an officer of Arkansas Casino Corp., the Dallas civil trial attorney feared that what happened in 1998 would happen again. That year, the company failed to round up enough signatures to put an initiative before the voters that would allow it to operate six casinos in Arkansas as well as pave the way for a state-run lottery and legalize charitable bingo. read more >
Senior project manager Art Hunkele: “We’re going to look back and recall that there was a problem, but we solved it.”
Business Services / Construction / Insurance

6-Inch Error in Laying Concrete Puts Alltel Arena Project Behind Schedule

Construction on Alltel Arena is more than a month behind schedule because of an error in geometric calculations by the concrete contractor, the senior project manager for the $53 million construction job says. read more >
Construction / Government & Politics / Investments

Oily Deals: Pattern Emerging in Questionable Arkoma Gas Transactions

Jerry Jones has always pleaded innocent in the controversial 1982 Arkla-Arkoma gas deal, a deal worth at least $174.8 million when the final numbers were tallied last fall. This January, a ratepayers’ class-action suit declared the deal an insider’s rip-off for Arkansas gas consumers who got stuck with an $80 million overcharge bill that went straight into Jones’ bulging bank account. read more >
George Gleason II was barely in his 30s when he was featured on the cover of Arkansas Business. (Photo by Andrew Kilgore)
Banking & Finance / Business Services / Investments

George Gleason II: The Wizard of Ozark Bankshares

When a restless George Gleason II turned his energies from securities law at the Rose Law Firm toward banking, he also met the familiar face of success. Working with business veteran Carl Holt and a young staff, he built the Bank of Ozark with 35 employees and total assets of $28 million into today’s Ozark Bankshares Inc., with more than 100 employees and assets totaling $150 million. read more >
The Other Center Cinema 13 in North Little Rock was part of Tony Rand’s crumbling business empire back in 1989
Legal / Media & Marketing / Retail

Tony Rand’s First Fraud

Before he began a oil fraud with his sons that culminated with a 2009 indictment, Tony Rand churned $17 million through his Rand Theatres operation to feed his family’s taste for the good life. read more >
Business Services / Energy / Legal

Former Theater Owner Tony Rand, Five Sons Guilty of $110 Million in Scams

A nearly seven-year stretch in prison apparently served only to inspire a vastly larger interstate scheme from Texas. This gambit involved Tony Rand, now 70, and his five sons swindling hundreds of oil and gas investors of more than $110 million. Some suspect their schemes at times resembled a plot line in a zany 1968 movie “The Producers.” read more >
A plaque at Gibbs International Magnet School in Little Rock in memory of Suzanne Markle, who was murdered by her father, along with her mother and sister, in November 1987.
Business Services / Investments / Legal

15 Years Later, Shocking Markle Murder-Suicide Case Fades From View

But as the 15th anniversary of the deaths of John, Christina, Amy and Suzanne Markle nears, the only lingering attention comes from a handful of conspiracy theorists who insinuate — but never quite allege — that Bill Clinton or Jack and Witt Stephens may have been involved in the annihilation of the prosperous Little Rock family. read more >
George Gleason II has grown Bank of the Ozarks from $165 million in assets to $6.3 billion (including a pending acquisition) since he was first photographed by Andrew Kilgore in 1987 (inset).
Agriculture & Poultry / Banking & Finance / Business Services

Andrew Kilgore: Portraits in Black and White

Beginning with the last issue of 1984 and continuing into 1988, Andrew Kilgore photographed business legends and up-and-comers for the cover of Arkansas Business. read more >