News

Small, big, heard of, or never heard of. I want to share with you some upcoming holidays and tell you a few tidbits about them.

Cotter School Board members were honored with a Certificate of Appreciation and thank you cards from the Kindergarten and First Grade classes at its regular meeting Thursday, January 19. Cotter School District Board of Education members are elected to shoulder important district decisions to ensure students’ success.

Do you remember the old game show “I’ve Got A Secret?” Someone would come on and the celebrity panelists would try to guess what that person’s big secret was. Well, I’m going to tell you a secret and you wouldn’t guess it in a million years so don’t even try. This is one that not another living soul knows. In fact, I’m pretty sure my mom was the only other person who ever knew. I didn’t keep it a secret intentionally. In fact, as most of you know, I’m pretty much an open book. No, I kept this secret in the safest place possible. Forgotten in my memory! Until last week, that is. And I still can’t remember what triggered it for me, but here it is. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be Jean Marshall when I grew up. At the time, many little girls wanted to be movie stars or teachers or nurses or beauticians or any number of other dreams. Me? I wanted to be Jean Marshall, at least for a period of my childhood. Unless you lived in Flippin in the 1950s, 60s, and/or 70s, you may not know who Jean was. Jean was City Recorder for Flippin for several years back then. She and her husband, Karl, had a small jewelry/watch repair shop on the south side of Main Street, I’m thinking in the space that is now Frederic’s Salon. Back then, the Recorder didn’t work at City Hall, so Jean conducted city business out of their shop. Mostly, at least that I was aware of, Jean was who you went to see to pay your water bill. There may have been (and likely were) other duties involved, but the water bills were what I recall. And one very distinct memory I have is that she kept the payment stubs, cash, checks, etc. in a cigar box! For some reason, I was enamored with that cardboard cigar box. I don’t know if it was because of the contents or just because I thought it was a cool box with a lid that flipped up and everything! Hey, I’ve always been pretty easily entertained. Jean was also something of a local historian and, if you read the History of Marion County

Since September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, let’s talk to you about this often-misunderstood disease. Did you know that one in eight American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime? There are almost 3.1 million men living with prostate cancer in the United States.

Boost the flavor and nutritional value of winter meals by growing a container of greens indoors. Plant, tend and harvest greens for garden-fresh flavor now and throughout the year.

Some of the earliest settlers of Marion County are remembered in the book Shades of Black and White. Author, Marie Wagner, was invited to speak at the recent MLK event in Harrison last week. She shared some of the stories of the earliest non-native inhabitants of our areas.