News

It began to rain lightly at first. But from the dark clouds building to the northwest, I knew what was coming.

The 2024 December count of 153,423 mallards in the Arkansas Delta region was almost double the total from the same time last year but was still well below the 2009-2024 December long-term average in estimates made from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s December Aerial Survey, conducted Dec. 9-13.

The featured cat is a youngster named Enzo. He arrived late last September when he was found dumped near a couple’s home. He is about 7 months old now and is a very sweet black and white tuxedo. He is not too vocal and gets along with the others in the Cattery. We’re not sure how he is with dogs.

Edward Michael Freeman, 82, Bella Vista, November 13. A lifelong newspaperman, Freeman began his career at the Decatur Daily in Decatur, Alabama before becoming editor of The Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Journal in Montgomery, Alabama.

Jessie Elizabeth Christner Bain, 99, Hot Springs, September 30. A native of Flint, Michigan, Bain retired from The Sentinel-Record in Hot Springs, where she worked for many years in the advertising department.

Rose Clemmons Gladner, 60, Hot Springs, July 30. The wife of Arkansas Broadcasters Association Executive Director Neal Gladner, Gladner worked for nearly 30 years in sales, mainly in print and broadcast media.

June Biber Freeman, 95, Scottsdale, Arizona, July 4. The wife of Edmond Wroe Freeman, IIIinois, Freeman met her future husband as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. The couple then moved to Pine Bluff, where Edmond published the Pine Bluff Commercial with his brother. In the early 1960s, she led the effort to create the Little Firehouse Community Arts Center, which grew to become the Southeast Arkansas Arts and Science Center, the predecessor of the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas. From 1975 to 1980, she worked as director of state services for the Arkansas Arts Center, where she transformed a large van into a mobile art gallery for residents of small towns and rural areas. Freeman also wrote the “Artline” column in the Pine Bluff Commercial From 1986 to 1995.

News in 1978 and served as editor, photographer and co-publisher until 2005, when he sold the newspaper. In 2006 he joined the Texarkana Gazette as the Southwest Arkansas reporter and worked there until his retirement in May 2019.

Dixie Lee Williamson Martin, 86, Sherwood, October 26. Born in Bastrop, Lousiana, Martin held a degree in English from Louisiana Baptist College. A lifelong high school English and journalism teacher, she taught at Jacksonville High School early in her career and finished her career at Sylvan Hills High School, where she was the longtime faculty advisor to the student newspaper and yearbook staff. In addition to her duties at the high school she was invited to teach classes and workshops at UALR and Ball State University.