Entries - County: Craighead - Starting with A

African American Perspectives Northeast Arkansas

The quarterly African American Perspectives Northeast Arkansas magazine was established in Jonesboro (Craighead County) in 2007 by Diversified Publishing Company, LLC. Founding members of the publishing group included Drs. Lonnie R. Williams, George Grant, and Glen Jones, who were administrators at Arkansas State University (ASU), and community leaders, Everett Fair and Emma Agnew. Agnew served as editor for the first five years until Williams assumed a co-editing role during the last two years of publication, 2011–2013. Four seasonal issues were published each year, and content consisted of feature articles from various contributing writers as well as advertising. Standing columns included an African-American business directory, church directory, and calendar of events. According to its vision statement, Perspectives was created to uplift …

All American Red Heads

A nationally known women’s basketball team, the All American Red Heads formed in 1936 in Cassville, Missouri, with Connie Mack Olson as its founder and coach. Originally, the team, all sporting dyed or natural red hair, publicized Olson’s Beauty Parlors in Kansas and Missouri, and though later the team moved to Arkansas, they kept their name. The team became so popular with the sports’ crowds that the team hit the road and successfully challenged men’s teams with their trick shots, athletic ability, and “hijinks.” The Red Heads thrilled audiences all over the United States with behind-the-back shooting, back-hand passing, and athletic ability on the court. They played men’s teams using men’s rules and won seventy percent of their games. While …

Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies

Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies publishes creative and scholarly works focusing on the seven-state Mississippi Delta. It is assembled and published through the Department of English, Philosophy, and World Languages Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro (Craighead County). Each issue contains articles from several fields of study and offers literary, cultural, historical, geographical, and sociological perspectives on the Delta. It is published three times a year with a circulation of about 500. The Arkansas Review was originally the Kansas Quarterly (KQ), established in 1966 and published through Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas; but the journal ran out of funding in 1996. Kansas Quarterly originally focused on the culture and writing of the Midwest, but it became an …

Arkansas State University (ASU)

Arkansas State University (ASU) is the only four-year public university in northeastern Arkansas. While grounded in a heritage of service to the region, the influence and impact of ASU’s teaching and research extend throughout the state and nation. Arkansas State University had a humble beginning. On April 1, 1909, Governor George W. Donaghey signed Act 100, creating four district agricultural schools, culminating an initiative inspired by the Arkansas Farmers Union. On March 28, 1910, the trustees of the First District Agricultural School selected a farm just east of Jonesboro (Craighead County) as its location. Recruiting a leader to translate legislative authorization into educational reality, the trustees hired Victor C. Kays to be the school’s first principal. Although only twenty-eight, Kays …

Arkansas State University Museum

Arkansas State University Museum, located on the Arkansas State University campus in Jonesboro (Craighead County), is the largest and most comprehensive museum in northeastern Arkansas. It holds significant historic, archaeological, and natural history collections hailing primarily from Arkansas. The museum originated in 1933 under the name Arkansas State College Historical Museum—a creation of the Arkansas State College History Club. The fledgling museum mounted its first exhibits in four wooden cases in newly built Wilson Hall. In 1948, the museum was incorporated under the name Arkansas State Museum and Historic Library. Through the years, the museum expanded and retracted within Wilson Hall and found housing in temporary campus locations. In 1976, the museum was established in the west wing of the Dean …

Auburn, David

David Auburn is a Tony Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning American playwright, screenwriter, and director best known for his 2000 play Proof, which he also adapted for the screen, and for the screenplay for the film The Lake House. His play The Columnist opened on Broadway in 2012. David Auburn was born on November 30, 1969, in Chicago, Illinois, to Mark Auburn and Sandy K. Auburn. He grew up in Ohio and moved with his family to Arkansas in 1982, where his mother worked first for the East Arkansas Area Agency on Aging in Jonesboro (Craighead County) and then as the assistant deputy director of the Division of Aging and Adult Services for the Arkansas Department of Human Services in Little …