Buddy Jewell is a country musician best known for having won the top prize in the first season of the reality television show Nashville Star, which landed him a recording contract with Columbia Records. His first major-label album, Buddy Jewell, reached gold-record status after being released in July 2003. Later projects have not been as successful as his debut, but he continues to make music and record in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2015, Jewell was inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame. Buddy Jewell was born on April 2, 1961, in Lepanto (Poinsett County), the second of three children born to Leslie L. “Buddy” Jewell, a native of Louisiana, and Eva Lorene Harris, a native of Arkansas. For a time, the …
The Judd Hill Plantation in Poinsett County has epitomized the evolution of agriculture in that portion of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, or Delta, during the twentieth century. Changes there in the land, economy, and labor force have reflected those throughout the region. The Judd Hill Plantation received its name from its founder, Orange Judd (O. J.) Hill, a wealthy Kansas City, Missouri, banker and businessman. Hill bought the 5,800-acre tract south of Trumann (Poinsett County) in 1925 as a source of wood for his barrel-making operation in Springfield, Missouri. Even after the purchase, Hill continued to spend most of his time in Kansas City with his wife, Lina, and their adopted daughter, Esther Jane. In 1930, Hill persuaded Esther and …