November 8, 2010

On October 7, 2002, Governor Mike Huckabee announced that the design submitted for the new state quarter by Dortha Scott of Mount Ida (Montgomery County) had been selected as the winner of the statewide contest that had received 9,320 entries. The U.S. Treasury Department announced in 1997 that fifty state quarters would be minted and released at a rate of five a year for the next ten years. The contest for the Arkansas design began in January 2001 and closed on March 31. Scott, who was awarded $1,000 for her design, was present when the quarter, the twenty-fifth in the series, was officially released at a ceremony in Murfreesboro (Pike County) on October 20, 2003. A total of 457,800,000 were minted and released by the U.S. Treasury Department.