Opinion

Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the Notre Dame commencement ceremony on Sunday, and several students silently walked out in protest. Some disagreed with the Trump administration’s actions. Some disagreed with the sentiment behind Pence’s speech. No matter their reason, they all had a right to do what they did...

If all goes according to plan — and that’s a mighty big “IF” — this weekend I will be in attendance at two high school graduations. These are decidedly important ceremonies for me and my family. They are for my two oldest sons: Blayze and Bryce McBrayer...

This past Sunday, Gideon and I visited his mom in Fayetteville to celebrate Mother’s Day. We played a game of Catan, drank coffee and talked for a few hours before heading back to Eureka Springs. It was a nice day, but I couldn’t help but miss my mom...

A longtime friend of mine says there are only two kinds of real music: Country and Western. His pun aside, there is plenty of what might be labeled “country music” out there today, though most of it is just drivel with an Oklahoma accent. “Western music,” however, is a bit more difficult to locate. It has become almost extinct in the mainstream, though in the niche market there remains some outstanding talent...

Sunday is Mother’s Day. For some of you readers, it will be a day to celebrate and honor your mothers by spending some time with them. There will be flowers, special meals and time spent together. For others, and for me, it will be a day to remember the mothers that we can’t spend the day with — we’ll celebrate and honor our moms, too, but we’ll have to do it more quietly, in our hearts...

On Christmas Day of last year, the German city of Augsburg ordered the evacuation of 50,000 of its citizens. It was the largest such evacuation in the country since World War II. This wasn’t precipitated by a chemical leak or a terrorist attack, but it was the result of a bomb — a very large, old bomb — an unexploded ordnance weighing more than a ton...

This past weekend, our little community was hit by a series of storms so strong that some roads were still blocked off on Monday morning. The rain was relentless and never-ending, pouring down fast enough to create one of the largest floods Carroll County has ever seen. Several cars were lost in the flood, and one local woman lost her life. She was only 24...

In the legendary “Cheers” sitcom of the 1980s, there is an episode where Norm (played by George Wendt) walks into the bar and is greeted by the always cheerful Woody Harrelson. From behind the bar Woody asks, “How’s it going, Mr. Peterson?” Norm, trudging along to his usual barstool, answers cynically, “It’s a dog eat dog world, Woody, and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear.”...

“Well, it’s cancer.” That’s the message I received a few weeks ago from a dear friend. She had feared as much, and I had tried to reassure her that everything would be OK. In the wake of the diagnosis, I asked if there was anything I could do to help. ...

The contemporary environmental movement began 47 years ago this weekend: April 22, 1970, with the first observance of “Earth Day.” It was a synergistic event that involved people like activist John McConnell and Sen. Gaylord Nelson. They were able to tap into the “countercultural” movement of the time in an effort to protect the planet...

At the beginning of my freshman year of college, I had quite a few friends. I was dating a senior, so most of my friendships were built in before I moved into the dorm. It’s always a good idea to pick your own friends. If I had realized that then, I might have graduated from college with more than three of them...

Floyd Collins, a legendary spelunker from Kentucky, crawled into a dark, wet, cavern known as Sand Cave on a cold January morning in 1925. As the entrepreneur who had put the Mammoth Cave system on the tourist map, he was after his next commercial conquest...

Earlier this year, I was accosted by a man in a van on White Street. He stopped the van, turned the music way up and started singing along to “Suspicious Minds.” When the song was over, he addressed me. “You’re so young I bet you don’t even know who Elvis is!” he laughed. With that, he drove away...

For four decades, Eunice Pike was a missionary to the Mazatecs, an aboriginal people in southwestern Mexico. She had not lived long among them when she noticed that no one in their villages ever sent anyone else well wishes. It was a strange cultural anomaly: The Mazatec people, though living together, shared extremely little with one another. ...

Sunday caps off the weekend, so it’s not usually my favorite day of the week. It means Monday is on the horizon and those glorious two days of binging Netflix are almost over. As you can tell, I’m not the kind of person who does much during the weekend. Some people, like my mother, look at the weekend as an opportunity to catch up on errands...

The precise origins of “April Fools’ Day” cannot be known. Maybe it began as some sort of pagan festival, or it was the result of the Catholic church switching up the calendar in the 1500s. Either way, for the last three centuries it has been the favorite holiday of every prank-pulling clown and jokester around (In the age of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” I’m sure the tomfoolery has only gotten easier)...

Dear Editor, My husband and I decided to take a day trip from Branson to Eureka Springs last Wednesday. We both have been there many times since we were kids. I found a little bookstore downtown and never pass up an opportunity to visit a bookstore, so of course I went inside. It was Gazebo Books, which I assumed is an independently owned bookstore...

A parable is told about a man who asked God to show him the difference between heaven and hell. So God led the man to two doors. The first was opened to reveal a room with a large round table. A pot of delicious soup sat in the center of the table, but the people sitting there were like skeletons...

Two years ago on a lazy Saturday, I started watching Survivor: Caramoan. It was the latest season added to Hulu, and I hadn’t watched the show since Tina Wesson dominated in the Australian Outback. I remembered enjoying it. I had a full day to do whatever I wanted. It made sense to waste it by watching what I later found to be one of the lowest-rated seasons of Survivor...

I grew up as a die-hard Arkansas Razorbacks fan — especially when it came to Arkansas basketball. My parents weren’t sports fans, so I didn’t get introduced to sports as early as a lot of my peers. I had to discover them for myself, which happened around the time I was 10 years old...

“You have two ears and one mouth, so listen twice as much as you speak.” My father recited this proverb to me more than a few times as I was growing up (Along with the snarky, “Children should be never heard and rarely seen.”). I can’t say that I fully heeded his lesson: I make a living by speaking, writing and spouting words...

Sometime in 2009, my mom had a really bad day. She quit her job after working more than a decade at the same company, and her supposed close friend weaseled her way into my mom’s position. This all happened in one day, but it had been building up for quite some time...

When I was in the seventh grade, my social studies teacher read Homer’s “Odyssey” to our class over the course of a semester. That sprawling chronicle was a gift to my 13-year-old self, and my more-than-four-decades-old self remains enthralled with all the characters of the Greek imagination...

This Thursday, the monthly fundraising event Cocktails for a Cause will benefit The Purple Flower, a local nonprofit close to my heart. If you’re a regular reader of this column, you know why The Purple Flower is so important to me. After all, it is the only domestic violence resource center in Carroll County...

Show me a newspaper reporter who’s been in this business for a few years, and I’ll show you a cynical, skeptical individual who thinks they’ve seen it all. It takes a bit of toughness to cover some stories, and not everyone is cut out for it. I would like to think that I’m tough enough to cover any story that’s put in front of me. ...

Dear Residents and Home Owners of Holiday Island, and all H.I. board members: I believe it’s time to give serious thought to the protection of our homes. We are not ignorant concerning the weather change, increasing summer heat and tornadoes. A strike of lightning, one careless or intentional match, could set Holiday Island ablaze, destroying most of the homes! ...

A farmhand went out every morning to lead his cows from the barn to the fields. Every evening he would gather them back into the barn. One evening, as he tied the cows up for the night, the boy found that one of them was missing her rope. It was too late to go buy a new one, too dark to find the missing one, and he was afraid she would run away during the night...

Working in the public eye has its perks. You get to know tons of different people, some who share your views and some who don’t. Either way, you come to understand the world a little bit more. You might also get recognized at the grocery store, which is an experience I can’t seem to get used to...