Stories from Friday, July 3, 2015

Several organizations in Carroll County will be celebrating the Fourth of July this weekend. The Holiday Island Suburban Improvement District (HISID) will kick off the festivities with a pool party Friday, July 3, at the Holiday Island Recreation Center. The party will be held from 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., offering food, entertainment and door prizes. Tickets will cost $15 per person at the door, with free admission for children under 3...

If you live outside city limits in Carroll County and want to shoot fireworks on the Fourth of July, you're in luck. According to Carroll County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Maj. George Frye, shooting fireworks is not prohibited outside city limits in any way. The only time citizens living outside city limits cannot shoot fireworks, Frye said, is when a burn ban is in effect...

Less than a month into Mercy Hospital's Volunteens program, Anna Blach is impressed. Blach, a Green Forest High School graduate who will be a sophomore this fall at the University of Central Arkansas, said she has been pleasantly surprised by how exciting the program is. In the past three weeks, she said, she has had experience in the pharmacy department, the auxiliary board and the emergency room...

The Barna Group is a long-tenured research organization that tracks "spiritual indicators" and the role of faith within American culture. Barna maintains massive databases on everything from Americans' TV-viewing habits to weekly church attendance, and its data is used extensively...