Opinion

I’m not a morning person. Never have been. While some people prefer to get up with — or even before — the chickens, my preference has always been to get up long after those noisy little devils have shut their little beaks and settled in the shade somewhere...

We celebrated Gideon’s birthday this past weekend, more than a week after his actual birthday which fell on the morning of my oral surgery. Yes, he drove me to and from surgery, picked up my prescriptions and took care of me on his birthday. I got a good one, folks...

After wisdom tooth removal, hard food offenses are considered especially heinous. In the Jones-Keas household, the starving patient who is recovering from oral surgery has become a member of the Soft Food Squad. This is her story. I should probably spare you the dramatics, but I haven’t had a cracker or even a crumb in six days. ...

“There will always be value in what we do.” A newspaper industry veteran who has been around the business even longer than my 30-plus years made that statement during a recent conversation about the future of the industry, and it’s absolutely true. A newspaper — even a weekly one — is a tremendous asset to a community, especially if it’s done right...

Editor’s Note: This column was originally published on May 30, 2017. It is one of my favorites, and its message is more important than ever. A s I write this column, it’s Memorial Day. Across Carroll County — and across the country — ceremonies are being held to honor and remember those men and women who gave their lives in military service...

Monday was Memorial Day, a day to remember those who served our country and made the ultimate sacrifice. It’s always had a special meaning for me, growing up as I did in the house of my grandfather, who taught me the meaning of this special day from a young age...

When many of you read this column, I will be sitting on the couch watching reality TV with four of my teeth missing. That’s right — I have my very first oral surgery on Wednesday morning. All four of my wisdom teeth will be removed, and I’ll be taking off most of the week to recover...

The Green Forest Tigers’ victory over Harding Academy in the championship game of the Class 3A boys state soccer tournament was a huge accomplishment for the team’s players and coaches, and for the community. It was also a big accomplishment for public schools...

Last week, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced he would be ending the state’s public health emergency declaration on May 30. There are any number of reasons why this could be the right move, but his stated reason for making the decision — that “Everybody in Arkansas knows what to do” — doesn’t resonate well with me...

School plays and chili cook-offs and Good Shepherd fundraisers. Lively city meetings and Citizen of the Week nominations and rarely wearing blazers. These are a few of my favorite things about being a small-town journalist, but none of that is as sweet as attending end-of-the-year school events such as award ceremonies and graduation...

This is being written with great urgency to answer the call of God to gather the people of our Eureka Springs to come together in unity as Americans who love their country and the freedoms that we each enjoy. We do not judge your choices that you have made for your life because it is one of your God-given freedoms. ...

Having spent more than 30 years in the newspaper business, I sometimes marvel at the way technology has changed the way we work. When I got my start, there were no digital cameras. Photographers actually used film and then developed it in a dark room...

Of the many tasks COVID-19 has changed or eliminated, I have missed in-person interviews the most. Specifically, in-person interviews with young people. Talking with our local kids is often the best part of my job, and it really fell by the wayside over the past year and a half...

Sunday was Mother’s Day, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t have anyone to call. There was no breakfast buffet, no presents to give, no social media posts to share.It was just another day, one that was — perhaps fittingly — gloomy and overcast...

Regular readers of this column may remember that I adopted a dog and cat, Ivy and Mago, a few months ago. Mago was a stray cat in the neighborhood where I bought a home last October. I took him in, in fact, before I even moved in myself. I named him after my favorite baseball player, Chicago Cubs shortstop Javier “El Mago” Baez...

Fellow cat owners know we don’t really own our felines. Those cats have us wrapped around their little paws. They know it and we know it. That was true when Gideon and I had four cats at home, and it’s even more evident now that we are a house of nine cats...

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.

Last Friday, Josh Duggar was charged with receiving and possessing material depicting the sexual abuse of children. Those of you who have been following the Duggar family were probably not that surprised, considering Josh’s previous transgressions. In 2015, a police report was released to the public describing how Josh molested several of his sisters and one girl outside of the family. ...

I keep three empty shotgun shell casings on my desk. For those who know me, that might seem a little strange, considering the fact that I’m not the first person anyone thinks of when discussing shooting sports. As one might expect, there’s a story behind those shells...

Credibility is everything for any news organization. Our customers, the people who read this newspaper, depend on us to provide information that is accurate and objective. That’s always our goal, but we’re human. Sometimes we make mistakes. Those mistakes often make me furious — at myself, most of the time — in the moment. After some time has passed, however, even I can sometimes see the humor...

Regular readers of this column know that my husband and I lost our 17-year-old orange tabby cat, BJ, in March. Many people advised us to take in another kitty so we could keep sharing the love we had for BJ. Well, we still had three cats and one of them is particularly ghoulish — hence his name, Ghoulie. We didn’t have any immediate plans to adopt a new kitty...

I am the parent of three kids who have spent countless hours on the A.L. Carter baseball and softball fields. I have worked concessions and raked fields myself at times.  The disrepair that this park has fallen into is ridiculous. While the Bobcat HS played on the fields I have repeatedly apologized to our visiting teams for the condition of the bathrooms. They literally had the same crap smeared on the wall for two years. ...

It was the fall of 2013 and I was in my senior year of college. So many of my peers already had jobs and grad schools lined up after graduation, so I felt pressured to do the same. That’s why I applied to Teach For America, an organization that places recent college graduates in teaching positions at low-income schools...

If there’s anything I love more than baseball, it’s my family. And when I get a chance to enjoy my family and baseball at the same time, that’s pretty much a perfect day. That’s the best way for me to describe last Saturday, which I spent at the ballpark in Sherwood watching my grandsons play...

Family is weird. It doesn’t matter what size. Big, small, blended, chosen — no matter how they’re put together, being part of a family can put you through the wringer, make you stronger, break you down or lift you up. Often at the same time. I come from a small family. Growing up, it was just my mom, her parents and myself. We were four people in a two-bedroom house...

It happened on Sunday. Gideon was working in his classroom so I cleaned the kitchen and swept the floors. Sweeping near the sliding glass doors, I saw a small black dot on the run. It was smaller than my smallest fingerprint, but that didn’t matter. It was a spider...

Netflix is ruining my sleep schedule. It’s getting a fair bit of help from Disney+, HBO Max, Prime and all the other streaming services. As I’ve written before, I watch a lot of television. A lot. My mother would say too much. Heck, your mother would likely say the same if she knew how much TV I watch...

I got caught in a weak moment. It was two weeks ago Tuesday and I was dropping off my faithful, reliable 2016 Toyota Corolla for an oil change. A salesman approached and asked if I was ready to trade her in. No, not really. She’d never given me a second of trouble except for needing a new battery just a couple weeks before. ...

Last week, I received a quarterly lifestyle subscription box. This box has blessed me with high-end skincare products, nice jewelry and loads of hair care in the past. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so blessed this time around. Pretty much everything in the box was useless or obviously cheap, like a cup in the shape of a cactus that Gideon inexplicably loves...

I have many opinions. I’m not afraid to share them. I try to make sure my opinions are formed by facts, but like everyone else, sometimes I get it wrong. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m also not scared to point out the fallacies in someone else’s opinion, especially if that opinion is counter to my own...

When I was a boy, one of the most effective punishments my mom used— when it was necessary, as it frequently was — was grounding me from watching University of Arkansas basketball games. That was in the early 1980s, after the “Triplets” days of Sidney Moncrief, Ron Brewer and Marvin Delph. My parents weren’t sports fans and so I became a fan a little later than some of my peers. But once I discovered the Razorbacks in the days of Darrell Walker and Scott Hastings, I was hooked...

Editor’s Note: Chris Claybaker is the economic development director for the city of Berryville. Dear Community and Business Leaders: The pandemic has caused such havoc in all our lives. We’ve seen friends and neighbors get sick, and some have died. Some of us have seen friends lose their jobs, and others struggle to keep their heads above water. ...

Saturday marked the official first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and although it snowed briefly in Berryville less than a week ago, the signs of spring are everywhere. The daffodils are blooming, pastures are green again, the branches on the willow tree in my front yard are no longer bare and the birds have discovered the new feeder on my back deck...

When you have a pet you love, it’s hard to accept that they’ll never live as long as you will. That’s a tough fact Gideon and I had to face last week when we put our sweet kitty BJ to sleep. I’m writing this on a Sunday — four days after we said goodbye — and tears keep falling down my cheeks...