Tag Archives: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies

Red, Blue and Brownbag – Election Analysis by Jay Barth at the Old State House today at noon

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Barth, Jay- 2012(2)As the season of Red States and Blue States gives way to Red & Green Christmas decorations, the Old State House Museum offers a final chance for post-election analysis today as part of the Brown Bag lecture series.  The program will take place at noon today.

Dr. Jay Barth will present a wrap-up of the recent elections in Arkansas, and provide an analysis of how they may affect local, state, and national politics moving forward. Dr. Barth is the M.E. and Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of Politics at Hendrix College, and has long followed the trends of the Arkansas electorate.  His political analysis has been featured locally, regionally and nationally.

He is the 2014 recipient of the Diane Blair Award for Outstanding Achievement in Politics and Government from the Southern Political Science Association.  In 2008, he received a Butler Center Fellowship, The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.  He is the author, with Diane Blair of the 2nd edition of Arkansas Politics and Government: Do the People Rule?

History of Arkansas State Fair focus of December Legacies & Lunch at noon

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ark state fairThis month’s Legacies & Lunch program focuses on the Arkansas State Fair.

Numerous state fairs and livestock shows have been held in Arkansas since the 1860s.  The Arkansas Livestock Show Association has existed for 75 years. While early fairs promoted agriculture and tourism, these events struggled financially.  Following the social upheaval caused by the Great Depression, a group of businessmen, farmers and educators led by oilman T. H. Barton envisioned a new Arkansas economy not dependent on cotton farming.

Deb Crow, museum and archive director for the Arkansas State Fair, and Dr. Jim Ross, professor of history at UALR ,will share details about the fair’s rich history, including rare photographs.

Legacies & Lunch is a monthly program of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a division of the Central Arkansas Library System.  The program, sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council, takes place at 12 noon.  This month’s program will be at the Darragh Center of the main library.

Tonight at Ron Robinson – Big Piph and Tomorrow Maybe perform

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bigpiph2Big Piph, an emcee formerly known as “Epiphany,” and Tomorrow Maybe, a full band including female vocalists, will perform an innovative hip hop concert at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater on Friday, November 21, at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $15, general admission, and available online or at Butler Center Galleries, 401 President Clinton Ave.

Big Piph has performed with artists such as T.I., Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, and Ne-Yo. Lindsey Millar of the Arkansas Times has described Big Piph’s style as “existential hip-hop that you’d want to party to.” Big Piph & Tomorrow Maybe play a unique fusion of funk, soul, and rock with a hip-hop foundation. They are currently crafting an “unplugged” EP, and Big Piph is heading up a fundraiser for Global Kids Arkansas to offer educational and hands-on experiences in foreign policy and global initiative to high school students in at-risk communities.

The concert is the latest in the Arkansas Sounds music series. Arkansas Sounds is a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System. Focused on Arkansas music and musicians both past and present, Arkansas Sounds presents concerts, workshops, and other events to showcase Arkansas’s musical culture.

Noon today, the Clinton School and Butler Center’s Legacies & Lunch present Justice Troy Poteete, executive director of the National Trail of Tears Association

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PoteeteToday at noon, the Clinton School Speaker Series and the Butler Center’s Legacies & Lunch jointly present a program.  Justice Troy Poteete, executive director of the National Trail of Tears Association will speak at the Ron Robinson Theater.

Troy Poteete was appointed to the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court by Chief Chad Smith in 2007 and is the executive director of the National Trail of Tears Association, an organization he helped found. Justice Poteete also founded the Historical Society in Webbers Falls, Okla., served as executive director of the Cherokee Nation Historical Society, and was a delegate to the Cherokee Nation Constitutional Convention. In 2000, Justice Poteete was appointed executive director of the Arkansas Riverbed Authority, a tribal entity jointly created by the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee Nations to administer their interests in the 96-mile section of the Arkansas River between Muskogee, Okla. and Fort Smith, Ark.

The Trail of Tears was actually several trails.  Little Rock is one of the only cities (if not the only city) that members of all six relocated tribes passed through.  Little Rock’s emerging merchant class benefited from the relocation efforts as the Federal government paid for goods and services in Little Rock.

Tonight at the Ron Robinson Theater – Arkansas Sounds presents the Lyon College Pipe Band

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pipe_bandThe Arkansas Sounds monthly concert series continues with a performance by the Lyon College Pipe Band at the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Ave., on Friday, October 24, at 7 p.m. The doors to the theater will open at 6 p.m. Admission to this concert is free and open to the public; seating is first-come, first-served.

Under the direction of Pipe Major Jimmy Bell, the Lyon College Pipe Band regularly performs at official college functions such as convocations and other ceremonies, in community parades, in concerts around the state of Arkansas, and at festivals throughout the United States and abroad. The pipe band competed at the 2006 World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, and won in its division. The group also won at competitions in 2013 at Sarasota, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, and it is currently placed at 12th in the world in its division.

Arkansas Sounds is a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies focusing on Arkansas music and musicians both past and present. For more information, call 501-918-3033.

On the First of October learn about the First woman elected to the U.S. Senate (Hint: she is from Arkansas)

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legaciesArkansas’s Hattie Caraway, the first woman elected to serve in the U.S. Senate, is the topic of Dr. Nancy Hendricks’ talk at Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center’s monthly history lecture, on Wednesday, October 1, at noon in the Main Library’s Darragh Center. Copies of Hendricks’ book, Hattie Caraway: An Arkansas Legacy, will be available for sale; Hendricks will sign books after her talk.

Nancy Hendricks is the noted Hattie Caraway scholar and award-winning writer of the book Senator Hattie Caraway: An Arkansas Legacy and the play Miz Caraway and the Kingfish. She has previously been featured at the Arkansas Literary Festival.

Hattie Caraway served in the U.S. Senate from December 9, 1931 – January 3, 1945. She was appointed to as a placeholder following the death of her husband, Senator Thaddeus Caraway.  In early 1932, she was supported in her bid to be elected to complete the remainder of this term.  However, it was expected she would not seek election in November 1932 for a full term. She did, shocking the Democratic Party establishment in Arkansas.  She won that term due in part to the campaigning of populist hero Senator Huey Long of Louisiana.  In 1938, she was challenged in her bid for re-election by Rep. John L. McClellan.  She defeated him (though he would go on to win the other Senate seat in the future and serve until his death in the 1970s).  In 1944, she lost her bid for a third term to J. William Fulbright.

Tonight at Ron Robinson Theatre: Suzy Bogguss presented by Arkansas Sounds

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suzy_bogguss

Tonight at 7pm on the stage of the CALS Ron Robinson Theatre, Arkansas Sounds features Suzy Bogguss.

A frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion, she is a singer and songwriter who has received awards from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. She has recorded platinum gold albums and has been nominated for a Grammy Award. Bogguss has collaborated with such artists as Chet Atkins, Alison Krauss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. In her latest album, Lucky, Bogguss shares her interpretations of songs by Merle Haggard.

Tickets are $25, general admission, and are available online, using the button above, and from Butler Center Galleries, 401 President Clinton Avenue. The theater’s entrance may be accessed from the Main Library’s parking lot, 100 Rock Street. Tickets purchased online will not be mailed. They will be available for pick up in the lobby of the Ron Robinson Theater one hour prior to showtime.