25 Jan 2015 A heart for the 501
While geography, job and family may keep some from living in Central Arkansas, they still have a heart for the 501.
“Over the years we have heard interesting stories about individuals who grew up and/or were educated in Central Arkansas but who have gone on to do great and wonderful things in other parts of the country and even across the world,” said 501 LIFE editor/publisher Sonja J. Keith. “In this month’s cover story, we take a closer look at some of those individuals and the impact they are having on others.
“While geography may separate us, we still share that affection for the 501.”
Dr. Wesley Burks
City: Chapel Hill, N.C.
Education: Conway High School and the University of Central Arkansas.
Job: Chair, department of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina and physician-in-chief at North Carolina Children’s Hospital for three years.
How often do you return to the 501: Three to four times per year.
What do you enjoy most about your 501 visits: Seeing our family and friends who still live in Conway and Little Rock, flying over and then driving across the Arkansas River bridges, seeing the Arkansas license plates on automobiles and getting an Icee in Riverdale.
What do you miss most about the 501: Our family and friends.
Martin W. Shell
City: Palo Alto/Los Altos, Calif., for the last 16 years.
Education: Conway High School, 1976; Hendrix College, 1980.
Job: Vice president for development at Stanford University, 2005-current; associate vice president for development at Stanford, 2003-05; senior associate dean and chief operating officer; Stanford University School of Law, 1998-2003.
How often do you return to the 501: “Not often enough,” my mother would say. With that caveat, I do try to get back to Arkansas three to five times a year.
What do you enjoy most about 501 visits: Stoby’s; Mike’s Place; walking through the magnificent Hendrix campus; marveling at the effectiveness of Conway’s traffic roundabouts; spending time on Greers Ferry Lake; and catching up with friends and classmates from “back in the day.”
What do you miss most about the 501: Home has always been a sense of place. Early in my childhood, we lived on Simms Street. I miss walking early in the mornings along the quiet, lovely and leafy streets of “old” Conway. When I am back in Conway now and time allows, I still try to do that again.
I will forever miss the Gist maple tree (Caldwell and Center streets), although it appears that some younger maples are doing their best to put on a similar autumn color show. I miss thunderstorms (it doesn’t rain that often in the San Francisco Bay area and we rarely get thunder). But, I DO NOT miss tornadoes!
I also still love and miss that old metal Conway Wampus Cat statue that was situated in the middle of the pods in what was then the “new” Conway High School. I miss how reasonable the utility rates are from the Conway Corporation. I still miss the Log Cabin Democrat — particularly from the days when the newspaper office was located on Oak Street and the team working there was dedicated to delivering the finest possible local news coverage to the citizens of Conway and Faulkner County. I also miss watching the sunset over Sugarloaf Mountain on Greers Ferry Lake after a long and fun day of boating.
More information: For me, home is a sense of place. It has been nearly 25 years since I lived in Conway but there remains a spot — a sense — a location and therefore a foundation all of which were key to my development, maturation and contributed to whatever successes I have enjoyed in life. That likely will always be the case. While Conway has dramatically changed in those intervening 2.5 decades, I continue to find reminders of that grounding on every visit back to Arkansas. For those of us raised in the 501, that will always feel like home.
Daniel Omotosho Black
City: Atlanta, since 1984.
Education: Morrilton High School (1984); Clark College (1988, bachelor’s in English); Oxford University (1987, study abroad); Temple University (1990, master’s degree in African American Studies); Temple University (1993, Ph.D. in African American Studies).
Job: Professor of English, Clark Atlanta University (1993-2003); professor of African American Studies, Clark Atlanta University (2004-present).
How often do you return to the 501: Anywhere from two to three times a year.
What do you enjoy most about your 501 visits: I enjoy seeing family and friends; the resurgence of childhood memories; the rural, southern rhythm of life; fishing with my folks; the rustic, Arkansas landscape.
What do you miss most about the 501: I suppose I miss the same things I love.
More information: I’m proud to be
a son of the state, and more specifically, a son of Blackwell. Rural, southern life is rich with folklore and spirituality, which most never experience. There is character in the South; there is creativity in the South; there is complexity in the South, which others often overlook.
Priscilla Riedel-Cohan
City: Houston, Texas, since 2004.
Education: Rose Bud High School (1985); University of Central Arkansas, BSE in home economics in May 1989; master’s in family and consumer sciences/nutrition emphasis in December 2000.
Job: School nutrition consulting dietitian in Texas since 1992. Eleven years in state employment with Region 8 Education Service Center in Mount Pleasant; 12 years in private employment with my own business of PriDe Performance Consulting, LLC.
How often do you return to the 501: Three to four times per year.
What do you enjoy most about your 501 visits: Family, familiar places and good friends who treat me like I never left!
What do you miss most about the 501: The change of seasons.
More information: My family has deep roots in the 501. My grandfather farmed in Quitman, where my family still maintains a homestead. My father was Teddy Riedel (1937-2014), the musician and piano technician who toured throughout Central Arkansas playing rockabilly music and maintaining pianos for others to enjoy. He and his musician friends will forever be remembered in the new Arkansas Rock ‘n Roll Highway 67 Museum being established in Newport. Many in the 501 will no doubt know of him.
I finished 12 years of school in Rose Bud and am forever a supporter of rural education. I credit much of my success in life to those exceptional educators I had at Rose Bud Public Schools.
My mother is a retired homemaker and continues to live at the farm in Quitman. My brother, Daniel, lives in Cabot and works at First Electric. My son, Mark Lester, lives in Colorado Springs, Colo. My husband, Steven, is a native Houstonian.
Will Patterson
City: Hermosa Beach, Calif., since September.
Education: Conway High School and the University of Arkansas (2013).
Job: I coordinate and manage all public relations for the Los Angeles D-Fenders, the NBA Development League affiliate of the Lakers. I also work all home Lakers games and coordinate special projects for Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak.
What do you enjoy most about your 501 visits: Central Arkansas will always be home and I get back as much as possible. My mom is from Carlisle and my dad is from Luxora. My Arkansas roots are very, very important to me and I couldn’t be more proud of where I’m from. Getting to spend time with my family and friends is obviously most important in my visits, but there’s just something special about Arkansas.
How often do you return to the 501: I usually manage a trip home during the holidays and sometime during the summer. This year, I was fortunate enough to come home for four days during Christmas.
What do you miss most about the 501: The people and the places (Shorty’s, Stoby’s, etc.) are unique; it’s unlike any place I’ve ever been. The welcoming spirit and friendly nature of people are things I overlooked and didn’t appreciate as a kid. I try to get out in nature whenever I’m back. I always manage to get a few duck hunts in with my family in Lonoke County during the holidays.
Hadrian N. Hatfield
City: Maryland, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. for 20-plus years.
Education: St. Joseph through high school; University of Central Arkansas – B.A., 1980; Vanderbilt – juris doctorate, 1983.
Job: Family law attorney, partner at Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker, P.A., the last five years.
How often do you return to the 501: Three to four times per year.
What do you enjoy most about your 501 visits: Seeing friends and family; seeing how Conway has evolved; pilgrimages to Walmart(s).
What do you miss most about the 501: The easy, less stressful lifestyle, and being close to friends and family.
More information: Had Conway been 30 years ago what it is today, I might never have left! It has undergone an amazing transformation, and combines many sophisticated urban elements and gourmet shopping, with the same down-home closeness to the outdoors and emphasis on local activities and business it always had. Let’s keep it a secret, lest it grow too much too fast!
Daniel Torres
City: Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The Lord Jesus called me here as a missionary more than three years ago. I was born in Puerto Rico but was raised in New York City where I graduated from high school. I first connected with Arkansas back in 1975 when I joined the Air Force. In the early 1990s, I moved to Searcy and from there I moved to the mission field when the Lord sent me.
How often do you return to the 501: I try to return to Searcy for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s and a few more times during the year. But that hardly happens. A couple of years ago I had a stretch of 11 months that I never set foot in Arkansas.
Juarez sits just across the border from El Paso, Texas. When I first received the call to move here, Juarez had the not-so-envious title of “The Most Dangerous City In The World.” This part of the world is mostly desert land, which is the opposite of the spectrum from the vegetation and greenery that I loved and enjoyed in Searcy.
What do you miss most about the 501: Apart from missing my three daughters constantly, along with friends from church and friends at Wal-Mart Warehouse #18 where I worked for 18 years, I miss the beauty of the trees, the hills, the mountains and the lakes in the 501 area.
I miss riding my motorcycle on highways where I had forests on both sides of me. And there’s hardly anything as beautiful as the fall time in the 501 area. Combine that with a motorcycle ride and you have a recipe for a delightful and breathtaking day.
Sharon Daves
City: New Delhi, India (2.5 years).
Education: Trumann High School; BSE in Family and Consumer Sciences from the University of Central Arkansas; master’s in public health from the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Job: Deputy director, Global Disease Detection Program; usually in New Delhi but currently in Freetown, Sierra Leone, for two months as the deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control’s Ebola response.
How often do you return to the 501: I try to get home at least two times a year.
What do you enjoy most about your visits to the 501: Spending time with family and friends and enjoying mom’s cooking.
What do you miss most about the 501: The beauty of it. As Dorothy says, “There’s no place like home.”
Clay Parker
City: Kigali, Rwanda.
Education: Vilonia High School; BBA and MBA from the University of Central Arkansas.
Job: CEO of Rwanda Trading Company (two years with company, one year in current role).
Although I’ve been with my current company for two years, I have actually lived and worked in Rwanda for four years.
How often do you return to the 501: I come back to Central Arkansas two to three times a year for a visit and some work (our parent company, Westrock Coffee, is headquarted in Little Rock).
What do you enjoy most about your 501 visits: The best thing about visiting is seeing family and friends and eating at all my favorite local spots. I love running into old faces around town and getting a few minutes to catch up.
In the four years that I have been gone from Central Arkansas, it has been incredible to see how much development has taken place. It seems like every time I come back there are significant changes, particularly in Conway/Vilonia, where I grew up. I love seeing the progress and putting it into the perspective of where I live in East Africa. They are surprisingly similar in some ways, just at two very different stages in the lifecycle.
What do you miss most about the 501: The food and live music are probably the things I miss the most about being home. As you can imagine, the traditional fare where I live is very different from the southern cuisine you find in the 501. I enjoy it, but it’s always good to come home to what I grew up eating. I travel a lot, and have experienced a significant amount of unique culture throughout the world. I’ve really grown to appreciate the food, the music scene and the sense of community and hospitality that is second nature in Central Arkansas.
