2002: Year of Recession and Resilience

The year started with the nation still in shock after the terrorist attacks of September 11. The Christmas season of 2001 was abysmal as far as retailers were concerned because shoppers were preoccupied with war and worry.

Northwest Arkansas weathered the economic turmoil better than the rest of the nation. We are home to the world’s largest company, which is also the world’s largest discounter, and people were in the mood for a discount.

Wal-Mart’s sales increased steadily throughout the year, and so with the “bell cow” followed the rest of the two-county area. Here are some of the best and worst events that transpired during 2002:

Best Stock Performance

Brass Eagle Inc. of Bentonville saw its stock jump 144 percent during 2002 from $4 to $9.75 per share as of early December. The company, formerly part of Daisy Manufacturing Co., makes paintball guns and other extreme sports products.

America’s Car-Mart Inc. of Bentonville had a 146 percent increase in its stock price, from $5 to $12.30, but the company was part of Crown Group Inc. of Texas a year ago, so that disqualified it from our attempt at an apples-to-apples comparison. Founded in Rogers in 1981, America’s Car-Mart relocated its headquarters to Bentonville this past summer.

Honorable mention: Local trucking companies P.A.M. Transportation Services Inc. of Tontitown saw a 100 percent increase in stock price, from $10 to $20 per share, and J.B. Hunt Transport Service Inc. of Lowell saw its stock price jump by 76 percent during 2002 from $17 to $30 per share.

Worst Stock Performance

Golf Entertainment Inc. wins this one hands down. The Springdale’s company’s stock dropped by 99.96 percent from 25 cents per share to 0.01 cent per share.

The nearest competitor from businesses that didn’t have their trading suspended by the Arkansas Securities Department was Cannon Express Inc. of Springdale. The trucking company saw its stock tank from $1.15 to 25 cents per share, a 78 percent slide.

Best P.R.

A Fort Smith company has moved into first place for the best corporate public relations. We’re not sure, but that may be because Arkansas Best Corp. is in a smaller market and not as bombarded with media inquiries as the folks up the Boston Mountains.

But for whatever reason, Arkansas Best spokesman David Humphrey is the “cat’s meow” when it comes to working well with the media. When Humphrey says he’s going to do something, he does it. He doesn’t sigh heavily upon hearing a tough question from a journalist, and he’s always fair. Most importantly, he treats reporters like professionals.

Second place is a three-way tie from the medical field: Terri Kirkland at Northwest Medical Center of Washington County in Springdale and both Chip Paris at St. Edward’s Mercy Hospital in Fort Smith and his Rogers counterpart, Steve Voyak at St. Mary’s Hospital, are always super.

University of Arkansas Sports Information Director Kevin Trainor is also top notch.

Worst P.R.

Brass Eagle is the least media accessible company in Northwest Arkansas, and that’s a mouthful. We think it’s because we maintain that one of their products — which uses a trigger mechanism to fire balls of paint at a high velocity — is a paintball “gun” instead of a paintball “marker.”

Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville is often slow to respond to media inquiries.

And a quick notice to the office managers/P.R. staffs at local real estate companies: Any agents or firms who believe they will qualify for our list of the area’s top companies and agents this spring have until March 1 to submit the customary data.

If you have not submitted your 2002 sales data by that time, you will be mentioned by name under this heading next December.

Best Departure

Randy Zurcher, one of the more controversial members of the Fayetteville City Council, moved to California to be with his significant other. (Zurcher won by a technicality since Nolan Richardson has yet to move. He’s probably not been able to get down the street what with traffic blocked by all those army tanks that arrived upon his firing, as Nolan guaranteed they would.)

Worst Departure

Dean Cannon resigned as president of Cannon Express Inc., the Springdale trucking company he founded in 1981. He was the most accessible and one of the nicest executives we’ve ever met.

Net losses for two of the last three years, however, were his undoing.

Worst Eyesore

Tie: Fayetteville’s Dickson Street while the sidewalk renovation is under way and Thompson Street in Springdale.

Best Employee Growth

ThompsonMurray, the Springdale marketing firm, has gone from 18 employees when it was founded in 1999 to more than 100. The company’s biggest client is Procter & Gamble. CEO Andy Murray must pamper his employees.

Most Deserved CEO Salary

Robert Weaver, president and CEO of P.A.M. Transportation, was underpaid in 2002 at $519,310 as far as we’re concerned. For the third quarter alone, revenues were up 2.12 percent, insurance claims were down and the firm was twice as profitable as in the same 2001 quarter.

Best SSales Staff/s

Twin Rivers Group Inc. of Fayetteville, a poultry processing and trading firm, and diversified poultry company Peterson Industries Inc. of Decatur recorded the largest year-over-year sales growth among the top 20 largest private companies in the area.

Twin Rivers’ sales increased 46 percent to $100 million, and Peterson’s jumped 33 percent to about $150 million.

Best Realtor

For the fifth consecutive year, Meza Harris of Lindsey & Associates in Rogers was Northwest Arkansas’ top real estate agent. She had $24.7 million in sales in 2001.

Lindsey & Associates, headquartered in Fayetteville, had $312 million in sales, which put it at the top of area agencies.

Worst Format Change

KKEG, 92.1 FM, jarred the cup of coffee out of our hands when it went from “classic rock” to “alternative” on Nov. 22.

Sure, we were tired of classic rock. Who isn’t? But this “alternative” music sounds more like heavy metal noise to us. It won’t appeal to anybody over the age of 30. Oh well, that’s the demographic Cumulus Media is shooting for, and they don’t put dials on radios for nothing.

Best Newscast Improvement

NBC 24/51, KPOM/KFAA, has done a heck of a job since it came back on the air in the summer of 2000 after an eight-year hiatus.

In addition to the personnel, we like the graphics and background (exposed bricks, television monitors and logo). We were even entertained a bit by the three pregnant anchorwomen this fall.

We’d like to say thanks to Griffin Holdings of Oklahoma for pumping more than $5 million into Northwest Arkansas’ NBC television station.

Best Creative Promo

Ed Knight, owner of two Penguin Ed’s BBQ restaurants in Fayetteville, paid $2,500 for a 6-foot-tall fiberglass penguin that was painted by Kathy Thompson of Fayetteville and put on display as part of Tulsa’s “Penguins on Parade.”

The penguin will eventually reside at Knight’s restaurant on Mission Boulevard.

Best Victory

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. over Kmart Corp. in the battle of the discounters. (Kmart filed in January 2002 for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.) Followed closely by the Arkansas Razorbacks victory over LSU on Nov. 30 in the final nine seconds of the game with a 31-yard touchdown pass from Matt Jones to DeCori Birmingham.

rags-to-riches quote

“We moved into an abandoned sharecropper’s house on the bayou. People gave us pots and pans so we could re-establish life a little bit,” said Doyle Z. Williams, dean of the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business, recalling a fire that destroyed his family’s home during his childhood in Louisiana.

Best Sports Year Rally

About mid-football season, we had penciled in the Razorbacks to have the “worst year in sports” moniker bestowed upon them.

Former UA basketball Coach Nolan Richardson staged a one-man production of “March Madness” when he called the UA a racist institution but didin’t offer any supporting evidence of such a claim. His firing was overdue, and the negative national publicity he created for Arkansas was a rabid bite to the hand that fed him millions.

Richardson also left the talent cupboard fairly bare, although that’s been a yearly event for some time.

Athletic Director Frank Broyles has been ill this year, and the passing of long-time sports writer Orville Henry and Associate Athletic Director Emeritus Wilson Matthews made the year a somber one.

Good guys Norm DeBriyn, the UA’s longtime baseball coach, retired in June, and Associate Athletic Director Katie Hill left for Clemson. Then more news about the NCAA’s ongoing investigation of the program resurfaced in August.

After a 29-17 football loss to Kentucky that dropped the Hogs’ record to 3-3 in October, it would have been easy to simply coast out the year.

But the Razorbacks showed a lot of moxie to fight back to the SEC Championship game. And new basketball Coach Stan Heath has since introduced an innovative concept to UA hoops — rebounding.

Best Renovation Project

The UA’s 93-year-old Carnall Hall has been empty for more than a decade.

We’d like to say thanks to the UA and Carnall Inn Development Co. LLC, which includes James Lambeth, Rob Merry-Ship, Richard Alexander, Ted and Leslie Belden, and Miles James.

They’re spearheading the $7.1 million project to convert the second-oldest building on the UA campus into The Inn at Carnall Hall.

Construction is expected to be completed by July 4.

Worst Employee Retention

The weekly “Business Matters” section of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette lost three reporters this year. That’s 60 percent of its reporting staff. Three reporters also jumped ship last year.

show of color

The leaves this fall were the brightest that we can remember in a couple of decades.

Best Impersonation of Florida

The race for state senator from the newly created District 7. We have nothing against Sue Madison or Bootsie Ackerman. But we’re still trying to figure out who won.

Worst Traffic

Ever try to drive from downtown Fayetteville to hit Interstate 540 on the north side of town? Options are congested College Avenue, Gregg Avenue (through neighborhoods, stop signs and the Wilson Park area) or Garland Avenue (which requires negotiating the pedestrians at the University of Arkansas).

Best Mayor

Business folks in Fayetteville were a little concerned when Dan Coody was elected mayor. They thought he was, perhaps, a little too “green.” His opponent, incumbent Fred Hanna, was definitely seen as the pro-business candidate.

But Coody has done an admirable job for both the business community and environmentalists in the city.

We believe Coody’s warming to the business community is sincere, and we look forward to continued progress.

Best Place to go to a Movie

Rogers. The stadium seating at the Malco makes it by far the best theater in the area.

Worst Quote to Inspire Students

“I came up here for two years, and I didn’t buy books. I got my degree at the student union.” Patricia P. Upton, president and CEO of Aromatique Inc. of Heber Springs, talking to UA business students in February about her stint at the UA. Upton, who was Miss University of Arkansas in 1960, left Fayetteville without earning a degree.