Author: Paul Holmes

Paul Holmes

A second chance

This time, says Jerry Morgan of the Jonesboro Advertising and Promotion Commission, it is going to happen. It is the construction of a multi-sports complex in Jonesboro, the largest city…

Those days are gone

In the days when the Arkansas General Assembly met in regular sessions only every other year, I was obligated by the news outlets that employed me to ask local legislators…

Two little words

I’m often accused by my friends of using 10 words when two will do. OK, I’m guilty. So in an effort to mend my loquacious ways, I’ll focus for the…

Governor, U.S. Steel executives break ground on $3 billion steel mill in Osceola

U.S. Steel execs and Arkansas officials broke ground Tuesday (Feb. 8) on the largest economic development project in Arkansas history, a $3 billion steel mill at Osceola. U.S. Steel President…

On Covidism

It is said that travel broadens one’s horizons and I believe that is true in virtually every instance. There is always something that can be learned from getting out from…

The biggest non-event ever

Do you remember the devastating Dec. 3, 1990, earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone? You know, the one that claimed thousands of lives, destroyed billions of dollars of infrastructure…

Truck driver shortage key part of supply chain problem

It is never more evident than during the Christmas season that Americans want what they want when they want it, often without any notion of how it gets there. Now,…

Santa and the supply chain

We won’t have Black Friday for more than a month, but already we’re being urged to part with our green now. Reuters is reporting that Americans are expected to spend…

We’re not returning to normal

Baseball’s greatest pundit, one Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra, observed, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” meaning a team or an individual should never consider the outcome of a game a…

Don’t expect lights on a third bridge to Memphis

Remember when automobile headlight switches had three positions — off, parking lights only and headlights fully on? So what’s the big deal, you might ask? That three position headlight switch…

District judges, county officials searching for bailiff funding solution

Craighead County elected officials and the county’s elected district judges may soon meet to settle on how to pay for dedicated bailiffs for the district courts. District Judges Tommy Fowler…

Higher building material prices the result of ‘perfect storm’ of factors

A number of factors combined to produce what E.C. Barton and Co., commodity buyer Matt Gordon called a perfect storm around the price and availability of building materials, a storm…

Making sparks fly

The ongoing showdown between President Joe Biden and Senate Republicans over Biden’s infrastructure plan seems likely to produce more heat than light, but Arkansans have a stake in where the…

The sound of business

It had been nearly 50 years since I’d spent any time in northern Alabama before a brief trip there last week. I was interested to see not only what had…

It’s time

As the COVID pandemic marked its first anniversary, Gov. Asa Hutchinson had two words for Arkansans: diligence and vaccination. By diligence, Gov. Hutchinson said in late March he wants Arkansans…

Travel industry hopes pent-up demand leads to strong 2021

The impacts of the lingering COVD-19 pandemic can be seen in virtually every area of the U.S. economy, but perhaps the effects are no more visible than in the travel…

Common Ground or No Man’s Land?

It has been a while since an announcement by Osceola’s Chuck Banks, a longtime Democrat, that he was switching to the Republican Party was a pretty big news item in…

5 new judges join 2nd District bench

Five new circuit judges are now a month into their six-year terms in the 2nd Judicial District, dealing with both the change of gears in their professional lives and the…

The ‘Three Rivers Rule’

The majority opinion in a recent session of court was that the Three Rivers Rule is no longer a reliable defense. The opinion was rendered not at the bar of…

Life pictures

A quotation variously attributed to Friedrich the Great of Prussia and Napoleon Bonaparte of France says that an army marches on its stomach. Essential to the progress of a fighting…