Hello to all of you Marshall Mountain Wave readers and greetings from the Jewel of the Ozarks, Leslie, Arkansas. Brrrrr it got very cold again. After the short reprieve from Winter with the very warm temperatures we had last week 81 degrees in February. Well we are definitely back to our regularly scheduled Winter weather. With freezing rain, sleet, ice and snow on the horizon. There are only a few more weeks of Winter left. I am hoping that we have an early Spring.
Congratulations for placing in the top 6 at the FBLA District competition. These students will be competing in state FBLA in April.
Nancy Black, Tribune Content Agency
Delpha Faye McCollum, 69, of Marshall, Ark., passed away at North Arkansas Regional Medical Center in Harrison, Ark., on February 7, 2025. She was born on December 28, 1955, in Marshall. Diamond State Cremation is in charge of arrangements.
Sometimes, there are meals that just make you feel good. Not because there is a special memory attached or because it is a particularly special meal. Sometimes they just make you feel good, so when you think about it you feel happy. That is what this week’s column is about. Feel good food for days when you just want to feel good.
Good morning and welcome back to winter! According to the forecast, we could be in for freezing rain and possible snow flurries. I am ready for the return of warm sunny days.
Josiah Morris is going to NASA Space Camp! When you see Josiah, be sure to congratulate him on being the 2025 winner of the Forest Newby Space Camp Scholarship. The scholarship winner receives free tuition for a week long Space Camp program in Huntsville, Alabama; a $900 travel stipend, an official NASA flight suit, a digital photo album, and $50 to spend at camp (prize total valued at $2,300). Applicants are required to be a 7th through 11th grade student enrolled in the St. Joe School or in the Searcy County School District (home school or public school).
2 Corinthians 5:17. This week we are meeting another longtime resident of our amazing community – Brooks Middleton. Brooks hasn’t always lived in Cozy, but she was born in Searcy County. She shared the story of her birth, stating, “I have the right to be a little strange and very tough!” She was born in May 1942, and it had stormed for nearly two weeks. A neighbor was to be her mother’s midwife but was unable to get there after all the storms, so when labor pains started, they loaded her mother onto a mattress in the back of a pickup and drove her to the doctor at Leslie. The doctor’s office was on the second floor, so she had to walk herself up the stairs. After the exam, the doctor said it would be hours before the baby (aka Brooks) arrived, so he was going to get a haircut. Within fifteen minutes strong contractions necessitated that her husband, Brooks dad, deliver her. As the old saying goes, ‘that baby will come when it is good and ready’!
On Feb 25, 2025 at 1pm the Marshall High School FFA Chapter will be hosting dentist appointments for horses. If you would like to schedule an appointment for your horse to see the Dentist please contact the Marshall High School FFA Chapter at 870-504-1165.
Rescheduling the January meeting of The Searcy County Historical Society will meet Friday, February 28, 2025, at 7:00 pm in Marshall’s First Christian Church. We canceled the January meeting because of cold weather. Now we will do the same program in February. The speaker will be Dr. Kenneth C. Barnes who will speak on the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad Strike, 1921-1923. He has recently completed “Mob Rule in the Ozarks; the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad Strike, 1921-1923” published by the University of Arkansas Press and he will have copies for sale. On January 15, 1923, an angry crowd assembled in Harrison, Arkansas, near the headquarters of the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad, intent on quashing the strike of railroad employees that had dragged on for nearly two years. Supported by local officials, the mob terrorized strikers and sympathizers in Harrison and other towns along the M&NA line in the Ozark Mountains. This violence effectively ended one of the longest rail strikes in American history—the only one, in fact, ended by a mob uprising. In his new book Mob Rule in the Ozarks (University of Arkansas Press, 2024), historian Kenneth C. Barnes documents how the strike reflected some of the major economic concerns that preoccupied the United States in the wake of World War I and created a long-lasting rupture within Ozarks communities.