Editor’s note: This article is part of a special magazine celebrating 40 years of Arkansas Business. The full magazine is available here.
Still going strong
Arkansas Business began the 2020s on a high note: Olivia Farrell, who had just sold Arkansas Business Publishing Group to Publisher Mitch Bettis in the fall of 2019, was inducted into the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, curated by the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business.
Farrell’s contributions to business in Arkansas include helping create in 1998 the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas. Another legacy: a business philosophy that serves readers, advertisers, employees, vendors, investors and the community, and recognizes that one could not exist without the others.
In that spirit, Arkansas Business adjusted quickly when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. Like countless other businesses, Arkansas Business editors, reporters, designers and salespeople quickly learned how to operate remotely from makeshift home offices and elsewhere, even as we grappled with telling one of the biggest stories of our time for our discerning business audience.
Arkansas Business also entered the ’20s with an experienced, veteran editorial staff whose leaders had been with the company for 15, 20, even 30 years. Gwen Moritz, editor since 1999, had led the newsroom through a remarkable period of stability and clarity of vision. But in 2021, having delayed the move amid the pandemic, Moritz announced she would step down as editor but remain with the company as a contributing editor.
That created opportunities for other leaders to emerge. I became editor in August 2021, and led the newspaper for 2½ years, a period that included a redesign of the print edition and recognition as best newspaper from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers in 2023.
I left the newspaper at the end of 2023, and Hunter Field assumed the editorship last month. By now, it should be clear that this organization is greater than any one person, and that its foundation — to do right by its stakeholders and provide readers with accurate and fair reporting of news and information they can’t get anywhere else — remains strong.
– Lance Turner
Editor 2021-2023
2020
► The first case of COVID-19 in Arkansas was reported on March 11; the first death on March 26. Masks became popular but controversial.
► The Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division issued an emergency rule allowing liquor retailers to offer curbside service and delivery. In 2021, the Legislature would make it permanent.
► Restaurants and bars were closed for dine-in service from March 20 to May 11, but those with drive-through windows and curbside service remained busy.
► A new virus designated SARS-CoV-2, against which humans had no immunity, was first detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and coronavirus disease 2019 — COVID-19 — became the story of 2020.
► The U.S. Small Business Administration distributed nearly $350 billion in Paycheck Protection Program loans in less than two weeks in April, straining its loan application system as virtually every bank in the country worked to get business customers approved. Ultimately, companies and nonprofits in Arkansas received a combined $3.3 billion in PPP loans averaging $78,246.
► WFH — work from home — entered the vernacular as employers tried to keep employees productive even as school closures required parents to stay home with children. Bringing broadband service to rural areas became critical to the state’s infrastructure, and Arkansas Rural Connect granted millions to small towns and cities across the state.
► Walmart Inc. of Bentonville reported a 10% increase in sales during its first fiscal quarter (February-April), with online sales ballooning by 74%. Toilet paper became a scarce commodity, foreshadowing supply-chain disruptions that would fuel inflation worldwide.
2021
► With free COVID-19 vaccines widely available and lockdowns mostly over, the U.S. and Arkansas economies, driven by pent-up consumer demand, began roaring back only to get snagged on continuing supply chain issues, labor shortages, and the highest annual inflation rate since 1982.
► Census numbers showed northwest Arkansas grew by 24% to 546,725 people over the past decade, seven times the rate of the Little Rock metro area. The population boom — along with another year of remarkable growth in business, recreation and the arts — led Bloomberg to label the area “the next Austin.”
► The discovery of a crack in a steel support beam in the Hernando de Soto Bridge spanning the Mississippi River between Memphis and West Memphis led to a four-month shutdown of the high-traffic Interstate 40 bridge. Repairs cost the Arkansas Department of Transportation about $10 million.
► Housing remained a hot real estate sector across the state due to low interest rates and the pandemic imperative to seek out more living space. But the commercial sector showed signs of struggle, particularly office towers in downtown Little Rock.
► President Joe Biden signed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that promised to provide the state with money for public transportation ($246 million), airports ($117 million) and broadband expansion ($100 million).
► Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale agreed in January to pay $221.5 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged it conspired with other poultry producers to fix prices for broiler chickens. The same month, Tyson sued beef supplier Easterday Ranches Inc. of Pasco, Washington, saying it falsified its cattle inventory. President Cody Easterday pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and agreed to pay $233 million in restitution to Tyson, making Easterday’s “ghost cattle” one of the largest fraud cases in memory.
► Tyson announced in August that it would require all U.S. workers — about 120,000 people — to be vaccinated against COVID-19, making it the largest U.S. food company to require vaccinations for its entire workforce.
2022
► The highest levels of inflation seen in 40 years bedeviled the economy, driven by strong consumer demand, labor shortages, supply chain troubles, and trillions in government pandemic relief funding. In response, the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates, pushing up the cost to borrow money and leading to a drop in existing-home sales.
► A steel-fueled economic development boom continued in Mississippi County with hundreds of new jobs following billions of combined investment dollars from companies including U.S. Steel, Envirotech Vehicles, Zekelman Industries and Highbar LLC.
► Lyon College announced plans to bring the first veterinary and dental medicine schools to Arkansas. The private liberal arts college in Batesville said it would buy the 28-acre Little Rock campus of Heifer International to house both programs. But that deal will collapse under the weight of inflation-fighting interest rates in 2023.
► Charles Robinson was named the seventh chancellor — and first-ever Black chancellor — at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
► Sarah Huckabee Sanders, daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was elected the state’s first female governor thanks to a wave of support from fans of former President Donald Trump, for whom she worked as press secretary.
► Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale announced it was relocating its executive teams from satellite offices in Illinois and South Dakota to Springdale, a move requiring the expansion and renovation of the company’s headquarters.
2023
► Extreme weather and high interest rates created volatility in the insurance industry and were blamed for soaring insurance rates that caused headaches for industries ranging from health care to school districts.
► Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale posted a loss of $648 million after its chicken segment lost more than $770 million in operating income. This led to the dismissal of poultry head David Bray and the closure of six chicken processing facilities.
► A suggestion to change the Buffalo National River in northwest Arkansas to a National Park & Preserve caused an outcry, as opponents feared the redesignation would result in overdevelopment of the area that is loved by canoe and kayak enthusiasts.
► In her first year in office, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders pushed through the state Legislature a major overhaul of Arkansas’ education system, the centerpiece of which is a universal school voucher program that redirects state money to private schools, a process phased in over the next three years. Sanders also oversaw cuts to the state’s top income tax rate and signed executive orders to ban what she called “woke” and “anti-women language” from state government documents.
► Continuing its fight against inflation, the Federal Reserve raised its rate to a 22-year high of 5.5%. The trickle-down effect of rising interest rates touched all business sectors in Arkansas.
► With two of the nation’s biggest companies — Exxon Mobil Corp. and Koch Industries — pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the region, southwest Arkansas moved closer to becoming the nation’s capital of lithium production.
► A July poll by Arkansas Business of 541 of the state’s chief executives representing a diverse range of industries revealed that their most pressing concerns were the difficulty hiring and retaining workers and rising costs.
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