Orlando Jones is a true example of an extraordinary young man. At the age of 17, he has just been selected to compete against other Boys & Girls Club members for the state of Arkansas Youth of the Year title and a $1,000 scholarship from the Reader’s Digest Foundation.

Southern Bancorp, the banking organization that has partnered with the Ross Foundation to fund the Clark County Strategic Plan, recently received a national bank award for its efforts in revitalizing rural communities. Southern received the American Bankers Association Community Bank award at the ABA national conference in Phoenix, Ariz.

Five KIPP Delta College Preparatory and KIPP Delta Collegiate students were recently accepted into enrichment programs, scholarship programs and other schools. “Due to their hard work in and outside the classroom, these students are receiving accolades around the state and nation,” said Sarah Cambelll, college counselor for KIPP Delta Collegiate.

Dreams are what life is made of and the students at KIPP have seen one of them come true with the completion of the gymnasium. Several hundred friends and supporters of KIPP turned out Saturday afternoon for the ribbon cutting ceremony inside the spacious gymnasium that still has that freshly completed lacquer finish and glossy appearance.

Housing Arkansas, a coalition of affordable housing advocates in the private, government and nonprofit sectors, held a news conference today to highlight legislation that would create a statewide housing trust fund for Arkansas. The trust fund would allow access to quality housing for a broad range of Arkansans.

The Small Towns, Big Ideas project began in mid-2006, when the UNC School of Government partnered with the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center to identify and document fifty small towns that were implementing successful or innovative approaches to community economic development.

Southern Bancorp was nationally recognized today at the American Bankers Association National Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

Southern received the national bank award for its efforts in revitalizing rural communities.

Elected leaders and concerned citizens from across St. Francis County filled the Chancery Courtroom at the St. Francis County Courthouse Tuesday night for the second public meeting with officials from Southern Bancorp. The group received early reports on economic development efforts as well as a countywide clean-up effort.

The School of Government, in collaboration with the North Carolina Rural Center, has released Small Towns, Big Ideas: Case Studies in Small Town Community Economic Development. The publication is the result of a yearlong study by Will Lambe, associate director of the Community and Economic Development Program at the School of Government. The collection features real stories, from real places that are successfully confronting real challenges similar to those facing small communities everywhere, such as globalization, geographic isolation, urban sprawl, aging populations, and natural disasters.