When people hear the words “economic development,” they think of manufacturing jobs or new industrial employers opening their doors. But it can mean much more. In Arkansas, we’re focusing our economic-development efforts on making lasting progress in our communities, especially in rural areas and in the Delta, where citizens have been underserved for far too long.

Note: Southern Bancorp provided a $100,000 grant to the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival in 2009.

Jul 23rd 2009 | MANCHESTER, TENNESSEE
From The Economist print edition

Music is big business in small towns

FOR most of the year, Manchester looks like any small Southern town. It nestles between Nashville and Chattanooga with a county courthouse flanked by war monuments, and a Wal-Mart on the outskirts of town.

Mother Nature more than cooperated with sunshine and fall-like temperatures Saturday for the official unveiling of the Civil War Helena Interpretive Plan. Optimism was the order of the day as a sizeable number of locals and out-of-state visitors turned out to witness what the residents of this Delta community hope to be a rebirth through tourism-generated dollars.

The time is rapidly approaching for Helena-West Helena and the Phillips County community to put up or shut up. On the surface that statement bay seem a little harsh or brash but think about it.

For almost three decades now, this area of the Delta has been trying to pull itself up by the bootstraps out of a hole that was dug when the family farms practically went belly up. For almost 30 years, Helena-West Helena and Phillips County have been trying to come up with a viable industry to come here and take roots. It simply hasn’t happened.

To the Editor:
This past week, I was part of a group of 35 people who traveled to Arkadelphia as a part of the National Conference on Rural Philanthropy, to tour and hear an information session hosted by Dr. Wesley Klluck, chair of the Clark County Strategic Plan.

Dear Colleagues,

A few days ago, we concluded the 2009 Philanthropy and Rural America Conference at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock. This event was about asking what we can do to grow philanthropy in rural America, not what others can do for us. As philanthropists, we need to be the innovators to find new solutions to old problems.

For three days last week, more than 150 foundation and other leaders focused on one mission: to develop a strategic plan for rural philanthropy and get it back on foundations’ agendas.

Focus on city’s historical attractions this Saturday

If you hear the sounds of cannons firing in Helena-West Helena Saturday morning your ears are not deceiving you. It will be part of the ceremonies unveiling a master polan to promote the city’s Civil War heritage. It wall begins with the opening ceremonies at 9 a.m. at the future site of Freedom Park, just across from Estevan Hall.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (July 6, 2009) – The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation (WRF) has selected Southern Bancorp to provide all primary banking services for the Foundation.

Following a competitive request for proposal process, WRF selected Southern Bancorp based on Southern’s services, rates and fit with the Foundation’s mission. By banking with Southern Bancorp, WRF will leverage its financial resources to deliver greater mission impact beyond traditional grantmaking. This new business relationship between WRF and Southern Bancorp represents a mission-related investment that will enable Southern Bancorp to increase its impact in distressed rural communities and thus support the mission of WRF.

In his 1997 book Rising Tide, which chronicles the great Mississippi River flood of 1927, author John Barry closes with a rumination on societal changes.

“A society does not change in sudden jumps,” Barry writes. “Rather, it moves in multiple small steps along a broad front. Most of these steps are parallel if not quite simultaneous; some advance farther than others, and some even move in an opposite direction. The movement rather resembles that of an amoeba, with one part of the body extending itself outward, then another, even while the main body stays back, until enough of the mass has shifted to move the entire body.”

So it is in the Delta of east Arkansas. There have been no sudden leaps forward following decades of economic decline-no giant automobile assembly plants, no ethanol boom, no discovery of oil. But thereare many talented people taking those “multiple small steps,” and their numbers appear to be increasing even as the region’s overall population declines.

A proposed $1.5 million project unveiled Saturday will highlight the lives of Phillips County residents, both black and white, during the Civil War.

Officials say visitors will learn a little-known part of the area’s history once the plans are completed in 2011.

They hope the project will entice Civil War buffs to visit the Phillips County town of Helena-West Helena and help increase tourism.