LR event gives state girls taste of coding
In a college classroom in Little Rock, about 20 high school girls hunched over piles of Lego blocks on Thursday, their faces concentrated and serious.
They made up half of a group that traveled from all over the state for the Girls of Promise Coding Summit, a free, half- day event the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas puts on twice a year to encourage girls to improve their skills in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, subjects.
“STEM isn’t just a girl or a guy in a lab coat,” Anna Beth Gorman, the foundation’s executive director, said. “We really try to do a better job of unpacking what STEM is so a girl gets excited about it instead of discouraged.”
In the auditorium of the University of Arkansas- Pulaski Technical College, Gorman asked girls to raise their hands to indicate where they were from. Several had woken up before 6 a. m. to travel from Mineral Springs, Van Buren, Pocahontas and south Arkansas.
About a third of the girls raised their hands when Gorman asked if they were taking computer- science classes at their high schools. Some of the girls had attended a previous two- day Girls of Promise conference in the spring.
Gorman said the event gets different kinds of engineers from companies such as Acxiom Corp. and AT& T to volunteer and talk to the girls about their career paths.
“A girl who’s from Pocahontas, Ark., can look around and say, ‘ There are a lot of girls like me across the state; look at all these women,’” Gorman said. “And so she’s aware of opportunities that she would never have thought about for herself.”
In one room Thursday, half the girls bent over laptops and worked through a programming exercise that allowed them to create a calculator. The instructor, Terence Cox, illustrated the concept of programming
crossing bars and a light, Spears said. The resolution was sent to the governor’s office, which approved the request and forwarded it to Union Pacific and the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department for funding, Spears said.
Spears went out to the scene Thursday afternoon after his shift at Lennox was canceled because of the deaths of Cole- Cox and Cannon. He said he’ll work with Mayor Myra Edwards and the town council to pass another resolution in support of funding for crossing bars and a light.
“I just feel a sense of obligation,” Spears said.
That is especially true considering Betty Jeter also died at the same intersection in February, he said.
“That’s the biggest problem that we have in this community,” Spears said. “There has to be an urgent need, an urgent cry.”
The train that struck the women Thursday had 110 cars, 68 of which were loaded with unknown cargo, said Maj. Lafayette Woods, a spokesman for the Jefferson County sheriff’s office.
The train was southbound from St. Louis heading to Pine Bluff, said Jeff DeGraff, di-
rector of media relations for Union Pacific Railroad.
“Our condolences go out to the victims’ families,” DeGraff said. “This is a terrible event to have happened. We’re also mindful of our train crew involved.
“We’re hopeful the community will keep in mind to adhere all warnings at railroad crossings whether at that crossing or others,” he said. “It’s always important to come to a stop before you proceed through the crossing.”
Information for this article was contributed by Jake Sandlin of the