Arkadelphia chamber touts progress, honors businesses and individuals
ARKADELPHIA — Members and guests gathered March 15 in Henderson State University’s Martin B. Garrison Activity and Conference Center for the Arkadelphia Alliance and Area Chamber of Commerce’s annual banquet. Attendees were there to celebrate the community’s business achievements of 2017 and look forward to those of 2018.
Shelley Loe, chamber executive vice president, welcomed the crowd, and Stephen Bell, president and CEO, introduced special guests.
David Goodman, 2017 chamber president, passed the gavel to Jeremy Hughes, 2018 chamber president.
Hughes introduced a chamber video highlighting the accomplishments of 2017, which included expansion and growth of companies in Clark County. Those in the audience learned that the unemployment rate in Clark County fell from a high of 4.6 percent in January 2017 to 3.6 percent in December, and Clark County recorded its highest monthly employment in September 2017 with 9,563 jobs being reported.
Hughes also reported that revenue from the half-cent county sales tax for economic development generated more than $1.5 million for the fourth straight year.
“Arkadelphia and Clark County had a very busy year in 2017, and that trend, hopefully, will continue on into 2018,” Hughes said. “Not only in 2018 will we be focused on getting new businesses and growing our wonderful town; we will also be going back to our roots and putting some light back on the businesses who were once ‘newcomers’ to town. I believe it is key to always be looking forward and growing but to not forget about the people who got you to where you are.
“2018 will be a year to focus on the businesses that have invested in our area and to remind them just how important their investment to our community is.”
Hughes and Loe presented awards to Citizens Bank for Excellence in Large Business, to Patterson Federal Credit Union for Excellence in Small Business and to
the Arkadelphia Lions Club for Community Outreach.
Goodman presented the Distinguished Service Award to J.R. Eldridge, head football and assistant wrestling coach at Arkadelphia
High School.
Eldridge led the Badgers in the Class 4A state-championship game in December at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. He coached the Badgers to a 14-1 record and a state championship.
Arkadelphia City Manager Gary Brinkley made a special announcement at the banquet.
“It is my pleasure to announce that Milestone Properties, a partnership of Brandon Stone and Miles McKenzie, will develop and own an 81-room Marriott Fairfield Inn and Suites with expanded meeting space to meet local demand.
“The hotel will sit about a half-mile south of I-30 and Pine Street on Red Hill Road,” he said. “It is a prime location for northbound traffic to see the hotel and exit. … We could not be more excited about this development and the long-term opportunity this presents for the highly desired I-30 corridor development.”
Shannon Newton of Little Rock, president of the Arkansas Trucking Association, gave the keynote address at the banquet.
Newton told the audience the trucking association was established in 1932 as “the voice of trucking in Arkansas.”
“Trucking’s impact is felt everywhere,” she said. “Practically every good consumed in America was put on a truck at some point. Trucking drives the economy.”
She said the two biggest issues facing the industry “and the economy as a whole” are workforce and infrastructure.
“We’ve been talking about a driver shortage for 20 years, but now that shortage is expanding into additional roles … technicians, customer service, dispatch, safety, etc.,” she said, adding that nationally, the industry is currently 50,000 drivers short and 15,000 technicians short.
She calls the shortage a “complicated problem” with a “complicated solution.”
“As a society, we have to expand upon our definition of success,” Newton said. “Change the way we talk to young people, the way we incentivize and evaluate our educational institutions. Our industry’s ability to grow … meet consumer demand is/will be hamstrung by this issue if we don’t find a meaningful way to bend the curve.”
Discussing infrastructure, Newton said, “The reality is that currently, our infrastructure needs are woefully underfunded.”
She said the trucking industry “believes that the best option remains the most obvious, efficient, well-known, readily available and equitable solution — the fuel tax.”