Arkansans’ travel disrupted
State groups, lawmakers in D.C. say events called off
WASHINGTON — As America braces for additional coronavirus problems, Arkansans are canceling trips to the nation’s capital. Others are boarding planes only to discover, upon arrival, that their events will no longer take place.
Travel into Arkansas has also been disrupted.
A previously unannounced trip to Little Rock by the French ambassador to the U.S., Philippe Etienne, was canceled last week, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. John Boozman said Saturday. Both men had planned to tour Dassault Falcon Jet facilities this week; the French aircraft manufacturer is one of the city’s major employers. Members of the state’s congressional delegation have shortened or canceled trips to their districts so they can pass emergency coronavirus legislation.
Their carefully arranged calendars have all been altered or erased.
Boozman’s Washington
agenda has dozens of empty spots that weren’t there a week ago.
Cancellations, a spokesman said, included meetings with representatives of the Arkansas Bankers Association; Affiliated Distributors; the Alzheimer’s Association; the Hispanic Women’s Organization of Arkansas; the Arkansas Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities; the Fulbright Association; Alma High School; the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management; Arkansas Young Republicans; the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy; Professional Insurance Agents of Arkansas; and 4-H members and FFA officers from the state.
In-state items have also been scrubbed from Boozman’s day planner, including this week’s visit to Petit Jean Meats, breakfast with the Hope Chamber of Commerce and an appearance at Wednesday’s Miller County Trump Day Dinner. Organizers postponed the Texarkana event “out of an abundance of caution,” according to the group’s Facebook page.
“We are canceling a lot of engagements,” Boozman said in an interview Friday. “We are in a situation where that is the right thing to do.”
The House approved coronavirus-related legislation early Saturday morning and sent it to the Senate for its consideration early this week.
Lawmakers need to make the coronavirus response a top priority, Boozman said.
“I think the fact that the Senate is staying [this] week is very important,” he said. “It sends a message to the country that we’re very serious” and will do “whatever it takes to keep our families and communities safe.”
In the Natural State, organizations are weighing whether to forgo long-planned Washington fly-ins or wait and see what happens.
The Arkansas Bankers Association made its decision after the American Bankers Association called off its March 23-25 Washington Summit and Emerging Leaders Forum.
“We couldn’t go to that and decided we would try and meet with our delegation when they were back in their district,” said Lorrie Trogden, the Arkansas group’s president and chief executive officer.
The Arkansas Bankers Association also canceled its annual convention, April 7-9. “We felt like it was the pruArkansas
dent decision because we just want to make sure everyone’s safe,” she said.
A fall-time Washington visit remains on the calendar, she added.
The Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas canceled its endof-April trip to the capital after the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association dropped plans for its legislative conference.
The decision was disappointing but necessary, according to Rob Roedel, a spokesman for the Arkansas group.
The move is designed “to protect the health and safety of our members, staff and other event participants,” Roedel told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a text. “The decision was based on the growing risk and local, state and now, national orders, as well as recommendations from the Center for Disease Control and World Health Organization.”
Despite the move, the group’s representatives “will continue to communicate with our Congressional delegation and look forward to the 2021 NRECA Legislative Conference,” he wrote.
The Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce hasn’t decided whether to proceed with its annual fly-in May 13-15, but it “should have a better picture by the end of next week,” the group’s president and CEO, Randy Zook, wrote Saturday.
The organization was expecting roughly 100 people to make the trip.
In the midst of uncertainty, the travel industry has shown flexibility, he wrote. “Hotels and airlines are being totally cooperative … about rescheduling with no penalties.”
With the situation in flux, some visitors are having to improvise.
Members of Arkansas High School’s Razorback Television team learned about the cancellation of the Student Television Network Convention shortly after landing at a Washington-area airport. Among the finalists for the national organization’s top award, they’d have to wait to learn if they’d won.
Rather than panicking, or boarding the next flight home, the Texarkana students unpacked their television equipment and got to work.
In one day, they filmed, edited and produced a Razorback Television News Special Report, nearly a quarter-hour of nonstop breaking news.
The package, available athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8weNd7OHHE, included an interview from Capitol Hill with their congressman, U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman.
The Republican from Hot Springs told the interviewer that certain social norms have been abandoned, at least temporarily.
“The new handshake in D.C. is an elbow bump,” Westerman said on camera. “I can actually do elevator buttons with my elbows now.”
The young journalists’ adviser, audiovisual technology teacher Michael Westbrook, expressed pride in the students.
“These kids are absolutely amazing,” he said Friday. “The quality of work … it’s unbelievable.”
The Arkansans are heeding health warnings.
“We’re just constantly keeping our hands washed,” Westbrook said.
Scheduled to return home Sunday afternoon, the students were in good shape, he said Friday.
“They’re healthy and they’re happy and we’re just carrying on,” he said.