LR police issues call for backup
BOOK ’EM! A recent email to members of a Little Rock neighborhood association sought volunteers for the Little Rock Police Department’s Northwest Division:
The LRPD is looking for a few good volunteers!
Volunteers are needed to make callbacks which will free the detectives for investigative work. Working one or two days per week, during normal business hours at our Detective office, volunteers will contact victims then note information received in a computer entry for the report. Good phone and typing skills are a plus.
This is a great opportunity to work with the LRPD and have the satisfaction of knowing that you are freeing up a scarce resource for better crime investigation! A background check will be conducted on any candidates.
Those interested were urged to contact Lt. Scott Timmons, Northwest Division’s special assignments commander. Has police understaffing hit critical levels?
“This is not a result of understaffing,” Timmons tells Paper Trails. “I see this as both a more efficient use of my people’s time (and therefore taxpayer money) and an opportunity for some citizens to learn more about their Police Department.”
He’s seeking two or three people whom he also may use to check pawnshop records against stolen property lists or do filing.
BOOKING IT: Graphic novelist and North Little Rock native Nate Powell’s work is gracing March, a three-part graphic novel memoir of 1960s civil-rights leader John Lewis. Lewis spoke at the 1963 March on Washington and now serves as a U.S. congressman from Georgia. March Book One was released in August.
Powell’s 2008 graphic novel Swallow Me Whole won The Eisner Award (equal to an Oscar in the world of comics), and his 2011 Any Empire was named by the American Library Association’s journal Booklist as one of that year’s 10 best graphic novels. Powell, 36, currently lives in Bloomington, Ind.
THE WRITE STUFF: Novelist Charles Portis will receive The Porter Fund’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which includes a $2,000 prize, in April. Once every five years, the organization, which supports the literary arts in Arkansas, gives the award to an Arkansas writer.
Born in El Dorado and now of Little Rock, Portis, 79, worked as a reporter for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, the Arkansas Gazette in Little Rock and the New York Herald Tribune, where he was the London bureau chief. Returning to Arkansas to write fiction, he wrote five acclaimed novels: Norwood, True Grit (adapted into two award-winning films), The Dog of the South, Masters of Atlantis and Gringos.
HIGH NOTE: The St. Mark Baptist Church choir in Little Rock won first place in Verizon’s 2013 How Sweet the Sound national choir competition and $25,000 for its ministry. In last year’s competition, the choir was named national runner-up and received $10,000.