INVESTING COMMUNITY IN THEIR
Group is dedicated to improving Fouke
Good seafood gumbo nearly seven years ago motivated goodwill among some Fouke, Ark., residents including the city council and the motivation still exists today in Fouke.
The seafood gumbo was prepared by Stephanie House using a family recipe and offered as a fundraising meal before the Fouke City Council meeting. The goal of the gumbo was to give the people a taste and sense of community.
The food and goodwill have helped feed the plans of a group of volunteers called Citizens for a Better Community to organize and encourage projects to improve Fouke and make it a better community.
The bottom line of the effort is nearly $1 million generated since 2006 through grants and donations to complete projects both visible and discreet in Fouke—a town in Miller County of about 859 people, according to the 2010 census.
Fouke has been besieged for decades by the image of the tall and hairy Fouke monster roaming the countryside. A movie was released in the early 1970s about the monster, which has
never been confirmed or found.
Another negative image was created when Tony Alamo moved Alamo Ministries to Fouke. Criminal investigations into the group resulted in Alamo’s being prosecuted. He was found guilty in 2009 of taking underage females he reportedly wed across state lines for sex. He is serving 175 years in federal prison.
The community received nothing but bad publicity.
In 2006, Ann Fowler and her husband, Dewey, retired and moved back to Fouke. The community was struggling with the image and pockets of poverty. The couple had experience in volunteering, since they were founding sponsors of the Alliance For Education in Shreveport, La., which served Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto and Webster Parishes.
Ann Fowler was a retired educator who worked for the Shreveport school system and then IBM. Dewey Fowler retired from General Adjustment Bureau of Shreveport.
Dewey Fowler died Jan. 29, 2013, but the couple had provided the impetus and pulled together other volunteers.
The volunteers organized a two-year plan, and the objective was to make Fouke a “better community” and receive the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization status with the Internal Revenue Service.
The Fowlers asked Frank McFerrin, an area historian and retired educator, for suggestions about helping the community.
The ideas started to flourish, and about 40 people came together about two weeks before Christmas in 2006 and collected nearly $4,000.
The money was used to purchase shoes and clothes and a gift for 36 children in need and food and flower baskets for 22 sick or elderly people in Fouke.
The funds have helped some of the residents with funeral expenses for family members.
The group has also paid gasoline expenses for a few residents who are traveling to a medical facility for cancer treatment.
The group received a $50,000 donation for the purchase of the Scoggins House in Fouke. The house will be used as a library and educational and social events center.
Mary Elizabeth Huff Haile, who grew up in Fouke and now lives in Urbana, Ill., donated $50,000 to the charity in honor of her parents, the late Lawrence and Vera Paulk Huff, said Fowler.
Haile requested the memorial gift be used to implement the education center. The Haile couple taught school for about five decades.
In 2008, a $30,000 grant was awarded to Fouke from the Arkansas Department of Rural Services to build a Veterans Memorial Park.
To go with the grant, the Citizens for a Better Community raised $22,000.
Fowler said the idea for the park was developed by Nelene Harris, a Fouke High School biology teacher.
Fowler said Harris wanted a veterans park for Fouke.
“She had gone to Belcher, La., and visited the park. She was impressed and told us there was no reason Fouke couldn’t have one of those,” Fowler said.
The lesson for the veterans project is patriotism, Fowler said.
The group’s projects also include city welcome signs, murals, a digital marquee for Fouke Public Schools, the park, downtown flowers and “benevolent causes for children, the sick and elderly.”
The middle school and high school students help provide toys and clothes to children.
“It teaches them to care and give,” Fowler said.
The next two projects will be construction of a town square next to the school and an effort to bring a highway welcome center to the area.
The group is purchasing the land for the square and will develop a park. The band director wants the band to practice marching on the proposed town square.
The other project involves convincing the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department to construct an Arkansas welcome center near one of the two Fouke exits on state Highway 549. When completed, the highway will be known as Interstate 49.
Citizens for a Better Community wants to welcome visitors to Fouke.