Arkansas Statehood Day, June 15

FAYETTEVILLE — Washington County Historical Society will celebrate Arkansas’ Statehood Day with an Ozarks musical program and a lecture from a noted Ozark lecturer at 6 p.m. Sunday, June 15, at the First Christian Church, 220 N. College Avenue (next to the Washington County Courthouse).

Parking in the courthouse parking deck will accommodate area visitors for this program. The evening celebration is free and open to the public, according to J.B. Hogan, president of the Washington County Historical Association.

An Ozarks musical performance by Allison Williams will begin the evening program, celebrating the transition of Arkansas into statehood in 1836. Williams is an internationally known performer and native of the region.

Dr. Brooks Blevins, of Missouri State University, will be presenting a lecture on the changing image of Arkansas. He has written about this topic in his book “Arkansas, Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol’ Boys Defined A State.”

Blevins is the Noel Boyd professor of Ozark Studies at Missouri State University. The Ozarks Studies Program at MSU is truly unique. The minor in Ozarks Studies, established in 2010, is the only minor of its kind in the region, the country and the world. The minor in Ozarks Studies offers students an opportunity to study and experience the history, geography, literature and cultures of one of the most fascinating regions in the United States.

The Ozarks is part of the Interior Highlands region of North America, the only extensive mountainous and hilly stretch of land between the Appalachians and the Rockies. It is comprised of more than 40,000 square miles, or roughly the size of the state of Ohio. The area covered by the Ozarks, which consists of at least nine geographical sub regions of varying topography and soil types, includes most of the southern half of Missouri, much of northern Arkansas, a section of northeastern Oklahoma, and a corner of southwestern Kansas. Though the terrain of the Ozarks stretches to the outskirts of St. Louis, in comparison with most of the United States east of the Rockies the Ozarks is a very rural and sparsely populated region. In northwestern Arkansas the cities of Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville have in recent years grown to create a second Ozarks metropolitan district.