MAIN STREET HARDY

Archive for the ‘Around Town’ Category

Labor Day is always a big weekend in Hardy Arkansas. It marks the entrance to the fall season, and to all young people, the end of the summer. But in Hardy Arkansas it remains seasonally hot and this Labor Day Weekend will be a ‘Jammin’ good time at the 3rd annual ‘Junk-n-Jam’ event. There will be a variety of things to do and purchase. Many people come from all over the Spring River Area to sell their antiques, crafts, flea market items, food and there will be MUSIC too! The date is Saturday September 4th  and the place is Loberg Park. This is a Main Street of Hardy event and proceeds benefit the Main Street Preservation program.

If your interested in being a vendor at the event, HERE is the form to download, fill out and submit so that you too will be able to jamm out at the big Labor Day Junk-n-Jam event.

We want this to be the best Junk-n-Jam event ever so please be sure to sign up as a vendor. If you have any questions feel free to contact us with the link at the top of the site !

Application

 You may contact the official Main Street Of Hardy, Inc. organization for more information directly mainstreethardy@centurytel.net

We are excited for our very own local hometown girl who won the title of  Miss Sharp County during the 75th Annual Sharp County Fair on July 27, 2010.   Brooke Messer,  a graduate of Highland High School lives in Hardy AR.  This was her first beauty pageant competetion. 

 Brooke’s mother Rhonda said she has always made her children compete or take part in something every year they were in school. Some of the other activities Messer participated in during high school were National Honor Society, Basketball, Eecology club. Key Club and she was also the state 4-A track champion in the mile run.  She was on the honor roll,  a competitive cheerleader and served as class president for two years.

Messer is the daughter of Jerry and Rhonda Messer of Hardy, Arkansas who operate Kozy Candles Country Store  and the Spring River Tackle.

Messer said,   “It is just an honor to be chosen, to have little girls who have done a lot of pageants look up to you,”

Friends Of Hardy Arkansas are just as proud…congrats !!! 

Executive Directors of the Arkansas Main Street program from Little Rock will be conducting a training of the 4 Point program which is the heart of the statewide program.

Main Street Arkansas Executive Director, Cary Tyson,  Small Business Consultant, Mark Miller and Design Consultant Nancy Lowe  will be holding a 4 Point Training Workshop at the Main Street Hardy Office.  The office is located in the basement of the Historic Old Hardy Gym, Monday  August 9th 2010 at 5:30 p.m.

 The purpose of the meeting is to educate the community, board members and the merchants of the 4 Point approach.  Design, Promotion, Organization and Economic.

The public is invited  and lite horderves will be served.

RSVP 870-856-3571 by noon Monday,

Please do not miss this important meeting.  Hope to see you there.Please contact Main Steet and let them know you will be present. Main Street may be reached at mainstreethardy@centurytel.net.

As we all know, Hardy is a Railroad Town.  This year the BNSF is taking its train of 15 restored passenger cars on a 6,000-mile tour through 13 cities in six states.  The train is available for BNSF employees and special guests only.  I was an invited guest for a 3 hour ride. The conductor actually came to the loading area and yelled “all aboard” which was a truly nostalgic moment. I chose to ride in the tallest car called Bay View.  The windows are all bay curved and the view is fantastic. I sat in the “First Class” section although the whole car was truly first class.

  When the train got underway we were allowed to move from car to car and explore.  Snacks were brought around and there was a souvenir car.  I have to admit when moving between the cars I felt very adventurous.  You push a big button beside the door and with a big whooshing the door opens and you step between the cars onto a platform.  The door closes behind you, whoosh.  You step across a gap (yes you can  see the ground flying by) onto the next cars’ platform and then another button and whoosh the door opens and you step into the next car. 

 The woodwork and seating in all the cars are beautifully restored and looks like something out of the movies.  The styles were reminicent of a romantic era when the railroad was the main source of mass transit.  Some cars are double deckers and some have open balconies that face inside with wooden railings to keep passengers safe, kind of like the old river boats.  One car had a bar area that served soft drinks.  I took scads of pictures and when we rode through Hardy I got a birds eyeview of our wonderful little City.  I had a great time that I won’t soon forget and hope to get to repeat the experience again.

SUBMITTED BY:

Nina Thorton, Mayor of Hardy Arkansas

Where in Horshoe Bend is Fine Dining? Read on…

Last evening I was invited to join some friends for dinner ‘out on the town’. We drove from Hardy 25 minutes to Horshoe Bend to go to ‘The Gourmet Table’. If your wondering where in Horshoe Bend is a resturant that would be classified as “Fine Dining”, then you need to find the Diamond B Mall and go inside. Across from the market you will find a resturant like none other…The Gourmet Table

Michelle Muncie is the Owner/Personal Chef of The Gourmet Table. A former gamers hang out has now become the areas finest eating establishment. Michelle greated us graciously on a Wednesday evening. They are normally closed on Wednesdays, but will open for a fine dining experience. And experience it was. There are no menus. The dinner choices will consist of whatever Michelle can purchase fresh from market or grow from her garden.

Our dinner followed a 5 course structure starting with Bruschetta, which was served on light flowery toasted bread, fresh grown tomato, cheese, olive oil and fresh basil leaf. It was very good. Next, we were given the choice of hand crafted salads consisting of fresh grown lettuces and our choice of peppers, onions and all the other sides for a great salad. My mother and I had a wonderful Ceasar Salad just like a Ceasar Salad is supposed to be made. This was all done at our table side as we chatted with Michelle.

Then came the pre-entre palate cleansing course. A delightfully delicious serving of fresh fruit. Freshly cut, not out of a can. It was just what a summer dinner called for. Then the Entres! With no menu, we were at the mercy of Michelle. Our choices were not frugal. She offered choices that left us wishing that we could have had them all, lobster tail, fish, steaks, chicken. All to be prepared as demand warranted. 3 of my companions chose bacon wrapped filets and I chose the t-bone. Each entre was perfectly prepared with sides of roasted vegetables in bacon sauce and  baked potato and fresh made bread. The table got very quiet while everyone greedily gobbled up our meals. By this time, there wasn’t much room left for desert, but I opted for a Rootbeer Float and my mother inhaled a giant chunk of Chocolate Marble cake with vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup. Our patron for the evening, Marlene Miller chose a Spumoni like dish of  Ice Cream with a chocolate cookie straw. 

Satisfied and satiated we left shortly after 9:00pm for our short drive back to Hardy. We were each totally surprised by our find. This is not a resturant like any other in our area. It is a cut above. Don’t come expecting a quick meal. This is a dining experience that should be enjoyed, just like going to the movies, sit back and enjoy your evening out. Choose your companions and go enjoy 1st class food, and first class service.

The Gourmet Table is open for breakfast and dinner and is currently working on a lunch menu

Contact Michelle at The Gourmet Table at 870-670-4969 in Horshoe Bend

Thanks Michelle, for a wonderful visit. We’ll be back.

submitted by:

Marc Herring

FOHA (Friends of Hardy Arkansas)

Why even offer Free WiFi (muniwireless) along Main Street in Hardy Arkansas?  The only  thing that retains value is what the local community is willing to invest in terms of their interest and content. If local businesses, organizations, civic groups and schools  in the local community, in short, are willing to create local content for the local network, post local ads, if they see the service as part of the fabric of the community. That is part of the idea of Free muniwirelessWiFi, because our idea – would first point all users to the Main Street Hardy Online Resource website. This then helps promote not only the town but the local merchants and community as well. Is this self serving? Not really, its self promoting of our town ! Besides, if we don’t do it, no one else will.

 No one can provide better local content or advertise better to the local community than the community itself. Everyone big wants to get local — Google, Microsoft, Citysearch (IAC), Yahoo, etc.. As the world goes digital and online, traditional media – newspapers. Local TV and radio, are rapidly disappearing from the landscape. They are losing a crucial source of revenue — local advertising (classifieds) — to the Internet and these megaportals. At the same time, these same companies have a great challenge — how do they capture the local ‘from above,” as a top-down play? On the web, everything is driven by reputation. Do we trust this seller on eBay? Well look at his rating. Want to buy a book? How are people reviewing it? How in turn are people rating the reviewers? All of this is important to the local area.

Everyone must decide, do I trust someone working for a multibillion dollar global portal to create content, for local knowledge, or do I trust a local?  What are the best restaurants in a given neighborhood? I will trust a local resident if given the choice. Their informed opinions will be given up freely, out of a desire to share. This is grassroots, not Astroturf, and that is what Friends Of Hardy Arkansas are trying to do and want for Hardy !

With the localization of content, services, and advertisements, with more and more devices GPS enabled, with the growing ability to create local ‘intranets’ for buildings, neighborhoods, towns, cities, via new wireless infrastructure deployments, it will be increasingly easy for communities to segment themselves from the rest of the web, and capture the value that is now otherwise feeding these web behemoths. If Google’s model in creating muniwireless as part of The White Space Coalition depends in no small part on local ads, what is to stop the locals from building their own networks and capturing the ad revenue themselves?

As social computing goes local, as the internet grows pervasive, as everyone is brought onto the grid, muniwireless has a bright future. Cell phones and the new Ipad even offer WiFi connection. Communities will have wireless networks as public amenities. They will serve a number of functions, from the very basic — offering the ability to surf the web, check email, to supporting local businesses through a local community portal with local content and providing better security. In the process, the web will become increasingly localized. As always, and from the beginning, we know the end points, and as always, it’s getting there that matters, the details of it. Who will be the ones trying, failing, and learning?  Who will build these municipal wireless networks? Will it be the large incumbent telecoms, the Verizons and Comcasts of the world? Or will it be people like you and me? If in the end the value of the community network is derived from the activity of the people using it, we know the answer.

The Friends Of Hardy Arkansas are motivated and interested in bringing Free WiFi to the Main Street area of Hardy. We feel it is an important step toward growth in our community and for the business tourist who stop here. In the future if proven sustainable it may even grow outward to cover the whole town – who knows. Just imagine the possibilities. We would love to get your comments about this below. Feel free to share with us.

Portions of this article are reprinted from Wired Towns website.

The newest business on Main Street in Hardy is ‘The Tree of Life Marketplace and Deli’. The Marketplace part of the operation is already opened and operating. The Deli part is coming REAL soon…as in June 15th.

The Tree of Life Marketplace and Deli is family owned and operated by Shawn & Jennifer Watkins. It is a store dedicated to antiques, collectables and character-filled items delicately displayed on the Main Street of Hardy. Some of the items that are featured are: designer purses, flip-flops, furniture, glassware, jewelry, grills and much much more.

The Deli portion will feature hand made sandwiches and other quick (not fast) foods. All sandwiches will be served with pickle, side and drinks, UNDER $6.00!!! They also have children’s sandwich plates @$3.50.  Their signature item is the Frozen Banana dipped in chocolate. Here’s the menu.

Stop by The Tree of Life and enjoy yourself. They are located at 210 East Main Street and the phone # is 870-844-1301. Call ahead to place your order.

Submitted by:

Friends of Hardy (FOHA)

Smoking On Main Street

“Considerate smokers don’t litter. Those who do deserve criticism as much as any other litterer.”     — SmokingSection.Com (Militant Smoker’s Rights Group)

 The battle against cigarette litter in Hardy along Main Street can only be won if smokers join the fight on the right  side. There are already millions of smokers who don’t litter their cigarettes, and many of them are actively spreading the word to fellow smokers. Unfortunately, they are still a small minority. If you are a considerate smoker who doesn’t litter, THANK YOU! Please continue setting a positive example and please continue to help us in any way that you can.

If you are a smoker who does litter, we hope that you will learn about the impact of your actions here on Main Street and elsewhere too,  and break the habit. Think about why you litter and think about whether those reasons really make sense to you. Chances are, you have used one or more of the following rationales for your behavior:

• They are biodegradable.
• What else am I supposed to do with them?
• It is harmless, it is just a small cigarette butt.
• It serves everybody right for making me smoke outside and taxing my cigarettes.
• Everybody else does it.
• Everybody has a vice, this is mine.

We ask you to consider our counter arguments to the above points to see if we can get you to change your mind. Our opinion is that there is no excuse for littering, but we also think the best way to communicate with people who have opposing viewpoints is to keep an open mind and maintain two way communications. In the meantime, here is how we feel:

They are biodegradable.

NO THEY ARE NOT! Sorry for the all-caps, but this is a gigantic myth. Different groups have done different studies and their results differ, with some people saying cigarettes decompose in a year, some saying it takes twelve years, and others saying they never decompose at all (the filters are made of a type of acetate that never fully breaks down). That is not what people mean when they use the word biodegradable. Rather than get into a scientific argument, we ask smokers who litter to use common sense. Ask yourself if the cigarette you throw down is going to disappear anytime soon. Do your own experiment. Put a cigarrete in an outdoor planter (use a string or pin to secure it), and see how long it stays there. We guarantee it will be a long term experiment! However long you finally decide it takes for a cigarette to decompose, ask yourself if you would like all such “biodegradable” items to be thrown on the ground, such as cardboard containers, newspapers, kleenex, paper grocery bags, etc. It wouldn’t be pretty.

What else am I supposed to do with them?

There are many ways to dispose of cigarettes without littering them on the ground. Free personal ashtrays are one option.  These ashtrays are paper thin and will easily fit in your pocket. They are foil lined, trap the smell inside, and take up less space in your pocket or purse than a pack of cigarettes. If for some reason you don’t want to carry around disposable ashtrays, then you can improvise which such things as film containers, metal mint containers, regular tin foil, or anything else that’s handy. Simply store your butt in one of these temporary ashtrays until you can dispose of it properly. If you do not have a container handy, stub out your cigarette when you are finished, making ABSOLUTELY sure it is out and that there is no burning paper or tobacco, and throw it in the nearest trash can. There is significantly less risk of fire using this method than there is from throwing your smoldering cigarette in the street or on the sidewalk, where it can easily blow into flammable material. A note to motorists – please use your car ashtray! If it is OK to put in your mouth, it is OK to put in your ashtray.

It is harmless, it is just a small cigarette butt.

Of course, this is the same argument that leads to lots of “harmless” little things adding up to very harmful big things. Cigarettes are by far the most littered item in the world. Billions of cigarettes are littered every day. Costly, and often deadly, fires are caused every year by littered cigarettes and the environmental impact is significant. When you throw even one cigarette, you are part of the problem.

It serves everybody right for making me smoke outside and taxing my cigarettes.

We don’t want to get into any smoking issues unrelated to litter. We will say that we think littering is a very short-sighted and ineffective way to get your message across. Smokers who litter give a bad name to all smokers and make non-smoking activists even more dedicated to increasing smoking bans and raising taxes. Several universities have recently banned smoking on campus not because of health issues but because of litter issues. In these cases, considerate smokers lost out because of the behavior of their littering counterparts.

Everybody else does it.

This excuse hasn’t worked since kindergarten.

Everybody has a vice, this is mine.

That’s true. Many of us speed, jaywalk, use pirated software – you name it. If we all decide that none of us will change our ways until every last one of our friends and neighbors is perfect, then we can all look forward to some dismal times, and none of us should be complaining about it. Or, we can be our own judges of what we think is right and act accordingly. If you think jaywalking is wrong – don’t do it! But don’t use the fact that other people are doing it to justify behavior that you know is wrong. If you think littering is wrong – don’t do it!

Please help keep our MAIN STREET clean !  We appreciate you and hope you will show us the same back. Remember butts in the streets end up in the waterways !

Friends Of Hardy Arkansas 

On this frist Friday, Hardy roared with the sound of Hot Rods and Muscle cars engines.  The annual Car Cruise occured this evening and there were gleaming cars, chrome and fat rubber everywhere. It was great fun and everyone was nostalgic. The cruisers and visitors were treated to sausages, hamburgers and all the trimmings by the Hardy A&P Commitee. Even the little one’s got into the spirit showing off some of there own cool rides!  The weekend festivities will continue on Saturday down at Loberg Park for the Annual Spring River Car Show and Festival. Everyone is invited to enjoy Hardy this late Spring first June Weekend. So be sure to come on out and enjoy the sights and the cars.  See ya on the Main drag. We appreciate you !

Main Street traffic on Memorial Day Saturday

Memorial Day Weekend in Hardy is traditionally a busy time. Shopkeepers gear themselves for the seasonal migration of tourists, outfitters are primed and ready for floaters and the city is expectant of overflow traffic.

This Memorial Day Weekend was no exception. As if on schedule, Friday was busy. The guests and visitors flocked to Hardy and the shops were jammed packed. Business was strong, but nothing compared to Saturday. Saturday on Main Street was greeted with many many people. Families were out and about all over town. Merchants were happy to see everyone and everyone was happy to be seen.

The Spit Shine Car Wash hosted live performance music all day, and The Ozark Classic Crafts Mall was spinning Dizzy Art for the children.

Proud owner with her Dizzy Art creation

Dizzy Discs were the hit of the day and The Olde Time Candy Shop couldn ‘t scoop out the ice cream fast enough for the never ending line of eager patrons.

The pinnacle of the day was the evening performance of the Annual Wilburn Brothers Memorial Day Music Tribute.

Music lovers attend the Wilburn Brothers Musical Tribute

This years event topped past years and hosted over 300 visitors at Loberg Park. The Mayor and team crafted a fine event that featured local stars, The Downhome Strings and Wilburn Grandchilren Leslie and Marie Wilburn as well as other great performers.

Mayor Nina Thorton was quoted saying “it was a great event and everyone had fun”.

Mayor Thorton sharing a historical photo of the Wilburn Brothers

It really was a great event and the weather cooperated nicely by sending its stormy weather to the north, leaving Hardy virtually in the clear.

The weekend celebration in Hardy continues through Monday where there will be a Vetrans Memorial held at the Vetrans Memorial in Ash Flat.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the weekend so much fun in Hardy Arkansas…Welcome Home and We certainly Appreciate You.