Readers may recall the headline-maker in Harrison a while back after fans of the North Arkansas Community College were accused of racially taunting basketball players with the competing Labette Community College.
The flap stemmed from allegations by a Kansas weekly newspaper reporter who, although not attending, wrote that some NorthArk fans had heckled players for his town's visiting team.
North Arkansas President Randy Esters immediately asked the National Junior College Athletic Association to investigate. After several weeks, Christopher J. Parker, CEO of the NJCAA, issued two findings that Esters and his staff say they already had addressed.
In essence, Parker said one fan from the community often made crow calls considered disrespectful to the visiting team during free-throw attempts. Esters said an older man who for years has been known for his cawings at most local athletic events (and elsewhere) had apologized and said he was done with the bird noises.
Secondly, some current NorthArk student athletes made it a habit of sitting directly behind the visitors' bench in an apparent attempt to heckle, a practice which Esters said also had been immediately corrected.
Parker closed by saying his organization feels NorthArk, nationally ranked in several fields of study and that this month hosts the Women's Division 2 National Championship, has taken all necessary steps to ensure these situations remain isolated and prevented. "The NJCAA has also been reassured by the administration from NorthArk that the college as a whole is committed to supporting all aspects of the student experience and protect anyone from inappropriate treatment in any form." So there we have it.
I can assure anyone who believes Esters won't do whatever is necessary to protect his and other students from insults and harassment might as well be crow callin' in the wind.
Low Gap on top
A year had passed since we made the 30-minute jaunt to the little Low Gap Cafe 10 miles outside Jasper. Nothing had changed about the roadside restaurant, certainly not the unlikely converted roadside station and store or the gourmet-style cuisine served four days a week by owner/chef Nick Bottini.
This time, we'd taken friends Hank and Nickie Thompson who'd only heard about the so-called outpost many writers have called a hidden gem. Over the past decade of serving diners, there's not much still hidden about Low Gap.
Its walls are adorned with framed features written by those who believe they discovered culinary heaven amid forests and the Ozark hills, only to realize others of their craft had arrived, dined and taken off years ago.
Any dining spot in the South has arrived when it warrants a glowing article in Southern Living magazine. Nick's American-Italian cafe earned his years ago.
So it was no surprise to hear Low Gap had just been named by the website Thrillist.com as Arkansas' best small-town restaurant based on quality of food and service in a place that looks "like a biker bar." When our meals arrived, Hank had prime rib with demi-glaze, Nickie ordered an Italian chicken dish with pasta, Jeanetta had salmon, and I went with chicken parmesan. Everything was reasonably priced and arrived as expected: Large portions, great cheese biscuits, soup, salad, attentive service and exceptional desserts.
Hank, who's lived and dined across the planet, said his prime rib prepared medium was literally tender enough to melt in his mouth. "It's the very best prime rib I've ever eaten," is how he expressed it. And he was served enough to take half with him.
Nick, a Culinary Institute of America grad who once catered a party for Liberace, stopped by as the two smallish rooms were filling. He reminded me I was the first to write about his original elegant Bottini's Restaurant, located decades ago in the former Holiday Inn at Harrison. I was surprised he remembered.
Low Gap is closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. It opens at 11 a.m. for lunch Wednesday through Saturday and serves until 9 p.m. on weekends. Expect to wait, perhaps on the covered patio. Rest assured, it's worth the effort. Tell Nick ol' Mike sent ya.
So many questions
What legally constitutes obstruction of justice? Does that law apply to citizens but not to leaders they elect to serve and protect them?
Was it legal for Oakland's Mayor Libby Schaaf to warn illegal aliens in her California community that federal Customs authorities were en route to arrest them?
Did I just write that? Protect criminal illegals over preserving the welfare of law-aiding citizens? To overtly act against federal agents upholding the law?
It's well beyond the capacity of this war baby's pea brain to fathom why any mayor would protect such clearly destructive elements in her community and why she hasn't been held legally accountable. Does politics now trump legality in our former democratic republic of laws?
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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 03/18/2018