Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe said he likes Clark County.

Speaking Monday at Arkansas Hall at Henderson State University, Beebe was the keynote speaker for the kickoff celebration for the Clark County Strategic Community Plan. He said the 18 months of work put into the plan by citizens of Clark County makes the county more attractive to prospective businesses, industries and residents.

A plan to revitalize Clark County written by 500 residents of the southwestern Arkansas county over the past year and a half was hailed Monday by Gov. Mike Beebe as a model for community development statewide.

Beebe joined community leaders for the unveiling of the county’s strategic plan, modeled after the Delta Bridge Project in Phillips County, spearheaded by Arkadelphia-based Southern Bancorp.

There’s a boom happening around Arkansas. It’s not a housing boom or a baby boom. This is more of a two-wheeled boom. Spandex is optional.

After a hot, dry summer, organizers are coming out of the woodwork with rides for road cyclists interested in tackling routes of up to 100 miles and, on many occasions, raising money for charity.

The Tour Da’ Delta is set to kick off Saturday morning at 8 a.m. at the Mississippi River Park. Over 100 cyclists signed up during early registration. For those who still want to sign up, you may register on-site at 7 a.m. The cost for the tour is $40. For more information, log onto www.tourthedelta.org or email Ben Steinberg at bsteinberg@southernfp.org

…Brian Miller loved the place. And it showed. He didn’t run away. Not even after he got his law degree from Vanderbilt and had the world to conquer/save. Even when he worked as a lawyer for a big firm in Memphis, young Miller commuted back and forth…

Though this is the first harvest season and the first year of operation for Arkansas Delta Yams, the management team is already making plans and putting together a proposal to expand their facility in order to double their capacity by the 2008 harvest season.

LITTLE ROCK – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Southern Good Faith Fund announced today a partnership to expand access to Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) and other banking products and services that target underserved populations.

Two of the most unlikely places in rural America to find economic success are the Iron Range of Minnesota and south Arkansas. But there it is – and community colleges are at the center of the action.

POPLAR GROVE — The new sweet-potato storage and distribution facility here will soon be identified with a sign for “Arkansas Delta Yams,” manager Cindy Neal said. Although sweet potatoes and yams are two unrelated plants, many U.S. sweet potatoes are marketed as “yams.”

U.S. Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln have announced that $250,000 in federal funds for Save the Children, a juvenile delinquency prevention program for the Helena-West Helena area, has passed the senate and is on the way to a joint Senate-House committee. The committee will negotiate differences between the two respective bills and produce a final conference report that Pryor says will be approved.