LITTLE ROCK – Bringing its system for taxing natural gas production into line with the times could put $4.5 billion to $7.5 billion into Arkansas coffers over the next 30 years, according to a report released Thursday by a nonprofit group.

LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families and Southern Good Faith Fund’s Public Policy Program released two reports Thursday on policy opportunities related to Arkansas’ severance tax on natural gas in the wake of development of the Fayetteville Shale Play.

HELENA-WEST HELENA – Phillips County is Arkansas’ poorest. But in the last two years, residents, local leaders and business owners have worked with Southern Bancorp to begin turning the economy around. The rural development bank-holding company says in a new report that the effort so far has brought almost 24 (m) million dollars into the eastern Arkansas county of 24-thousand people.

Delta Southern Bank has awarded three more grants worth $221,963 to Drew Enterprises, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, to renovate three buildings in Drew, Miss.

Residents of Gurdon were encouraged to “dream big” by those coordinating the Clark County strategic planning process during a town hall meeting at Gurdon City Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 12.

Delta Southern Bank, a member bank of Southern Bancorp, has received an increasing amount of ink around here because of its generous investments in the resuscitation of Drew, but neither journalists nor members of the general public seem to ‘get’ how big a story this is.

ARHealthNet, a new program designed to help small businesses offer health insurance to their employees, will be available effective Jan. 1. It will be administered by NovaSys Health and sold by local insurance agents.

The E. C. Morris Foundation announced that the National Parks Service awarded them $300,000 to help restore Centennial Baptist Church in downtown Helena-West Helena. The award is one of 42 national awards through the Save America’s Treasures program, a public-private partnership established in 1996 to preserve and protect buildings and collections that have significance to American history.

“Southern Bancorp, or ‘Southern’, is a bank holding company and development organization in Arkansas. We use capital and credit in distressed rural areas to create new investment patterns not just in business, but in training, housing, and health.

How can a non-profit organization durably improve the lives of low-income, low-skilled citizens? This question took on new urgency in the 1990s, when the national outlook on public welfare shifted. Penny Penrose, then the executive director of Southern Good Faith Fund serving Southeastern Arkansas, recognized that systemic changes in the Clinton administration’s ‘welfare reforms’ demanded a systemic response.