Free Range Conversations

Marty Bowlin, president of the Pioneer Village, joins in on an episode of the Free Range Conversations podcast focusing on the historic property in Rison. Bowlin, affectionately dubbed the “Leader of the Village People,” by some of her volunteers has been on a mission to revive the property and get awareness out about the buildings and events featured at the Pioneer Village that date back to the 1800s. Bowlin highlights some of the current events including the Pioneer Crafts Festival revival and the popular Food Truck Friday partnership with Rison Shine. She also dives into the paranormal detailing her recent tour with YouTube sleuth Larry Flaxman who documented ghostly activity on the property. Listeners will also learn how music legend Johnny Cash played a vital role in starting the Pioneer Village, and how one of his famous suits was found at the Village decades later before being moved to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There was also that time a bear wandered into the Pioneer Village, startling Bowlin.

Cleveland County Cares Coordinator and cancer survivor Melinda McKnight is urging current and former smokers to get a Low-Dose CT scan (LDCT) to screen for lung cancer in this week’s episode of the Free Range Conversations podcast. McKnight credits the preventative screening for saving her life as she was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2023 and is now in remission. She has since become an advocate for the LDCT, sharing her story and early detection in testimony videos for CARTI shared throughout their facilities across Arkansas, and on social media platforms. McKnight, a former smoker who also lost her mother to lung cancer that year, began having yearly screenings in 2015, during which one scan found a 3 mm. nodule. That nodule remained the same for several years according to McKnight, until 2023 when it started growing.

In this episode of the Free Range Conversations podcast, Rison native Herschel S. Garner shares stories from his time as a U.S. Marshal during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Garner sits down with podcast hosts Britt Talent, Roy Phillips and Douglas Boultinghouse to tell how he ended up in history books as part of the school integration at McDonough #19 School in New Orleans, plus protecting Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama; and another integration effort at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Garner also recalls times of transporting prisoners, what life what like in Rison, and why he moved his family back home.

It’s not uncommon to come across people visiting Rison compare it to Mayberry, the fictional town that was the setting for the Andy Griffith Show.

But there was a time, especially right after Prohibition ended in 1933 and the sale of alcoholic beverages was allowed nationwide, that Rison was anything but Mayberry. Stan Sadler, the former publisher of the Cleveland County Herald and the county’s unofficial historian, talks about Rison’s “rough” history and what changed it in this week’s episode of the Free Range Conversations podcast.

Les Walz, the former Cleveland County Cooperative Extension Service agent shares why he ran head first into competing in obstacle course and endurance events across the country. What started as a way to get in shape and bond with his son caused him to “catch the fever” and he has now completed events in Texas, at Notre Dame and more. He 'll head to Nashville this fall for another race, then hit the Natchez Trace Parkway down through Mississippi before returning to Rison. Plus hear his stories of growing up in Germany, attending high school with NFL and TV star Michael Strahan, and the most unusual calls he got as the agri agent for Cleveland County.

Not many people have floated the entire length of the Saline River from its origins north of Benton to its confluence with the Ouachita River, but Pat Jo Keegan of Cleveland County's Mt. Carmel community is among them. In this episode of Free Range Conversations, Keegan, who is the District 4 Justice of the Peace on the Quorum Court, explains how she developed a passion for the outdoors at an early age. However, it wasn’t until her career with the military that took the Rison High School graduate to South Dakota that she really found her passion: kayaking.

An in-depth conversation with one of the fall festival's founders, Roy, and current director, Douglas. Learn how Roy and others launched the event in 1990 for the town's 100th birthday, and how Douglas has transformed it into the premier event in Cleveland County as a music festival bringing names like Twitty & Lynn, Julie Roberts, Erin Enderlin, David Nail to Rison! Plus get all the details on this year's lineup, "Nashville" and "Outer Banks" star Charles Esten, Rissi Palmer, "The Voice" alums BIAS and Marybeth Byrd, and introducing Last Call.

Meet your hosts, Britt, Roy and Douglas.