OZARKS EXPO or OZARKSEXPO? The meaning depends on how your brain groups letters!

OZARKS EXPO or OZARKSEXPO? The meaning depends on how your brain groups letters!

Hello everybody. Come on in. No, I haven't been called four eyes ... today.

I'm Dwain Lair, welcome to the Ozarks Expo. Let me hand you a Harrison Daily Times gift bag. It has a starter kit of a refrigerator magnet with a liquid and dry measurement conversion table. Megan says it's handy for cooking, and Dwain uses it for mixing pesticides. We all have to be good stewards of the Earth, and not all of us are good at math. So this little conversion chart is simply wonderful.

The Harrison Daily Times takes over Pioneer Pavilion (gymnasium) and the parking lots on North Arkansas College's South Campus for its annual Ozarks Expo. It has all sorts of vendors, from home security to health management home repairs to food vendors to artisans, etc., etc., etc. There was something for everyone, and about everyone showed up..

Here's a lifelong photographer, Lee H. Dunlap. We swear, he was born with a camera around his neck. That fancy bicycle in the Harrison Daily Times booth was one of the grand prizes.

Dwain is welcoming everybody's good friend, Katherine Nance. He is holding a map of the more than 50 vendors. The rules of the game are: Get each vendor to initial their booth area, then each individual can submit their completely filled up map to the Harrison Daily Times booth and enter the grand prizes drawing.

Let's take a few minutes to walk around and see who all is here.

Here is long-time North Arkansas Regional Medical Center volunteer (Pink Lady) Pat Frank. Pat used to work with Dwain's late wife, Fran. She also has a smile, and said a hospital volunteer red vest has been set aside for Dwain.

Dwain's high school classmate, Barbara Ransom Villines, and her husband, Frank, are new parents. Congratulations you two! Oh, this is better than your own kid, this is a beautiful grandchild who can do no wrong. They had checked out their own Villines Security booth with high-end and fancy designer gun safes. Neat, huh? Frank and Barbara were manning the grandchild, not their booth. We all have priorities.

Here's Megan's classmate and former Girl Scout Troop 114 member Arleta Marshall Kersh. She disappeared in the crowd until the announcer called out her name as a door prize winner. We think she also won last year. Arleta's always a winner. She won also won plenty of ribbons at the fair last year.

Meet Mrs. Ed (Betty) Knight. She's watching the Concerned Citizens of Boone County booth and reading a copy of the Weekend/Sunday Harrison Daily Times with stories and pictures (unknown and not approved by Dwain) on his retirement this coming Friday. Ed and Betty are always friendly, sincere, the kind of friends you can call in the middle of the night from Dallas, Texas, and they would come rescue you.

The man behind this booth is actually Goliath, a giant of a man. If he says to sign this newspaper, Dwain will oblige or get his arm twisted off. Actually, this is Wendell Stephens, a likable guy who gave Dwain many prizes, and gave Dwain's late friend Tom Duck a lot of laughs and a grandchild. We're not sure which was more important. Yeah, sure.

 

Here is another of Tom Duck's friends, Hilton West. We think the late Tom Duck stopped by Christeson Funeral Home while making his DAILY rounds and harassed his poor "little buddy" Hilton to no ends. What a colorful gift basket in the Roller-Christeson Funeral Home booth. We wonder who won this door prize?

Patty McFarland Methvin was joined by her staff in the Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce booth. Friendly Patty sold a membership and scheduled a ribbon cutting. We were not surprised.

Here's Jodi Carney of Mountain Home. She's running for circuit judge in the 14th Judicial District. She bought booth space and met literally hundreds and hundreds of voters with a smile on her face ... all day.

Here's Deanna Suzie Evans, she's also running for the circuit judge seat in the 14th Judicial District. This smiling face was as busy shaking hands and giving hugs as a one-armed paper hanger.

Jodi and Suzie both paid for booth space in the Ozarks Expo. Some other candidates, not running for circuit judge, didn't buy booth space but tried to wander around in campaign gear and hand out their propaganda.
If they run their private and political lives in this fashion, that's probably a good indicator of their public lives and management skills.
Sponsors of events shouldn't have to watch for gate crashers, when other people have been so responsible and paid their dues.

Dwain is back at an entrance handing out gift bags and game cards, as Megan stuffs more items in gift bags. We ended up doing a 4-hour stint, but we were repaid with a lunch, one of the best brown-bag lunches we've had. It even had a chocolate chip cookie. Megan said it was delicious ... still kind of warm.

Marsha! Marsha! Marsha! You smell so good. What fragrance are you wearing? Marsha Carter has always got a hug and a smile. This is a reward.

And next we have half of Donna Braymer (on the left) and the smiling face of Greg Brady. Honest. This is Barry Williams who played Greg Brady on the popular sitcom The Brady Bunch. This was quite a surprise when he walked through the door where we (Dwain and Megan) and Lynn Blevins were stationed. Lynn said, "Did you see the way that guy looked at me? He was Greg Brady. I think he was waiting for me to recognize him ..." What? No way! We didn't believe her.

Here's Donna, the great organizer of any event, interviewing newspaper publisher Ronnie Bell. Dwain, disguised as a "one-eyed purple people eater," is still greeting a steady stream of people coming through the door. And Ronnie, he's trying to figure out how to clone Donna.

And here's Dwain, as we're about ready to duck out of the Expo. He's turning the bags and game cards over to sports writer Craig Enlow.

Off we head to get Megan's glasses repaired. 
Oh, the screw came out? 
No wonder the right lens keeps popping out of the frame.

Dwain and Megan

Oh, that heading? Sadly, a lot of men were disappointed in the lack (none) of pole dancers.
The fonts and way the newspaper originally had OZARKSEXPO as one word seemed to make people break the word into two words: Ozark and Sexpo.
That would have fun. Hahaha.

A study in spiritualism - the spirit-writing of Leslie Stringfellow comforted and guided his parents

A study in spiritualism - the spirit-writing of Leslie Stringfellow comforted and guided his parents more than 100 years ago.
Does this sound like a journey through the sixth dimension or a simple fictional plot?
A young man born shortly after the Civil War died suddenly from a mysterious illness; he saw heaven and promised to communicate with his parents if it was possible; his parents grieved and eventually adopted a young girl; and the middle-aged couple and their young daughter left Galveston and moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where they died and are buried.

Henry and Alice Stringfellow communicated with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes books and an expert on spiritualism, about their son's death and afterlife. Does their family plot in Evergreen Cemetery at Fayetteville hold some mystical power?

Megan's interest in Leslie Stringfellow and his family was inspired by a simple, used paperback book Dwain ordered for her five years ago.

Megan's copy of "The Afterlife of Leslie Stringfellow (A 19th Century Southern Family's Experience with Spiritualism)" was copyrighted in 2005 and "DISCARDED BY Capital Area District Library" on April 26, 2007.

If you can find a copy of this University of Arkansas Press publication today, a used copy will run past $70.

As you can see, Megan's literally in the shadow of the University of Arkansas as she takes photographs of the Stringfellow family plot.

Leslie Stringfellow was the only child born to highly educated and wealthy parents Henry and Alice Stringfellow in Galveston, Texas.  After Leslie's untimely death Sept. 14, 1886, the family eventually moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Leslie is buried in a private cemetery on Galveston Island.

Included inside the book are several photographs.  This is the Fayetteville, Arkansas, home of Alice and Henry Stringfellow as it appeared in the early 1900s when they first built it.

We again have 329 Washington Avenue in Fayetteville.  This the three-story home as it appears today. We wish we could have gone inside and just walked through.  It must have been amazing to live here.

The Stringfellow family plot is in historical Evergreen Cemetery in Fayetteville, just south of the University of Arkansas campus and lies adjacent to the back of the Kappa Sig fraternity house. In front of the family marker are (from closest to furthest away), Henry, Alice, Lessie and a Tomi Green (no idea of the connection there).

These were the principal players of the Stringfellow family:  Henry and Alice on the top, Leslie on the bottom left, and Lessie Stringfellow Read, the adopted daughter of Henry and Alice.  They took her in when she was two years of age after the death of her parents.  Leslie, through his "spirit writing," instructed his parents to take this child as their own.  He even told them what to name her.  Henry was 49 years old and Alice was 43 years old when they adopted 2-year-old Lessie.

.  

Lessie was in her 26th year when her father, H.M. Stringfellow, died and was buried on the west side of Evergreen Cemetery.

Alice Stringfellow, who live to 97 years of age, is buried between her husband and daughter.

Alice and Henry Stringfellow were so overtaken by grief and were so desperate to know that their son was safe and in the hands of God that they went so far as to contact mediums in Boston, which left them dissatisfied and not convinced that they were actually hearing from their son.  In Galveston, a lady named Mrs. Fink introduced the couple to spirit writing where a message was written on a slate that they were certain could only have  come from Leslie because he was the only one who would have known.  The message was even signed, "Leslie."  Spirit writing has no sentence break; t's are not crossed; and "i's" are not dotted. 

For the next 15 years, the couple used a heart-shaped planchette with a pencil fitted through a hole in one end to communicate with their son.  The planchette is placed over a piece of paper.  People wanting a message from a loved one place their hands on the planchette and the deceased loved one moves the planchette through the energy of the living, thus leaving them the intended message, as in the picture above. 
The book says Leslie comforted his parents by telling them how real heaven is.  That it is as real and physical a place as earth, only much more beautiful and a place where you can easily see and visit with anyone.  
He wanted his parents to know how happy he was.  He wanted them to go on without him by taking in another child, which they eventually did.  He told them through his spirit writing, before they ever met her, that they would have a little girl that they would adopt and they would name her Lessie.  And that is exactly what happened.  She was the joy of their new lives.  

Behind Megan is the Fulbright family plot. Lessie Stringfellow Read was a women's suffrage pioneer and wrote for the Fayetteville newspaper, that was owned and edited by Roberta Fulbright. They became close friends.

Roberta Fulbright described Lessie as: "A person who could see by her own headlights, and she was capable of running herself."
She was chosen in 1916 as the national press chairman for the General Federation of Women's Clubs (like the 20th Century Club in Harrison) with more than 2 million members, representing 18 countries.

Lessie Stringfellow Reed continued to live in the family mansion after her mother died. The book says she became senile and was moved into the Fayetteville Hospital, where she died ... a year after Dwain started attending the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

The Stringfellow family marker now shows the signs of age. No more Stringfellows to be buried in vacant slips in this family plot and no one to clean the stone. They've all locked arms in heaven ...

Megan and Dwain

Megan says the book by Stephen Chism has been an interesting and enlightening read, well worth the price of entering the Stringfellows' world.