Mercy Health used an innovative walking program to become one of the healthiest workplaces in the country.
Ozarks At Large
A roundup of events and news for the next few weeks include an alternative way to deliver a Valentine.


An administrative law judge with the Arkansas Public Service Commission on Friday ordered SWEPCO to proceed on its proposed plan to build a massive new power transmission line through portions of northwest Arkansas. Also, Governor Mike Beebe says that recent cost analyses of operating the state's Private Option expansion of Medicaid justifies the program's passage during last year's session of the state legislature. And the state Attorney General's office warns residents about rapid-refund tax providers.

Ahead on Ozarks, a conversation with young adult author An Na. Also, we learn what it takes to become a police officer.

We speak with An Na, author of A Step From Heaven, a book that was awarded the Michael L. Prince Award when it was published a decade ago. Critics and reviewers commended the book's characters for speaking like a child without being too precocious or condescending. The author will speak in Fayetteville later this month.
Latest Edition of Ozarks at Large
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Ahead on this edition of Weekend Ozarks, we visit the kitchen of Jen Lewis, take a spin in a state-run clinic that aids veterans in rural communities, and we meet a recovering opiate addict who has found hope with methadone.
Yesterday, a fire destroyed a vacant World War 2-era hospital complex in historic Fort Chaffee east of Fort Smith. No injuries have been reported.
Michael Tilley of www.thecitywire.com talks about the impending voting on the proposed one-percent prepared food tax and the potential job losses the city faces after the start date of the Mitsubishi assembly plant was put under review.
Ozarks at Large’s Energy Corps correspondent Christina Thomas talks to Shannon Joyce and Becky Roarke, Energy Corps members at the University of Arkansas’ Applied Sustainability Center. She spoke with them at a Community Development Block Grant event at Walker Park where they were tabling.
Cargill recalls all ground turkey products produced at its Springdale, Arkansas plant; congressional gridlock over funding for the Federal Aviation Administration may cost some Arkansans their jobs and more – on this edition of Ozarks at Large Half-Time.
“Settling With Power” by El Ten Eleven
Rob Grayson of WKNO, our content partner in Memphis, talks about Elvis Presley and “Hound Dog.”