Page 7 - RVO Hometown Morrilton June 2017

RIVER VALLEY & OZARK EDITION OF THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE • HOMETOWN MORRILTON
SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 2017 7VV
12:40 P.M.
A fierce hankering for breakfast foods drove me just outside downtown to Mom and Pop’s Waffles. Purposefully unassuming, the eatery is the kind of place where regulars know their servers by name and friends dine together without keeping their cellphones on the table.
In the booth next to me, a group of women who were chatting with a waitress said they were in town for the Petit Jean Show & Swap Meet. While their husbands enjoyed the car show, they spent the day antiquing downtown. The event had also brought me to Morrilton that day, so I paid my check and headed toward the mountain.
Todd Rasmussen, president of the Conway County Historical Preservation Association, stands next to a phone booth at the Morrilton Depot Museum.
Two silos outside the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain pay homage to the facility’s past as the hub of the cattle operation at Winrock Farms.
2 P.M.
I consider Petit Jean State Park to be one of the most beautiful locations in the Natural State, and I’ve visited the park numerous times to explore the Bear Cave Trail, trek down to Cedar Falls or hike the Seven Hollows Trail. During this trip, however, I planned pursue some of the other attractions atop Petit Jean.
I began with a trip to the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute to learn more about a man who helped shape the history of Petit Jean State Park, Morrilton and the state of Arkansas.
“You really can’t tell the story of Arkansas without the Rockefeller legacy being front and center,” said Jeff LeMaster, director of communications and marketing, who added that Win- throp Rockefeller cast his influence as both the chairman of the Arkansas Industrial Develop- ment Commission and as the state’s governor.
“He changed the course of Arkansas history. We could have fallen behind like many other Southern states did,” he said. “It took them decades to recover, but the political reforms, social reforms and educational reforms he was able to bring with his influence, his name, his wealth, his philanthropy — but then his approach to problem-solving being the key factor to that — really put us on a better trajectory than a lot of our neighbors and made us a leader in the South.”
Rockefeller moved from New York to Arkansas in 1953, after falling in love with Petit Jean Mountain. He established a cattle farm on the mountain and lived in Arkansas for the last 20 years of his life, serving two terms as governor. One of his most defining qualities was his meth- od of solving problems by bringing experts in various fields together to address issues such as economic development and education reform, LeMaster said.
“We follow in his footsteps in that we convene these high-level meetings of people and put on these educational programs that either seek to come up with solutions to problems facing Arkansas or advance new ideas that we think will benefit the state,” he said.
Housed in two renovated cattle barns that still boast original silos, the institute brings groups from near and far to its conference facilities. LeMaster took me on a tour of the insti- tute’s culinary classroom, which offers classes such as Table for Two, designed for couples to cook and enjoy a gourmet meal together.
We also stopped by the institute’s Governor’s Office, which has been furnished to look as it did during Rockefeller’s time, and strolled through the Legacy Gallery, a winding hall lined with photos and information about the Rockefeller family and its impact on Arkansas. I also poked my head in the Legacy Theater, where visitors can watch videos such as the 1957 Interim Report, an overview narrated by Rockefeller of Winrock Farms’ early years .
SEE DAY IN THE LIFE, PAGE 8VV
Ted McCall, of Linwood, and his sons Ed, 10, and Ethan, 5, check out toy cars at the 59th annual Petit Jean Show & Swap Meet.