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.
Rita Harvey, one of the cast members of Next to Normal, and Amy Herzberg, the director of the T2 production, came to the Firmin-Garner Performance Studio to talk about the production in mid-run and provide a musical sampler from the play.
Click here for more information about the special Wednesday night performance hosted by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Psychiatric Research Institute. For more information about the musical and T2, click here.
Jack Fussell is running from coast to coast to raise money and awareness for Alzheimer's disease.
Tom Vilsack, the country's Secretary of Agriculture, was the esteemed speaker of yesterday's Dale and Betty Bumpers Distinguished Lecture at the University of Arkansas. He took the opportunity to speak candidly with the standing room only crowd about short-, medium-, and long-term ag public policy goals, and about opening lines of communication.
A Fort Smith homeless agency halts its plans to move to a homeless campus until certain criteria are met. Ozarks at Large’s Christina Thomas takes us on a tour of the organization and potential campus.
Southwestern Electric Power Company plans to string an extra high voltage transmission line across Benton and Carroll Counties to better serve the region’s growing electrical needs. But a group of affected residents have organized “Save the Ozarks” to block the transmission corridor.
"The Next Step" by Kurt Rosenwinkel