December 1998

Paper Trails Nell Frost has enough stories for her own book Pam Hogue (standing, back row) had no reason to worry that her pupils might be inattentive when 1OO-year old Nell Frost visited her classroom during National Children's Book Week. Even if he had not brought each pupil a Slinky, James Pfei Date: 12/1/98 Category: Features Page: E8 Carrie Rengers Pam Hogue was honored when guest reader Nell Frost visited her sixth-grade class at McDermott Elementary School, but she did have one concern. Would a reading by a 1 OO-year-old woman keep the attention of a fidgeting group of preteens? Frost could have left her book at home. The class wanted to hear her stories. Frost, who taught sixth grade for 40 years, is one of more than 675 volunteers who visited classrooms at Little Rock elementary schools to read to pupils in celebration of National Children's Book Week Nov. 16-20. A representative with Volunteers in Public Schools, which organized the readings, drove Frost to McDermott, but she did the rest. "It was a very simple little story," Frost says of Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, which she chose to read. The discussion, though, was quite involved. "We had so much to talk about," Frost says. "We wondered what she had to live through, what inventions she had to live through and live without," says pupil Sam Rabaduex. Frost told them of the first time she saw an automobile. She and a cousin were on a horse returning from the store with eggs. The car frightened the horse, who threw off the girls and galloped away. The girls lost the eggs, which broke and smeared all over the street, but the horse returned home and stood waiting for them in front of his stable. "She knows a lot about history," says pupil Abdias Montoya. "She was alive when the Titanic [sank]." Frost told of how people in her hometown of Dardanelle got updates on the Titanic, not from radio or TV but by heading to the river each day to get newspapers that came by boat. "She'd be good for social studies," Sam says. "It was neat actually being in the room with somebody who lived at the time of the Titanic. And you can understand it better from her than, like, a book." Pupil Savannah Couca says she was surprised "that she wasn't boring, that she had a lot to say." The pupils surprised Frost, too, when she quizzed them on current events. "I was amazed they were so smart," she says. "I was so proud of them." And she's not through. "They're going to let me come back and tell them some more things," Frost says. The pupils are already planning a birthday party for her. She turns 101 two days after Christmas. 'I just love it' For years, James Pfeifer was busy at work at Little Rock's One Source Home and Building Centers. He supported various causes financially, but it has only been in retirement that the 82-year-old Pfeifer has been able to devote as much time as he wants in person to those causes. So, in addition to reading for Book Week, Pfeifer reads to kindergarten pupils at Romine Elementary School in Little Rock once or twice a week. "Honestly, I have never done anything so fulfilling as this," Pfeifer says. "I just love it." So do the kids. During Book Week, he brought each of them a brightly colored Slinky. The pupils like their Slinkys, but it's Pfeifer they really appreciate. Of the pupils, he says, "I haven't met one yet that I haven't fallen for." Landing a seat A recent newspaper item caught the attention of some people who wondered if Jennings Osborne might have a chance to again display as many Christmas lights as he wants at his Cantrell Road home. Osborne's attorney, Bob Lowry, who unsuccessfully helped him fight a lawsuit that sought to restrict his lights, is the newest member of the Little Rock Planning Commission. Lowry insists Osborne and his ventures won't benefit from the new position. Lowry is "not in a position to help him." He says he'll avoid any potential conflicts of interest. "I can assure you I would run from it like a scalded dog," Lowry says. "Believe it or not, my only desire to do this ... is for the good of the city." Lowry says he has a historical interest in the city. He's a descendant of Little Rock's first mayor, Matthew Cunningham, and he can remember when Hayes Street, now known as University Avenue, was gravel. He also has children so he says he has an interest in the city's future, too. "I have no agenda," Lowry says. "I'm just carrying on a family tradition." Exacerbating 'backwards image' Peter Eisenman hasn't gotten much great press in Arkansas, but he's faring better nationally. Eisenman is the well-known New York architect who taught at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for fours years and recently quit after controversy over a stadium design he created at Athletic Director Frank Broyles' request. The design and Eisenman are featured in a multipage spread in the November issue of Architecture magazine, which also mentions a favorable review that Eisenman's design received in The New York Times. "It is ironic that a prestigious architectural magazine would be now featuring the works, and specifically the work of Peter Eisenman at the University of Arkansas ... when the board of trustees in the same week chose not to use his team for the design commission," says one member of an Arkansas architectural firm. Not only was Eisenman's design not chosen -- some trustees worried it was too futuristic -he now is facing disciplinary action by the Arkansas State Board of Architects for practicing architecture in the state without a license. David Buege, chairman of the UA Architecture Department, has said the board is acting petty and political in using laws designed to promote public safety to punish Eisenman for mere conceptual drawings. "This guy has somehow stumbled into an ugly tribal culture here where, for whatever reason, and I can only assume it's because of his accomplishments and his notoriety, he's been hunted down and snared here by the state Board of Architecture," Buege said after the board's decision to discipline Eisenman. Others suggest the national media might be "willing to exacerbate this backwards image." "It certainly leaves us vulnerable, which makes me cringe," says the architectural firm employee, who prefers not to be named. "That tends to be the image and they tend to pounce on it whenever possible," he says. "One incident like this seems to put us back substantially." HOTTIP? QUIRKYSTORY?LIVELYTALE? Call Carrie Rengers at 3 78-3892 or e-mail her at: carrie_rengers@adg.ardemgaz. com

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