Free Arkansas

What did voters just tell us? The morning after Election Day, Andy McNeill and Eli Cranor sit down for a midterm special of Y’all Hear About This to find out what they heard. They begin with economic disparity and why a booming stock market can feel disconnected from the cost of gas and groceries. Then they ask what a new balance of power should do first, with Andy and Eli sharing different views...

Jay Barth caught the political bug at 12 and has spent nearly 50 years in the game as a volunteer, a candidate, a state education board member, a professor, a city hall official, and director of the Clinton Presidential Library. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Jay as Election Day approaches. They look at what moves voters, the races to watch in Arkansas, how campaign money really wor...

Jeff Nichols has made three of his seven films in Arkansas, and he’s not done yet. The Little Rock native behind Mud , Take Shelter , Shotgun Stories , and Loving joins Eli Cranor on ARKANSAWYERS to talk about why home keeps pulling him back. They trace the story from Wednesday movie nights with his dad at a dome theater in Little Rock to a tiny film school in North Carolina, and from the drive be...

Is wrestling real and politics fake? A pro wrestler turned community leader got a laugh with that line at a recent event in Fort Smith, and it set the tone for this week’s Y’all Hear About This. Andy McNeill and Eli Cranor start with the Pentagon’s announced plan to livestream a military execution, a plan since reversed, and ask why we’re so drawn to the morbid. Then, with Election Day close, they...

It started with a request for a dumpster. Residents of Gould, Arkansas asked their city for help with a neighborhood cleanup, got turned down, and eventually helped elect a new city council and mayor. That’s the kind of story Bill Kopsky has been part of for more than 30 years as executive director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Bill about what c...

Why can't we look away from a car wreck, a true crime documentary, or a horror movie we know will keep us up all night? Coltan Scrivner has built a career answering that question. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Coltan, author of Morbidly Curious and a behavioral scientist who studies why humans seek out fear. They get into the evolutionary reason we're drawn to danger, why v...

Colt Shelby has worked in the oil field for 24 years. He never planned to run for office, until a proposed 3,000-bed prison landed four miles from his home in Cecil, Arkansas. Now he's the Libertarian candidate for governor. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Colt about what a Libertarian actually believes, how the prison fight turned him into an activist, and why he's running o...

Bryan Norris spent 21 years in the military before coming home to Independence County and leading a citizen initiative to bring back paper ballots, an effort that passed with 63% of the vote before the county's quorum court overturned it. That fight eventually led him to run for Arkansas Secretary of State, where he lost the Republican runoff by fewer than 1,000 votes despite facing opposition...

DJ Williams spent his career on the field, first as a John Mackey Award-winning tight end for the Razorbacks, then five seasons with the Green Bay Packers. Now, as host of the Fourth and Fifteen podcast, he's spent just as much time thinking about what's actually happening behind the scenes of college football. In this episode of Arkansawyers, Eli Cranor talks with DJ about the real story...

Andy McNeill and Eli Cranor are back with another Y'all Hear About This, their casual rundown of the stories making the rounds. This week: a wild scam story out of a Little Rock strip club, Arkansas' newly enforced Act 372 and what it means for librarians and booksellers, and a controversial social media post from a Texas political candidate that's drawing bipartisan criticism. The con...

There's roughly $2 trillion worth of lithium sitting under South Arkansas, and almost none of it has been extracted yet. Chris Milligan, CEO of Earth, is trying to change that. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Chris about how lithium is actually pulled from brine two miles underground, why Exxon, Chevron, and Equinor have already locked up hundreds of thousands of acres in the reg...

Rod Bigelow has spent over a decade helping bring Alice Walton's vision to life. As CEO of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, he's watched it grow from a bold idea into a campus that drew over a million visitors last year, most of them from outside Arkansas. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Rod about how Alice Walton went from art collector to museum founder, the story be...

Hallie Shoffner is a sixth-generation Arkansas farmer who closed her family's 150-year-old farm last year because of the economic crisis. Now she's running for U.S. Senate against Tom Cotton, and just over two months from Election Day, the race is closer than almost anyone expected. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Hallie about what's actually driving her campaign: healthc...

Eli Cranor spent twelve years in Arkansas public education. Steve Straessle has spent decades leading Little Rock Catholic High School, one of the state's most respected private schools. On this episode of ARKANSAWYERS, the two sit down for a conversation that doesn't shy away from disagreement, because that's the point. They tackle the real questions behind the Arkansas LEARNS Act. Wh...

Arkansas has a right most people don't think about until it's gone: the power for regular citizens to put laws and constitutional amendments directly on the ballot, without waiting on the legislature. Gennie Diaz, founder and executive director of For AR People, has spent the last two years fighting to protect that right. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Gennie about how her o...

Bentonville, Arkansas used to be a pass-through town of 20,000 people, best known for the Walmart Museum. Today it's one of the fastest-growing tourism destinations in the country, and Kalene Griffith, CEO of Visit Bentonville, has been at the center of that transformation since day one. In this episode, host Andy McNeill talks with Kalene about how a small Arkansas city became a global name i...

Welcome to the first installment of ARKANSAWYERS, a premium interview show hosted by Edgar Award-winning Arkansas novelist Eli Cranor. Our mission is simple: Real stories. Real people. We are letting the individuals who live here rewrite our state’s narrative through independent thought, unscripted transparency, and open dialogue. In this episode, Eli sits down with Emmy-nominated Hollywood produc...

🎙️ Arkansas State Senator Breanne Davis joins Andy McNeill for a wide-ranging conversation about public service, political division and the future of Arkansas. Davis shares the personal values that guide her family and political career, from her first school board campaign to her upcoming leadership role in the Arkansas Senate.🔹 Her path from school board member to state senator🔹 Raising four ch...

In this episode of Free Arkansas, host Andy McNeill talks with Curtis Barnett, president and chief executive officer of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, about how health insurance works, why medical costs continue to rise and what it will take to improve health care across the state. Curtis breaks down Arkansas’ roughly $30 billion health care system, explains where the money comes from and di...

In this episode of Free Arkansas, host Andy McNeill talks with Mike Preston, the CEO of CDI Contractors and former Arkansas Secretary of Commerce, about leadership, economic development and why Arkansas continues to be a place where big things can happen. Mike shares how he made Arkansas home, reflects on major economic development wins during his time in state government, and talks about his next...

On this episode of Free Arkansas, Andy McNeill talks with Jay Brogdon, President and CEO of Simmons First National Corporation and Simmons Bank, about how banking helps shape growth, opportunity and capital formation across Arkansas. Brogdon walks through the banking landscape in plain English, explains Simmons’ evolution from a Pine Bluff community bank into one of the larger regional banks in th...

On this episode of Free Arkansas, Andy McNeill talks with Roby Brock, CEO of Natural State Media and longtime host of Talk Business & Politics, about Arkansas media, politics and the future of local news. Brock reflects on how Arkansas politics has changed, why so much of it now feels nationalized and performative, and what he sees as the real challenges facing the state. He also talks about b...

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson joins Andy McNeill for a wide-ranging conversation about public service, leadership and where Arkansas, and the country, go from here. Hutchinson reflects on growing up on a farm near Gravette, the lessons he learned from his parents, his early career as the nation’s youngest U.S. attorney, and his work leading the DEA and helping build the Department of Homelan...

On this episode of Free Arkansas, Andy McNeill talks with Robin Wallis Atkinson, founder and CEO of Upkept, about what it takes to build a company at the intersection of fashion, repair, sustainability, labor and entrepreneurship. Robin shares how her background in art, community-building and nonprofit leadership led her to create Upkept, a company working to make clothing repair easier, more acce...

George Dunklin has spent decades at the center of duck hunting and conservation in Arkansas, from leading Ducks Unlimited to chairing the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to building Five Oaks into one of the most respected hunting lodges in the country. In this episode, he sits down with Andy to break down how the sport has evolved and what’s driving the changes hunters are seeing today. They ge...