Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy

Ep 244 | Aired 5/12/2021 This week on Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy we are speaking with Chris Tanner, co-owner/operator with his wife of three successful Little Rock restaurants: Samantha’s Tap Room, Cheers Restaurant, and The Oyster Bar. We will ask him what it has been like to be restauranteurs during the COVID -19 pandemic. How did they manage to successfully cope with the drastic chang...

Ep 243 | Aired 5/5/2021 This week on Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, it is Parks and Tourism day! We will listen to three special public servants share interesting tales about some special places in Arkansas. You will hear excerpts from Kerry’s previous interviews with long running Director of Arkansas State Tourism and author of Arkansas Backstories: Quirks, Characters, and Curiosities of t...

Ep 241 | Aired 4/28/2021 This week on Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy we are replaying my interview with the well-known TV personality and gardener, P. Allen Smith. We talk about his home, Moss Mountain Farm, his involvement in the local food movement, organic gardening, and his passion: the Heritage Poultry Conservancy that he founded in 2009 to educate the public and preserve endangered pou...

Scott Parton, known as Arkansas’ Beer Ambassador, was born and raised in the small town of Piggott, Arkansas and attended Arkansas State University in the neighboring city, Jonesboro. He's worked for Stephens as an Operations Analyst for the past 25 years, but his claim to fame has nothing to with computers but craft beer. Scott does not yet own a brewery, though he has dabbled in making his own b...

Ep. 240 | Aired 1/14/2021 Today on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy we get some gardening know-how from two experts: Master Gardener Janet Carson of Planit Janet and Plantopia owner and landscape designer, Chris Olsen. These two aficionados cover everything from lawn care tips to the best time to prune your crepe myrtle. Listen to hear Janet Carson educate us on how to become a Master Gardener...

Ep 239 | Aired 4/7/2021 Today on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy we pay homage to last weekend’s Easter Celebration by revisiting past conversations from four of Arkansas’s religious leaders: Father Fred Ball, Dean Amy Meaux, Dr. Chris Keller, and Rev. Susan Sims Smith. Each of these deep thinkers tell their story and personal inspiration for choosing a faith-filled life of service. In additi...

Ep 238 | Aired 3/31/2021 Our guests today on Up In Your Business are Ms. Renie Rule and Mr. Charlie Mack from Arkansas Restore Hope: A non-profit founded in 2016 by Governor Asa Hutchinson to solve the problems of incarceration, recidivism, and over-abundance of children in foster care. Having known Ms. Rule for years, I can think of no one more capable to execute such important societal duties. A...

Ep 238 | Aired 03/31/2021 Our guests today on Up In Your Business are Ms. Renie Rule and Mr. Charlie Mack from Arkansas Restore Hope: A non-profit founded in 2016 by Governor Asa Hutchinson to solve the problems of incarceration, recidivism, and over-abundance of children in foster care. Having known Ms. Rule for years, I can think of no one more capable to execute such important societal duties....

Ep 237 | Aired 3/24/2021 Today on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy we are celebrating local eateries by replaying segments from past interviews with Little Rock restaurateurs. Listen to hear Don Dugan of Dugan’s Pub, Sami from Star of India, Sally Mengel of Loblolly Creamery, and others share their start-up stories, successes, and failures in an industry that has seen an exceptionally challeng...

Ep 236 | Aired 3/17/2021 Today on Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, I have the pleasure of interviewing the youngest indie comic book publishers in America, Mitch Breitweiser. Though we may all feel like comic book characters are everywhere in our blockbuster movies and video games, the truth is that very few new characters are being made and especially not being printed, published, and distri...

Ep 235 | Aired 3/10/2021 Today on Up In Your Business you will be swept away as art history professor Gayle Seymour, Associate Dean at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, teaches us about Arkansas’s history and culture. Gayle wrote the grant that led to the 60-year Central High Little Rock Nine reunion where President Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker. We will hear how Gayle commissio...

Ep 234 | Aired 3/3/2021 Our guest today on Up In Your Business is Mr. David Soos of Soos Stained Glass in North Little Rock, AR. Mr. Soos has done what many an artist long to do: turn their art into an income producing business. Soos Stained Glass, founded in 1979, creates products that are hand-made and rooted in history and tradition by craftsmen and their apprentices. Their products are designe...

Ep 233 | Aired 2/24/2021 Today on Up In Your Business, we opened the vault and are revisiting one of my earliest interviews: Allen Engstrom, Founder and Managing Directory of CFO Network in North Little Rock, AR. Though our show recording, style, and my interviewing skills have improved over the past 5 years, this show is still worth a listen for all budding entrepreneurs and want-to-be entreprene...

Ep 231 | Aired 2/10/2021 In keeping with black history month, the guests on today’s Up In Your Business show are some influencers in Little Rock, Arkansas’s African American art scene. With over 200 broadcasts, my staff has amassed a library full of great interviews. And so, as we await the distribution and saturation of the Covid-19 vaccine, they decided to take advantage of our historical collec...

Ep 230 | Aired 2/3/2021 In 2015, before Dr. Sybil Hampton’s mother died, she said to Sybil, “Your whole life has been being in these places that people don’t expect you to be.” Never truer words spoken about my guest Dr. Sybil Hampton, whose first unexpected claim to fame (and she has many) is being among the second group of African American students to integrate Central High School, on the heels...

Ep 229 | Aired 1/27/2021 Just being a surgeon is quite an accomplishment, but my guest today on Up In Your Business is more than that. Dr. C. Lowry Barnes is an orthopedic surgeon who is also a businessman and inventor. This good doctor holds numerous patents on orthopedic devices and hip and knee implants that are all developed and designed to improve surgery success and patient wellness. Barnes,...

Ep 228 | Aired 1/20/2021 Today on Up in Your Business, we’ll listen to my interview with Mr. Ernie Dumas, the unlikely country boy from small-town Arkansas, who became the associate editor of the Arkansas Gazette and one of Arkansas’s most prolific political experts. Ernie has been covering Arkansas politics since 1960 and recently wrote a book; a political memoir called The Education of Ernie Dum...

Ep 227 | Aired 1/13/2021 My guest today on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy is one of the few men I know that really looks good in a puka shell necklace, the well-known and former Razorback football player, David Bazzel. David played linebacker for the University of Arkansas in the 1984 season and had a total of 113 tackles before he was sidelined with shoulder and back injuries. But his contr...

Ep 226 | Aired 1/6/2020 During my Up In Your Business interview with Perry Smith, the new owner of the Minute Man Hamburger franchise, I met his business partner, Brigadier General John Michel. Mr. Michel was in town on business and decided to accompany Perry to our interview. Though the interview’s focus was the rebirth of Minute Man, we did stray off topic a bit and talked about these two gentle...

Ep 225 | Aired 12/30/2020 Do you know who coined the phrase “Outrageous Service?” If you do, then you are familiar with my guest today on Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy: the outrageously successful Mr. Greg Hatcher, founder of The Hatcher Insurance Agency and author of 55 Steps to Outrageous Service. Greg is one of those guys who, from an early age, was destined for success. He was the stude...

Ep 224 | Aired 12/23/2020 Christmas is a time of reflection and gratitude. There is no interview I have ever done on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy that drives that message home more than the one we are replaying today. In 2011, on Christmas morning, New York City advertising executive Madonna Badger lost her three daughters and both parents in a house fire. You probably remember seeing it o...

Ep 223 | Aired 12/16/2020 Today on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, I’ll be visiting with Trinity Episcopal Cathedral’s newly elected Dean and Rector Amy Dafler Meaux. Trinity Episcopal is the seat of the Diocese Bishop and on the National Register of Historic Places. It was founded in 1884 by the Right Reverend Henry Pierce, who lobbied for donations and mortgaged his home to build the Cathe...

Ep 222 | Aired 12/9/2020 Today on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, I’ll be sitting down to visit with the non-profit Friends of Dreamland Ballroom director, Matthew McCoy, and board members Ryk St Vincent and Jeff Roper. Founded in 2009, the Friends of Dreamland’s mission has been to save the iconic Dreamland Ballroom atop the Taborian Hall in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas. This board of eve...

Ep 219 | Aired 11/18/2020 Today on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, I have the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Perry Smith, the man who is bringing back the much loved Arkansas restaurant, Minute Man. Mr. Smith is interesting. Some of his more notable accomplishments include being a champion pole vault athlete, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, a self-made millionaire, and an entrepreneur. He...

Ep 221 | Aired 12/2/2020 Today on Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy I’ll be talking with a fellow North Little Rock, Ridge Road Junior High graduate, Mr. Val Hansen. If you grew up in North Little Rock, then you’ve eaten at what was once perhaps the only hamburger joint in town and Val’s family business, Hansen Hamburgers. Today, mom and pop burger joints have been replaced by corporate fast fo...