Arkansas250 Commission Celebrates Historic Anniversary

America is in the grips of 250 fever, the semiquincentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, that formally marked the beginning of the American Experiment. The historic event will be marked by celebrations and events from Maine to Maui to the National Mall as Americans take time to reflect on the history of the Republic and all that has transpired under her comparatively short lifespan.

The excitement trickles down to Main Street as communities and neighborhoods gear up for a blowout 2 1/2 centuries in the making. In Arkansas, the effort is aided by the work of the Arkansas250 Commission, an adjunct of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism’s Division of Arkansas Heritage.

Established by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in July 2024, the 15-member commission has worked both internally and externally with local community leaders to provide direction and assistance in creating their own community celebrations, as well as launching programs that leverage the occasion to educate and inspire the citizenry.

“I’m one of these types of people that loves historical moments, whether that’s experiencing a historic site across our state or a state park or a natural area that is unique to our state,” said Shea Lewis, Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism secretary and commission chair. “This is just one of those opportunities for us to highlight who we are as the Natural State and Arkansas’ role in the creation of the country that we know as America. We’ve had pivotal moments in that, and we’re really trying to highlight those moments and help remind Arkansans of those moments and help them understand how relevant Arkansas is in our country’s history.”

Shea Lewis

The commission worked to establish various platforms by which to communicate the significance of the state’s heritage and accomplishments within the wider context of the nation’s history. It sought to personalize the semiquincentennial experience not by supplanting local celebrations and festivals but to augment them from a broader perspective, said the commission’s vice chair, Marty Ryall, director of the Division of Arkansas Heritage.

Marty Ryall

“One of the first things that we recognized was so many communities around the state already have existing Fourth of July celebrations, and these celebrations are really important to these communities,” he said. “In a lot of cases, this is the one big community celebration every year. Some of them, you even have several counties coming together for a regional event, so the first decision we made was we don’t want to step on what they’re doing or have a big event in Little Rock on the Fourth of July or something like that that’s going to take away from community celebrations. That was our underlying premise.

“From there, we started looking at things that we could do to celebrate Arkansas’s history and recognize some of the things that make Arkansas unique in America and the contributions we’ve made and continue to make. America’s 250 years old, but Arkansas is also 190 years old this year, so there’s 60 years there that predate our statehood, but we still wanted to recognize what would become Arkansas throughout that entire period. America has a great story to tell, but it wouldn’t be complete without Arkansas and our story.”

One of the most conspicuous initiatives of the commission has been the marker program, which has erected several historical markers throughout Arkansas. Adorned with the Arkansas250 logo, the special-edition red-white-and-blue markers were produced by Sewah Studios, a foundry in Ohio owned by native Arkansans, and indicate locations of national, if not global, significance.

The marker idea may have been straightforward — the state has a long tradition of erecting such markers, some dating back to Arkansas’ statehood centennial in 1936 — but as Ryall pointed out, the selection process was anything but.

“I think we had, probably, 30 [nominations] total, and when we started out, we determined we were going to have 10 sites. We ended up with 11 because when we got down to it, there was a tie at the end, and so we did 11,” he said. “We could have easily gone well past that number, but financial resources and time were the two factors that really limited us to 11. Unfortunately, that means there’s some great things that were left out; Hot Springs has a lot of history over there, and there’s so much history in Fort Smith.

“In some communities, there are already museums and markers and sites, so adding another marker wouldn’t really provide more information to the public. We wanted these markers to be in areas that maybe don’t kind of get the recognition they need but are significant in our state’s history.”

Another conspicuous initiative of the commission was to produce and distribute commemorative Arkansas250 flags statewide. Made possible by funding from Walmart and produced in partnership with FlagandBanner.com in Little Rock, the commission secured a stockpile of about 1,500 flags and went to work blanketing the state.

“We came up with the idea of making sure every municipality, the county courthouse, the city hall, had Arkansas250 flags,” said Commissioner Jan Zimmerman, who spearheaded the effort. “We have one flying at Dickey-Stephens Park with the Arkansas Travelers right in downtown North Little Rock. We were able to provide flags for the colleges and universities and the museums in Arkansas, state agencies, anyplace that we could pretty much tack a flag.”

Jan Zimmerman

The effort was kicked off in a big way with a flag raised at Oaklawn Hot Springs in January. Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester was joined by Oaklawn President Louis Cella, Oaklawn General Manager Wayne Smith, Miss Arkansas Kennedy Holland, and several Hot Springs and Garland County officials for the occasion.

Cole Jester

“We look around, and we see this country, the freedom we have, the prosperity we have, the ability — whether it be to vote or to get redress from our government or to be free from those who would oppress us from around the world — to get something beautiful and incredibly meaningful,” Jester said during the event. “As we know, that was not free. Instead, it was paid for in blood and sacrifice and hardship, whether that be at Lexington, Concord, Yorktown, Gettysburg, on the beaches of D-Day. We’ve seen generation after generation of Americans pass the baton forward in our 250-year history of freedom, and we are proud of every single one of those years.”

“Now it’s been 250 years of, year by year, people pressing forward so that we can enjoy the rights and the freedoms we have today in this country. This is taking a minute to say we are thankful. We acknowledge that 250 years, and for the first time, we’re raising that flag in Arkansas.”

Arkansas’ military traditions have also been represented through the commission’s work, specifically through coordination of a special flyover for Independence Day celebrations.

“We’ve always done flyovers for various events, football games and that kind of stuff. In fact, we did one for the Travelers opening night, which was an Arkansas250 night,” said Col. Joel Lynch, Arkansas National Guard public affairs officer. “What we’re doing is putting together Fly Over Arkansas, where we’re working with the Arkansas Air National Guard and the Army National Guard.”

Col. Joel Lynch

The coordinated flyovers included C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft from the Arkansas Air National Guard’s 189th Airlift Wing and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from the 77th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade. The aircraft followed six different corridors across the state from June 29 through July 2 to ensure as many communities as possible would be included and get the chance to view the spectacle.

Military personnel and hardware are also expected to be part of individual community celebrations on a city-by-city basis, Lynch said.

“There are so many events, and we can’t [fly over] all of them, but we do have almost 9,000 guardsmen in units in communities around the state,” he said. “We try to connect these units in particular areas with the celebration that’s going on and maybe have some soldiers or airmen there, maybe some of their equipment there. We’ve got a few of those that we’ve been doing, as well.”

Lynch said while the demand for flyovers always far outstrips the military’s ability to meet them, Fly Over Arkansas was an attempt at reaching as many people as possible in honor of the semiquincentennial and Arkansas’ 190th anniversary.

“It’s a real honor to do it,” he said. “I’m really happy that this kind of fell our way just because I like to talk about what we do and then share the stories of the Arkansas Guard and the things that we’ve done over the last couple hundred years. If you trace our roots, we’re militia, and the founding of the country began with the militia, so really, our state’s history has a lot of military aspects to it. I’m really honored to be able to share that and expose people to the things that we’ve done that they may not have realized.”

Another initiative of the commission aimed at a wider impact than just July 4 are educational efforts designed to help students gain a better understanding of Arkansas history and its role in shaping the nation.

“As a commission, I knew that we would want to do something to engage our children,” said Ken Warden, commissioner of the Arkansas Division of Higher Education. “I’m old enough to remember the bicentennial in 1976. I remember the bicentennial quarter and a lot of those activities, and it stuck with me. I thought this is a really neat opportunity for us to figure out an age-appropriate way to engage Arkansas schoolchildren.”

Ken Warden

That engagement takes the form of a specially designed curriculum developed in cooperation with the Arkansas Department of Education. The materials were made available to educators statewide to allow them to include Arkansas-centric history content in their lesson plans.

“We wanted to make sure that we hit every single student,” said Isaac Cross, humanities specialist at the Arkansas Department of Education, who headed the project. “We didn’t just think K-12 public schools; we thought about private schools, homeschools, charter schools, all the different methods. We knew every student’s a little different, so we created lots of different opportunities for teachers and students to engage from curriculum that was designed for them. It was standards aligned. It was virtual and flexible, all the way up to projects that engaged districts in partnerships with the Department of Education.”

Isaac Cross

The digital dashboard, america250.ade.arkansas.gov, provides more than just dry historical facts and dates, including various expeditions that virtually transport students across the state or help them connect with historical figures and events. Cross said the effort was widely utilized, and many schools were so immersed in the program that it resulted in some remarkable projects.

“We wanted all of our kids to celebrate our history, connect to our Arkansas story, and contribute to the future success of our state and our country for the next 250 years,” he said. “We’re happy to say we hit every district in the state, and every district has engaged in some type of America250 work. We’ve been blessed to go to some schools this month to see the projects they created.

“We’ve really been focusing on legacy. We don’t want this to end on July 4, so we’ve created projects and extended some of these projects to the beginning of next school year to continue to engage our students in this work. The biggest thing is we wanted our kids to be proud not only to be Americans but proud to be Arkansans.”

The Arkansas250 commission has also taken the lead in various public events and exhibits. In May, commissioned artwork was unveiled by Arkansan Barry Thomas, who topped a field of 33 other artists with his painting created especially for the occasion. The piece is included in an exhibit entitled Before Us, Beyond Us at the Old Statehouse Museum in Little Rock. Another exhibit of antique documents was put together for display at the state capitol.

Ryall and team were also tasked with ensuring the Natural State was duly represented in national exhibits, as well.

“There’s an America250 time capsule that’s being put together that is going to be buried in Philadelphia,” he said. “They asked every state to send an item to go into the time capsule that best represents their state. We felt a diamond from Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro would last another 250 years, considering it’s been around for a billion years or so already. We sent that with a letter from the governor on archival paper, signed with special archival ink. That also goes in there.”

Arkansas was also represented at the America’s State Fair national exposition in Washington, D.C., starting June 25 and running through July 10. Organized by the White House’s Freedom 250 initiative, the fair celebrates all 50 states and six U.S. territories, each hosting an enclosed exhibit space around the National Mall to showcase their heritage, culture and innovations.

“Arkansas is participating under the leadership of Arkansas Director of Tourism Dalaney Thomas for Arkansas250,” Ryall said. “Our exhibit highlights Arkansas trailblazers — individuals, companies, natural wonders and cultural contributions that helped shape America. The goals are to elevate awareness of Arkansas, inspire visitation, and showcase the state’s innovation, heritage and outdoor experiences.”

As commission chair, Lewis said he was pleased with the work the group had done and was equally gratified to see the buy-in from communities and other partners across the state.

“We were so fortunate we have such a great group of people who brought different perspectives to the commission. The governor appointed a tremendous team,” he said. “The other thing that really happened was that we immediately started hearing from key partners and communities across the state with ideas or things they were doing already, which allowed us to partner with others for overall success. We saw all of this come together in a very natural way, and we’ve seen an overwhelmingly positive response as a result.”

Finally, Shea said he hopes that in divisive times, a celebration like America250 and the efforts of the Arkansas250 Commission can be rallying points to bring people together.

“A large part of what we do at the Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism is really try to elevate the image of Arkansas to create awareness as to who we are and what we offer,” he said. “I hope, when people look back a few years from now and remember Arkansas250 and America250, that they felt they were a part of a special moment in time.

“We’re proud of our state, we’re proud of our country, and we’re fortunate to live in this time and place, but if you don’t take a moment from time to time to stop and celebrate that, the world just keeps going. I hope people see this as an opportunity to pause and reflect on Arkansas and the great country that we live in.”