by Michael Hibblen | Jun 7, 2026 | Arkansas History, Arkansas News, Music, Willie Nelson
Thirty years ago, Willie Nelson rolled into Glenwood, Ark. for an appearance on local radio combo KWXI-AM 670/KWXE-FM 104.5. A large crowd of cheering fans showed up with signs and red bandannas. Willie did not disappoint them, making the event on June 9, 1996 one of the most memorable days for the community.
Willie Nelson being escorted inside the Glenwood radio stations by Music/Programming Director Anna Donahue (right) on June 9, 1996. Photo: The Glenwood Herald
Nelson and four longtime members of his band arrived about an hour late aboard a pair of buses named Red Headed Stranger and Honeysuckle Rose III, according to a story by The Glenwood Herald. Stepping off his bus at Reggie Jones Plaza, where the radio studios were located, Nelson waved to the crowd and walked inside with harmonica player Mickey Raphael, rhythm guitarist Jody Payne and piano-playing sister Bobbie Nelson.
“We had to lock the doors, so many people were trying to come in,” former station owner Tom Nichols said this week while recalling the event.
They played live music for about 90 minutes with some banter between each song with Nichols and Music/Programming Director Anna Donahue. Afterward, Nelson ventured into the crowd and “courteously posed for pictures and stayed in the parking lot signing guitars, photographs, bandanas and anything else that was presented to him until no one was left,” the newspaper reported.
What inspired the legendary singer and songwriter to visit the city of less than 2,000 people for the promotional event was a letter from Donahue along with enthusiasm by Nelson for his new album “Spirit.” It had been released five days earlier.
“I talked it over with the band and we decided the best way to sell this album was door to door,” Nelson said on the air.
“Spirit” was his first album for British-based Island Records, which had never released an album by a country performer. It’s a stripped down acoustic record with a Spanish influence. It’s now considered a masterpiece and Nelson has said it’s his favorite album among his own recordings.
According to a story by The Glenwood Herald that ran a few days before Nelson’s visit, Donahue had written a letter the previous year to Waylon Jennings, a member of the supergroup the Highwaymen, which also included Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. The letter was in response to an interview in which they complained that despite strong concert attendance, radio stations were not willing to play new Highwaymen recordings.
She said record labels were only providing promotional copies of CDs to about 300 radio stations. “We would play the fire out of the CDs if we had them,” she wrote, “but our station, like about 2,500 other stations in the country, is not on the right list. We miss the days when radio and artists realized they needed each other and record labels treated radio stations the same.”
She was then contacted by a representative of Nelson in the fall of 1995 to set up the visit to Glenwood the following year as the kick off of a promotional tour for the album. But not everyone was convinced the music icon was really coming. Station owner Nichols says he didn’t believe it at first. “If truth be known, I was also skeptical,” reporter Mike McCoy wrote in his follow up article for the newspaper after Nelson’s visit.
Nelson and his four bandmates first performed every song from his new album. Donahue at one point told Willie that a song he had just played was a “two-box of hankies tear jerker.”
He responded, “Yeah, it’s a real wrist slasher,” to laughter.
Then Nelson began taking requests from listeners calling in and played some of his biggest hits and took. Songs included “You Were Always On My Mind,” “Seven Spanish Angels,” “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” and “Georgia.”
The newspaper described how Nelson “spoke softly, politely and was so modest one would never have known that this man had written songs for Patsy Cline and Faron Young, returned to Texas and stormed the nation from the Armadillo World Headquarters rock palace in Austin, and then gone on to star in movies with such stars as Robert Redford, Jane Fonda and Dian Cannon.”
KWXI/KWXE owners Polly and Tom Nichols pose for a photo with WiIlie Nelson. Photo: Tom Nichols collection
Nelson was originally scheduled to stay overnight in the community. He was to have arrived the night before the radio appearance, staying at Rivers Edge Bed and Breakfast in Caddo Gap. He was also planning to play golf at the Glenwood Country Club. But plans fell through and he and his entourage didn’t arrive until 7:30 a.m. on that Sunday morning. They still spent time at Rivers Edge to relax on the banks of the Caddo River and have lunch.
After the event at the Glenwood radio station was over and the last autograph was signed, Nichols says one bus with Nelson and members of his entourage left for Nashville where he was to attend an awards show. The other bus with members of his band turned back toward Texas where Nelson is based.
The two radio stations, which were once the broadcasting voice of Glenwood, are no longer in the community. After being sold by Nichols, the FM 104.5 signal was moved to Hot Springs where it’s used by a religious broadcaster. The most recent owner of the AM 670 signal, a Texarkana man, ended up in bankruptcy and the station is currently off the air. It’s unclear if the license has been officially surrendered to the FCC.
Now at age 93, Nelson has outlived his contemporaries, continues touring and released his latest album “Dream Chaser” on May 29.
This story was published in the June 5, 2026 issue of The Glenwood Herald. Tom Nichols is trying to find a recording of the broadcast that can be shared here.
by Michael Hibblen | Jun 4, 2026 | Arkansas News
After being extensively vandalized, only concrete foundations remain of the restrooms and concession stand at what was the primary Glenwood baseball field as seen on May 27. Photo: Michael Hibblen
A community meeting is planned for Monday, June 8 at the dilapidated and vandalized baseball fields in Glenwood which haven’t been used in years. Karen Baker, a supporter of cleaning up the fields so they can again host games, says she wants people interested in volunteering with the project to see the extent of what would need to be done.
Baker was among those speaking on the idea during a Glenwood City Council meeting on Tuesday, May 26. The fields are currently owned, but not used by the Centerpoint School District. Superintendent Jody Cowart and members of the school board attended the meeting, expressing their support for the idea of donating the property, but because of legal requirements, said specific details will first need to be finalized. So far, this is simply in the discussion phase.
“I’ve researched what, from a reality standpoint, the school district can do if this was planned out well enough, where the school board wanted to deed the property over to what has to be an institution of higher education, technical institute, community college or a nonprofit organization, which would obviously be what would apply in this case,” Cowart said. “Is there a structure plan in place where the district or the board would feel comfortable in making that commitment to donating the property?”
Mayor Billy Plyler said residents who have been actively calling for again having ballfields in the city will need to be involved in making it happen. He detailed the extent of vandalism to facilities there, with the concession stand, bathrooms, bleachers and one of the dugouts burned in arson attacks. Lights above the field have also been shot out. Today all that remains of the buildings are their concrete foundations. A scoreboard and advertisements remain along the outfield fence.
“The people that are talking, they’re gonna have to do it because the school board’s not interested in that. They’re gonna basically relinquish the property if things were to go right and we’re gonna have to get active here, get a committee together and go back to the school board with a plan,” Plyler said.
He then opened the meeting for public comments, with Baker saying, “A lot of money is leaving our town for other communities that have ballparks. A lot of people are willing and ready to help when it can happen.”
She hopes to form a nonprofit organization that can pursue grant funding to cover the expense of buying needed supplies. One entity Baker said she has talked with is Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s charitable foundation Blue and You. It promotes health, fitness and wellness, and the proposed nonprofit would be required to show a need for the facility. There are other philanthropic entities that also support such endeavors.
But work repairing the ballfields would need to be completed by volunteers, she said. While there are several overgrown ballfields, which could eventually allow for baseball and softball fields, the effort would initially focus on making the main field again usable. The other fields are across the street. If tournaments are to eventually be held there, it was suggested two fields would be needed.
The baseball fields were originally owned by the Glenwood School District, which was merged in 1995 with the Amity School District, creating what is now the Centerpoint School District.
The proposed nonprofit would own the property, but the city would need to maintain it. Councilman Alan Moore suggested the city could try to find an older retired person who would be paid as a subcontractor to oversee the property. That person would also keep an eye out for any kind of vandalism like what has happened there in the past.
“It would cost the city very little to get back to where we started,” Moore said, adding that having ballfields would be extremely beneficial for the city’s young people.
There was then discussion about how the city would fund the maintenance. A hospitality sales tax on food sold at restaurants was one idea. If a proposal to allow the sale of alcohol in Pike County is approved by voters, that could also be a source. At this point backers of the initiative are gathering signatures and it has not been approved for the November ballot.
Mayor Plyler said it seems like two committees may be warranted, with one focused on the baseball fields and another on local taxes.
A memorandum of understanding would eventually need to be agreed upon by the Centerpoint School District, the city and the potential nonprofit. There are also liability concerns that would need to be resolved.
The community meeting on Monday, June 8 is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. The ballfields are located near City Park and the intersection of Park Street and Lakeshore Street.
This story was published in the May 29, 2026 issue of The Glenwood Herald.
by Michael Hibblen | May 28, 2026 | Arkansas News
Dondie’s White River Princess on May 12 after much of the repair work had been completed to the restaurant. Photo: Michael Hibblen
Seven months after a fire caused extensive damage to Dondie’s White River Princess in Des Arc, the landmark seafood restaurant will be reopening to the public on Friday, May 29 at 5 p.m. During the previous weekend, on Saturday, May 23, a first serving of food was for firefighters and other emergency personnel, “to show our appreciation for their fast response and hard work put into saving all they could at Dondie’s,” a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page said.
The restaurant was closed when the fire broke out on the night of Oct. 16. Co-owner Ben Scott says it was ignited by hot towels that had just been dried and spontaneously combusted after employees left. Scott, his wife Courtney, and his parents Roger and Belinda Scott have jointly owned the restaurant for more than two years, which sits alongside the White River, is two stories tall and was designed to look like a large riverboat. He says they immediately knew they wanted to make repairs and reopen, but didn’t know if that would be possible.
“There was definitely a mix of emotions,” Ben Scott said. “We didn’t know with insurance and how all that was going to play out, if [reopening] was going to be possible. So that’s kind of how we were able to reopen and it all worked out, but we had a lot of uncertainty there for a couple months.”
While he doesn’t have an exact cost, Scott says repairs were more than $500,000, with insurance covering the work.
“I wouldn’t really call it fighting with insurance, it’s just a process. They never really ever acted like they weren’t going to pay because it was a payable claim. It’s just a matter of trying to figure out how much was damaged and what it would cost for reconstruction. So it was a process and definitely there were some times we were unsure,” Scott said. “But we definitely had a lot of support and encouragement and prayers, and honestly, it’s everything you’d expect from a small town that loves its businesses.”
The restaurant was first opened by its namesake Dondie Guess in 1989. After a few years, he sold Dondie’s to Mike Scarter, who owned and operated it for more than three decades. In early 2024, Scarter sold the restaurant to the Scott family.
“He got older and had gotten in bad health and just decided it was time to sell,” Scott said. “I had spoken with him probably five or 10 years ago about potentially, if something ever happened and he got to a point that he wanted to do something, that I was interested.”
Roger and Belinda Scott had owned several other restaurants in Des Arc for about 25 years. Ben Scott says having grown up in the industry, it was natural for him to eventually want to co-own a restaurant. Roger Scott has also served as Des Arc’s mayor since 2023.
Patrons of Dondie’s won’t notice many changes when it reopens. There are some new nautical-themed items on display, lighting has been modified in places and the kitchen has been modernized. A new sign features the restaurant’s slogan “Dock. Dine. Unwind. Every meal is a shore thing.” Scott said the menu hasn’t been modified.
“It’ll pretty much look the same as what everybody remembers it as,” he said. “We’re excited to serve everybody and we want everybody to have a good experience.”
Scott said there might be a few new workers, but most of the staff will be the same people who were working there before the fire. While those employees were without work in December, Dondie’s organized a fundraiser selling tee-shirts for $20 each, with all proceeds going to the employees.
He knows a lot of people are eagerly anticipating the reopening and is asking for patience from customers.
“We’re kind of out of the swing of things for seven months and I think we’re going to be really busy,” Scott said. “Wait times may be high, but just please be patient with us. We’re excited to open, we’re excited to serve everybody and we want everybody to have a good experience.”
One of those excited to see Dondie’s reopen is Rex Nelson, a senior editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette who frequently writes about food, restaurants and culture. He describes Dondie’s not just as a local gathering spot, but a regional gathering spot with customers who are willing to make a drive.
“It’s just one of those places that you’re going to see everybody from a certain era, either on a Friday night or a Saturday night or a Sunday after church at Dondie’s,” Nelson said in an interview. “Whether it’s a Dondie’s or a Craig’s Barbecue at DeValls Bluff, the thing about those Delta restaurants is that Delta folks will drive an hour for a good meal.”
Nelson’s mother and grandparents lived in Des Arc and as a child, he spent much of his summers in the city, though that was years before Dondie’s opened.
“Dondie’s kind of in a way hearkens back to an older, lower White River culture that we’re quickly losing. I hope that it’s here for many vears to come and I’m heartened that they decided to build back after the fire.” Nelson said. “It is certainly in the tradition of the great catfish places you used to find all up and down the White River, and it’s got one of the best views of the river anywhere.”
I reported this story for the May 26 issue of The Grand Prairie Herald. Our intern Eli Dean of Harding University helped me write the story.
