TUESDAY OCTOBER 7, 2008
3:48 PM

I attended the ground breaking ceremony this afternoon for the new regional airport in Colt. I was invited to a luncheon before the ceremony at Mike's. There were about forty people at the luncheon. The governor was at the luncheon. There was no program, just eat lunch and visit. I got to sit next to the governor during the luncheon. We had some good conservation during the meal. The luncheon was organized and paid for by David Dunn of the Forrest City Chamber of Commerce.

We then went to the ground breaking site which was on the post office lawn. We had an excellent crowd. Mayor McCoy from Forrest City, me from Wynne, Dr. Kerr, a staff member from Garver engineers, the governor, Mr. Hayes, a representative from the FAA in Fort Worth and a representative from the Arkansas department that works with airports all made short speeches. Governor Beebe presented a check to the DRA for $64,000.00 to be used in the construction of the airport.

We then had the official ground breaking picture. It looked like there were 30 to 40 people making pictures. The total length of the program was only 45 minutes. It went very well and the crowd was very good.

I am glad to reach this milestone in the development of the regional airport. This process began in 2002. The airport should be complete and operational in 2012 or 2013. This is a very long process, but the results will be worth the work that has been done, primarily by the DRA board. I appreciate the work that this board had put in to see this project move forward. The board is just a group of citizens who do not receive any pay but are willing to give of their time and talents to work on this project.