Clint Ashcraft has long known he'd like the opportunity to one day be the football coach at Conway High.

That day has now come.

The former Siloam Springs coach was hired by the Conway School District's Board of Education in a special meeting Thursday night. Ashcraft replaces Kenny Smith, who led the Wampus Cats the past 18 years and finished his tenure as the program's winningest coach with a 129-75 record before announcing his resignation last month.

"I'm elated to have this opportunity," Ashcraft said during a telephone interview Thursday. "It's a great community and a great location. I always thought it'd be a great job to be at Conway."

Read the entire story here.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

The ever-growing Arkansas family has added a holiday bundle-of-joy to their brood.

That's right folks, Michelle Duggar, has given birth to her 18th child.

The Arkansas supermom delivered the baby girl by Caesarean section Thursday at Mercy Medical Center in Rogers. The baby, named Jordyn-Grace Makiya Duggar, weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces and was 20 inches long.

"The ultimate Christmas gift from God," said Jim Bob Duggar, the father of the 18 children. "She's just absolutely beautiful, like her mom and her sisters."

The Duggars now have 10 sons and eight daughters.

Jim Bob Duggar said Michelle started having contractions Wednesday night. She needed the C-section, her third, because the baby was lying sideways. Jim Bob said both baby and mother were doing well Thursday night.

"We both would love to have more," he said. Jim Bob Duggar is 43, a year older than his wife. Their oldest child, Joshua, is 20.

The cable network TLC broadcasts a weekly show about the Duggars, called "Seventeen and Counting." Chris Finnegan of TLC — which handles public relations for the Duggar family — said the show's name would be updated to account for the latest addition to the family. He said TLC also will air a show Monday on the baby's delivery.

"Our whole family is excited about Jordyn's addition to our family," Jim Bob Duggar said. "She's just perfect in every way."

With the latest addition, the Duggars’ 18 natural children range in age from 20 years to one day old. Included in the mix are 10 boys and now eight girls — Joshua, twins Jana and John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, twins Jedidiah and Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, Jennifer, and Jordyn-Grace.

With two sets of twins, Michelle, has gone through 15 pregnancies that ended in 13 natural deliveries and two Caesarean sections.

Both Michelle and Jim Bob — a former state legislator who served in the Arkansas House of Representatives — are real estate agents. They claim their family is debt-free, with the entire bunch helping to build their 7,000-square-foot home in Tontitown. And they are enriched by a devout faith in their religion.

The Duggars are followers of the evangelical Christian movement called Quiverful, which teaches that children are God’s blessing and that husbands and wives should happily welcome every child they are given. In fact, the Duggars' website quotes, “Children are a heritage of the Lord” from verse 3 of the 123rd Psalm.

Source: here

Contributor: Laura Eilers, Junkfoodaholic.com

I absolutely hate cold weather.

Sadly, we've got a ton of it here in the Natural State tonight. Yes, old man winter decided to pay Arkansas a visit today and we've got a mess brewing.

I, The Hawg, have marked the spot on the latest map from the National Weather Service that shows I'm smack dab in the middle of all this rotten weather. We Saline County folks don't cope with this stuff well.

In fact, most Arkansans don't react well to ice covered roads. If a snow flake hits the ground and sticks, that's a sure sign it's time to shut the town down for a couple of days and wait for it to melt. We don't know how to drive on this stuff in Arkansas and I, for one, don't care to learn.

I'm hoping it works out that way tomorrow. We're supposed to get more sleet and freezing rain -- perhaps enough so that schools will be canceled and we'll get to stay home from work. The break won't last long, however -- it's supposed to be in the 40s by Wednesday and then in the 60s by Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

Ah, that's how it is in Arkansas. Don't like the weather? Give it a minute and it will change.

Meanwhile, it's time to break out my favorite lawyer joke:

Friendly The Hawg: It's cold out there.

You: How cold is it, The Hawg?

Friendly The Hawg: So cold that I went downtown and the lawyers had their hands in their own pockets!

I've been lazy lately

Yes, I haven't been too active here or at The Natural State Hawg these past few days. To quote an e-mail I got a couple of years ago that still gives me a chuckle, "Oh well. It Christmas."

And because it Christmas, I've been busy with family and such. While I'm well aware that some people have been disappointed that my inane prattle hasn't been thrown around as often as it was just a few weeks ago, I'll be back to my old self before long.