River Valley Radio

Johnny Story talks with Nikki Phillips about the District 44 runoff election.

Johnny Story talks with Bill Teeter about the District 44 runoff election set for June 30th.

River Valley Radio's Misty Hale talked with Dr. Luke Lovins after the June 9 Russellville School Board meeting about the board's 3-3 deadlock on appointing a member to fill its open board seat.

Johnny Story interviews Mark Martin from Entergy about the power outage in East Russellville on June 9.

Nikki Phillips told Johnny Story Monday that she intends to bow out of the runoff election set for June 30 against Bill Teeter.“If you win, you fill just the last part of the year, and I think that that would be a disservice to Bill.”Phillips said Teeter worked hard in the race and that she wants him to have the opportunity to begin learning the job during the interim period.“At the end of the day, if he does good, we all do good,” Phillips said. “It is best overall for District 44 if I just let him have this and get him in there and prepared.”We are awaiting a response from the Arkansas Secretary of State's Office on whether that means the runoff will be cancelled or continue forward regardless.

Johnny Story interviewed each of the candidates running for the District 44 House of Representatives seat in the upcoming special election. He sat down with Brent Boland, Wes Freeman, Nikki Phillips and Bill Teeter over the course of several weeks. Here are those interviews.

Russellville and Pope County could soon team up on the city’s planned recycling facility on South Knoxville Avenue. ♻️City leaders will consider an agreement Thursday that would split future operating costs for the facility, along with a grant tied to recycling signs and educational materials.Also on the agenda: a Texas Roadhouse development agreement, drainage projects, parks purchases and tennis court resurfacing.Finance Committee meets at 5:30 p.m., followed by City Council at 6 p.m.

The conversation over downtown Russellville parking continued Wednesday night, this time with merchants, property owners and city officials talking through what a possible two-hour parking plan would actually take to make work.Misty Hale talks with Yanci Walker, a pharmacist at C&D Drug Store who has helped organize and build consensus around the issue.

In this episode, Misty Hale talks with Ashley Mooney, child nutrition specialist for the Russellville School District, about the district’s summer meal program and how it helps families keep kids fed while school is out.Mooney explains who qualifies, how the pickup sites work, why families need to register in advance, what kinds of meals children will receive and why parents should not feel guilty about using the program if it helps their household. The conversation also covers mobile meal sites, food allergies, keeping meals safe in the Arkansas heat and the broader need for summer food support across the River Valley.

The Dover City Council raised water rates at its May meeting, but the increase was less than its normal annual increase. We talk with Mayor Roger Lee about that and an upcoming council vacancy.

Former Arkansas Tech women’s basketball coach Dave Wilbers is stepping back onto the court, this time with the Russellville Lady Cyclones.On this episode of the River Valley Breakfast Show, Grant Merrill talks with Wilbers about why the Russellville job caught his attention after retirement, the memories his family has tied to Russellville High School, and what excites him about building the girls basketball program from junior high through the high school level.Wilbers also talks about working with Russellville High School Principal Ben Goodman, the potential he sees in the current players, and the importance of developing young athletes early.🏀 Why Wilbers decided to return to coaching🌪️ What drew him to the Russellville Lady Cyclones📚 Building a program from junior high up💪 What he sees in the current players🎙️ A conversation with one of the River Valley’s most accomplished coachesSubscribe to River Valley Radio for more local interviews, sports, news and community conversations from across the River Valley.

Do you live near Lake Dardanelle, have a dock, use the shoreline, or just care about how the lake is managed?The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding a public workshop today on its proposed Lake Dardanelle Shoreline Management Plan update.This is the rulebook for things like private docks, shoreline paths, vegetation clearing and protected areas around the lake.The meeting is come-and-go from 4 to 7 p.m. at the USACE Russellville Site Office, 1598 Lock and Dam Road in Russellville.Are you planning to attend? We’d love to hear what questions or concerns people have about the proposed changes.Learn more here: https://www.rivervalleyradio.com/corps-seeks-public.../See less

POTTSVILLE, Ark. — A water leak that started just after midnight Sunday left parts of Pottsville with low pressure before city crews found and repaired a damaged six-inch main later that day, Mayor Dusty Gray said.Gray said he was contacted about the issue around 4 a.m. Sunday. He got on his side-by-side and began driving around town looking for the source of the leak while also getting city staff involved.By about 7 a.m., Gray said he had returned to City Hall and was receiving a growing number of calls from residents.“I was a little nervous and kind of scared,” Gray said.The mayor said he began posting video updates online to keep residents informed while crews worked to identify the problem.Gray said the leak was found in a six-inch main. According to Gray, when the infrastructure was installed, the line had been placed next to concrete fragments that appeared to be from an old foundation or sidewalk. Over time, the concrete damaged the line and eventually knocked a large hole in the main.Residents at higher elevations were the first to lose pressure, Gray said. The city’s water tank was also depleting as Atkins, which provides water to Pottsville, worked to keep water flowing into the system.Gray said the city’s public works director arrived around 9 a.m., and the leak was located by about 9:30 a.m. Repairs were completed by about 6 p.m. Sunday.A precautionary boil order was issued for the schools, Gray said, and is expected to be lifted.Gray said the incident showed the importance of communication between city officials, employees and residents.“We’re just trying to be transparent and open,” Gray said. “It takes a community. My staff and I can’t do it alone. We have to do it together as a community.”Gray also praised city employees who worked through the day Sunday to find and repair the leak.“We have some really, really fine people that really care about what we’re doing,” Gray said.Gray said he later took several city workers out to eat after the repair was finished.

Dr. Dana Tribble is bringing the perspective of both a parent and an educator to the Dardanelle School Board after being appointed to the seat she is also seeking in a November runoff election.Tribble was recently appointed to Position 1 on the Dardanelle School Board after the seat became vacant because of a resignation. She had already run for the position earlier this year, receiving 49.7% of the vote in a three-candidate race.Because no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, the race will go to a runoff in November.Tribble has called Dardanelle home for the past 12 years. She is a wife, mother of three children in the Dardanelle School District and a higher education professor.She said education has been at the center of both her professional life and her personal life. Her background includes work in student success, leadership development and educational program development at Arkansas Tech University.Tribble is also active in local community service. She is the founder and president of the Parent Teacher Organization at Dardanelle Primary School and serves on the board for the River Valley Adult Learning Alliance and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Today, we’re talking about a criminal case out of Johnson County that sounds, at first, like an insurance fraud trial.But it is wrapped inside a much larger story.A husband found dead in a Harmony home.A death certificate that calls it a homicide.A mother-in-law later found unconscious beside an alleged confession note.A house fire eight months later.And now, a Johnson County jury has answered one question in that tangled story.LaRenda Lee Vick was convicted in May 2026 of theft of property valued at more than $25,000 after prosecutors said she defrauded State Farm by claiming personal property was destroyed in a fire, even though witnesses said many of those items had already been moved out of the home.The home burned on Sept. 19, 2023, in the Harmony community near Clarksville. It was the same home where Vick’s husband, William Vick, had been found dead months earlier.Vick was sentenced to six years in the Arkansas Department of Correction. Prosecutor Jeff Phillips said the State made a point to try Vick only on the charge it believed it could prove, and not on the other suspicions surrounding the case.William Vick’s family told River Valley Radio the verdict felt like a step in the right direction, but not the end of the story.You can listen to full story hear or read the full story, including the background on the homicide investigation, the property disputes and the State Farm case, now at rivervalleyradio.com.