Monticello Live

Monticello High School Senior, Brooks Aaron Ashcraft has been awarded a scholarship from the National Guard Association of Arkansas and the Enlisted Association of the Arkansas National Guard in the amount of $500. 

Brooks will attending the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, in the fall and will pursue a degree in landscape architecture. 

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SEARK Reading Council named it’s 2008 – 2009 Committee Chairs at the Literacy Banquet held April 21.

Committee Chairs pictured from L to R: Anna Jones, Drew Central – Publicity; Bonnie Cruce, Drew Central – Community Projects;
Claudia Horton, McGehee – Newspapers in Education; Jerrielynn Mapp, Drew Central – Parents in Reading, Eva Arrington, Drew Central – Literacy, and Joy Graham, Drew Central- Legislative.  Not pictured  is Lou Arnold, Drew Central- International Projects

When the morning sun rose across the Delta today there was one less face to welcome it.   John Anderson Gibson had gone home.  Best known as “Jack”, Mr. Gibson was another fine example of the generation Tom Brokaw labeled as the “greatest generation”. 
     Mr. Jack was born in 1920 and spent part of his youth in Monticello, Arkansas”.  His father, John June Gibson, operated a meat market behind present-day Union Bank where their parking lot sits today.
     When WWII began, Mr. Jack was a student at Mississippi State University and had recently completed a civilian pilot training course to obtain a private pilot license.  Outraged by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Jack and his friends joined the Naval Air Service. 
     Mr. Gibson proved himself an ace pilot in many aerial battles in the Pacific during WWII.  However, his most noted feat was the “downing” of the last Japanese planes on the last day of the war.  He proudly has his naval citation recognizing this historic action. 
     After the war Mr. Jack returned home to rejoin his family and pursue farming in the area near his beloved Boydell, Arkansas.
     Still filled with a strong desire to serve his country, Mr. Gibson pursued the office of state senator and served in that position from 1980 to 1991.  Jack then returned to his farm near Boydell to spend his golden years. 
     Jack Gibson passed away on April 24, 2008.  Funeral services will be held on Sunday, April 27, 2008, in Dermott.  Another old soldier has gone home.

This map showing the probably effected area if there were to be a break in the dam at the end of Lake Monticello, was a part of the focus of the meeting held to revise the Emergency Action Plan for use in the event of such an emergency.

Most city and county officials were present for the meeting, where Steven Faulkner, Monticello’s Fire Chief, was appointed Emergency Action Plan Coordinator.