When severe weather threatened the University of Arkansas at Monticello’s (UAM) fall semester welcome-back concert, a new student lounge became the unexpected hero. 

On the evening of August 18, UAM held a grand opening for Weezy’s, the campus’s new sports-bar-style student lounge in the John F. Gibson University Center. At the same time, country artist Patrick Averill performed on the University Center lawn in UAM’s first campus concert since 2016, bringing students, faculty and staff together for a long-awaited night of music and entertainment. 

Then the clouds rolled in.

Shortly after the concert began, rain and lightning swept across campus, and hundreds of people fled back to their cars and dorms. However, instead of ending the festivities, more than 100 students sought refuge in the University Center, setting the stage for an unforgettable opening night at Weezy’s. Students packed into the lounge, filling the couches and chairs and mingling beneath the glow of Weezy’s bright neon-green sign. Averill happily continued his acoustic setlist inside, turning Weezy’s into a concert venue. 

With the storm in the background, students sang along, cell phone lights glowing in the air, and Weezy’s became exactly what it was designed to be: a welcoming place to connect, unwind and build community. 

The University of Arkansas at Monticello Forestry Club will host the Tall Pines Timber Challenge on Saturday, September 12, at the Bradley County Fairgrounds as part of the Bradley County Fair.

Designed as a fun, family-friendly introduction to forestry and timbersports, the Tall Pines Timber Challenge will give members of the public an opportunity to learn about forestry skills and traditions while participating in a friendly competition. Participants of all experience levels are encouraged to join in, and the emphasis is on having fun and trying something new.

The event will have divisions for both youth and adults. 

A youth division will begin at 10 a.m. and is open to participants ages 10 through high school seniors. Youth competitors will test their forestry knowledge and skills in events including tree identification, forestry equipment identification, compass and pacing and a tree cookie toss.

The adult division, open to participants ages 18 and older, will begin at 1 p.m. and will feature traditional timbersports events such as crosscut sawing, axe throwing, Jack and Jill, and more.

No experience is necessary to participate. UAM Forestry Club students will demonstrate the events throughout the competition and help participants learn how each event works. For events requiring a partner, Forestry Club members will also be available to team up with participants who need a partner.

The exhibition “into the current: eroding and evolving” by Brooke Cassady will be on display from August 19 through October 21 in the Glassblock Gallery in the Fred J. Taylor Library and Technology Center at the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM). There will be a closing reception and activation of the gallery space on Wednesday, October 21, from 6 to 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

“Working across ceramics, fibers and metals, I build objects and installations holding the tension between lack and excess, between the solitary self and the collective unconscious, weaving through all living matter,” said Cassady. “I engage the alchemy of air, fire and water, transmuting raw material into form to give shape to what has no shape.”

The exhibition, which spans both floors of the Glassblock Gallery, is based on the concept that “everything alive is in the process of becoming and dissolving,” explained Cassady. “What do we keep and what do we release? Shells and nests outlive the creatures that built it. Seed hold plants that have yet to emerge. This altar begins with what can still be touched: clay, sand, bone, the record of a hand’s touch pressed into earth. Small pinches of clay dissolve slowly in a jar of water over the course of the show, an invitation to let go of something. Upstairs, the waters of the unconscious unravel. Between the two floors, suspended in the open air, eight porous vessels escape from their nets, dredging what is buried into the light.”