Bradley County News

Warren - The Pink Tomato Festival is in full swing in Warren this week, but the pink tomato was being shipped out of southeast Arkansas long before the festival.

It was a good year to be a tomato farmer in southeast Arkansas, says John Gavin, Bradley County agent with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

Spring rains cost southeast Arkansas tomato growers about 40% of their crop. But agriculture experts say what's left looks good and problems with the crop appear to be over.

Damage is reported today in at least 10 Arkansas counties from storms that moved through last night and this morning.

The pink tomato is the official Arkansas state vegetable and fruit . The tomatoes aren't bight pink, but they have a pinkish hue.

Two weekend breaches in a private levee on the Ouachita River in northern Louisiana had dropped the flooded river's levels in southern Arkansas by more than a foot by Tuesday.

Arkansas is full of festivals. The just concluded Memorial Day Riverfest 2009 was a near wash out, but the loyal festival goers and entertainers drowned out the steady sounds of raindrops.

Forecasters predict 4 to 5 more inches of rain could fall on the area through Monday, adding more water to the already overflowing Ouachita and Saline rivers.

Charlotte Hoggatt wades through floodwaters outside her home Tuesday on U.S. 70 in Brinkley.

Ark. 7 between Arkadelphia and Camden is show as having flooded conditions on the department's online highway map Tuesday.

A recommendation unveiled Monday to merge the Cleveland and Bradley County fire departments says almost the same thing as a 2003 study, a Cleveland councilman said Monday.

Jr. learns what it means to be the boss's son when he begins working at Kyle Trucking.

A Bradley County jury convicted members of a Warren family Wednesday of abusing a mentally retarded relative who lived in a trailer with no running water, electricity or food and used a red 5-gallon bucket as a toilet.

Apr. 14, 2009, 8:57 a.m. 1 comment Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe on Monday appointed the final three members of the Arkansas Lottery Commission, naming George J. Hammons of Pine Bluff, Dianne Lamberth of Batesville and Ben Pickard of Beebe to the board that will oversee lottery operations.

Gov. Mike Beebe today completed the appointment of the initial membership of the new state Lottery Commission.

Get ready to turn up the thermostat. While Arkansans woke up to cold temperatures Monday morning, Tuesday morning is forecast to be even colder.

The storms are expected to build in intensity in eastern Arkansas and as they cross the Mississippi River and move on into Mississippi and Alabama.

The Cleveland City Council is asking the Bradley County Commission to reconsider its May 14 sales tax referendum.

The USDA Forest Service recently announced that Congress has approved a $2.06 million Forest Legacy grant to the State of Arkansas to purchase approximately 2,400 acres of south Arkansas forestland in Bradley and Drew counties.

LITTLE ROCK a ' The state Senate on Tuesday approved legislation that would specify that recovering a gambling loss or debt cannot be used as a defense against committing a violent crime.