Internet Project Breaks Ground, More In Second Half of 2022

RISON - From the Cleveland County School District's millage election to Rison Head Football Coach Clay Totty resigning to take the same job at Class 5A Wynne, the last half of 2022 had plenty of news. Here's an overview of the top stories from each of the final six months of the year: July Construction on the new highspeed fiber optic internet cable is scheduled to begin in early July for both Rison and Kingsland, with a target of having the project completed by February 2023. Once installed, residents and businesses within those ser-vice areas will have access of internet speeds of up to 2 gigabytes. On the same day that ARK-O broke ground on a project to bring 2 gigabyte internet speeds to the Kingland and Rison areas, Cleveland County learned that it had been accepted into a state-sponsored program to develop a plan to bring high-speed broadband to the rest of the county. County Judge Melody Spears told members of the Cleveland County Quorum Court that she will likely be asking them for money to shore up the road department's fuel budget next month. She told the court there is about $25,000 left in the road department's 2022 fuel budget, and the department is currently using about $24,000 worth of fuel per month. Rison City Council member Cleve Reed presented Mayor Charles Roberts and his fellow council members with a list of 22 properties within the city's Ward C that he identified as needing to be mowed and/or cleaned up. Some of the properties were vacant lots while others did have houses or buildings on them. Mayor Roberts agreed with Reed's recommendation to handle them on a case by case basis. Nancy Anne Lawson, 4, of Rison, the daughter of Suzanne and Jeff Lawson of Rison, was crowned the new 2022 Miss Elementary America Kindergarten on June 26 in Little Rock. The local hardware store at 205 Main Street in Rison reopened July 11 under the new ownership of Ryan and Leslie Stephe...