(upbeat music) Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Welcome to Homegrown, the show where we introduce you to the people and stories that shape the character of life in Arkansas.

I'm Dawn Scott.

And today we're rediscovering those tucked away places that make Arkansas more than just a location on the map.

With their warm histories and open arms, these unique communities know what it means to call a place home.

We'll go back in time to Depression era England, Arkansas, when a group of hungry farmers got the attention of the unlikeliest of American heroes.

Then we'll visit Clarendon, where a hometown hero decided to come home and give back as only he could to the community that raised him.

We'll remember an iconic country music joint with a lasting legacy in North Little Rock.

And we'll head to the town of Fordyce, where a Friday night can only mean one thing.

But first, let's head to Grady, Arkansas, where a family has been bearing fruit in the Delta soil for 50 years.

(mellow music) I'm Logan Duvall, and this is Good Roots.

Markets are just part of the story of agriculture.

For some farmers in the Delta, it's taken some very special characteristics to get here.

- Let's fill it up.

- Fill it up.

- The more, the better.

- I'm Abraham Carpenter Jr.

I'm the manager of Carpenter's Produce Farm, located in Grady, Arkansas.

Lincoln County.

I've been managing the family business ever since I was 12 years old.

My dad and the rest of the family, they entrusted me to do it and everybody just kind of fell in line.

Momma originally started with one acre of land.

She made more money off of one acre land and my dad made working all year long at the lumber company.

He said, Well, if you're going to make that kind of money, I'm going to quit my job and I'm gonna grow produce full time.

My major crops are grains, cantaloupe, watermelon, peas, okra, yellow squash, zucchini squash.

We grow some of the biggest, the sweetest watermelons in the whole United States, maybe even the whole world.

I don't know.

But I know they're sweet.

(guitar plays) - Is there anything that brings people together like a watermelon?

- Man, I'm telling you.

- Hot summer day.

- Good watermelon.

Good cantaloupe.

- Ooo.

- That's blood red.

- Blood red.

Is it sweet?

- Hey, man, I tell you, you all get a taste and you tell me how you like it.

- Is this the ticket?

- That's the ticket, man.

I'll tell you, it's nothing better than a good, sweet watermelon.

- Mmm hmm.

- There's nothing, man.

- Watermelon's kind of been good to you.

Produce business is a, it's a business.

- We grow about 250, 300 acres of watermelons every year.

People love to get those good sweet watermelons.

And I know you know about watermelons.

You can see the sugar in that watermelon.

- (laughs) It's dripping off.

- That's the sugar man.

- I think the specialty aspect where where you all made a pivot back away from the commodities and into produce.

- Yeah.

- That's a business decision.

- Well, that's true, brother.

My dad initially started growing cotton and soybeans.

Went broke doing it.

So we kind of regrouped and started growing produce.

Been doing for 50 years.

Been real good to the family man.

Raised five brothers, three sisters and 28 nieces and nephews on the farm.. - (laughs) On the farm.

- And everybody was able to live a decent, comfortable life.

- Watermelon is absolutely amazing.

that's it.

- Thank you, brother.

- Let's go see where where they come from.

- Let's do that.

I tell you, we got a field full of them.

(laughter) - When Abraham was five years old, he was a leader then.

I was bossy.

He was bossy.

So we just combined that bossiness together and made it happen.

You want to cook daddy some of these?

- Yeah, I think we should.

- I am Abraham's baby sister.

I work here at Carpenter's Produce and Fish in Pine Bluff.

Okay.

Okay.

All right, Miss Brown.

Thank you.

I started working when I was seven years old.

It was a lot of us, and everybody got their own little different attitudes and all that.

But we made it all come together.

Everybody had a purpose, and we all mixed it up together and made one big family.

That's how it worked.

(light music) - This is definitely legacy.

You got the baton when you were 12 years old.

- I did.

That baton is going to my children, my nieces and nephews and grandchildren.

We taught them, we prepared them with the ability to plant crops, to grow the crops, produce and market it and send it out to the stores.

We've done all of that and we've built them for you from ground up.

- Thank you very much.

- 20 some years plus back, there was a lot of discrimination inside of USDA.

We had prior lawsuits filed against USDA for racial discrimination.

The attorneys came down from Washington and they presented it as, "You join the lawsuit, you get $50,000 in your debt relief."

$50,000 doesn't mean a whole lot.

But the debt relief would have been major.

Some of us got the 50,000 and no debt relief whatsoever.

It was a big let down for many farmers.

That's the reason 20 some years later, you know, we were still fighting to get the right things done, just to be treated fairly.

I'm really happy that the legislation passed and it's going to benefit a lot of farmers.

The only thing that breaks my heart is the fact that so many others have passed away, you know, and without being able to realize this, come to fruition.

You know, my mother, she passed away in 2017 and before she passed, it wasn't a day that went by that she didn't ask, "Junior, how's the lawsuit coming along?"

and "we going to get any relief?"

I said, "Mama, it's coming."

So she looking down on us from heaven today, but Mama is here.

- After spending time with y'all, the theme of family and hard work and faith is everywhere.

You're the next generation.

What's the future look like?

- I plan on going to college and majoring in chemistry.

Learning about the chemical compositions and things like that.

Being here and not just learning from someone else, but coming out side with Dad at 6 a.m. and we're in the fields and we're looking hands on.

And it's a different experience.

- It is.

So you were you might be a little bit of the anomaly that you're not wanting to run away from the family business and be a part of it.

So what do you think the difference is there for you?

- It is people that you meet and they come back and they're like, "we took it to the family, get together and everyone enjoyed it," or, "we had it at family time on Tuesday night."

You have an effect on people's lives.

It's more than just growing it and shipping it off here.

You get a connection with those people and they come back and they tell you the effect that you had on their lives.

- That's beautiful.

Thank you.

I'm so excited to see what the future holds for the Carpenters.

- Yes, sir.

It's definitely bright.

- It is.

Yes.

- From the watermelon fields of Grady to their storefront in Pine Bluff, the Carpenters have been a part of Central Arkansas for generations now.

And for a family so closely tied to a place, it's near impossible to imagine it without them.

Whether it's the big city or a small town in east Arkansas, there's no place like home.

Former New York Jets Cedric Houston recently returned to Clarendon to coach on the same field where his storied career began.

Let's check it out.

- He's a legend.

Best running back come out of our town.

- That's actually what encouraged me to be a running back.

It was said he had the most rushing yards.

He scored the most touchdowns.

So it's like, so now that he's coaching me, I'll go try to beat his record.

- When I heard a legend like Cedric Houston, from Clarendon high school, a small town.

I actually jumped for joy.

Why in the world would Cedric Houston come back to Clarendon, Arkansas?

It's a small town.

He was away from here.

- My name is Cedric Houston from Clarendon, Arkansas.

Growing up here was probably the funnest, man, just going out, and we didn't have much to do.

But we walked around town.

Play pickup basketball or baseball, wherever we can do that.

And picked up football around the seventh grade.

I started playing and a lot of people told me I was pretty good.

I didn't know if I was good or not.

But we played Barton.

I think I was an eighth grader, and Frank McClellan pulled me to the side after the game.

I think he's like, "Kid, you're going to play professional football one day."

Hell, I didn't know what professional football, NFL, was like.

What do you mean, professional?

He said, "You're going to play in the NFL one day."

So I kind of brushed it off.

I was like, "Ah, old man doesn't know what he's talking about.

And then he reminded me again my senior season when they played us, he said, "You remember I told you in eighth grade?

That you're going to be playing pro ball one day?"

He said, "You're getting a whole lot closer, aren't you?"

I was like, "Yes, sir."

And we both smiled and walked off, - Hand off against Cedric Houston, running left, Houston.

- Sophomore, junior and senior year I started.

So I started for three years at the University of Tennessee.

I finished fifth on the Tennessee rushing list, so I was fifth all time in Tennessee rushing history.

It was, which was a huge accomplishment.

So during my senior year, I was always tired, after a few plays, I was like, Coach, and I'm tired.

Like, what you tired for?

You're in tip top shape.

I was like, Man, I'm tired.

And I mean, I didn't know what it was for or from and after that, I got invited to the NFL combine and they did blood work on me there, and they found out I had a hyper thyroid.

So before that, I had a, probably a draft rate second round.

I probably would be a second rounder, early, third rounder.

Then after that my agent was like, man said, I don't know who's going to take a chance on you, who's gonna draft you, if you'll get drafted.

So we didn't know if I could come back.

We didn't know if I was getting drafted or not.

We didn't know how serious the thyroid condition was or what I had to do for it.

You just took a chance on me and I went six round to the New York Jets.

(indistinct announcer) (indistinct dialogue) - To me, I think he wanted to come back to his hometown where he gave experience to other players so they could try to make it too.

- One, two, three.

- He knows what it, what it takes to get that.

So I feel like it's a good event.

- Coming up, playing football and having great coaches through high school and then having great coaches through college, made you be a better man.

I knew I want to eventually get into coaching, influencing kids.

(indistinct yelling) (laughter) - Just being in this area and some guys not having father figures in their lives.

You got these coaches around that's doing the right things.

And it may not seem big, but that's huge for guys in this Delta area and just from these areas.

- He, he's basically a good running back but like like a father figure to me.

- He teaches you right from wrong.

If you ain't doing your work, he'll pull you to the side and tell you what to do, help you out.

- One, two, three, lions!

- When you get to know Cedric, that he's actually a good person.

He knows how to do his job.

Knows how to keep people smiling.

- Take it off.

(laughter) (indistinct dialogue) - He's a good old person for Clarendon.

Don't tell him I said that.

The reverence and gratitude those players have for their coach is palpable.

It's clear the power that pulled Cedric Houston back home to Clarendon.

Countless communities are home to notable Arkansans, adding a unique passion and personality to our state's sense of place.

North Little Rock was home to one of these Arkansans for five decades.

That's where Jimmy Doyle delivered a toe tapping good time just off the Galloway exit.

(slow country music) (clapping) (indistinct dialogue) - When you get to be my age, I want to see the doctor.

And I said, Doc, I've got a problem.

He said, Well, what is your problem?

I said, Well, I have a BM about 6:00 every morning.

He said, Well, that's good.

No, I don't wake up til about seven.

(laughter) I'm the guy who's been in country music all my put together.

I was raised below Stuttgart and a little community called Brewer Township.

My dad was a farmer and he raised about five gallons per acre.

Everybody shout out loud.

(laughs) But we did make a little moonshine back then.

Did you ever goose a goat and get a whole handful of sheep?

Well, that's what's going to happen here tonight.

And I tell everybody I'm 19.

That's not exactly right.

Add a few years to that.

I spent eight years in the Navy.

Every place that we stopped on a ship, I would get off and find me a country bar and play some good ole country music.

(slow country music) We're at Jimmy Doyle country.

This is our second Jimmy Doyle country.

Before that, we were on the West Little Rock.

- Southwest.

- Yea, in Southwest Little Rock.

And then we came over here.

They want to buy this building.

We've been here 20 years now.

- 30 years.

- 30 years.

My word.

Well, I feel like I'm, like I said, I'm only 19.

I haven't been drinking today, so I may get my words mixed up.

Thanks a lot.

(indistinct dialogue) We've had a wonderful time here, and I'll tell you what, we appreciate everybody.

We get people from all over Arkansas.

All the driver, truck drivers come in from New York and West Coast and we have a big parking lot.

And we've always believed in being out of town a little ways.

So we give everybody a good place to park so they can go outside and spend the night with us.

A lot of them come and spend the whole weekend and lot of them spend the whole week with us.

We call it Jimmy Doyle Country Club, but it didn't mean to be a country club.

It was Jimmy Doyle's way of playing country music.

And it was my country music.

And then we put a club on.

- But I always felt he was getting so known that the name should have Jimmy Doyle in it somewhere.

So we named it Jimmy Doyle Country Club.

- I was known on the West Coast as the Arkansas Wild Man.

(laughter) I was more or less a stand up comedian and played music and recorded in Santa Fe.

Then I moved to Reno, Nevada.

I work Reno and Las Vegas with all the big stars, (guitar playing) Country boy can survive.

- Nightclub business is a place where you can go and sit down, have a drink, have a good time.

You dance on the dance floor and you always have a hardwood dance floor.

You got a good band.

Now, you go in places, there's no tables, no chairs.

Everybody stand up with their hands up, jumping up and down.

I said, Whoa, what is it?

Because I'd like to sit down a little bit every once in a while, you know, - You got the recorded music coming in on some of the clubs, which we've always preferred a live band for that.

But it's all still good, though.

Yeah, you're probably one of the last of our kind.

(country music playing) Doyle's Country Club hosted performances by everyone from Carl Perkins to Alan Jackson throughout its almost 50 years in business, However, the club closed its doors a final time in November of 2021, with one last show on the Arkansas River Bottom Band led by Jimmy Doyle himself.

Small towns like Grady or Clarendon, Arkansas, can seem pretty quiet.

So when things do get loud, people take notice.

That's just what happened in 1931, when a group of hungry farmers took to the streets of England, Arkansas.

Here's their story.

In 1931, the Depression was just setting in across the South.

Many Americans believed that the situation wasn't nearly as bad as it seemed.

When hungry farmers in England, Arkansas, took matters into their own hands, they found a hero in the unlikeliest of places.

It's incredible when you think about the flood of 1927, because it had a tremendous impact on agriculture.

And I think obviously we can imagine that a big flood will kill the crops.

When the waters receded in many parts of Arkansas, it left about a foot and a half of sand.

So it was impossible for them to even plant a crop in 1928.

And people knew something was really wrong.

As early as May of 1930, and by the time we get to August, there were estimates that they might be able to make it to December and then there would literally be a famine.

Arkansans knew how to do without cash, but that making do spirit, they're running up against something that they just can't overcome.

(light music) Will Rogers was actually considered one of the first multimedia stars.

He was kind of this folksy, aw shucks humorist who appealed to the common man by his attacking Congress, Wall Street, the powers that be.

He was born and raised in northeast Oklahoma, just miles from the Arkansas border.

We read the paper.

In fact, he said, I only know what I read the paper and the papers in January of 1931, from the first front page of the new York Times to all of them, we're talking about this food riot in England, Arkansas.

It was very hard in England to get Red Cross aid.

H.C. Cooney, who ended up leading the farmers.

He was getting about $12 a month for a family of seven.

In today's money, that would be like trying to feed a family of seven on about $200 a month.

He just hit a breaking point.

He gathered up some other farmers and went to England and first tried to get more Red Cross aid.

And then the Red Cross told them that they were out of the paper application blanks that they would fill out to get aid.

And that was just the breaking point.

In some accounts, they say they were armed.

And other accounts, they say they weren't armed.

They demanded food from the merchants.

And the merchants did allow these farmers to get food to save their children.

(crowd talking) For most of his career, Will Rogers was nonpartizan.

He would do comic jabs at anyone, Democrat or Republican.

But with what he observed in England, Arkansas, he flew to D.C. and talked to Hoover after this England food riot appealing to Hoover.

The government should do more.

Hoover felt that local communities with their local Red Cross chapters, churches, neighbors, they should be the main line of response to hunger and local disasters.

Will Rogers wasn't satisfied with Hoover's answer.

Shortly after that, Will Rogers flew to England, Arkansas, himself, to observe what was going on.

From there, he drove to Little Rock and got on national radio and said, I'm going to do a drought relief tour to 50 different shows through Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Actually 18 days.

Nineteen of those shows were in Arkansas.

He would do his act and raise money, and it was very successful.

And also, Will Rogers really went after government policies that wouldn't allow distribution of food.

There was cattle and crops raised that were destroyed.

Will Rogers didn't understand what's all going on here.

This doesn't doesn't make sense.

For him, the England food riot did give him a personal platform of children in America starving that he could write about.

I don't think the term was used at the time, but there are some people who think it was fake news.

I don't think anybody denies there was a food riot.

But were there hundreds or just, you know, four families?

We're sort of all guilty of that.

You believe what you want to believe.

At some point, you start gravitating to the things that support your beliefs.

It makes you wonder why did it become almost a footnote in Arkansas history, in American history?

Because it was so big at the time and causing so much discussion.

Speaking on the floor of Congress about it and papers all over the country were editorializing on it.

Not just republishing a wire story, but commenting on it.

And the part of that was the power of Will Rogers of elevating the topic.

Belief is a powerful thing.

A strongly held belief can change the world.

America changed around President Hoover and no matter how hard he believed truth from the mouth of Will Rogers was the only thing that could help the country.

Most people are surprised England, Arkansas, was once the center of national news.

It goes to show when a community comes together there is little they can't accomplish.

Arkansas places are defined by a million little things.

In Fordyce, it's that weekly fall tradition many communities share.

The stadium lights come up and the town shuts down.

And Friday night isn't over until the final whistle blows.

Friday night in Fordyce is electric Friday in Fordyce is special.

To me, football in Fordyce means a way of life.

Magical.

You can't even explain it.

As a kid, I remember you could hear the drums beating.

You could hear the band.

You could actually hear the cheerleaders cheering.

And we would all be walking to the game.

And once we heard that, we started running in that direction and get to the game before the kickoff.

- Redbugs about to do battle with the Hampton Bulldogs here in Fordyce.

(indistinct announcing) - Call heads or tails before it hits the ground, guys.

- It's a really, really rich tradition here.

So the program started back in 1904.

A lot of people don't realize that.

- Fordyce football started in 1904 at the Clary Training Academy.

In 1906, we played our first game with El Dorado here at home.

Of course, Fordyce won that game.

- Coming through the early 1900s, you get to, you know, the late twenties, early thirties, and we we get to a guy named Paul Bear Bryant and you know, the rest is history from there.

- Mayor Brown, of course, he he plays football at Fordyce.

- Being in a town where, you know Paul Bear Bryant played football at and he was the one, is the winningest coach in NCAA history for college football, that make you feel pretty special.

Then we watched guys play in a Super Bowl more than once that wore that Redbug jersey.

- You know that coaching tree was really really fruitful in regards to the coaches this town produced.

There's a lot of really impressive coaches that's come out of this town.

Coach Parker, Coach Lacewell, (cheerleaders cheering) - Down the left, has a man there down the sideline.

- About 30 years, my first game was the first game of the 1990 season, and I've just missed three in 30 years.

It's always good for a Friday night.

- Everybody look forward to Friday night.

The guys get off work and many of them have one thing on their mind.

Go home, take a shower, get ready and watch those Redbugs.

- Second and seven.

That's a three yard gain.

Coming around on the shotgun.

Has a man.

They're wide open.

- That to me, that's just small town football.

I know there may be other places that have bigger crowds, but you come to our place with our stadiums in the way we are.

I mean, you're right there on the field.

You get to be part of the ballgame and you can hear and see everything.

- We need to get the ball back.

- During a game, downtown I think is empty.

I think everybody's at the football game on Friday night.

Matter of fact, we had to make sure we got a policeman to patrol the neighborhood, because if you want to rob anybody, you can rob them on Friday night in Fordyce, because nobody's going to be home.

Everybody be at the football field.

(laughs) Yeah, somebody get the house broken into and after you had it stolen, it'll be over.

- The only Redbug in the country.

- Fordyce Redbugs.

The story is that when they were clear in the football field that they got infested with chiggers.

- Well, I tell you, we're the only Redbug in the nation.

When I order my class ring, I never forget.

They were telling us, Man, there's a lot of tigers and a lot of bears, but man, they had to special make a Redbug.

- The Redbug mascot itself kind of tells the whole story.

Redbug is a small little arachnid that you can not see with the naked eye.

He's so small, but you let him bite you and you have been inflicted a wound.

- Football is just a way of life here in this town, in the community, and and it's going to continue being that way.

You know, it's not just, it's not just us coming through now.

We're having a really successful year.

But this started long ago.

You know, we're just a part of a very special tradition.

- He's off and running.

(crowd cheering) - A place can have a lasting impact for countless reasons.

Maybe it's a sense of community or competition or camaraderie.

Regardless of why a place stays with us, be thankful that we call this place our home.

That's it for this episode of Homegrown.

Thank you for sharing your time with us.

And please take a moment to appreciate the people whose hard work has gone into making this show.

See you next time.

(upbeat music) Everywhere together.

We'll get there together.

I'll meet you at the starting line.

Don't you ever leave my side.

We'll get there together.

We'll get there together.

If it takes all day and night, (indistinct) (upbeat music)