(upbeat music) 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 sharing stories of strength.

From the battlefield to the football field, Arkansans consistently rise to the challenges they face, serving as living inspirations to their home state and the rest of the country as well.

Today, we'll catch up with a father and son from Conway who kept fighting for victory on the field while struggling with the loss at home.

Then we'll share the remarkable story of Bennie Fuller, who overcame a unique set of challenges to notch one of the greatest athletic achievements Arkansas has ever seen.

We'll see how Arkansas Senator John Boozman is leading the Armed to Farm program, helping veterans find agricultural opportunities on the home front.

And we'll meet an unforgettable cafeteria worker at Reed Elementary School in Dumas, Arkansas, who is persevering through her personal struggles to serve up a helping of joy and support to all of her children.

But first, the story of veteran Anthony Smith, who returned from war with a disability to quickly learn one of his toughest lessons, how to ask for help.

- Take a bow.

- Punch!

You can't do this by yourself.

Anybody think they can do this by they self, something's wrong.

- Forward, inside block.

Backs down.

It was on the morning of April 24, 2004.

Our unit came under attack.

I feel my body jerking.

That's how I found out.

I got hit with .50 cal rounds to my body, and then a mortar went off.

- Now totally over.

Press and kick.

Hit him hard?

What's that?

I remember the chaplain trying to read the 23rd Psalms over, and I'm like, no, bro, I ain't dead yet.

Ready?

Three.

But the whole time I was dead.

Turn your body, Bring that leg up and side kick.

Come down.

Nice hand strikes.

Hand comes across the body, turn, center block.

Y'all with me so far?

- Yes, ready.

Try to keep that leg straight.

- Keep your knees straight (indistinct chatter) My biggest problem during recovery was my head, my mind.

Because I had to get myself to accept that I did have a disability.

And I need to figure out a way to handle the disability.

My mind kept getting mad because I couldn't do the stuff I used to do.

So I had to push myself to do those type of things.

So mine was more mental than it was physical.

But once I got my head in the game and I started, I figured out how to make my body work the way I needed to work.

- What I want you to start with, your work, standing on the right leg.

- Okay.

- As you bring the left leg up.

Good.

Very good.

(indistinct background chatter) Put that leg down, very good.

Need a rest?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I think that took a little out of you.

- My biggest thing that's worked for me is my family support system.

My oldest daughter, Jasmine, see, I'm about to cry now.

That was my biggest support, because when I woke up, she was encouraging me.

When it seemed like I didn't have nobody around, she was there encouraging me.

Then my wife, Tamika, she was there holding me up when everything was going bad.

She actually had the right to leave, but she stayed.

So I actually had also, you'll have to excuse me for a minute there.

Every time I think about them, I had an awesome support system and it if it had been for my oldest sister, I think she lost her job trying to support me.

Then she lost a lost her relationship, trying to support me.

But she stayed at the hospital with me.

My uncle stayed at the hospital with me.

Everybody made a sacrifice to make sure I was going to be all right.

So my my biggest thing is to accept help because a lot of veterans, they're not accepting that help to move forward.

You can't do this by yourself.

Anybody think they can do this by themselves?

Something's wrong.

Sometimes it takes the most strength to lean on those around you.

Family and friends are instrumental in helping us tackle challenges like Anthony's.

Conway High linebacker Reed Hughes grew up with his father on the sidelines and his mother in the stands, but he had to dig deep for strength during his senior year when all of that changed.

(ominous music) - It's a unique feeling.

There's no other wampus cat in the world, six-legged blue cat.

You don't get that very often.

- They fight their guts out every snap.

You can set goals of winning five or six games, but there's no sense in all that.

Your goal was going to be to win it all.

- Well, it's great having him as a coach and you know, he's really good at splitting it between home and the field.

So if he's mad at me on the field, he's good at not carrying it all the way home and getting mad at me at home.

But there's those times that you can tell he's yelling at you as dad and not coach.

And those are the scary ones.

- It's fun.

It's fun dealing with him.

Sometimes it's a challenge because you get a balance, that dad and son aspect of life.

But my wife always told me, when I get home, you stop.

That's it.

You let it go.

So I did.

I do.

- Aw, she was the biggest fan I've ever had.

You know, she was the biggest supporter and just the most inspirational person I had in my life.

And she kept me pushing through whatever I had.

And she gave me strength that I can't even describe why - He's so strong.

He spoke at FCA out here on the Field of Faith Night and he spoke about his mom, about the fight in the battle.

And no matter what's going on in your life, you know, you've, you've got God to fall back on to, to help you, to pick you up.

He told the story a year ago to the day she was sitting in the stands sick, not feeling good, wrapped up in a blanket.

And that's just the way she is.

Well, she was always going to be there for whatever they did.

Any kid.

She never missed a thing.

Sick or not.

My daughter, she's an extremely strong human being.

When my wife was diagnosed with cancer, she was at Arkansas State.

When we figured out we got to get some treatments, Haley would come to us and say she had already changed.

She was going to UCA.

She'd already fixed her scholarship.

She'd taken care of everything over the Christmas break to get here, to be home, to help.

It's been hard for 25 years of coaching, when the game's over, I turn around.

She's walking on the field to see me with that smile, win, lose or draw.

She had to smile to come hug me and kiss.

But she was the most encouraging person around us.

- Well, right before she passed, she told me, Go hit someone hard and that's, that's what I've tried to do.

So we started the Arkansas Tackles cancer.

And so for every tackle that I get on the field, there's donations made by sponsors towards cancer research in Arkansas.

I'm the upwards of 100.

So I think I think there's been a lot of donations.

That's been amazing.

Kim Hughes passed away in August of 2019 at the start of her son's senior year.

That year, Reed led the state with 170 tackles, each one earning a donation for cancer research.

It's no wonder Reed was accepted to Auburn University, where he continues to play the game his mother loved.

Here in Arkansas, you don't have to look far for inspiration.

With a single basketball game in 1971, small town phenom Bennie Fuller etched himself into the record books, and he's been an inspiration in Arkansas for more than 50 years.

Here's his story.

Bennie Fuller was an Arkansas phenomenon.

I can remember as a boy hearing about this amazing player.

You would pick up the Arkansas Gazette or you would pick up the Arkansas Democrat.

And on the sports pages in those days, Fuller scores X number of points, and then all of a sudden he scores 102 points against Loyola.

And that's before the three point shot.

I mean, consider that.

I mean, he finishes his career with almost 5000 points as high school player.

Again, long before we'd heard of a three point shot and to be the fourth leading scorer in the history of the country in high school basketball and the fact that a deaf player would do it I think is truly one of the unique stories in Arkansas sports history You know, to have a deaf player that was suddenly creating headlines, you just you didn't see that.

We don't need to forget this story.

I mean, he was raised out in Hinsley between Little Rock and Pine Bluff, a rural area.

He learned to shoot a basketball through an old bicycle tire.

Even after five decades, Bennie Fuller's 102 point game remains the 10th highest single player performance in the country's history.

Arkansas senior Senator John Boozman is working with veterans from across the state to help them apply the strength developed on battlefields abroad to their homesteads here in Arkansas.

(sheep bleating) Located just outside of Benton in Lonsdale, The Farm at Barefoot Bend is owned and operated by former Army Ranger Damon Helton and his family.

What may be most interesting about Damon's story is that before the military, he had never farmed before.

We dabble in a little bit of everything, believe it or not.

So I've got egg layer chickens, I've got pigs.

So we do a pastured pig program, a grass fed beef program.

I've got a couple of donkeys, got a couple of horses, goats, lambs, guineas, got a little bit of vegetables, had a mid-life crisis.

That's what I tell everybody.

So I had five deployments between Iraq and Afghanistan.

And when I got out in my head, I was just going to go out and, you know, get the sales job and just go make a whole bunch of money.

And I rapidly started to realize that, you know, that that wasn't doing it for me.

I kind of had this this empty spot, you know?

And so my wife and I were just taking a Sunday drive and found this farm.

You know, it was like, all right, well, let's buy this farm.

And, you know, she looked at me and she's like, what do you what are you talking about?

You want to put an offer in on a farm?

And I was like, Yeah, well, I want to be a farmer.

So I quit my job that I had had for five years, really good paying sales job at a, you know, had a pretty healthy 401k for, you know, being out of the military for a short amount of time.

Cashed all in and and bought a farm.

For the first few months, we didn't really know what we were doing.

We were just kind of spinning.

And I looked at everything from row crops to tobacco and we started looking at this group, Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group.

That's where we found the program Armed to Farm, which is focused on veterans getting into agriculture.

That absolutely was instrumental in helping us get started.

- Just like Green Acres.

(laughs) So I decided to move out here.

- As part of Senator Boozman's annual agricultural tour, he made a visit to a couple of Arkansas veteran farms.

We've got a lot of veterans that are coming back and deciding what they want to do in the next phase of their life.

And farming is something that appeals to a lot of them.

And the question is, how do you get into it?

You know, it's kind of daunting.

You know, it's not your area of expertise.

So Armed to Farm programs like that, really do an outstanding job of not only helping them get started, but these are programs that will kind of hold their hands from then on.

I think that Armed to Farm will continue to expand.

Certainly, these are programs that myself in my situation, you know, working with agriculture, we're very interested in.

I'm certainly very concerned about suicide in the military, our veterans and amongst those in the regular military.

- Missions every night.

It was just a lot.

What I didn't realize is the hole that it was going to fill in me from from not serving anymore.

Being able to to fill that hole, you know, fill that vacancy was huge.

- There are not enough services out there in the rural areas.

There are 13 community mental health centers in the state of Arkansas, 13, and there are 75 counties.

And, you know, that's not very many.

I've heard this many times.

Well, if they're talking about commiting suicide?

They're not going to do it.

They're just talking.

And that used to be sort of like an adage, Well, if they talk about it, they're not going to do it.

If they're talking about it, they're thinking about it.

And if they're thinking about it, there's a possibility they're going to do it.

You know, they have to reenter not only the society as a whole, but they have to reenter their families, their relationships that have have continued to develop as they've been gone.

Sometimes, you know, there's guilt, there's remorse, post-traumatic stress disorder that so many of them come back with.

And that's unpredictable.

And oftentimes we don't know what's going to trigger it.

But when it does, they go into, you know, full blown trauma response.

It's just going to take time and it takes understanding and a lot of patience on the people who are involved with the person returning to try to understand he's not the same right now.

He may never be the same.

- One of the programs that we've advocated and worked really hard to create, which is just now getting off, is allowing the groups in the local communities that are doing a very, very good job in suicide prevention, giving them small grants so that they can be helpful, get involved, and then also steer them into the VA besides providing the support that they can give.

- Damon, I know from my experience, not nearly as extreme as yours, work in EMS, you have bad calls, you're up all night, you're doing stuff that nobody outside of your little world can understand, can relate to.

- It's easy for people to say, well, you know, and I can understand what you're going through.

They don't.

They don't.

They don't understand.

But it's not because, you know, there's not a sense of empathy there or anything.

They just don't get it, in that none of that's normal.

Right.

I mean, working an EMS call or anything like that or, you know, watching somebody get burned up with an IED, none of that's normal.

I mean, these aren't normal things.

PTSD is a real thing.

And it can happen from a car accident or losing a loved one or anything like that.

- What was the biggest transition helper for you and why was agriculture a part of that?

- I would say the first thing is finding that level of service again.

I had a purpose.

There was a nutritional aspect too.

I was eating good.

Yeah, I was feeding my family well.

I started sleeping better.

I mean, there was just like there was just all these things that started coming about because I had a better association with food, you know, food security for my community.

Our farm is a small farm, but we produce a lot.

And so, you know, we can feed a good amount of people.

And I think that the more these local farms actually realize that the the big impact they can have, I think we're going to start to see more of that and hopefully we start to see more veterans getting involved in agriculture.

And I'm an Army guy.

And so not to steal the the Marine Corps deal, but, you know, adapt and overcome, that's a that's a real military mindset.

And so I think it lends itself very well to farming because you do have to adapt and you do have to overcome.

And I mean, these animals are dependent on us.

- I love it.

I love what you all are doing.

Thank you all for being an inspiration to so many other other people looking for light in that darkness.

- There's life there.

That's all I can say to other veterans is, is because there's light there.

There's a purpose that you can find.

I didn't know that I was going to find that purpose when I started down this road.

There is no doubt that our Arkansas soldiers are strong.

But what many might overlook is the strength it takes to come back home to civilian life.

Senator Boozman and Armed to Farm are helping our heroes find new sources of strength through belonging.

The Arkansans we've met today have found their strength in countless places, new purpose, loved ones, even adversity.

Each of our subjects have dug deep to keep going.

Staying strong characterizes the life of Arnetta Pugh, who finds strength in the students and staff at Reed Elementary in Dumas, Arkansas.

You can practically feel her joy as she works the job of her dreams, even though the journey is not always easy.

I am Arnetta Pugh.

I am the lunch lady.

There you go, bud.

I am the manager at Reed Elementary in the cafeteria.

How do you like the cooking?

But?

All right.

Thank you.

You want chocolate?

You're welcome.

I like to eat.

Eat.

Apples and ba-noo-noos.

She hates when I sing that song.

(laughs) This is my second official year as the manager, but I think it's actually third, maybe the fourth, that I've done the job.

So the last two years I've gotten paid to do the job.

Hi kitty.

I'm at school by about 6:20, 6:25.

Our official time is 6:30.

So this place to me, folks are friendly, the kids are fun.

So it is never, never boring.

The kids are always doing something.

And this here, this is my baby.

Co-coo!

I'm living my dream.

As a kid, I wanted to be the lunch lady.

Every day I do what I love.

I'm delivering breakfast to the classrooms.

This was my cafeteria when I was their age.

So I get come back here, do what I wanted to do when I was their age.

When I started, I was a cook and now I'm the manager.

I think I'm approachable because out of nowhere, folks just start talking to me.

(laughs) - Hey, Ms. Arnetta, what you doing?

- What's up girl?

You're all in my space.

Ah, put it back.

Put it back, try it again.

- May I have some lotion please?

- There you go.

I absolutely have a soft spot for kids.

Paper towel.

Going to check my account at the ATM.

See if I can pay this water bill.

But I think I can.

I think I got enough for it.

When I took the job, I was really excited to get the job.

Because when you hear school, you think big money.

And it wasn't.

I realized, okay, I got to have another job.

So I think I was working like three jobs.

Here, the dollar store, and at the the gas station down on the parkway.

When it says final notice or the tag's on the door, but the lights of the gates or whatever, then there's an extra hustle.

This is Saye, my daughter and she is me all over again.

(laughs) She watches me.

She wants to do what I do.

My next goal is to be registered dietitian.

I went to UAPB.

And when I had my baby, I ended up coming home.

So I got a baby at the house and my granny was sick.

So school got put on the back burner.

My grandma raised me.

She she adopted me when I was like sixth grade.

We lived with her until I was like 20, 21, and that was, we are her babies.

She died three Thanksgivings ago this year.

So I had her for 29 and a half years.

I applied for food stamps.

I was approved for $16.

Like, for real, $16?

This is a couple of medical bills and a bank statement.

It's probably zero.

And my lapsed insurance and you know, these are medical.

You know stuff happens, but you got to pop back.

You can either get up and live or lay down and die.

I ain't ready to die.

My granny, she was a praying lady.

She told me to pray.

I think I've got pretty good here lately Need some milk.

Strong to the bones.

There you go.

Some pretty oranges.

You get to hang with the best little people in the world.

Before I get back to school, I have to pay off my outstanding debt.

In the next, let's say, 3 to 4 years, I see myself finishing school.

I see myself buying a house.

Enrolling, admissions paper is going to be like, (claps) whoa.

When graduation day comes, proud-er.

You know, my kid got something to be proud of.

I'm optimistic about getting in a better position.

And so, you know, when you're in a better position being, you put yourself in a position to help somebody else.

You know, you get to be the person that you needed.

So I'm looking forward to it.

The lunch lady is now on the weekend.

This story was originally released as part of PBS's American Portrait in 2021.

Arnetta is still serving meals and motivation to the students at Reed Elementary, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Being strong can mean different things to everyone.

Maybe it's the strength to put a life back together.

Or maybe it's the strength to let life get back to normal.

Or maybe it's the strength to push yourself for your best.

But regardless of how you define strength, one thing is clear Arkansas has it in spades.

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.

I'm Dawn Scott and we'll see you next time.

We won't forget where we came from, this city can't change us.

We beat to the same drum, the same drum.

It don't matter where we go, we always find the way back home.

It don't matter where we go, we always find the way back home.

So here's to the cheap sunglasses, Red Bull and minivans, people who had your back when the world didn't understand.

See, we won't forget where we came from.