Ozark Society event

The Ozark Society and the Peel Compton Foundation are hosting an event on August 18 from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at Compton Gardens and Conference Center at 312 N. Main St. in Bentonville to commemorate three 40, 50, and 100-year milestones in the history of the Ozarks natural environment. The event is free and open to the public.  The Ozark Society was founded fifty years ago, on May 24, 1962, with its first goal to campaign for the creation of the Buffalo National River in northern Arkansas to keep the river from being dammed.  The second commemorative event is the 40th anniversary of the establishment, on March 1, 1972, of the Buffalo River as the first national river in the U.S.  Finally, it would also be Dr. Neil Compton’s 100th birthday.  Born August 2, 1912, Compton, a Bentonville physician, was the founding president of the Ozark Society and continued in that capacity for ten years.  He led the fight to keep the Buffalo River free-flowing.  Compton died in 1999.

The event will feature the opening of a new exhibit of Neil Compton’s life and legacy; a talk at 11:00 by Donald Wleklinski, University of Arkansas Clinical Instructor of Nursing on the positive effects of the outdoors on children and adults; a talk at noon by Ellen Compton, daughter of Neil Compton, on her father’s early life in Bentonville; a showing at 1:00 of a 1963 film produced by Neil Compton; a showing at 2:00 of “The Buffalo Flows,” a recent film by Larry Foley; and a reminiscence at 3:00 of Neil Compton by conservationist, author, and trailbuilder Ken Smith.  A concert starting at 4:00 by the folkgrass duo “Still on the Hill” will close out the event. Organizers of the event are Janet Parsch and Ellen Compton.

The Ozark Society continues to be active today with members in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Missouri.  Chapters in Arkansas include the Highlands Chapter (Fayetteville); the Buffalo River Chapter (Gilbert); the Pulaski Chapter (Little Rock); the Sugar Creek Chapter (Bentonville); the Bayou Chapter (Shreveport, Louisiana}, and the Mississippi Valley Chapter (Cape Girardeau, Missouri).  The Ozark Society has continued its conservation efforts through the years and has led the efforts to create wilderness areas in the Ouachita and Ozark National Forests; to create wild and scenic rivers in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma; and to maintain other rivers as free-flowing.  Current projects include efforts to prevent a dam being build on Lee Creek, to insure that gas wells drilled in the Ozark National Forest will be environmentally appropriate, and to stop a project in the Ozark National Forest that would clear-cut and bulldoze hundreds of acres of land to support an elk herd, a non-native species to Arkansas. The Ozark Society and its affiliate, the Ozark Society Foundation, support educational activities through book publishing and providing scholarships.  It conducts recreationally activities of hiking and canoeing for its members and the public.

For more information, contact Bob Cross, Ozark Society president at (479)587-8757 or bobcross610@gmail.com.  The Ozark Society website is at www.ozarksociety.net