Pilot's Award

The Mississippi River Parkway Commission of Arkansas was bestowed with the prestigious Pilot’s Award from the National Mississippi River Parkway Commission at the organization’s annual meeting, held Sept. 27-29, in Louisville, Ky.

The purpose of the Mississippi River Parkway Commission of Arkansas is to preserve, promote and enhance the scenic, historic and recreational resources along the Mississippi River; to foster economic growth and tourism development in the River Corridor; and to develop the national, scenic, historic and recreational parkway known as the Great River Road.

The Mississippi River Parkway Commission (MRPC) is a multi-state organization, established in 1938, that works collectively to preserve, promote, and enhance the scenic, historic, and recreational resources of the Mississippi River. The MRPC works to foster economic growth in the corridor and develop the national, scenic and historic parkway known as the Great River Road. The organization is comprised of the ten states bordering the Mississippi River – Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.

The coveted Pilot’s Award is presented annually to a state or province commission in recognition of outstanding achievements in pursuing the goals and objectives of the Mississippi River Parkway Commission. Among this year’s achievements and accomplishments of Arkansas’s commission were new Civil War interpretation sites in Helena-West Helena; the Rohwer Japanese American Relocation Center Interpretive Program, which provides visitors to the site with directional signage, an interpretive kiosk and panels, audio vignettes, informative literature, and an audio tour narrated by actor George Takei, who was interred at the Rohwer camp; the addition of the Delta Resort, a 2,000-acre property featuring a world-class, Olympic trap shooting and training facility, a first-class duck and deer hunting club, and a 72-room guest lodging facility; the on-going project of restoring and recreating Johnny Cash’s boyhood home and the Dyess Colony Resettlement Area; and the creation of a tri-state blues trail (Arkansas, Mississippi and Memphis) dedicated to jointly promoting blues music in the Mississippi River Delta region.

Arkansas’s MRPC delegation attending the national meeting were Chairman Joe St. Columbia, Helena-West Helena; Vice-Chairman Carole Bulloch, Monticello; Secretary-Treasurer Bobby Kennedy, West Memphis; Commissioner Terri Austin McCullough, Eudora; Great River Road Director Marla Crider, Little Rock; Technical Advisors Julia Hart from the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department in Little Rock and retired AHTD engineer Gip Robertson, also of Little Rock.