News

On Thursday, July 18 the Red River Radio recording crew traveled to the Alexandria Museum of Arts to record Buddy Flett and Josh Hyde at the acoustic concert series at the museum. John Wakefield was the MC and also opened the concert and was joined on stage by John Jordan on harmonica. Bill Beckett & Daniel Gordy from Red River Radio captured the show for future broadcast. A great audience turned out for the show and the Alexandria Museum of Art had refreshments for all.

These photos were take by Reverend Charley and are used here by permission.

Bill Beckett sit down with Alan Tooraen, Jim Hardey, Jeff Stewart, and Jack Leon, all member of Blue Shadows, a Shreveport based teen band that played Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi from 1965 - 1968. They are in town for a reunion show at Chickey's Boom Boom Room and Oyster House on Texas avenue in Shreveport. The show starts at 9 p.m. this Saturday, July 27.

The U.S. National Hot Air Balloon Championship is on as scheduled Thursday in Longview after being grounded for the past two days due to poor weather conditions. The pilots are now trying to rapidly complete the tasks of the competition.

When Mother Nature interferes in a multi-day ballooning competition, the stakes get higher. The pilots must complete tasks each day of the competition in order to rack up a higher score. When there are fewer days to fly, there are fewer tasks to complete. This makes the remaining tasks all the more important.

The U.S. Senate and House have two dramatically different versions of a federal farm bill, and that comes as a disappointment to U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas. The Democrat backed a bipartisan Senate version passed last month. Pryor said he feels pressure from lobbies that oppose the farm bill and are trying to divide the Arkansas delegation.

“Farming is far and away our No. 1 industry in Arkansas," Pryor told Red River Radio in a recent interview. "We don’t need to listen to these outside groups. We need to listen to people from Arkansas, and we need to get this done.”

Volunteers of America North Louisiana will be able to help hundreds more homeless veterans in the area through a federal grant that will increase this fiscal year by more than $100,000. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs grant is through the Supportive Services for Veterans Families program. It can be used in a variety of ways to secure housing for veterans, according to Gary Jaynes, director of veterans services for Volunteers of America North Louisiana.