Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Ranch Coming Soon To Clark County

Clark County will soon be getting an Arkansas Sheriff Youth's Ranch.

The organization approached Clark County Sheriff Troy Tucker about putting one of the ranches in Clark County, with him welcoming the idea.

Unlike the boot camps which deal with troubled children and young people, Sheriff's Youth Ranches are a permanent home for children and young people who have been abused or neglected. In fact, one of the requirements for living at the ranch is having no criminal record.

Those living at the ranches attend local schools, hold down after-school jobs if they want and live lives like normal young people.

They can spend the night with friends, or have friends over, with approval from the supervising adults.

The facility will be at Cox Creek on Lake DeGray. The area was originally developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers when the lake was built.

"This is an excellent opportunity to do something with the Cox Creek area," Tucker said. "When it was mentioned as a possible site (for the ranch) the Corps of Engineers was contacted to see if they'd be interested in leasing the land to the ranch. They were.

"We've visited the site several times with architects and engineers."

Planning is underway to develop the land into a fully working ranch, complete with horses and cattle.

The young people living there will work the ranch, having to complete their chores and homework before enjoying themselves. The enjoyment can come from the lake, a baseball field and basketball goals, along with horseback riding and nature hikes.

The young people at the ranch will be attending the Center Point school, where they will be in the general student population, participating in all school activities they choose to get involved in.

Tucker was contacted about the possibility of a ranch being located in South Arkansas about 18 months ago, with Clark County being on the top of the list because of its proximity to metropolitan areas (Hot Springs and Little Rock), along with having the natural resources the program prefers.

A lease with the Corps of Engineers was signed in late September, giving the Arkansas Sheriff's Youth Ranch program the green light to proceed with its plans.

The Clark County ranch is located on about 120 acres and will take referrals from all 75 counties in the state.

It will be licensed for 36 or 37 young people for permanent housing. These young people are referred through the court system and Arkansas Department of Human Services, with the sheriff in the area being notified as well.

Currently there are two other youth ranches in Arkansas, one at Batesville on 520 acres in the area of the White River and the other at Hardy on 87 acres near the Spring River.

One of the requirements for land for such ranches is they be near a body of water.

There is a screening process the young people will go through to see if they are suited for life on the ranch. Not everyone, Tucker said, can handle this program.

Because of their backgrounds of neglect and abuse, the young people will get regular counseling and tutoring while there. Some, Tucker said, need more counseling than others because of their experiences.

"We don't want to take children from their home," he said, but there are those who, for whatever reason, are better off not being around members of their immediate family.

The ranch, he said, will become there home and they can stay there until they graduate college, if they so choose.

The ranch, Tucker continued, is also almost entirely funded by private donations.

He reminds the public these aren't bad kids, but kids in a bad situation. "Our mission," Tucker said of the ranch, "is to create a stable, permanent environment to help these young people reach their potential, to provide them therapeutic services and the highest quality of life we can. It's not a wilderness camp."

Creating the ranch will cost about $5.1 million, he said, and include cottages for living quarters, a chapel where church and other activities will be held and an 8,000 square foot guest cottage. Construction will cost about $2.6 million, with the remaining $2.5 million to be used for maintenance and operation.

All children involved in the program, Tucker said, will be required to attend some kind of church service. However, the type attended is entirely up to the individual.The idea is to do repairs to the infrastructure during phase I, from 2000-01, and get started on building the first cottage.

In 2001-02, he said, the idea is to have the first cottage completed and began taking children into it. In addition, work will start on the 1,500 square foot chapel.

Construction on the 8,000 square foot guest cottage is to begin in 2002 and be done by 2003, with the farming and ranching program to start as well.

Tucker said most of the time area people donate registered livestock and horses to help get the program kicked off. These animals are then raised and sold by the ranchers.

The Arkansas Sheriff's Youth Ranches are 501c programs, meaning they are tax exempt, and donations to them are tax deductible.

By 2005, he said, the entire facility should be completed and up and running on its own.

One of the reasons Clark County was selected, Tucker said, was because it has two colleges at hand (Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University), a hospital, vocational programs at Hot Springs and Malvern along with a rural setting for the ranch itself.

Most of the young people at the ranch will be involved in the Center Point Future Farmers of America program, he said. Center Point has the largest FFA program in Arkansas at this time.

Along with making a home for children in need, the ranch will employ 27 adults.

The young people must meet certain criteria before they can be considered for living at the ranch. First, they must be residents of Arkansas, or have relatives in the state with legal guardianship, be between the ages of six and 17, an IQ of at least 80, skills to perform routine tasks and no history of violent or criminal behavior.

They will also need the approval of the sheriff of the county where the ranch is located and be able to attend public schools.

The C. Lewis Cabe Foundation and Horace Cabe Foundation approved grants to help the local ranch become a reality.

Between the two, $310,000 was approved in grant money, according to Charles Cabe.