Harris Column: Riverfest Goes to the Dogs
Our new slogan for Riverfest would be, "Riverfest: It’s Not Just Music." Having covered the Memorial Day weekend event as an entertainment writer for the previous eight years, before sports beckoned again, I can also say: It’s also not just screamin’ kids, dipping dots and face painting, and lining up for wrist bands and "river money" to buy your beer and internationally flavored eats, though that’s a lot of it too.
It’s also a sporting venue this year, as the Super Retriever Series brings its super jumping dog events, the Super Fly and Super V - the Olympic long jump and high jump for dogs, as it were - to the North Shore Riverwalk Park side of Riverfest this weekend.
Up the road just outside of Mayflower on Highway 89, the Retriever Crown Championship will be held Saturday and Sunday. As soon as a champion is determined, between 11 a.m. and noon, everyone will then tear out for North Little Rock again for the finals in the Super jumping divisions, starting at 12:30 p.m., as well as a Guinness World Record attempt at the most children blowing a duck call at one time.
With 3,000 duck calls boxed and ready to hand out, the organizers plan to beat the existing record by 2,700. Kids can participate by filling out a form at SuperRetrieverSeries.com/CallinTheRock/ for their free pass, then arriving Sunday at the Harvest Foods gate of Riverfest, picking up their Zink duck call and being on hand by 3 p.m. on the North Little Rock side in front of the Budweiser (read: the rock stage) for the big moment, being dubbed "Callin’ the Rock."
Most of the dog activities will be taped for rebroadcast on the Versus network in late June as the culmination of the championship sporting dog series. Dogs and their owners have been competing at 12 sites to finally arrive in Central Arkansas for a title.
Tags: little, riverfest, rock
May 24th, 2008 at 1:11 am
the next south african president is as stupid as mugabe - it´ll be intersting to see how long he´s going to take to ruin that country
May 24th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Without private ownership of property, there is no freedom.
May 24th, 2008 at 2:52 am
The market is not the cause of the problem. Look at this post (I am not going to retype everything).
May 24th, 2008 at 3:42 am
The analogy still holds. Market forces are market forces–whether it be a private corporation responding to them or a state run company. Zimbabwe can make more money off of dog food than feeding its people.When the producers of our food start replacing arable land with fuel crops to make more money it will create a similar crisis. It has already started to happen.In Brasil the issue compounds another problem when rainforests are destroyed and replaced with sugarcane for biofuels.All the arable land in the world would not be enough to replace the fossil fuel consumption we have today.Though I will say biofuel could add a potential suppliment to our oil addiction, for the near future, if driven by agricultural waste products or possibly algae oils.
May 24th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Dawin’s Nightmare anyone? http://www.darwinsnightmare.com/sorry if this has been posted.
May 24th, 2008 at 5:23 am
The situation in Zimbabwe mentioned in the article is the sameNot the same. The initial food shortages in Ireland were caused by a blight. The initial food shortages in Zimbabwe were caused by land seizures.
May 24th, 2008 at 6:14 am
Ah, socialism!
May 24th, 2008 at 7:05 am
No oil, no liberation force. Sorry, that’s the way it works.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:55 am
No.Zimbabwe’s problems are unique. The problem is entirely created by the government. This is a state run grain company – it probably has a monopoly over all the produced grain.Bio-fuels may actually be good for 3rd world countries. Agricultural production in 3rd world countries is a lot cheaper than first world countries (cheaper labour, land and water).As an example, look at how successful Brasilia’s biofuel industry is. 3rd world countries can become the next Gulf.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Nope!
May 24th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Well that’s what it’s called