FORT CHAFFEE JOINT MANEUVER TRAINING CENTER, Ark., — Four Arkansas Army National Guard Soldiers were recognized here, May 7, 2026, for their heroic efforts to preserve a Soldier’s life after a May 4 vehicle mishap that injured eight Soldiers.

The Soldiers, who were on duty for annual training, jumped into action after three Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks were involved in a mishap. The first two trucks in the convoy stopped, but the third 10-ton tactical heavy transport truck was unable to stop and veered left to miss but collided with the rear of the middle truck. Each of the four Soldiers were awarded Meritorious Service Medals for their actions in the aftermath of the mishap.

“We’re going to recognize these NCOs,” Brig. Gen. Chad Bridges, Arkansas’ adjutant general told an assembled platoon of Soldiers, civic leaders, and news media. “The first stanza of the Noncommissioned Officer Creed is ‘No one is more professional than I.’ And whether they responded on scene or in the helicopter, they were being a noncommissioned officer, and supporting Soldiers, and doing their duty, and doing it in a professional, distinctive way, and giving of themselves to get the mission accomplished and to take care of each other, and to make things better.

Three of the Soldiers: Sgt. Eduardo Salazar, Staff Sgt. Ryan Niblett, and Staff Sgt. Jorge Ramirez assigned to 936th Forward Support Co., 142nd Field Artillery Brigade, provided immediate care and aid to a seriously injured Soldier who was extricated with the help of local first responders using the jaws of life. Their timely use of belts as make-shift tourniquets preserved a Soldier’s life until local emergency medical services could arrive, extract the injured Soldier, and prepare the injured Soldier for transport. The Soldier was airlifted to a hospital — nearly 60 miles by air — in Fayetteville, Ark., and after being stabilized, to a higher level of care 100 miles away by air at a hospital in Springfield, Mo.

Of the other seven injured Soldiers, six were transported by vehicles to a Fort Smith, Ark., hospital. One Soldier was airlifted by a 77th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade UH-72 Lakota to the same Fort Smith, Ark., hospital. The Black Hawk was in the area for annual training, and the crew loitered overhead after learning of the ground mishap to see if their services might be needed for casualty evacuation. The crew airlifted a Soldier for concussion protocol. All seven Soldiers have since returned to duty.

The fourth Soldier recognized was Staff Sgt. James Roach, a flight paramedic. He was recognized for his actions monitoring an injured Soldier while airlifting the Soldier to an area hospital on the Lakota helicopter and the seamless handoff that occurred to a civilian medical care team at the hospital’s heliport to ensure the Soldier received definitive trauma care.

An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident. After the accident, a brigade-wide safety stand down went into effect to focus on hazard prevention, review safety procedures and reinforce safety training. Training resumed May 5, 2026.

As of Monday, with six days left in the season, hunters checked 12,666 wild turkeys in Arkansas.

That’s a increase of 1,334 gobblers, approximately 12%, checked during the 2025 spring season. The 2025 official tally of 11,332 gobblers was a 24% increase over 2024.

These stats are noteworthy because they illustrate a consistent uptick in hunter success, which should represent corresponding growth in the statewide turkey population. The growth trend also rebuts complaints that Arkansas intentionally suppresses hunter success by opening its spring turkey season too late, after gobblers are reputably less vocal.

Anecdotal observations are situational and specific to a particular time and location. They are not scientific, but field reports are all we have to evaluate turkey behavior in the field. Two hunters in northern Grant County told us on Tuesday that they worked vocal gobblers on the last week of the season in turkey management zone 2. One of the hunters, Alan Thomas of Conway, said that a strutting gobbler, with a subordinate in tow, hung up about 75 yards away.

“I had my gun up for 27 minutes,” Thomas said. “I needed him to come about 12 or 15 more steps, but he wouldn’t do it, and I wasn’t going to shoot that far.”

Thomas said he might have considered taking the shot with tungsten super shot loads. Nevertheless, he said he was satisfied with the experience because he gets more satisfaction from working a bird in close than merely tagging a bird.

Thomas said he hunted in a small section of hardwoods where the open ground story created very long sight lines.

“Turkeys love it,” Thomas said. “That kind of habitat is great for turkeys, but it’s not great for hunting. They can see a long way.”

Thomas’s hunting companion worked a different gobbler that bellowed for a very long time. The companion abandoned the effort after the bird went silent. He gathered his gear and found the gobbler strutting in the middle of a nearby road.

Our point is that for every hunter who is disgruntled over what they believe to be unfair season dates, there are at least 12,666 other hunters who are happy. Others, like Thomas, worked birds that they didn’t kill.

Still, it’s easy to see why some hunters resent our spring turkey season structure. Before our season opens, many Arkansans hunt in states that have more liberal seasons. They hire guides and kill three gobblers in Texas in March. They have success in Mississippi and Alabama in March. March is the peak of breeding season, when it is easiest to work a gobbler.

Then they come home and get humbled.

The spring season in south Arkansas opens April 13. It opens April 20 in north Arkansas. That is after the peak of the breeding season. Arkansas doesn’t have as many turkeys as other southern states. That combination makes Arkansas a harder place to kill turkeys. Many hunters are proud of that because killing a turkey here is quite an achievement.

Missouri, the gold standard for turkey hunting, opened its spring season April 20, on a Monday. That is the standard to which Arkansas aspires. It is achievable on a smaller scale because we are a smaller state with a fraction of the turkey habitat that Missouri has.

I wish I could make sense of turkey gobbling behavior. I have had some epic hunts with very vocal gobblers late in the season, including on the closing day. I’ve had them slip in silently on opening day, and I’ve had them walk up so loudly crunching sticks and leaves that I was initially alarmed that another hunter was stalking my calls.

Once, at a camp in southeast Arkansas, Sheffield Nelson and I watched a gobbler stroll through the middle of camp gobbling non-stop in the middle of a hot day. Mostly, my experience in Arkansas involved one or two gobblers traveling apart from hens. They are generally not loquacious birds, and they only gobbled after I provoked them with aggressive calling.

That frustrates hunters who are accustomed to working multiple gobblers in other states. Some feel entitled to that degree of activity.

For turkey hunting, Arkansas is the big leagues. The birds themselves are a big reason for that, but our late season structure contributes to the difficulty level.

I haven’t killed a gobbler this season, but I tip my cap to the many others that did.

When he finally met with his former boss last week, Robert Cox peppered Hunter Yurachek with questions about his decision to cut Arkansas tennis.

Although he’s a retired coach, Cox admitted to Best of Arkansas Sports that part of his 45-minute chat with the Razorbacks’ athletics director came across as preaching. If nothing else, he wanted Yurachek to remember one thing.

“We’re not going away,” Cox told BoAS last Friday. “I just wanted to make him aware that tennis players are problem solvers. That’s the way we’re wired. It’s a gladiator sport and win or die, we’re going to stay in the arena as long as we can.”

Sure enough, the fight to resurrect the Arkansas tennis program has continued well past Cornell hammering home what was supposed to be the final nail in its coffin at the NCAA Tournament.

Less than a week after the Razorbacks came up short 4-3 against the Big Red in Fort Worth, Texas, a group of Arkansas tennis alumni and supporters are set to meet with Yurachek on Thursday morning to discuss the future of the men’s and women’s programs, a source told BoAS.

Despite the UA claiming in its press release Q&A that “fundraising is not a sustainable option for the long-term operation of the programs,” another source told BoAS that the plan to be presented to the AD includes more than $5 million raised in a matter of days.

Not only is that double the $2.5 million Arkansas says it would save annually by dropping the men’s and women’s teams, but the source said it’s “just the tip of the iceberg.”

While that amount may come across as shocking to those who don’t follow Arkansas tennis or the sport in general, former men’s tennis coach Tom Pucci told BoAS that it’s indicative of their support — which even Yurachek may have underestimated.

“There’s so much old Arkansas that really truly appreciates the tennis program,” said Pucci, who led the Razorbacks from 1976-84. “I don’t think that the athletic director or the athletic administration ever realized this, and it’s sure coming out.”

Support for Arkansas Tennis

One of those fervent supporters is Jack Lankford, a Little Rock native who played for the Razorbacks from 1991-95 and lettered twice despite being a walk-on.

He’s remained heavily involved with the program since graduating and has even served as the emcee at home matches since Jay Udwadia, his former teammate, was hired as the men’s coach four years ago.

Beyond that, Lankford helps promote and market the program. Matches are free to attend, which means ticket sales are nonexistent, but that doesn’t mean support is nonexistent.

“There may not be some official gauge and attendance count or something like that, but you’re talking about indoor and outdoor tennis,” Lankford said. “So when you get 150 to over 200 people there, it’s loud and it’s a Davis Cup atmosphere.”

On April 10, for example, three suites at the Billingsley Tennis Center were booked for the Razorbacks’ match against Oklahoma. Three groups were also in attendance, plus it was alumni night and Darin Phelan — a former Arkansas assistant — brought over several of his players from Fayetteville High.

Lankford added that the last two years, The Hangout — a fitness and sports gym in Fort Smith — has brought up a group of kids for a match, but it was an all-inclusive experience rather than just watching tennis.

The kids made the trip up I-49 early enough in the day to do drills with Arkansas’ coaches and take photos with the players. Then, just before the start of the actual match, they got to be with the team in the lounge area at the Billingsley Center.

“They’d bring everybody in to say ‘1, 2, 3, Hogs’ right before they have to go warm up,” Lankford said. “Doesn’t that give you chills? We created a culture and outreach and touched lives.”

That outreach extended far beyond the UA campus in Fayetteville.

Udwadia, a former team captain for the Razorbacks, is “very community oriented” and has made it a point for his team to get out across the Natural State, similar to men’s basketball coach John Calipari.

Lankford said the Arkansas tennis program hadn’t been to Little Rock in about a decade when they made an appearance at the Little Rock Athletic Club a couple years ago. They’ve also made stops in Hot Springs Village and at the Conway Tennis Center in recent seasons.

Efforts to Save the Sport

The support for Razorback tennis isn’t just limited to Arkansas, either. It stretches across the country and around the world thanks to the international nature of the sport. Arkansas is the first SEC school to eliminate its tennis programs, and other fans don’t want that to become a trend.

An online petition to save the programs has already received more than 4,700 signatures, on top of the aforementioned money raised.

Tom Pucci, the former coach, is a major reason for that support. His .784 winning percentage over nine seasons is the best mark in the men’s program’s 71-year history and he ended his tenure with nine straight trips to the NCAA Tournament, reaching the Elite Eight three times and Sweet 16 the other three times.

He left Arkansas in 1984 to get into the administration side of things, serving as an AD at Cal State-Sacramento, South Carolina Upstate and California University of Pennsylvania. He retired from that latter post in 2011 and is now “using my PhD that I didn’t use for most of my life” as a professor at National University in San Diego.

However, he fondly remembers his days as a head coach of the Razorbacks.

“We built something really special when I was there and I’m very proud of it,” Pucci said. “But more importantly, I’m proud of my players who have come up to bat and really been successful in life and are willing to try to save the program.”

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More coverage of Arkansas tennis from BoAS…