Arkansas
Arkansas Times reporter snags two Local News Awards from Report for America – Arkansas Times
The national journalism nonprofit Report for America announced the winners of its fifth annual Local News Awards last week, and our very own agriculture and environment reporter Phillip Powell came away with not one but two honors.
RFA is a national service program that aims to address the decline of local journalism by placing reporters into local newsrooms and covering a portion of their salary. Powell, a 2025 RFA corps member and Arkansas native, came to the Arkansas Times last summer as part of RFA’s collaboration with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk. Since then, he’s covered Arkansas ag and enviro issues large and small, from the impact of tariffs on Arkansas soybean farmers to a local fight over an air-fouling waste lagoon near Fort Smith.
RFA’s honors outstanding reporting produced by the group’s corps members over the past year with its Local News Awards. Powell took the silver medal in the “News” category for a story on the Arkansas Legislature’s efforts this spring to restrict the growth of wind power in the state, titled “Breaking wind: Proposal would split Arkansas in two for wind energy regulations.” (The specific bill described in this story did not pass, but in the final days of the legislative session, the Republican majority ultimately did enact stringent new rules that wind advocates say could strangle the nascent industry in Arkansas.)
Powell also took home a third-place prize in the “Enterprise/Investigative” category, shared with fellow RFA corps member Lucas Dufalla of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Dufalla and Powell co-reported a story titled “Delta duck hunting offers conservation solutions, but the ducks are disappearing,” which appeared both in the Dem-Gaz and the Arkansas Times in April. A part of a Mississippi Ag & Water Desk series on wetlands, it details the destruction of duck habitat in the Arkansas Delta and the uphill battle faced by conservationists.
According to RFA, the group’s 2025 Local News Award winners were selected from more than 200 pieces of reporting produced by 102 reporters around the country. “Reporting spanned homelessness, mental health, climate change, racial equity, rural shifts, environmental justice, and political extremism, in communities from Albany to Appalachia, Concord to Cedar Rapids, and Birmingham to San Francisco,” RFA said — which makes Powell’s collection of two awards this year all the more notable. Congratulations, Phillip!
And while we’re on the subject: If you’re as impressed with Powell’s reporting as we are, consider supporting his work. RFA helps small newsrooms like the Arkansas Times hire reporters like Powell, but the nonprofit covers only a portion of the salary. The rest comes from other sources, including local donors. You can contribute here.
Michigan State basketball got off to a shaky start on Monday, using a late run to fend of Colgate in an 80-69 win. After the game, head coach Tom Izzo said his team would get “embarrassed” in their next game if they do not play better.
That next game for the 22nd-ranked Spartans is against No. 14 Arkansas. This will be the first ranked-versus-ranked non-conference game in the Breslin Center since No. 11 MSU faced No. 10 Duke on Dec. 3, 2019.
Looking at the Razorbacks, big, sweeping statements are never great to be made after Game 1, but Arkansas looked like a stronger team than last year’s during its season opener. On Monday, the Razorbacks crushed Southern, 109-77, to reach 1-0.
During the first year of the John Calipari era, Arkansas was a 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament, reached the Sweet 16, but blew a 13-point lead with less than five minutes left against Texas Tech with an Elite Eight spot at stake.
Scoring 109 points in a college basketball game is always tough. Southern is not exactly an opponent that spooks many power-conference teams, but the Jaguars are actually the top-ranked team in the SWAC on KenPom and are a couple of spots above Colgate.
Three different Razorbacks scored at least 20 points, two of whom were freshmen guards. A senior forward, Trevon Brazile, led the team with a career-high 25 points and 11 rebounds.
Both freshmen entered as five-star recruits as part of Calipari’s 5th-ranked class, according to 247Sports. Darius Acuff Jr. had a monster first half, scoring 20 of his 22 points on the day during the initial 20 minutes.
Meleek Thomas had 21 points, seven assists, and three steals during his collegiate debut.
The other Razorback with 10+ points was another freshman, Isaiah Sealy. He was a four-star recruit in Arkansas’ latest recruiting class.
Calipari’s squad nearly led this game wire-to-wire. Southern’s only lead was 2-0, and Arkansas was up by at least 10 during the final 31:31 of game time. The Razorbacks certainly played like a team that deserves, at the very least, their No. 14 ranking.
A quick thing that stands out is that Arkansas looks like a good shot-making team that also has some athleticism. Acuff made some impressive shots during his 22-point day, including a few from deep.
Brazile against MSU’s Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper will also be a critical matchup, as he is a lob threat every time the Razorbacks push the ball up the court. His rebounding will also be a factor.
Keep up with all our content when you follow the official Spartan Nation page on Facebook, Spartan Nation, WHEN YOU CLICK RIGHT HERE, and be sure to share your thoughts on MSU’s upcoming game against Arkansas when you join our community group, Go Green Go White, WHEN YOU CLICK RIGHT HERE. Don’t forget to give us a follow on X @MSUSpartansOnSI as well.
Boogie Fland knows he still isn’t as strong as he needs to be.
He’s getting closer, though, after packing on 13 pounds of muscle from last season, when he averaged 13.5 points and 5.1 assists for the Razorbacks but struggled against more physical SEC teams. The freshman’s slight frame took its toll alongside an undisclosed hernia injury and more public thumb injury.
On Monday night against No. 13 Arizona, Boogie Fland made his Florida basketball debut in a newly retooled Gators backcourt. The thumb issue was all gone; the strength shortcoming wasn’t. The 6’2” guard made an impressive and-one fastbreak bucket through contact in second half surge but still had trouble finishing in the teeth of a stout interior defense, at one point seeing an attempt near the paint obliterated by swarming Wildcats.
Fland finished with 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals but alongside fellow guard Xavian Lee struggled to convert from the field. Fland shot 3-of-9, Lee made 5-of-17 and if the No. 3 Gators have any hope of repeating as national champions, those two must do better.
The backcourt duo’s shooting cost them dearly on Monday against Arizona in a 6-point loss. Despite missing both three-point attempts, expect Fland to improve his outside shooting as the season goes on. Adding weight now the season’s underway will be much harder.
The 19-year-old is still about five or so pounds under his target of 190 pounds. As he described it to The Gainesville Sun’s Kevin Brockway, is the weight threshold for a “real SEC guard.”
Anthony Black Couldn’t Pass On Saying This
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Anthony Black would agree.
The 6’7” point guard played at over 200 pounds in his single spectacular season for the Razorbacks in 2022-23, racking up 12.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 2.1 steals per game and leading the Hogs to the Sweet 16.
Black stood out as Arkansas’ clear-cut floor general, something the program has lacked for the following two seasons.
That’s something he pointed out to Arkansas basketball fans on Monday night while watching Darius Acuff stake his claim as the best point guard the Hogs have had since Black. Acuff racked up 23 points on hyper efficient shooting but, more importantly, has in the last few weeks played in a way that spread the love and consistently made his teammates better.
Black, who now lives with down the road from Fland while playing for the Orlando Magic, took notice:
It didn’t take long for Black to delete this point guard assessment as he likely realized folks were taking it the wrong way. Black didn’t mean this as a specific slight against Fland as a Razorback last year playing alongside “TB,” or Trevon Brazile. More likely than that, Black wasn’t criticizing anybody in particular but simply pointing out the obvious: none of Arkansas’ primary ballhandlers through the last two seasons have also looked fully comfortable as a distributor.
That includes El Ellis, Devo Davis, DJ Wagner and Johnell Davis, too.
Still, none of those others entered the program with as lofty of a reputation as a “real” point guard.
As a freshman, Fland actually surpassed Black from an individual standpoint when averaging 13.5 points, 3.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists in his freshman season. But then went through a similarly frustrating episode of injury/trying-to-play-through-injury/getting indefinitely sidelined as Nick Smith Jr., Black’s backcourt mate at Arkansas.
Both Fland (thumb) and Smith (knee) both suffered persistent injuries that kept them out for many weeks at Arkansas. Both players suffered slings and arrows from some fans who felt they were sitting out to preserve their draft stock instead of putting on the line for their teams.
Both talented guards tried to come back at the end of the season, playing limited roles in big upsets of Kansas in the NCAA Tournament. But neither looked anywhere close to their normal selves.
Smith, a central Arkansas native, never publicly vented about the negativity he got while sitting out for so long. “He knows he’s not delivering,” sportscaster Mike Irwin posted. “He’s hurting. He’s an Arkansas kid and he loves that Hog as much as any of you. Give him some space and he might just find himself before this season is over.”
Fland, meanwhile, didn’t grow up as a Razorback fan. He didn’t have lifelong friends around him in Fayetteville, nor a family he could easily visit just down the interstate.
Still, Fland recalls, things started well in Fayetteville.
“When I was on the court, everybody loved me,” said on his YouTube channel. “Everybody calling and texting me saying, ‘Oh you’re gone [to the NBA draft] this year,’ ‘Keep going’ and this and that.”
Temperature Plummets around Arkansas Basketball
Then, in January, things turned cold.
“As soon as I got hurt and wasn’t able to do what I do in the court, nobody checked in. Nobody texted me like ‘You good? How’s your hand?’”
A bit later, he added: “I didn’t get that same love and support that I got when I was on the court than when I was off the court. I feel like that was one of the toughest lessons for me, because it just goes to show the love wasn’t real.”
Here’s where Fland, frankly, probably would have felt more supported attending St. John’s closer to his home. In that scenario, even if he’d suffered the same injury, he’d have been surrounded by friends and family.
As it was, he felt somewhat betrayed by certain Arkansas basketball fans and hangers on who only wanted to be around in the good times.
Just like with Nick Smith Jr., though, all of that is behind him now.
Smith, despite that single, rough season in college and getting cut by the NBA team which drafted him, is now bouncing back in a big way. He racked up 25 points to play the hero in the Los Angeles Lakers’ Monday night win vs Portland.
Fland, too, may be on the cusp of a turnaround coming out of Florida’s loss to Arizona.
“God has a time for me,” he said on his channel. “He has a different journey for me.”
“I just learned to embrace it and try to understand where He’s coming from and try to look at the different picture, try to look at things in a different way instead of in a negative way.”
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Boogie Fland talks about the fake love at 13:30 below:
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