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HawgBeat – Arkansas Baseball 2023 Lineup Projection: No. 5 – Jared Wegner

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HawgBeat  –  Arkansas Baseball 2023 Lineup Projection: No. 5 – Jared Wegner


We’re 12 days away from Arkansas baseball, and HawgBeat is constant its lineup preview sequence for the 2023 Diamond Hogs.

The Razorbacks will return simply two starters from final yr’s lineup, so followers will quickly grow to be accustomed to all the new faces.

With scrimmage protection, weekly notebooks, place previews, the Diamond Hawgs Podcast and extra, HawgBeat supplies the very best Arkansas baseball protection round.

We proceed issues with the five-hole spot, which is projected to be stuffed by a participant that was a First-Staff All-Massive East performer final season…

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Grad. | R/R | 6′ 0″ | 220

Kearney, Neb. / Kearney HS / Creighton

2022: 63 video games, .346/.463/.641, 42 R, 63 H, 13 2B, 3 3B, 11 HR, 52 RBI, 30 BB/42 Ok, 11 SB

Wegner was a quiet switch addition to the Razorbacks, as he dedicated on June 7, when the 2022 season was nonetheless occurring. Although his addition was been overshadowed by a School World Sequence run, Wegner’s resume speaks for itself. He is already been named a preseason Second-Staff All-American by the Nationwide School Baseball Writers Affiliation.

He had a career-best marketing campaign as a senior in 2022, slashing .346/.463/.641 as a First-Staff All-Massive East participant for Creighton. Wegner smashed 11 residence runs, six of which got here at Charles Schwab Area in Omaha, Neb., which is the house of the School World Sequence.

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Wegner posted a formidable 1.094 OPS and he earned 30 walks and 13 HBPs (43 free passes) in comparison with 42 strikeouts. His addition was much-needed after the Razorbacks noticed all three beginning outfielders — Braydon Webb, Zack Gregory and Chris Lanzilli — transfer on from final yr’s group.

“With Jared Wegner coming in from Creighton, a extremely good participant, a extremely good scholar, mature,” Head Hog Dave Van Horn stated Jan. 20. “Doesn’t actually say an entire lot except he’s received one thing to say. I believe he’s excited to be right here. We’re glad to have him, clearly.”

Wegner’s first three seasons at Creighton had been hampered by accidents, however when he was absolutely wholesome in 2022, he proved that he could be a distinction maker. Van Horn stated he was shocked that no person drafted Wegner in final yr’s MLB Draft.

“I don’t know why anyone didn’t draft him in 20 rounds,” Van Horn stated Sept. 7. “In the event that they have a look at his historical past, final yr was his first yr that he hasn’t been injured. He had a hamate bone difficulty the yr earlier than, and the yr earlier than as a result of he both rebroke it or irritated it once more.

“Final yr was his first yr to play wholesome at Creighton and he had an incredible yr. I believe getting him via was actually huge, particularly at that place within the outfield. He’s a center of the order kind hitter.”

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Through the fall, Wegner handled a indirect harm that restricted him. In his 20 plate appearances throughout scrimmages HawgBeat attended, Wegner recorded six hits, seven runs, 12 RBIs, two residence runs, 5 walks, two strikeouts and two stolen bases.

Van Horn stated Wegner is “actual wholesome” on Jan. 20, and he additionally added that Wegner received again to campus early previous to the beginning of the spring semester.

“He’s been working with a whole lot of — the professional guys are on the town, most of them pitchers — he’s received some dwell at bats off these guys and a few of our guys, principally our guys,” Van Horn stated. “He’s wholesome and I don’t really feel like anyone right now, except that’s modified since final night time, I really feel like we’re all wholesome proper now.”

In response to Van Horn, Wegner is not an enormous ‘have a look at me’ man, he simply lets his play do the speaking.

“He can run, and he’ll idiot you,” Van Horn stated. “He doesn’t let you know about something — not gonna let you know about how good he can hit, how far he can hit it or how briskly he’s. You simply see it, and also you’ve gotta like that. He simply form of reveals you.”

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Within the subject, Wegner is projected to begin in left, and Van Horn confirmed that in his pre-spring press convention. As primarily a nook outfielder at Creighton final season, Wegner had a .969 fielding share and simply three errors. He additionally began as a chosen hitter in 20 video games.

Like Van Horn stated, Wegner is a center of the order kind hitter, and he has a whole lot of pop. If he can keep wholesome, he ought to have a robust 2023 season in Fayetteville.

Wegner and the Diamond Hogs will begin their season on Feb. 17 on the School Baseball Showdown in Arlington, Texas. The primary matchup shall be in opposition to the Texas Longhorns at 7 p.m. CT.



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Report: New builds dominate home sales in Northwest Arkansas – Talk Business & Politics

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Report: New builds dominate home sales in Northwest Arkansas – Talk Business & Politics


Arvest Bank has published the latest Skyline Reports on residential and multifamily real estate in Northwest Arkansas for the latter half of 2023. The bank sponsors the biannual reports completed by the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

In the residential sector, home sales saw a 2.1% decline in the final six months compared to the same period in 2022 and a significant drop of 22.5% compared to the latter half of 2021. Notably, new construction homes accounted for 39.9% of all homes sold, the highest percentage since the inception of the Skyline Report in 2004.

“The increasingly high percentage of new builds indicates a couple of market trends,” said CBER Director Mervin Jebaraj, the lead researcher for the Skyline Report. “One is that current homeowners are less likely to make an in-market move because of higher interest rates, as most people don’t want to replace a 3.5% mortgage with one at 7.0% or higher.

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“Secondly, many new home developers offer assistance by paying points that reduce a loan’s interest rate. Some homebuilders might also be helping buyers with other incentives like including appliance packages with new homes.”

A result of that trend is that inventories of existing homes for sale have risen. Two years ago, at the end of 2021, there were 584 homes for sale in the MLS database. That number increased to 1,618 at the end of 2022 and 2,119 at the end of last year, representing a 263% increase.

Jebaraj also discussed the need for regional coordination regarding rezoning along the U.S. Highway 71B corridor.

“With all four major cities in the region having mayoral elections later this year, I hope we use the opportunity to seek public support for re-imagining the 71B corridor to allow transit-oriented denser housing growth closer to the city centers,” he said. ‘As the region continues to grow population, a coordinated approach to redevelopment among the four big cities would go a long way towards solving many of the housing issues and disruptions from unplanned growth we are experiencing.”

MULTIFAMILY
In the multifamily market, the region’s overall vacancy rate rose from 2.2% a year ago to 3.1% due to 10 new apartment complexes with almost 1,700 new units entering the market. Even with the influx of new rental units, the cost of renting continued to climb, with the average lease rate moving above $1,000 per month for the first time.

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“While the multifamily vacancy rate increased, it is still very low nationally,” Jebaraj said. “And with so many new complexes entering the rental market toward the end of the year, it takes some time for new properties to get leased up. I suspect that the vacancy rate today is lower than it was at the end of the year.”

“It is obvious that higher mortgage interest rates are having an impact on the housing market in Northwest Arkansas,” said Gene Gates, executive vice president and loan manager with Arvest Bank in Fayetteville. “At the same time, the region continues to grow in population, and we continue to see a healthy market to help customers with mortgages. We are also working with apartment developers to secure the funding they need.”

For a PDF of the residential report, click here.

For a PDF of the multifamily report, click here.

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Arkansas agency’s rule change on state IDs and gender prompts safety debate and pushback

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Arkansas agency’s rule change on state IDs and gender prompts safety debate and pushback



The emergency rule leaves only a narrow way to change sex on documents, which could itself soon be closed.

An emergency rule mandating that all Arkansas driver’s licenses and state ID cards show the bearer’s sex as it’s recorded on a birth certificate went into effect on Thursday after approval by the Arkansas Legislative Council.

Top officials at the Department of Finance and Administration, which issued the rule, say it accounts for a need for the police to know the sex of people they encounter. They invoked public safety as a core rationale for the policy change.

Transgender rights activists and the ACLU of Arkansas, however, are pushing back. They say the policy would likely lead to sex-based discrimination and threatens the safety and wellbeing of trans and gender non-conforming people in the state.

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A driver’s license, DFA Secretary Jim Hudson told the Arkansas Legislative Council on Thursday, “is a document that law enforcement relies upon, and if law enforcement cannot have confidence [in] information about the person they’re encountering, I do believe that is a public safety issue.”

“There is potential for confusion under the existing policy that we rescinded.”

State Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, disagreed.

“What you all are telling me is ‘we want law enforcement to have the most accurate information possible when they’re presented with a person,’ and to me, there’s no distinction between gender, height and weight on that, which are obviously also objectively verifiable.”

Height and weight on a state ID are self-reported, the same as gender was under the previous policy.

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Hudson and Assistant Commissioner Paul Gehring did not city specific problems with the then-current policy over the 14 years it had been in place, saying that the emergency rule change is proactive.

A ‘dangerous proposition’

Sarah Everett, director of policy at the ACLU of Arkansas, took issue with the idea of requiring IDs to show sex assigned at birth.

“They’re implying a couple of things,” Everett said in a Monday interview. “One is that law enforcement treats people differently based on sex, which is illegal, and that trans people are somehow inherently dangerous.”

U.S. Supreme Court precedent, she said, holds that discrimination based on gender expression is, legally speaking, sex-based discrimination.

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“Obviously there’s no basis,” Everett said, for the idea that police must know a person’s sex assigned at birth.

“It’s just it’s kind of a scary and dangerous proposition that trans people should be required to out themselves to law enforcement and anyone else who needs to see their identification,” she said.

“No officer is going to be confused when a woman hands him a driver’s license that says ‘F.’ But he may be confused and may react questionably at best if a woman hands him a driver’s license that says ‘male.’”

‘Going forward’

Since 2010, Arkansas has allowed ID holders to change the gender shown, without any questions asked, and to use the gender-neutral designation “X” in addition to “male” and female.”

Across the nation, 21 other states and the District of Columbia continue to allow state IDs to be marked “M,” “F” or “X.” The practice is also allowed on U.S. passports.

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From now on, people in Arkansas with a gender marker of “X” on their passport must choose between male or female on their state ID, Gehring said before the Legislative Council on Thursday.

All current licenses and IDs will remain valid until their printed expiration date regardless of the sex marker shown on them.

In Arkansas, there is no option to designate a newborn as intersex on a birth certificate or to later change one’s sex to anything besides male or female.

Gehring said that the previous policy of “no questions asked” changes to sex markers was based on a departmental memo, which was not codified in state law or agency rules.

The change, he said, seeks to ensure that everything on a state ID is based on existing documentation.

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The agency’s primary concern with the rule change was the X designation on a state ID, rather than male or female markers which differ from other documentation. This is because a marker of “X” is not “verifiable,” said Scott Hardin, a representative from the DFA.

But any sex markers that might differ from those on a person’s birth certificate, he said, are inherently unreliable and perhaps even inherently fraudulent.

Hardin said that the agency sees the issue of sex markers on state IDs as a pressing concern but that their emergency rule change was not made in response to existing problems on the ground or calls to action from the public or law enforcement.

The emergency rule, Hardin said, has “a sense of urgency” meant “to ensure nothing does happen going forward… [because] there’s a real possibility that something could happen if we’re not to address this.”

Wide-ranging consequences.

Max Calabotta, the Northwest Arkansas Coordinator at the trans rights advocacy group Intransitive, said that the consequences of a mismatch between a person’s outward appearance and the sex shown on their ID are wide-ranging.

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These can include “being misgendered and denied housing, being misgendered and then being mistreated in the hospital when you’re in crisis, being misgendered by a police officer who has a gun and potentially the power to kill you.”

“I have a beard and I have a deep voice,” he said. “You don’t need to know anything else, none of the rest of how my body works.”

The new rule, he said, means that the only option for people to change the gender marker on their ID would likely cost many thousands of dollars in a complex and difficult process.

Under the new rules, Arkansas state IDs can only show male or female and that must match the sex on the holder’s birth certificate. It isn’t impossible for a transitioning person to change the sex on their birth certificate, but the bar to do so is set very high.

It can be changed by court order only after sex reassignment surgery. “Normally an attorney is needed for this type of action,” notes an explanation on the Arkansas Department of Health’s website.

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The combination of medical bills and legal fees that are pre-requisites for obtaining a driver’s license with a different name or sex means a heavy burden for a bureaucratic process that’s practically free in other places.

Adding to this, transgender and gender non-conforming people are far more likely than the general population to be living below the poverty line, according to data from the University of California-Los Angeles, putting transition therapy, let alone legal counsel, far out of reach.

By contrast, for Calabotta, who was born in New York State and moved to Arkansas as a young child, there were no such hoops for them to jump through when changing the sex on their birth certificate.

“I just had to fill out a form and send them I didn’t have to provide a bunch of proof.”

Everett said that even this less attainable loophole could itself be in danger of further restrictions or even elimination.

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“The only reason we haven’t seen an attack on that yet is because we’re not in a regular legislative session,” she said, noting that there are legislative bills in other states seeking to restrict that process.

Everett said that the ACLU of Arkansas’ policy is not to announce any potential legal action they might take until after filing a complaint, but that they are “looking at our options when it comes to litigation.”

An emergency rule like this only stays in effect for three months. Hardin said the DFA is already in the process of drafting a permanent rule change which will allow for a 30-day public comment period.



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Arkansas women’s basketball’s leading scorer, rebounder enter transfer portal

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Arkansas women’s basketball’s leading scorer, rebounder enter transfer portal


FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KAIT) – Several Razorback women’s basketball players are exploring their options, two have entered the transfer portal as the window to enter opened on March 18.

Most notable is freshman phenom Taliah Scott. The Florida native and former five-star recruit led the Razorbacks with over 22 points per game in 20 games played. She was named to the SEC All-Freshman team.

To go with the leading scorer, Arkansas’ leading rebounder Saylor Poffenbarger joins Scott in the portal. She averaged a double-double this season with just over 10 points and 11 rebounds per game, both are career-high marks.

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The UConn transfer started 67 games over the past 2 seasons for the Hogs.

To report a typo or correction, please click here.





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