Two men, one of south Texas and another of North Little Rock, died in separate daytime crashes on New Year’s Eve, according to the the Arkansas State Police listings of fatal crashes in the state.
In the first crash, at 10:23 a.m. on eastbound Interstate 30 in Hot Spring County west of Malvern, Adrian Valladarez, 67, of Rio Hondo, Texas, died after he crashed his Volvo into the rear of a Kenworth truck driven by Khalid Hussein, 66, of Wylie, Texas, according to police.
Valladarez then entered the inside lane and crashed into a Honda driven by Traci Mayers, 55, of Las Cruces, N.M., police said. The three vehicles skidded off the roadway and crashed into the roadside treeline, according to the crash report.
The coroner pronounced Valladarez dead at the scene while Hussein and Mayers suffered injuries, police said.
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In the second crash, shortly before 1 p.m., on northbound Interstate 530 in rural Jefferson County northwest of Pine Bluff, Cantress Wine, 38, of North Little Rock, failed to maintain control of his Chevrolet in the left lane and crashed into a Toyota and a Hyundai traveling in the right lane, police said. Wine’s vehicle left the roadway, hit a tree and came to a rest on the driver’s side, according to the crash report.
Rex Nelson has been senior editor and columnist at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2017, and he has a biweekly podcast called “Southern Fried.”
After graduating from Ouachita Baptist University in 1981, he was a sportswriter for the Arkansas Democrat for a year before becoming editor of Arkadelphia’s Daily Siftings Herald. He was the youngest editor of a daily in Arkansas at age 23. Rex was then news and sports director at KVRC-KDEL from 1983-1985.
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He returned to the Democrat as assistant sports editor in 1985. From 1986-1989, he was its Washington correspondent. He left to be Jackson T. Stephens’ consultant.
Rex became the Democrat-Gazette’s first political editor in 1992, but left in 1996 to join then-Gov. Mike Huckabee’s office. He also served from 2005-09 in the administration of President George W. Bush.
From 2009-2018, he worked stints at the Communications Group, Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities, and Simmons First National Corp.
Dylan Sherman is a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He is based in Northwest Arkansas and focuses on Tyson Foods Inc. and the transportation industry. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he has been with the newspaper since 2023.
