The Arkansas Department of Transportation said Friday is it temporarily closing part of U.S. 61 between Arkansas 140 (West Keiser Avenue) and Arkansas 325 in Osceola in northeastern Arkansas next week for railroad crossing repairs.
The work will be done from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, weather permitting.
Road crews will set up a detour using Arkansas 325 and Arkansas 140.
Barrels, flaggers, message boards and signs will guide drivers through the construction work, the agency said.
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U.S. 61, often called the blues highway because of its historical affiliation with blues music, runs 1,400 miles long between New Orleans on the south end and the city of Wyoming, Minn., on the north end. In Arkansas, U.S. 61 is 76 miles long, from West Memphis to just north of Blytheville.
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.
