Latest news with #ShelleyShort
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Clark County breaks ground on Southwest Arkansas Mega Site, hoping to attract industry
CLARK COUNTY, Ark. – A new mega site development project to make the area more attractive for potential business projects is underway in Clark County. The Southwest Arkansas Mega Site is located right outside of Arkadelphia in Gum Springs near the Clark County Industrial Park. Port of Little Rock slated for $1 billion, 400-acre data center Shelley Short is the CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Clark County. 'It's about having the infrastructure in place, it's about having ready-to-go land,' Short said. The area is being developed so businesses considering locating in the county will have prepared land to use, for example, for factory construction. 'Part of the economic development process is getting your product ready for an industry to locate, and so while there may not be jobs associated with today's announcement, immediate jobs, it's all about getting a site ready so that industries that are looking can see its potential and value.' Short said. Short said the nearly 1,000-acre property will undergo site certification and erosion control to make it more marketable to companies. 'They want a ready-to-go, shovel-ready site so that they are able to get from spending money to making money, from not having product to making product as quickly as possible,' Short said. The $2.4 million project is funded through a $1 million site development grant from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and $1.4 million from the Clark County Economic Development Fund. Clint O'Neal, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said Clark County is one of the inaugural grant recipients. 'So an opportunity for communities to better develop their industrial sites to make them more attractive,' O'Neal said. 'When prospects go around looking at the best sites, we want them to find sites that have due diligence, have infrastructure.' Entergy, Port of Little Rock announce 'shovel ready' 875-acre industrial megasite He added that attracting business requires having available real estate. 'Whether it's vacant industrial buildings like the one that Hostess took down the road, or great industrial sites like the Southwest Mega Site,' O'Neal said. Short said the community is a driving force behind the project and believes in economic development. 'They believe that while we may not see the results for a year or two years or five years down the line, that it's worth investing in,' she said. The site should be ready to go in about six months. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Age
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Convicts, gold and scandal: the musical digging up our secret past
In a century-old industrial warehouse in Richmond, Shelley Short sings a story twice as old. Through the old tin and timber rings Martha Hayes, a song about the innocent daughter of a transported convict woman, and the mother of Tasmania's first European child. Around her, a big band swirls. Mick Thomas, with smashing bushranger beard, leads members of Weddings Parties Anything and guitarist Jeff Lang and other local legends through rehearsals for Vandemonian Lags, a piece of musical-theatre that reckons with colonial Australia's lesser-known past. 'She got pregnant to a lieutenant,' Short says of the subject of the song. 'She was 16; too young. And she settled up next to the river and had the baby there. She didn't end up staying with the lieutenant because he had a family of his own back home. 'I love a story of a strong woman back in the 1800s. I love it when those stories are lifted up, because history is often told by big white men.' That spirit of recovering lost voices – convict, female, otherwise muted – lies at the heart of Vandemonian Lags, a song cycle performed in costume and based on true stories from Tasmania's convict past (the title combines a name for inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, as the island was known until 1856, and a term for convicts). First staged at Dark Mofo in 2013 and performed only a few times since, the show returns this week to Melbourne, Bendigo, Ballarat and Frankston with a cast that also includes Tim Rogers, Brian Nankervis, Darren Hanlon, Sal Kimber, Van Walker, Ben Salter and newcomer Claire Anne Taylor. The stories come from 19th-century records of the 75,000 convicts sent to Van Diemen's Land; some include details of their later lives after crossing to Victoria during the gold rush. UNESCO has called it the most detailed archive of the Victorian working class ever recorded. 'The Vandemonian is a pestilential addition to our population, and his coming is an evil we must guard against at all costs,' raged The Argus in 1852. But neither the convicts nor their stories could be stopped.
Sydney Morning Herald
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Convicts, gold and scandal: the musical digging up our secret past
In a century-old industrial warehouse in Richmond, Shelley Short sings a story twice as old. Through the old tin and timber rings Martha Hayes, a song about the innocent daughter of a transported convict woman, and the mother of Tasmania's first European child. Around her, a big band swirls. Mick Thomas, with smashing bushranger beard, leads members of Weddings Parties Anything and guitarist Jeff Lang and other local legends through rehearsals for Vandemonian Lags, a piece of musical-theatre that reckons with colonial Australia's lesser-known past. 'She got pregnant to a lieutenant,' Short says of the subject of the song. 'She was 16; too young. And she settled up next to the river and had the baby there. She didn't end up staying with the lieutenant because he had a family of his own back home. 'I love a story of a strong woman back in the 1800s. I love it when those stories are lifted up, because history is often told by big white men.' That spirit of recovering lost voices – convict, female, otherwise muted – lies at the heart of Vandemonian Lags, a song cycle performed in costume and based on true stories from Tasmania's convict past (the title combines a name for inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, as the island was known until 1856, and a term for convicts). First staged at Dark Mofo in 2013 and performed only a few times since, the show returns this week to Melbourne, Bendigo, Ballarat and Frankston with a cast that also includes Tim Rogers, Brian Nankervis, Darren Hanlon, Sal Kimber, Van Walker, Ben Salter and newcomer Claire Anne Taylor. The stories come from 19th-century records of the 75,000 convicts sent to Van Diemen's Land; some include details of their later lives after crossing to Victoria during the gold rush. UNESCO has called it the most detailed archive of the Victorian working class ever recorded. 'The Vandemonian is a pestilential addition to our population, and his coming is an evil we must guard against at all costs,' raged The Argus in 1852. But neither the convicts nor their stories could be stopped.
