Posted by rexnelson / Rex Nelson’s Southern Fried
In El Dorado and Arkadelphia, the dreams of Charles Murphy Jr. and Jane Ross live on. The El Dorado Promise and the Arkadelphia Promise will help make those two cities shining stars for the southern half of our state. Interestingly, the initiatives have their roots in a pair of great Arkansans who both were born in 1920.
In the previous post, I wrote about the Arkadelphia Promise scholarship program, which was unveiled last week.
The Arkadelphia Promise is being funded by the Ross Foundation and Southern Bancorp.
Arkadelphia-based Southern Bancorp has now become the largest and most profitable rural development banking organization in the country. The first bank it purchased was Arkadelphia’s Elk Horn Bank & Trust Co. in 1988. Since then, other banks have been purchased across Arkansas and in the Mississippi Delta. Southern Bancorp has grown stronger than ever under the leadership of Phil Baldwin.