Heber Springs Mayor Jackie McPherson is throwing his hat in the ring to challenge US Representative Rick Crawford. McPherson is a Democrat who has been the mayor of Heber Springs since 2006. McPherson tells the Sun newspaper he will stress his experience as mayor and his work in the private sector during his campaign. McPherson has lived in Heber Springs since 1964, and lived in Newark and Batesville previously. McPherson says Representative Crawford follows party lines, voting with Republicans 98 percent of the time. He says that adds to gridlock and contributes to the stalemate in Washington, and he says he is elected, he would work to break the gridlock and work as a problem solver. Filing for the office begins at noon Monday at the state capitol in Little Rock and ends at noon March third.
Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.