Hey, could we get together for lunch on the 15th this month?

We’ll go Dutch treat and meet a little before 11:30 a.m. at this place I know downtown that seats about 800. Don’t worry about the big crowd. You’ll know nearly everyone there. Many will be your friends and business associates.

We’ll all have a nice barbecue lunch and introduce ourselves to some very interesting visitors to our city. Their names are Mike and Joe and Bobby, Quin, Rich, Rick, Jim, John, Dave and Kelly.

You don’t need to feel shy about meeting these men, even though several of them are out-of-state Chief Deputy U.S.Marshals, one is a U.S. Marshal and one is the Assistant Director of the U.S.Marshals Service, Mike Pearson. Mike has been here before, and so has the historian for the Marshals Service, David Turk, so we already know they’re good guys.

Oh, and our own U.S. Marshal for this part of Arkansas, Dick O’Connell, will be there, too, along with Tony Perrin, from our state department of parks and tourism. Many of the people you’ll recognize at lunch have been working more than two years to get these visitors here.

The 10 men we’re joining for lunch will decide by the end of the year whether a new museum for the U.S.Marshals Service is going to be built in Fort Smith or in Staunton, Va.

One of the reasons we think the Marshals Service should consider it an honor to build its museum here is that the largest number of deputy marshals who have died in the line of duty are buried in Fort Smith. Many of their descendants still live here.

As one couple wrote the Marshal’s Service earlier this year: “This area’s past history and the ongoing story of the U.S. Marshals role in these United States are natural companions and we expect to see many thousands of people come each year to spend time in the museum... We will take good care of it. The security will be top notch. Our pride in having it located here will be like a mother’s love for her child and we will nurse it, pamper it and watch it grow. Without a doubt our national central location is great and we are located in the fastest growing area in the state and nation.”

Fort Smith not only reveres and respects the history of this country and our own area – we keep the past from getting all rusty and dusty by making it part of our everyday lives through many fun and educational events.

We hold ice cream socials and history-related parties in our local museum. We stage reenactments of historic trials and teach children frontier-era lore and skills at our well-visited National Historic Site that preserves the remains of two frontier forts and the Federal Court for the Western District of Arkansas. We have an annual frontier festival on our river border with Oklahoma, “Murder and Mayhem” tours through our historic district and award-winning “Tales of the Crypt” reenactments in the city’s oldest cemetery.

We’ve had a bunch of people here –especially the members of our own site selection steering committee – working non-stop for more than two years to make Fort Smith the home of the new museum. A local businessman who’s a U.S. Deputy Marshal’s descendant is even offering to donate one of two choice downtown properties he owns for the museum’s building site. We’ve been to Washington, we’ve done our homework to prove why locating the museum will benefit this area and the Marshal’s Service. Now it’s time for the 10 men we’re going to have lunch with to simply CHOOSE FORT SMITH.

Having the Marshals museum built in Fort Smith will have a positive impact on the economy and residents of this entire, two-state area. That’s why I’m expecting to be joined for lunch on the15th by Entertainment Fort Smith readers from Van Buren, Alma, Roland, Muldrow, Sallisaw, Pocola, Spiro, Poteau, Heavener, Hackett, Mansfield, Branch, Charleston, Paris, Lavaca, Greenwood and many other cities and towns.

One in couple in Greenwood has told me they plan to bring a busload of their friends to the luncheon. If a few more of you do the same thing, we can reserve all 800 seats in the ballroom in nothing flat. And we will have only this one opportunity to make ourselves heard to the site selection committee.

So, don’t forget our lunch date at 11:30 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 15, at the Holiday Inn City Center Ballroom in downtown Fort Smith. We all need to make our reservations right now, but we’ll pay our $14 for the luncheon at the door. Call the Fort Smith Chamber of Commerce right now at 479-783-6118, or email info@fortsmithchamber.com to reserve your spot.

Sounds like fun to me. See you there.

 

Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.

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