Arms Around Arkadelphia '24

During the week of June 10-14, 2024, the annual Arms Around Arkadelphia service projects took place, organized by First Baptist Church of Arkadelphia. As in years past (described here), members of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association participated.

I love working with this group. Every year, there is a laser focused mission on getting projects done, which makes a difference every time, no matter the project. The home-cooked meal at lunch each day is also phenomenal.

This year, the ATLA crew was tasked with demolition and reconstruction of a deck, as follows:

Later in the morning, the ATLA crew got pulled off this project to help pour concrete. This was the finished product on the deck:

I haven’t poured concrete as an AAA project. New experiences and learning new craftsmanship techniques are another reason I love participating in these projects.

After the ATLA crew’s work was done, a ramp was installed:

Another reason I love these projects is the people. Our group had people from northwest Arkansas pitching in to help. The time spent with the ATLA crew is also special:

From left to right, me, Brian Trubitt, and jay neal. not pictured, but also present, was alan levar

If you’re interested in getting involved with Arms Around Arkadelphia, either with your time or financially, or both, contact me at taylor@chaneylaw.com or David McAlister at davidmcallister36@gmail.com.

Arms Around Arkadelphia - 2023

On June 13, 2023, several members of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association participated in the annual Arms Around Arkadelphia service projects organized by First Baptist Church of Arkadelphia.

Readers of this blog may recall ATLA’s participation in prior years, here, here, and here. For 2023, the ATLA crew’s job was demolition of a shed, pictured below. The shed belonged to the homeowner’s father, who passed away a few years ago. The health issues of the homeowner gave us the opportunity to help.

After getting the electricity turned off, we cleaned out the inside of the shed as best we could:

removing the window was the final prep before demolition began

While we’re always willing to do whatever is needed, I’ve observed demolition is a coveted activity of ATLA members. A lot of our time is spent talking on the phone, or looking at computer screens reading cases, court rules, evidence rules, etc. Getting exercise, and working outside is always a nice change of pace. And, as if the demolition were not enough, we were instructed to burn the debris and haul the roof to the street:

THE STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF THE SHED HAD BEEN STRIPPED AT THIS POINT AND THE ONLY THING LEFT TO DECIDE WAS WHICH DIRECTION IT WAS GOING TO COME DOWN

Once we got the shed down, we quickly discovered separating the roofing from the plywood was the biggest challenge of the whole project due to tar melting the two together:

We finally just chainsawed the underlying supporting structures and removed the plywood sheets, burned the plywood sheets that we were able to remove the roofing, and separated the rest into a separate pile to take to the street.

SHORTLY AFTER THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN, WE DECIDED IT WAS TIME FOR LUNCH

I always look forward to lunch every year during Arms Around Arkadelphia. It is a potluck full of homemade goodness cooked by members of the First Baptist Church. It’s also a good time to catch up with longtime friends, and to make new ones. This year, we were fortunate enough to have members of a youth group join us after lunch, who proved to be a great help in finishing the project:

With the reinforcements after lunch, we were able to finish in a reasonable amount of time. Many thanks to them, and to Arms Around Arkadelphia for allowing us to participate again this year.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, ATLA MEMBERS CALEB BAUMGARDNER OF THE BAUMGARDNER LAW FIRM IN EL DORADO; BRIAN TRUBITT OF TAYLOR KING & ASSOCIATES IN ARKADELPHIA; TAYLOR CHANEY OF CHANEY LAW FIRM, P.A. IN ARKADELPHIA; AND JAY NEAL OF TAYLOR KING & ASSOCIATES IN ARKADELPHIA.

If you’re interested in getting involved with Arms Around Arkadelphia, either with your time or financially, or both, contact me at taylor@chaneylaw.com or David McAlister at davidmcallister36@gmail.com.

2023 ATLA Convention: One to Remember

Hey there. It’s been awhile. Lots has happened since we last wrote in this space. After 20-years in the U.S. Bank building in downtown Arkadelphia, the Chaney Law Firm moved 2-blocks south to 501 Crittenden Street (more on that later). A lot happened just last week at the 2023 Arkansas Trial Lawyer’s Association annual convention in Eureka Springs.

I’ve come to look forward to these conventions every year, almost like a holiday, because each one feels more like a family reunion than an attorney convention. Growing up, Don and Terri would take Nathan and I out of school for two days to drive 5 hours one way to Eureka Springs (Hwy 65 wasn’t 4-laned to Clinton back then).

Over the years, certain locations took on a significant degree of family nostalgia to the point they must be acknowledged each year. For example, below is one of those places:

During rush hour traffic in’93 or ‘94, Nathan ran over a piece of equipment that had fallen off of a vehicle in the middle of the road on the right (Hwy 65/412 in Harrison), which caused a tire to blow out. Although there was a significant commotion in the vehicle for him to deal with immediately afterward (cough), he calmly turned onto second street and took the next right to get safely out of the traffic to deal with the flat tire. He recalled this experience to me a few weeks ago after his own 14-year old son popped a tire that required changing. There are plenty of stories about me, too. We’ll save those for another day. #IYKYK

On one of the convention days, I got to visit with an attorney friend, whose father and older brother are also practicing attorneys whom we had seen the previous night at dinner. I told him it made me happy to see the three of them together as I hadn’t seen his older brother in a long time. The younger attorney friend relayed to me that it was a special time for them; and before I knew it as he was talking to me, thoughts and memories of my own brother came flooding to mind. Many of you already know, but for those that don’t, Nathan was diagnosed with colon cancer in November/December. I can’t see the pool or gaming area at the Inn of the Ozarks (seen in the video below) without remembering Nathan and I spending a lot of time there while Don was getting his continuing legal education hours at the convention.

The same thing happened when I saw the convention koozie (pictured above); Nathan and I went fishing on the nearby Kings River early one morning on a convention day several years ago, which has been one of his happy places going back to college. It happened again another night at the incoming president’s shin-dig at the go-kart place in Eureka Springs. Nathan and I have driven a lot of miles around that track, but I hadn’t done it in a long time:

That my’s game face set to race against the incoming atla president, breean walas. I lost. :(

On the Thursday afternoon of the convention, I was extremely proud to see Jessica receive the Outstanding Legal Assistant of the year award from ATLA. For anyone that knows her or works with us, they know Jessica is the heartbeat of our law firm.

The Arkadelphian quoted me saying “we couldn’t have made it through the last year without her quick thinking, initiative and dedication.” I will always be thankful for that.

Something else happened at the convention that I’ll never forget: I was chosen by my peers as the inaugural recipient of the Ruthanne Murphy Good Works Award.

Many knew Ruthanne better than I did, but I always had a tremendous amount of respect for her. She did not care about being recognized for her actions; she did what she did because it was the right thing to do. One example given was her continuous and longstanding dedication to feeding the homeless, whether it be at a shelter or otherwise. Her obituary (left) was published on June 4, 2022. “[A] fierce warrior for justice and a beacon in a dark world” is how I will always remember her. Even as I’m trying to do so, I can’t really express in words what an honor it is have my name associated with Ruthanne’s name, much less be the first recipient of an award named after her.

To make the occasion even more memorable, my close friend Breean Walas was the one who presented the award to me as the incoming president:

Breean has taught me more about practicing law than I ever learned in law school, whch is something for which I’ll forever be grateful.

I couldn’t let the moment pass without telling the atla membership that ruthanne stood for everything the organization stands for, and is an example of what we all should aspire to be as attorneys.

A few minutes after the above photograph was taken, I walked outside the meeting hall to meet Ruthanne’s family, which was the highlight of the entire convention for me:

I’m shaking hands with Ruthanne’s husband, Jim Garrett.

As noted by the Arkadelphian, ATLA has been helping First Baptist Church’s Arms Around Arkadelphia organization. Since 2018, several ATLA attorneys from across the state have given up their time (some driving 4-hours or more one-way) to come to Arkadelphia and lend a hand in service projects around town put together by the AAA group; one of those times was detailed here. If you’re interested in seeing the results of these service projects, First Baptist Church puts together a video every year, which you can find here. This year, the AAA service projects will take place from June 12-15, 2023. If you’re interested in getting involved, contact me at taylor@chaneylaw.com, or David McAlister at davidmcallister36@gmail.com.

Arms Around Arkadelphia - reprised

From June 4-8, 2018, Arms Around Arkadelphia ("AAA") resumed work. If you follow this blog, then you'll remember the last blog post was about AAA's two-day projects from May 18-19, 2018. For the week-long reprisal, I was assigned to help rebuild the shower at Sammy and Flora Blackmon's home with Mr. Byron Jones, Dr. Jimmy Hankins, and Ms. Freddie Whiting. Mr. Jones' grandson, Cole, also pitched in for a couple of days.

Monday, June 4, 2018

We arrived on the job site around 8:30 am and got started shortly after that. Here is what it looked like then:

Then the fun began:

The slideshow below documents what we accomplished on day number one.

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Mr. Jones was a master plumber, and did a great job directing Dr. Hankins, Freddie, and me.

Day #2 brought light at the end of the tunnel, as seen below.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Day #3 brought hanging sheet rock, and using liquid nails to install the paneling, as seen below.

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Day #4 had two projects take place at the same time and place. At the 2018 ATLA Convention, I was nominated to be the New Lawyer Network's first Community Service Committee chair. Our first service project as a group was demolishing this shed for the Blackmons, while the shower project was ongoing:

Mr. Blackmon told us his father built the shed in the '50s. Before we could begin demolition, the contents of the shed were removed:

Then the fun began:

We also found some cool stuff in the shed:

This old lawn mower was found underneath the floor of the shed.

This World War 2 era canteen also came out of the shed.

The Daily Siftings Herald was there to document our demolition activities:

Other projects the ATLA crew worked on included power washing at a local non-profit, and helping paint the ceiling of another homeowner.

Pictured from left to right are Jay Neal and Richard Bright.

The ATLA crew included from left to right, Jessica Mallett of the Law Offices of Peter Miller in Little Rock; Amanda Boulden with the ATLA office located in Little Rock; Caleb Baumgardner of the Baumgardner Law Firm in El Dorado; Brian Trubitt and Jay Neal of Taylor King & Associates in Arkadelphia; Nader Afsordeh of the Law Offices of Peter Miller in Little Rock; me; Joseph Gates of the Paul Byrd Law Firm in Little Rock; and Chase Mangiapane of the Law Offices of Peter Miller in Little Rock. Not pictured:  Richard Bright of Taylor King & Associates in Arkadelphia.

While we were demolishing the shed, Mr. Jones, Dr. Hankins, and Freddie carried on with the shower project:

Friday, June 8, 2018

The shower project shaped up nicely on the last day:

Monday, June 11, 2018

We didn't quite get finished on Friday, so the final pieces were put in place the following Monday.

It was a great week. We all learned a lot working with Mr. Jones, and I enjoyed spending time with my former dentist, Dr. Hankins. Freddie began the week as a cheerleader, and ended it ready to build a house. The ATLA crew also enjoyed getting out of their offices to come help others in the Arkadelphia community.

AAA completed 15 other projects, and also provided trash removal and landscaping. Each day lunch and dinner were provided at the First Baptist Church Fellowship Hall, which were all fantastic. Music and a short devotional were provided at each dinner. While a lot of participants in AAA were First Baptist Church members, there were also a significant amount of people who were not. People from all over the community (and beyond) came together for the purpose of helping Arkadelphians. It was a unifying experience that I hope to contribute toward in the coming years. If you're interested in participating in the AAA projects next year, contact David McAllister at d_mcallister@suddenlink.net.

Arms around Arkadelphia

On May 18-19, 2018, First Baptist Church of Arkadelphia had their annual two-day service projects around town. Several volunteers within the community joined First Baptist Church in making home improvements for elders within the community.

There were approximately 32 projects on the list, which included homes in Gurdon. Taylor joined a group who tore down a rotted porch, and rebuilt a deck in its place, which is seen below.

Arms around Arkadelphia will have its week long service projects from June 4-8.

If you are interested in helping, please fill out the following form, and return it to Mr. David McAllister at d_mcallister@suddenlink.net.

For more information about the Arms around Arkadelphia program, click here and here, which show projects from prior years.