Back in 1974, Hiram Brown established a new radio drama — the CBS Radio Mystery Theater (CBSRMT).
The program owed much to old time radio (OTR) programs, even if it aired long after the Golden Age of radio had passed. From January 1974 through the end of 1982, 1,399 episodes were produced and broadcast every weeknight.  That fact leads to a question — how did the program find an audience at a time when OTR was virtually extinct?
Paul Chester of CBSRMT.com — a site dedicated to the preservation of CBS Radio …

We’re making a change or two here at First Arkansas News and figured we’d pass them along to our loyal readers.
Specifically, we’re moving Dr. Zodiac’s horoscope and our Weekend OTR feature to another site, The Natural State Hawg. Why? Well, there are a couple of reasons for that.
First of all, The Natural State Hawg is more geared for such things. We’re talking about purely entertainment items when it comes to horoscopes and reruns of old time radio programs, and they’re kind of out of place on a news site. Don’t …

Before getting into this week’s episode, we’ve got a bit of news to pass on to our readers — from this point forward, we will also post episodes from our Weekend OTR series on The Natural State Hawg.
Why? Call it simulcasting (if you want) or an experiment (if you prefer). Way back before Ethan C. Nobles started First Arkansas News, he established The Natural State Hawg and has essentially neglected it over the past couple of years. It makes sense to post some entertainment features over there, then, so that …

Frankly, we weren’t sure if Dr. Zodiac — our resident psychic, soothsayer and general purpose mystic — would come through with a horoscope this week.
Well, he calls them StarCasts, but that’s another story. At any rate, it seems the good doctor was upset over a fight with his wife and just wasn’t in the mood to tell us what the treacherous stars had in store for us in the coming week. He claimed his emotional state was not conducive to his necessary contact with the stars, thus making it difficult …

Well, the holidays have ended so it’s time to focus yet again on “typical” old time radio shows in our Weekend OTR series.
Of course, that’s not an entirely bad thing, is it? Holiday OTR programs are great, of course, but there’s a lot to be said for old time radio in general, right? At any rate, we’ve picked out an episode of Down Our Way for you this week and that was a pretty good — yet fairly unknown these days — program featuring life in small town America. As …

Happy New Year’s to all. It’s only fitting that we at First Arkansas News start off 2012 with an old time radio episode.
Yes, we did post one New Year’s episode the other day, but there’s no harm in another one, is there? No, of course there’s not. It’s downright impossible to have too much of a good thing in some instances, right? So, we’ve got a dandy comedy — a Fibber McGee and Molly episode — on tap for you today. Of course, we post at least one old time …

Well, happy New Year!
I know what you’re all thinking — what kind of calamity will the stars inflict on us in 2012? Well, you might not be thinking along those lines. We at First Arkansas News didn’t until Dr. Zodiac — our resident psychic, soothsayer and general purpose mystic — sold us we ought to be thinking about such things constantly. Who are we to question the wisdom of Dr. Zodiac? He is, after all, a doctor (or at least he claims to be).
At any rate, Dr. Zodiac tells us …

Happy New Year to all from First Arkansas News. Here’s hoping that 2012 is good to all of us.
It’s the weekend so, of course, we’ve got another installment in our Weekend OTR series. And, since it’s New Year’s Eve, we’re making this one part of our Holiday OTR series. It’s a Gunsmoke episode in which someone starts out the New Year in a rather unusual way. How unusual? Well, you’ll just have to listen and find out, won’t you?
Before doing that, please keep in mind that this episode — like …

Howard A. Nobles, a Benton resident, started writing limericks as a lark in 1999 to amuse his fellow educators and kept up that habit for about five years.
He’s turned those short poems into a book, Lost in Limerick Land, that was published this year. Pick up the paperback or Kindle edition from Amazon.com. The paperback or Nook edition is available through Barnes & Noble.
Nobles retired as the Benton Middle School assistant principal in 2004 and said his book is composed of limericks that were written on an almost daily basis …

The following StarCast is for he week of Dec. 26, but the chances are good that you’re reading it on Christmas day.
That being the case, we at First Arkansas News join Dr. Zodiac in wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. If you’re reading this after Christmas, well shame on you for not being more punctual but our jolly seasons greetings still apply.
As we turn our attention to the new year, we can’t help but wonder what the stars have in store for us. Dr. Zodiac …