Areas of patchy fog early. Generally cloudy. High around 70F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..
Overcast. Areas of dense fog. Low near 60F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.
Updated: February 17, 2026 @ 9:34 am
Mike McNeill is publisher and editor of magnoliareporter.com.
Mike McNeill is publisher and editor of magnoliareporter.com.
Sharks Fish and Chicken will open at 10 a.m. Wednesday, February 18, 2026 at the former Kentucky Fried Chicken location, 1401 E. Main. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. CLICK HERE to see its page on Facebook. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. We wish Sharks Fish and Chicken well. The color scheme has certainly dressed up the Main-Fairview corner. We do miss our KFC, while we repeat our belief that its ownership basically flew it into the ground. How possibly can a decently managed KFC fail?
The Magnolia Meat Market inside what many old-timers knew as The Chatterbox restaurant has closed. Amanda Morgan, the new owner of that particular block of Main Street, told the Rotary Club of Magnolia last week that she hopes to have a sandwich shop/coffee house in the space as her new business, the Tattered Page bookstore, expands.
Magnolia Jiu Jitsu is moving from its present building on Eastridge Drive to a much larger facility at 107 U.S. 79, which is across the highway from Reliance Well Service.
Passed by the South Arkansas Heritage Museum from the west last week. There was something different but we couldn’t put our finger on it. Finally, the obvious came to us. The trees along the South Vine Street side are gone – the first step toward the city-state project to develop a sidewalk from West Main and south on Vine to the old Columbia High School area. This is the first time in decades that the public has had a good look at the former Dr. Henry Longino home. The museum will plant new trees at a later date.
We also did a double take passing by the former Mike and Betty Epley residence on North Jefferson, which we know as the former Magale mansion. The chain link fence and overgrown brush has been removed by the current owner, Serenity Day Spa and Salon. It opens up the space tremendously.
It’s been several weeks since Peoples Bank installed yellow bollards along the front of its West Branch. We’ve intended to mention this previously but keep forgetting. We are not opposed to installing bollards in front of Reporter Mansion if we thought the city would allow it. The reason? There are about 100 vehicle-building collisions daily in the U.S. Many result in injuries and almost all of them cause thousands of dollars in repairs to the building.
And we’d look for a way to incorporate electric vehicle recharging stations into every second or third bollard.
The Vapor Shop, 509 E. Main in Magnolia, has announced its permanent closure on Saturday, February 28, 2026 after 12 years in business. Company locations will remain open in Camden and El Dorado. Our feeling is that Magnolia will remain saturated by tobacco and “e-tobacco” stores, in addition to the numerous grocery and c-store locations where tobacco products are sold.
The previous paragraph got us wondering about the history of tobacco production in Arkansas. We asked ChatGPT to research the topic. Turns out that Arkansas tobacco production reached a peak of about 1 million pounds in 1860, with most production in Benton and neighboring counties of Northwest Arkansas. Settlers from Kentucky brought tobacco cultivation with them to that region. Production remained at that general level until about 1900. Statewide tobacco production dropped under 100,000 pounds by 1930 with a few producers hanging on into the late 1970s. One imagines that individual farmers in South Arkansas grew tobacco for their own consumption, but we couldn’t find any records that tobacco was ever produced in our region at a commercial scale.
There are eight Dollar General stores in Columbia County. Will there be a ninth? McNeil definitely needs one. The 82-98 intersection in Village strikes us as a no-brainer for DG. Also, Rudd’s Crossing.
Saw a fully loaded chicken truck go around the square on Saturday. We don’t see that many chicken trucks downtown.
Fifteen years ago, we reported that baseball star Hayden Simpson spoke to classes at Magnolia Junior High School. CLICK HERE to read the story.
Vacant land on the west side of the Magnolia airport could be a great aviation-related industrial park some day.
The Washington Post March. Nothing to do with George Washington’s Birthday, really, but golly, what a great piece of marching band music. CLICK HERE to listen to the United States Marine Band.
This is the President George Washington National Holiday. Many people incorrectly refer to the holiday by another name. We suspect that the first president would have declined to have a holiday created in his honor out of modesty, but that’s one of the reasons why President Washington is far more esteemed than most of his successors. The incorrectly used name suggests that all presidents are basically equal and should be recognized as a group. We can’t see grouping for special recognition any of the recent crop of presidents with the true greats like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and the Roosevelts.
Getting tired of constantly apologizing for Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama as being a graduate of Southern Arkansas University. He wants to rename this day to honor the current president. Keep in mind that the current president already wants the nation to celebrate his birthday, which is the same date as Flag Day.
We told someone the other day that if Lyndon Johnson had died two years into his presidency, he would have been remembered as one of the great presidents because of the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and the War on Poverty and mourned for his too-short term of office. We’re also presuming his successor, Hubert Humphrey, would have pulled the plug on our military adventure in Vietnam before it really got started. Alas. How different the 1960s and the world would have been.
Mike McNeill is publisher and editor of magnoliareporter.com. Email him at news@magnoliareporter.com or call him at 870-904-3865. Opinions expressed in this column are his own.
CLICK HERE to see past installments of Mike McNeill’s Diary.
magnoliareporter.com is moving away from its social media account on X (formerly Twitter). Join us on Bluesky by downloading the Bluesky app and becoming a member. See what we post at @magnolia-reporter.bsky.social .
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.
Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.
We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: