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Politics

Pop.: 10,616; Presidential timber: 2

Tiny Hope, Ark., produced Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee. But things have changed.

By BEN MONTGOMERY, Times Staff Writer
Published December 29, 2007

Mike Huckabee could sin eight blocks from home, and by the time he pedaled back to 509 E Second St., his folks knew.
	[AP]

HOPE, Ark. - The politicians speak of this place like it's paradise, a throwback town of unlocked doors and serenity, Jackson's cookies and watermelons so big God himself must have bent down and blessed the soil.

Bill Clinton was born here. Mike Huckabee was, too, and because of those two facts, people come to Hope from all over the world, sometimes a thousand a month, to learn about the chemistry in a little Arkansas town, pop. 10,616, that produced a president and a contender.

They mark their names and hometowns in a book at the Hope visitors center, then explore photos of young Huckabee and watch a Clinton documentary that ends with the line that put this town on the map.

"I still believe in a place called Hope."

If those visitors stay long enough, they'll learn that the idyllic story line has frayed, that Hope, the one they came to see, doesn't exist anymore. The town is changing, like every place else.

When the last of the curious is finished studying the pictures of Hope's favorite sons at the visitors center, a volunteer removes the Christmas wreaths from the doors and locks them inside. She's afraid they'll be stolen.

- - -

Start with chemistry: Hope was close-knit. Tight families, church on Sundays, one TV station Ch. 3, strict alcohol laws.

Bill Clinton rode his tricycle down the sidewalk in front of 117 S Hervey St. and the neighbors kept watch. Huckabee could sin eight blocks from home, and by the time he pedaled back to 509 E Second St., his folks knew.

"There was no class distinction here," says Mary Nell Turner, 88, who taught in Hope and wrote its history. "This town is middle-class America. We have a good work ethic and good Christian morals."

If that was Hope then, this is Hope now, on a recent Tuesday afternoon: The parking lot at the Wal-Mart Supercenter is jumping, while downtown is gasping. The businesses that remain are neighbored by empty shops.

On the side of a building, a folksy mural depicting small-town life is tagged with Mexican gang graffiti.

Across the street is a nonprofit where workers are preparing for the charity Christmas Eve dinner. They expect 1,000 people, the biggest crowd yet. That's in a city of less than 11,000.

A few blocks away, Mae Dulaney is stocking the food pantry at Hope In Action, an emergency help center supported by 12 churches. A recent newspaper article sparked new donations.

"We were just about empty," she says.

Some of the needy are out-of-towners who broke down on Interstate 30 and saw the exit sign for Hope, like a roadside beacon, she says.

Mostly, they're local. Tyson Foods and Champion Parts have laid off 850 workers between them. Hempstead County's unemployment rate surged to 7.1 percent, higher than the state's 5.5 percent.

The telephone rings. Dulaney answers with a sweet voice.

Then, "I'm sorry, but I'm not able to."

Then, "I'm sorry, but I can't," she says. "I'm all out of funds."

A few blocks away, a stone's throw from that sidewalk where Bill Clinton played, Donald Andrews leans his bicycle against a dumpster outside the Harvest Foods grocery. He fishes inside, looking for food for himself and his sheepdog, Mr. English.

He's 70. He lost his hearing five years ago. He says people think he's crazy. He says he hasn't talked to anyone in a long time.

Andrews was digging in a dumpster once when a woman approached. She tried to speak with him, but he couldn't hear. She tried sign language, but he can't sign. Frustrated, the woman bent into her car for paper and a pen and scribbled a message:

Clinton birthplace?

- - -

The future of Hope climbs into his GMC pickup. Clinton Lively drives past farm houses and brown woods, chicken coops and cow pastures. Country is on the radio, a Bible on the dashboard.

He's 16, the third in a line of hard-handed men who farmed this stretch of Arkansas 195. A few miles outside town, Clint steps out of the pickup and starts working a herd of heifers, one by one, into a squeeze chute.

This morning, Clint was one of the first to arrive at Hope High, where his father went. He checked out after second period to help his dad.

Here, now, cattle prod in hand, stands a young man at a crossroads, a kid who was expecting for Christmas a 12-gauge shotgun and a digital videocamera.

His teachers know he's a leader, president of the FFA. But they also know there's a big world outside Hope. And the kid wearing the muddy size 13 boots really likes working on computers.

This semester he's assembling a documentary about Huckabee in a multimedia class. He's interviewing locals about Huckabee's childhood, trying to find out what made the man tick, what made him leave Hope.

He's not sure about his own future.

"I want to live here," he says. "I might want to have some horses or cows on the side, but I don't know about making this my life."

Ask his father if he thinks Clint will stick around.

"I hope not," he says when Clint is out of earshot. "He's too smart for this."

- - -

The Hope High gym is packed for a Bobcats basketball game. At one end, a metal detector screens fans, a sign of the times. At the other is a sign from the past.

O Hope High School is the grandest school that heart and mind could mold

Her boys and girls are the most worthwhile with ideals of purest gold

Junanne Brown, the assistant principal, sits in the stands with the superintendent. Ask her what the secret of Hope is, she gives the company line: just good old-fashioned small-town values. But she knows this town has changed.

"We've tried and tried and tried to get parents out here," she says. "We had a barbecue and sent out RSVPs to every parent. Twenty people showed up."

Hope schools were integrated in 1972, just before Huckabee graduated. In recent years, white parents have been pulling their kids out of Hope and sending them to Spring Hill, a predominantly white district up the road.

Hope test scores have slipped. And parents still criticize the closing of a handful of neighborhood elementary schools. Now most students are bused to one central school, the William Jefferson Clinton Primary School, a big windowless building some call The Prison.

But head down Sixth Street, inside a little house. John McCall, 18, sits at his kitchen table. His parents moved from California when he was 14, worried about their kids joining gangs. McCall was depressed when he arrived. He saw a lot of trees and churches. Not much else. But Hope grew on him.

"You drive down the street and I might not even know you, but there's a wave," he said.

He's trying to finish junior college, thinking of law school or hotel and restaurant management. Or maybe he'll run a hair, nail and tanning salon.

McCall is the third person from Hope to be elected governor of American Legion Boys State. The first became president of the United States. The second is making a run. When McCall met Huckabee at Boys State, Huckabee mentioned the connection.

"He said, 'There's something about Hope that turns out good leaders,'" McCall said.

So what is it?

"Every town has its flaws. But here, people stand together."

- - -

Sunday morning, April 17, 2005, before the people of Hope woke to get dressed for church, a young man broke into Hope High School. He walked from room to room in the 70-year-old building, the same halls where Huckabee was student council president three decades before.

He had transferred from Mineral Springs. He was an all-state football player with a rough family life. When he moved to Hope, the town cradled him, trying to steer him toward a better future.

Now he walked through the school, setting fires in classrooms. Then he disappeared as the fires spread.

In the months that followed, Huckabee himself would offer $10,000 for information leading to an arrest. Five hundred people would call the police chief with tips. Detectives would find the man's blood inside the charred building. A jury would find Torey Martin, 19, guilty and sentence him to 28 years in prison.

The sin against the community was the worst anyone can remember, a sign that Hope is vulnerable, like the rest of America.

But that morning, Hope did what Hope always does. Hundreds of residents gathered on the school grounds. At first they stood and stared at the smoke. Then a few people began to organize volunteers and put out a call for supplies. Pickup trucks arrived with bottled water. Restaurants donated hamburgers and fried chicken.

The teachers and students set tables on the lawn and served the firefighters, as the schoolhouse smoldered.

Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8650.

[Last modified December 28, 2007, 22:07:31]