Mud

Guess who was spotted at Dollar General this week at Dumas, Arkansas? Reese Witherspoon, really! Can you imagine pushing your cart down the aisle, loading up on Fanta Orange, detergent and toothpaste when you round the corner and right smack dab in front of you is Elle Woods from Legally Blonde! They said on the news last night ( Yes, it made the news... this is big stuff here!) that she's doing a movie with Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan and Sam Shepard. The feature film “Mud” is written and directed by Arkansas native Jeff Nichols. MUD is about two 14-year-old boys who get tangled up with a mysterious fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River. They get in over their heads and it it isn't long until a line of bounty hunters besiege their small Arkansas town.

So back to running into celebrities, have you ever? It was 1982, and among the first people who shook our hands and welcomed us to Bentonville, Arkansas' First Presbyterian Church were Sam and Helen Walton. You would never have guessed that they were billionaires, they were just two friendly Arkansan's welcoming a new family. Years later in 1992, I stood in front of Walmart Headquarters as President Bush passed by in his limo to present Sam Walton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The nation's highest honor that can be awarded to a civilian, it was only a few weeks until Sam Walton passed away from bone cancer. We stood there as much for Mr. Sam, it was incidental that the President was there too. Proud of our own, when Mud opens in 2013, we'll be there with bells on to give Jeff Nichols some support. I bet with actors like Witherspoon and McConaughey, it's going to be a great movie!