The Southerner Journal: Wandering Weevil Wheels

By Ronald Sitton

MONTICELLO, Ark. - Here's an update on those "Wandering Weevil Wheels," with pictures of the inaugural fleet.

Mars, Buck and I drove down to the old Post Office Friday afternoon to decide which bikes we would use for the 3-W program. Upon arriving, Mars and I noticed some of the bikes we'd seen previously were now gone. I queried Chief Tommy Free about it, and he said a few were being used to prepare a four-man bicycle patrol in Monticello. Wow ... it seems we may have started a trend.

Though less than 10,000 strong (not counting the university community), Monticello acts as the cultural hub to the timberlands of Southeast Arkansas. Pronounced Mon-tih-SELL-oh to you folks outside Arkansas, the community perserveres through sheer will while victimized by industry layoffs including the Coca-Cola bottling plant. A proud people, this region tends to vote conservatively though economically it would make more sense to vote progressively. So it's nice to see progressive ideas accepted.

The idea of a bicycle program is not original by any means. Similar programs work in Oregon, Minnesota and South Dakota, as well as all over the world. I first encountered the idea in the ski town of Telluride, Colo., which recently received a $2 million grant to build a federally-funded bike path.

Mars and Alice tried starting a bicycle program previously, but the administration at that time was not interested in bringing the bikes on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Monticello. We talked about the idea at their Prom Party, then followed up on the return to campus this fall. Tom Richard, an associate professor of art, said he could provide the paint.

The current administration, led by Chancellor Jack Lassiter, seems excited about the idea. Vice Chancellor Clay Brown is currently looking for a place that we can work on the bicycles. Members of the campus community are pitching in to help. OfficerJeff Peebles has already worked up possible rules and regulations for biking on campus.

"Buck" DeFee, an assistant professor of spatial information systems in the School of Forest Resources, regularly rides his bicycle to work. He contacted me immediately following the article publishing in the Voice, and offered to help get the donated bikes into working order. During Friday's pick-up, he inventoried the bicycles and determined which ones could be fixed and which ones would be cost-prohibitive.

Mars talked with students in the Creative Society and in some of his speech classes about the idea. They've been brainstorming about possibilities, including coming up with a idea to also paint the bike racks around campus to make them more noticeable. Lori Andrews recently scoured the campus to locate the current racks and will publish their locations in next week's Voice. Another student journalist, Marcus Roberts, offered to help tear down and reassemble the bikes since he previously assembled some for his job.

As you can see, it's truly turning into a campus-wide effort. :) Now for a little background on the name "Wandering Weevil Wheels."

The Boll Weevil terrorized Southern farmers for a long time, even prompting songs from artists like Leadbelly. According to the Drew County Historical Journal, former UAM president Frank Horsfall gave the name to the school's athletic teams during a pep rally before a homecoming game against Magnolia A&M, now Southern Arkansas University. "The only gosh-darned thing that ever really licked the South was the boll weevil. Boll weevils! That's what you are - Boll Weevils!"

To be honest, the historical journal helped supply the name for the bicycle program. Donald Holley's article on "Stewart Ferguson, the Wandering Weevils and Why They Played Football for Fun" details one of the more colorful episodes in the history of UAM football. During his short tenure at UAM in the Depression, Coach Ferguson took the Weevils from coast-to-coast just prior to World War II. Though they only won three games in three years, the Wandering Weevils gained national notoriety by trading laughs for touchdowns. The cartoon feature "Strange as It Seems" depicted "Football for Fun at Arkansas A&M," which noted the players made their own training rules and originated many of their own plays and formations. The most widely traveled team in the United States during its three-year reign, Ferguson wanted the players to have fun but also get an education by visiting historical sites and sitting in on classes at universities they visited to play football. The team earned a profit for it travels, making A&M an exception among small colleges that usually lost money.

So to recap, a little intiative seems to be working with the "Wandering Weevil Wheels" program. Though we'd originally saw approximately 30 bikes, we whittled down the number of serviceable bikes to six for our inaugural program. It remains to be seen how the campus community will react once the bikes are ready to roll. We still need to strip them down, prime them and paint them. Alice is putting together a palette for students to paint the bikes in Weevil colors. With any luck, we may have them ready in time for this year's homecoming. Stay tuned.