Here are more of the things I would like to see happen in our state in 2025:

I would like to see Alice Walton's efforts to make northwest Arkansas a health-care destination pick up additional steam. The Heartland Whole Health Institute, the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (known as AWSOM) and the $700 million initial investment in a partnership with health organization Mercy and Cleveland Clinic are part of a transformational effort. When the director of the National Institutes of Health visited the state during the fall, she said, "I'm blown away by the total picture. That's not too strong of language. I'm blown away by what has been created here. ... It's really amazing."

I would like to see this state's new schools--AWSOM in Bentonville, Lyon College's dental school in Little Rock, Lyon's veterinary school in Cabot and Arkansas State University's veterinary school in Jonesboro--achieve success. The fact that all four schools are moving forward is proof of the economic good times we're experiencing in Arkansas. Don't listen to dissenters who say we're too small for all the schools to prosper. Those same people said Arkansas wasn't big enough for two schools of osteopathic medicine to succeed. They were wrong. The schools for osteopaths in Fort Smith and Jonesboro are doing well.

I would like to see Tyson Foods and Walmart continue efforts to bring white-collar employees who were in offices scattered across the country (along with those who worked at home) to the Tyson corporate campus in Springdale and Walmart's corporate campus in Bentonville. These newcomers contribute needed intellectual capital and political diversity. What the two Arkansas-based corporate giants are doing hasn't received the attention in the Arkansas media that the story deserves. This is the equivalent of major corporate relocations.

Now that another Little Rock sales tax proposal has gone down in flames, I would like to see leaders in the state's largest city put an........

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