THE PO'DUNK COMMUNITY CENTER
The Community Center of Po’Dunk, Arkansas was initially built in 1936 as a WPA project to give the then functional Po’Dunk school house a proper gymnasium. It was an optimistic construction as it was erected just as Po’Dunk’s population would enter freefall. Within just a few years the school wouldn’t even have enough students to populate a single basketball team. Ever since the building has stood as a general Community Center. Hosting everything from square dances to bingo nights, the Community Center has it all.
THE PO'DUNK FARMER'S MARKET
The Po’Dunk Farmer’s Market began in the early eighties when George Vaughan’s famed truck, Baby, died on the way to the already bustling Fayetteville Farmer’s Market. Local legend has it that he gave up on his journey right then and there, opening up shop in Po’Dunk instead. When a series of Back-To-Landers from a farming commune began trading their wares with George Vaughan the Po’Dunk Farmer’s Market was born. It worked to bridge a lot of cultural divides among the usually fractured back-to-landers and Po’Dunk’s generational community. Eventually it became a regional staple and often offered a more off the map alternative to Fayetteville’s Farmer’s Market.
The market continues to this very day. You can even visit one vendor that’s been there since the very start. George Vaughan’s dairy farm, Upper Buffalo Saanens, is still represented at the market. Today, his granddaughter, Lilian Vaughan, runs the farm and still operates that same booth (no longer from a dead truck) every Saturday and Sunday offering fresh goats milk, free range eggs, and some medicinal services.
FARMER'S MARKET SPOTLIGHT
ONLINE EXHIBITS
Po’Dunk is home to a thriving community of artists of all kinds and stripe. Often their work is displayed at the Community Center. Below are some of our exhibits, past an present, presented as online galleries.
Bare with us as we digitize exhibits.
PO'DUNK PEOPLE
DiDi Reyes of the Lost Comfort General Store recently began an audacious new series to document our small community. Po’Dunk People is her continuing project to capture portraits of all of our residents. Every Sunday she has set out upon the community center Farmer’s Market with a stool and a tripod to take pictures. “This only works on the social sorts,” she says. So sometimes, DiDi even packs up her camera and hoofs it into the woods to greet and document many in our hermit community. When asked if any greet her with suspicion or anger,
“Oh, sometimes. Often really. But usually they just miss having company.”