Arkansas Times
November 29, 2007
by John Williams

A Trip to Fouke

I made a trip to Fouke on an overcast Thursday in November to sit in on a town council meeting and attend one of the church’s daily prayer-and-dinner sessions. After checking out the Alamo-funded park — a modest turf with a gazebo and playground equipment — I took a walk up to Alamo’s storefront church. The space is not exactly welcoming. A security guard, apparently unarmed, asked what I needed. After I explained who I was, he summoned Ben Edwards, a member of the church and the town council, a short, somber-looking man with a stiff moustache and salt-and-pepper hair. Edwards emerged from the building and asked for my card. After going back inside to make a phone call, he returned and invited me in.

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Arkansas Times
November 29, 2007
by John Williams

Alamo Ministry Resurrected
Fouke residents worry about notorious evangelist in their midst.

Fouke isn’t a town so much as a crossroads, a Miller County outpost in Southwest Arkansas, on Highway 71 between Texarkana and Shreveport. The businesses at its center can be counted on two hands; the city hall is a prefab metal structure. Until recently, its main claim to fame was the Fouke Monster, which, like similar mythical beasts, has inspired a weird combination of fear and pride in the people who live near its territory.

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