This has been a good year for Johnny Cash.
Two years ago, someone took a rifle and shot a hole in the water tower in Kingsland, making it look like the man in black was relieving himself. That person was convicted last year. But in 2024, all the arrows have been up.
Not in any sort of order, but there was a celebration at the historic Dyess Colony, Cash’s boyhood home. Dyess Colony was a federal agricultural resettlement community established in the 1930s.
The restoration of his home was recognized with a concert called “The Sunken Lands Songwriting Circle” that featured Rosanne Cash and others.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
There was also the renaming of the Kingsland Post Office in Cash’s honor. The post office in that town, where Cash was born, is now known as the Kingsland/Johnny Cash Post Office.
The old post office nearby was added to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with plans in the works for a Johnny Cash birthplace museum to be located there.
More recently, the famous suit Cash wore during a 1976 concert in Rison has been returned to Cleveland County where it is now on permanent display. That happened after the suit spent a year at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and several more years in Dyess.
The story that accompanied the return of the suit included comments from individuals who were at the concert, one of whom was a woman who had lunch with the Cashes afterward. With local memories like that, it’s good that the suit has found its way back to where it belonged all along.
The most publicized event was the placement of Cash’s statue in National Statuary Hall in the nation’s Capitol in Washington, D.C. The statue, sculpted by Arkansas’ own Kevin Kresse, is the only one for a musician in the hall, and its dedication attracted a who’s who of attendees.
And even though Cash died in 2003 at age 71, his 72nd album was released with unheard original compositions. The album, titled “Songwriter,” is the fifth one that has been posthumously released.
All in all, not bad for a country boy from Kingsland. It’s one thing for people to remember and cherish those from their own communities. It’s something else, something quite special, when people the world over do it. Who knows, in 2025, with the new album out, Cash could win another Grammy.