PINE BLUFF, Ark — Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the declaration this week and spent the day highlighting the work being done in Pine Bluff and making the City the Pine Bluff the capital of Arkansas for the day.
"It is great to be back here in Pine Bluff many of you know, but some of you may not, but Pine Bluff is actually the first place that I ever called home," Sanders said. "Getting to come back here is always fun and special."
On Wednesday, Sanders conducted several governmental affairs, including allocating new funding to the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff.
"The school is receiving over $1 million from the state's office of skills development, part of $20 million in awards to 19 schools across the state," Sanders said. "I'm also excited to announce that during the recent fiscal session, I worked with the legislature to secure $5.8 million in funding for the UAPB land grant program, an increase of $2 million from our last budget."
Sanders said more than $1 million will go toward UAPB's nursing program, and $2 million will address the underfunding UAPB has experienced over the years.
"Certainly, within underfunding, you're always scratching and scraping," UAPB School of Agriculture Director Dr. Bruce McGowan said. "I like to say you're building bricks without straw, and so this helps us put more value into our research and extension efforts."
McGowan said the school has served the community for 150 years and is the only land-grant HBCU in Arkansas. Some of the money from Wednesday's announcement will go toward his department.
"Arkansas is known for farming," McGowan said. "It's number one in terms of rice producing rice in this state, and certainly around the catfish industry to aquaculture and fisheries in the industry. We want to utilize some of this funding to extend it into the shrimp industry, so we want to take this funding and add more value to what we are already doing."
This all comes several months after the school sent a letter to Sanders emphasizing disparities between HBCUs and other schools nationwide.