Scholarship Helps Tiny US Town Fight for Survival

Sparkman, Arkansas program helps pay for college if kids promise to return

September 27, 2011

Residents organized a scholarship program to save Sparkman, Arkansas, which has lost more than half its population since 1950.

The tiny timber town of Sparkman, Arkansas, has lost more than half its population since 1950. If the current trend continues, the 500-resident community might disappear altogether.

Anxious to avoid that grim future, residents have come up with an idea to save their hometown - a scholarship program for students who promise to return to Sparkman after receiving a college education.

Hometown girl

Stephanie Harmon was born in Sparkman 27 years ago.

“It’s always been a part of me," Harmon says. "I love this town.”

Except for the six years she spent getting her master’s degree in education in a neighboring city, Harmon has always lived in Sparkman.

About 16 percent of Americans live in non-metropolitan or rural counties, according to the Population Reference Bureau.

“It’s a very intimate and close-knit town, almost like a one big family," she says. "Everyone knows everybody and we all take care of each other in different ways.”

Harmon is now married to another Sparkman native and teaches in the town's only elementary school.