Last night for the first time ever, Bud Walton Arena hosted a no. 1 ranked team as Auburn squared off against the unranked Arkansas mens basketball team - let's just say it went well.

• Records broken: Arkansas Basketball is 1-11 against a no. 1 ranked opponent. Their lone victory was in 1984 against University of North Carolina and their all-star, Michael Jordan. The Hogs are now 2-11 as they took out SEC rival Auburn in an overtime thriller.
• 20,327: The number of attendees at last night's game, setting a record for the most people in Bud Walton Arena, ever. Notably, the Hogs extended their winning streak to 9 games, including 8 straight SEC games.

If you missed the final few seconds, you can rewatch it HERE.

Within earshot of the downtown square in Bentonville is a locally owned and operated professional music recording studio.

• Quiet beginnings: Haxton Road Studios started as an at home passion project but a quickly turned into a full, purposefully designed music and recording studio in downtown Bentonville. Most recently, the group announced they've officially become a publishing company and will focus on writing songs for major label artists, businesses, agencies, television and film licensing and social media content.
• Work and play: The studio is unique as it caters to both recording artists and businesses. Working with companies like Walmart Inc., Microsoft, and Coca-Cola, along with a national list of talented artists, Haxton Road Studios is fine tuned for the area.

Learn more about the local business and services HERE.

If you missed the acquisition news on Monday, Frontier Airlines, who provides several stops out of XNA, announced a deal to acquire Spirit. So why does this matter to us?

• Bouncing back: Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA), ended 2021 in a much more comfortable place than last year. At the close of 2021, XNA was up 72.7% YTD on total enplanements and had served over 1.23m passengers in 2021.
• Acquiring routes: The pending acquisition of Spirit, who hasn't shown any love for NWA routes, may create more opportunities for flights out of the region, according to FlightNWA. The expectation is that the merged airline will cut overlapping routes, leaving more planes available to discover new destinations.

Read more about the opportunity for NWA HERE.

Last week, Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan addressed the annual State of the City Address covering all topics including, public works, safety, planning, and transportation. Here are the highlights interesting stats include:

• Green machine: The City operations achieved a 65% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions with a community wide reduction of 19%. The City diverted nearly 15,000 tons of waste through recycling and composting programs. Currently, Fayetteville is diverting 19 percent of our waste.
• Gimme shelter: More than 600 new single-family homes, around 80 new townhouses and about 2.7 million square feet of commercial permits were issued over the course of the year.

If you missed the speech, you can find a recording HERE.

Arkansas Heritage’s 6th annual Arkansas Food Hall of Fame ceremony was held a few days ago in Little Rock and a small, family restaurant in NWA walked away as a winner.

• Home grown: Neal's Cafe of Springdale was 1 of 3 restaurants selected as the 2022 Food Hall of Fame winner. The other two winners included Colonial Steak House of Pine Bluff, and Dairy King of Portia.
• Top tier: The Hall of Fame class of 2022 had 15 Finalists and three were inducted. In order to be eligible, restaurants must be owned and operated in Arkansas, cannot be part of a chain and must have been in business for 25 years or more. There were more than 400 nominations.

You can find a full list of winners and nominees HERE.