Beware of lottery scams
LITTLE ROCK — In light of a recent report regarding lottery scams, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery (ASL) urges players to take caution and stay safe.
“We have been informed of a scam caller posing as an ASL Claim Center representative,” ASL Executive Director Sharon Strong said. “If you ever receive a call, text or email asking you to provide personal information to see if you won a lottery prize, do not respond. It is a scam.”
This fraudulent caller asks recipients to provide their name and tax ID to see if they had won “a grand prize promotion” giveaway for $797,000 and “a brand-new Chevy 2025 Equinox.” It also instructs players to call the ASL Claim Center. The two numbers provided are scams: 888857-9437 and 501-309-2661.
Do not call them.
ASL is not hosting a “grand prize promotion” giveaway, and the official ASL Claim Center phone number is 501683-2060.
The ASL Claim Center will never contact winners directly. If someone asks that you provide personal information, pay a fee or visit a location that is not the ASL Claim Center to accept your winnings, do not respond. It is a scam.
The only information a player should provide is what is required by law when submitting a winning ticket to the ASL Claim Center, either in person or by mail, using the claim form.
If you have been contacted by a scam caller, please email ASL Director of Investigations and Enforcement Blake Hudson at blake.hudson@arkansas.gov, call the Arkansas Lottery Security Hotline at 1-888-6066292, and file a complaint with the Arkansas Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division at https://arkansasag.gov/file-acomplaint.
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WALNUT RIDGE — Williams Baptist University has been selected to receive a $1.9 million grant to help develop the workforce in Arkansas.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Thursday that WBU is among the institutions chosen to receive grant funding, as part of a broader effort to support workforce development efforts aligned with the Arkansas Workforce Strategy.
WBU will utilize the grant funds through its Williams Works initiative, where students work their way to a university education.
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Specifically, WBU plans to develop programs in agricultural education and training.
“This grant empowers WBU to take a major step forward in educating our students for the careers of tomorrow,” said WBU President Dr. Stan Norman. “We want to be a partner with Gov. Sanders in preparation of the workforce for the state of Arkansas, and secondly we want this funding to strengthen and expand our programmatic and workforce training in Williams Works.”
Norman said Williams plans to use the grant funds to develop an agriculture program in business and technology.
The program will prepare students for careers in “precision agriculture,” a technology based field identified by Sanders’ staff as an area of industrial growth in the state of Arkansas.
Another industry targeted for workforce training and growth is food production.
WBU hopes to apply a portion of the grant toward programs in food production and management. The university plans to develop facilities and curriculum for teaching food safety and sanitation, business operations, inventory management, food production processes and food sustainability, among other areas.
Through Williams Works, WBU has established Eagle Farms, which operates a produce farm and meat processing plant. Those operations will be utilized in the school’s food production and management program. The grants were awarded as part of the HIRED program, established by the Workforce Initiative Act of 2015. 19 organizations in Arkansas, including WBU, received a total of $48 million in grants in the Track 2 portion of the HIRED grants program, administered by the Arkansas Department of Commerce and Arkansas Workforce Connections.
The HIRED grants are intended to provide funding for state and regional industrydriven partnerships and datadriven education and workforce training programs.
Funding for the grants comes from Arkansas Workforce Initiative grant funding and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
Students in WBU’s Williams Works initiative work an average of 16 hours per week through the fall and spring semesters, and in return have their full tuition and student service fees covered. Additionally, students can apply to work full-time through the summer months to cover the following year’s room and board. Students are assigned to a variety of workstations, both on campus and in their community.
