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BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT TO BE A SCORE FOR THE CITY

By Wes Clement/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Monday, March 2, 2009 9:55 AM CST

Pine Bluff expects to welcome a wealth of visitors during the coming week as people travel from around the state to attend and compete in the Class 4A state basketball tournament.

Dollarway High School will host 16 boys teams and 16 girls teams Tuesday through Saturday at the Pine Bluff Convention Center drawing many to the area.

“I’m guessing we’re looking at about 1,500 or so,” Bob Purvis, convention center director, said. “It’s kind of one of those things where you have mixed emotions.

“You would like to see the teams from way off do well so they’ll stay and sleep in our hotels and spend money, but on the other hand, you would like to see the local teams do well so you want to root for Dollarway.”

More local teams remaining in the tournament, he said, means more fans, while more distant teams likely means fewer fans present at the tournament.

“The economic impact can vary drastically, but either way there will be a big impact with more people eating at our restaurants and buying gas and everything,” he said.

“Just today we started getting some bookings. Right now it has increased our nightly business by over 50 percent,” said Ginger Richardson, manager of the Ramada Inn & Suites. “We’re really glad to have them here. It’s a really good boost for everything.”

Lisa Sweeney, assistant manager of Holiday Inn Express, 2903 Pines Mall Drive, said the hotel has a significantly greater number of rooms booked than usual for the coming week, while a front-desk employee of Comfort Inn, 2809 Pines Mall Drive, said Friday the hotel had not yet booked a significantly greater number of rooms because of the tournament.

The Arkansas Activities Association awarded three state athletic tournament bids to facilities in Jefferson County Jan. 12.

Besides the basketball tournament, the state 2A baseball tournament will be at Taylor Field at Pine Bluff and the state 1A softball tournament will be at Regional Park May 1-4. The tournaments will be hosted by White Hall High School.

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