Things to Do in Bryant

At Arkansas Skatium, visitors don ice or roller skates to indulge in family-friendly, frictionless fun atop spacious rinks. During group ice-skating classes, certified instructors show bladers aged 5 and older the fundamentals of gliding before letting them fan across the ice to work through new maneuvers. When the clock strikes 10 p.m., the rink morphs into a broomball stadium where up to 25 athletes take to the ice for sneaker-clad fun.

Arkansas Skatium's snack bar vends sodas, cappuccinos, pizza, and funnel cake to those tuckered out from eight-wheeled and single-bladed maneuvers. The ProShop sells all manner of gliding gear and houses a repair shop for skates dulled by nervous biting before hockey games.

The instructors at Green Haven Horse Stables guide riders of all skill levels on the path to proper horsemanship with private and group lessons as well as summer camps for children. Each lesson focuses on safety and building self-confidence, which are of the utmost importance when commanding a steed to jump over fences or ride through an airport security checkpoint. Riders may choose to ride in the styles of English, hunter jumping, Western, or dressage, with intermediate and above dressage lessons conducted by a certified USDF judge. At summer camps, children ages 6–14 receive a proper introduction to horses, spending a full week learning the subtleties of equitation and participating in fun-filled games and activities.

Wildwood Park’s 104 bucolic acres are home to woodland trails, manicured gardens, and the 625-seat Lucy Lockett Cabe Festival Theater. In service of the center's continuing mission to encourage lifelong learning and fertile imaginations, the expansive grounds host myriad events that marry culture and art, from annual festivals to year-round children’s education programs. Beyond artistic pursuits, visitors can simply savor the center's natural splendor by taking in the sights of the Richard C. Butler Arboretum, wending through the Carl Hunger Wildflower Glenn, or spotting ballerinas in the wild at the park’s eight-acre swan lake. The nonprofit park maintains its gardens, education projects, and other artistic hallmarks purely through help from its community, including volunteers, individual donors, and arts organizations.

When Ken Goodman survived a car wreck at age 4, his parents feared that his nearly severed tongue would never speak again. After a complicated surgery and months of healing, they found he could not only speak but sing. Years later, he nabbed lead roles in musical-theater classics such as Bye Bye Birdie and The Music Man. His lengthy list of performances also includes operas, pageants, and a concert for the Austrian ambassador to the United States. These days, Ken flaunts his melodious vocals at the Vienna Theatre, the 75-seat performance space he owns with his wife, Stephanie. Here, he adds his tuneful spin to renditions of Broadway standards and folk duets with humming radiators. Nestled within the century-old Simon Mendel building, the theater is one of the few structures to survive the fire of 1928 and the man versus building tickle war of 1987.

Arkansas Extended Learning Center culls a massive, seasonal lineup of informative classes, recruiting chefs, artists, athletes, and other professionals to share their wisdom with students of all ages. Pupils can pick up new hobbies such as fly-fishing or digital photography, or sharpen nascent abilities in fields such as cooking and wine-tasting. Otherwise, they can tone up their physiques in fitness and dance classes, discover a new way to communicate in foreign-language workshops, or learn how to cut their way out of a hedge maze during gardening and landscaping tutorials.

Profiled in the Arkansas Times and on THV, Rock Town Distillery crafts small-batch artisan spirits using Arkansas materials. Local red winter wheat transform into vodka and gin, corn and wheat become the award-winning clear Arkansas Lightning, and charred white-oak barrels grown from Arkansasian barrel trees cradle young bourbon as it ages. Each Saturday, the distillery hosts warehouse tours, complete with the grain-to-bottle production story of each spirit and tastings of all liquors at the end.