CONWAY — Ron Paugnaud, owner of Forgotten Times Antiques on Laurel Street, said if he can get his wife to mind the store, he’ll cart some of his wares over to the annual community yard sale Saturday, where last year he said he sold more stuff in one day than he does in a week at his store.

Paugnaud said he sold everything from slow-moving items to leftover estate sale bargains to damaged furniture at the yard sale, where he was a customer as well as a vendor.

“I ended up buying stuff there that I took back to the shop,” he said.

But the community yard sale at the corner of Main Street and Fifth Avenue isn’t the only outdoor shopping fest in Conway on Saturday. The annual downtown merchants sidewalk sale will also be from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., the same hours as the yard sale.

Paugnaud said he sort of has a sidewalk sale year-round as he displays some of the treasures he sells on the sidewalk by his storefront.

The yard sale is for stuff he has stored, and that’s no small amount.

“I probably need a yard sale once a month,” he joked.

He said he doesn’t have as much stuff as he did last year, but he’s planning on going to an auction Tuesday night..

It’s the law, almost

Conway’s new electronic message center ordinance needs to pass just one more reading at City Council before it becomes the law.

The Council has been working on crafting it for some time, and even had a parking lot demonstration of a sign’s brightness to help them decide how much radiance the signs will be allowed.

The board decided to expand the area where they may be displayed. When the issue first surfaced, the proposal was to allow the signs along U.S. 50l near CCU and HGTC. But the version that was approved by Council members on Oct. 1 spread the area to the length of the 501 Bypass, where there is a collection of businesses, strip shopping centers, restaurants, motels and gas stations.

But the approved version sticks to the conservative approach to how big the signs can be and what they can display. No videos, pictures or other graphics can be displayed. Additionally, the signs cannot be put on buildings and must be incorporated into a monument-style structure. Only red, yellow or white lettering will be allowed.

After seeing the demonstration of sign brightness in the City Hall parking lot on a recent evening, Council members decided that 5,000 nits was plenty of brightness during the day, which must be dimmed to 500 nits once the sun sets. The message signs will have to have sensors that will lower the sign’s brightness and the sun goes down.

Council members don’t want the signs to be so distracting that they might cause accidents along one of the most heavily traveled sections of 501.

54-year anniversary

Conway’s business and civic hoi polloi will gather Oct. 18 to toast the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce’s 54 years at the 2012 Annual Meeting and Awards Celebration.

Tickets to the event, scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Peanut Warehouse, are $25 and may be purchased by calling the Chamber at 248-2273.

The event will include a reception, silent auction and the Chamber’s community awards ceremony.

The awards are:

•  Conway Youth Leader Award to someone who has had a considerable, positive impact on the community’s youth.

•  The Sun News Rod & Harold McCown Service Award to one man and one woman for their dedication and service to the community.

•  The LaVerne H. Creel Lifetime Achievement Award to the person who has devoted heart and soul to the betterment of the Conway area. The winner of this award also will get $1,000 from an endowment set up on behalf of Frank A. Thompson II to donate to a non-profit of the winner’s choice. The endowment was funded by Peter and Betsy Barr.

Contact STEVE JONES at 444-1765.