Everytime I hear a souther accent...

I do agree with what you are saying regarding accents being regional and being no determination a person's intellect, HOWEVER, the majority of the parents and other town's people came off as uneducated and not overly bright to me. It was mainly due to their extremely poor grammar but the slow southern drawl sure didn't help either. And if I'm being honest, even the lawyers who are obviously educated with above average intelligence, they just don't seem as smart and yes, competent, as someone who has more of a crisp articulation and cadence to their speech. It's just very difficult in my opinion for someone's speech to have a strong dignity and commanding presence, a gravitas if you will - with that southern twang. They may be great attorneys and their accent is perfectly fine for Arkansas, but they wouldn't be good attorneys for a more cultured, urban city or reigon. It's just hard for accents like that to be read as sophisticated; that may be unfair, but it's true.