No Point To It

Three things are essential
to survival in rural America.
Now we're not talking about
rural America 50 miles outside
Dallas, or Denver,
a burb of Chicago, those
places call themselves rural -
but in reality they are capable
of pulling all of the big city
resources they have right
into their mix.  Nope these
three things are for rural where
we're at...the sticks, as they
used to say...so here they go...

1.  Friday night football.

2.  Main Street that is
open for business.

3.  Folks who do what needs
doing in the community, and
volunteering to help.

There are other but these three
are the main ones.  No football
and Friday night becomes just
another night of the week.

Business on main street in our
town means something, we don't
have a lot of plants around us
employing a lot of folks, so
our folks either work somewhere
and live here, or, retail their
hearts out to local folks while
praying for a break on the web.

Folks who do stuff that needs doing
isn't just a rural America thing, but
it does help, and we don't have a
huge population to draw from.  This
can mean, and sometimes does mean,
we end up with folks doing a lot,
from a few.  It's what is the only
way that some things get done.

Have any favorite observations about
your rural community, we'd love to
hear them?

Growing The Development Culture

Growing The Development Culture

"Getting There..."  Dr. Dana Richardson,   Eco Dev

You’ve seen the movie, “Hoosiers,” starred Gene Hackman as the coach who took a small town ball team to state?  “Yeah, figures Dr. D that you’d choose a basketball movie story seein’ as how our boys are in the playoffs for football, genius!”  Yes I know, but some quotes are too good to pass up! Be they football, like Denzel Washington, talking to the team as Coach Boone, of “Remember The Titans,” at Gettysburg, “this is hallowed ground.” Or, Gene Hackman, taking his boys into a gym at state that’s huge, asking them to measure the basketball key, remember that?  They measured the net, they measured the key, and his statement was, “I’ll think you’ll find that the measurements there are the exact same ones we have back home.”  His point was; it isn’t the size the opponent, it’s the heart of the competitor, and it’s how you compete; whether we win, lose or draw (can you have a draw in football?) – If our athletes play their hearts out and play with good conduct and athletic manners of combat in football, they are winners.

THEY ARE ALREADY WINNERS- GETTING THERE!

  Economic Development carries in the program an idea that somehow we’re going to make businesses happen, education get better, the infrastructure of the community get better, the way that the community reports itself to the outside world, become enhanced.  In short, the expectations for a good economic development program need funds; and what we tend to believe is that those funds will always come from the Federal Government, State government, or some other source of grant money.  Here’s a shocker- they usually don’t.  In major cities which have huge economic development programs, the majority of the funding comes from the city leaders.  Grant money can happen, and we’ve been fortunate to have grants approved, but we’ve been unfortunate to then have the agency approving the grant, not receive enough money to fund the grant?  Interesting concept; that one is; sort of like, ordering a Cheeseburger, like everybody else, but only being able to watch other people eat it? Isn’t there a better solution, in order that, our community can continue to grow, continue getting there? 

  Did you catch that, how we report ourselves to the world sentence?  You may have thought “internet,” O.K., think “internet” as T.V.; see it?  How powerful is the impression left by the first contact with a website?  In the case of Universal Studio Orlando (http://www.universalorlando.com/) it’s pretty powerful – Harry Potter is front and center; and who, could forget Harry?  In the case of NASA a lot of really cool things are going on no matter what page you click to (http://www.nasa.gov/).   If you type in Lafayette Louisiana, you get this (http://www.lafayettela.gov/) web site that is aimed at you communicating with them, and visiting them; hmm, that’s interesting, wouldn’t you say?  So what about Springhill, what do people see if they type into the search engine Springhill Louisiana?  It is in the top three on Google as a web site, great, but it’s behind, Wikipedia and North Webster Chamber of Commerce?  Is North Webster Chamber of Commerce, Springhill?  No but we have a nice link middle of their screen; but would a person have to want to find Springhill to use this?  Here’s the point; surfing facts tell us that when an executive is looking for a new community to come to, they go to; Google, and they search for the community- the question you need to ask yourself is, are the sites that they’re finding about us influencing their choice?  Is there any possibility that we might make our site better, more attractive, more welcoming and more inviting to them to contact us?  When those executives click on your page you have 7 seconds to impress them,  or they’re gone!  We need to perhaps think about what it is that we want to show them, so that, when it comes to getting them here, we’re getting there!  

Green is Good in Rural America - Pass It On...

One of my friends in the community has started a program that
you probably already have in yours, what she suggests is that
we get on board with cleaning up the community.  But what's
really cool about her approach is, she's showing us what the
deal is...hard to argue with a photograph isn't it?

Wow its easy to see what we need to do, and one has to respect someone with the courage to get photos and publish them on the Facebook and get it in motion. Thanks to this local leader the hope is we'll move out on this green friendly project. This video is just to support Mrs. Frazier in her
efforts and to bring into the picture some ideas about how
as a people we've lost focus on this issue, what do you think?

Link to Nicole's Facebook Page CLICK HERE

Al Gore has been talking about the earth 
we aren't caring for for a decade or more, and, while he's on the "big picture" this lady is getting it done on the local level- and she got my attention with something that is simple and doable and worthwhile for us all.

Nicole Frazier Alderwoman, Springhill Louisiana,
has no idea that I put this together, she didn't ask me
to, she doesn't even know it's out ...but her idea is
so cool and the way she went about it on Facebook is so cool that it just seemed like something the
folks on social media might get behind?  Would love
to hear your ideas because we all need to get on
making it better where we can, don't you think?