Rural communities in the South can succeed.
Thomasville, a small town in Alabama's poor "Black Belt," has thrived under the leadership of Mayor Sheldon Day. Indeed, Day has his folks believing it is "cool to be rural."
Census data shows Thomasville with 4,209 residents and a low family poverty rate of 13% compared to 25% for the whole of Clarke County and 19% for Alabama. The town's poverty rate has been in steep decline since 2010 as median household income jumped 28% from $28,234 to $36,146.
The 500 student Thomasville High School, with 48% minority students and 63% who qualify for free and reduced lunches, boasts a stellar graduation rate of 95%.
During his 20 years as mayor, Day has attracted over $700 million in capital investments and increased the number of industrial parks from one to five. He estimated 50% of the businesses along the Highway 43 by-pass in Thomasville have opened during his tenure and sales tax collections have tripled.
In 2013, Thomasville beat 62 other sites to secure the $100 million Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tubing facility, the first major manufacturer from China to locate in Alabama.
Day is especially proud of the partnership he built among the high school, Alabama Southern Community College, and industries. The dual enrollment program he championed in welding 14 years ago now includes industrial maintenance, information technology, pre-engineering, pre-nursing and sports medicine.
"Today there are more dual enrollment high school students at the Thomasville campus than regular students on Alabama Southern's main campus in Monroeville," Day said. Coupled with an intensive work-based learning program at the high school, the dual enrollment program, Day says, has been a "major catalyst to attract industry."
Fascinated by his success, Betsy Rowell, executive director of the Stone County Economic Development Partnership, invited Day to tour her county and speak at her annual meeting. "He has obviously had great success with partnerships in his area. Our local leadership needed to hear his message."
How is Thomasville succeeding in an area where most rural towns struggle?
Day said when he was first elected mayor in 1996 he spent time searching out the best models for rural development. He found that model in Tupelo. He studied Tupelo and became a disciple of Vaughn Grisham, director emeritus of the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement at the University of Mississippi.
Day points to several similarities. One is the broad cooperative spirit he has nurtured. "In Thomasville, the school, chamber, industry, and city are all partners," he says. "Everybody talks to each other to get things done." Another has been his intense focus on developing the local workforce. And, like Tupelo did with Toyota, he collaborated with an adjacent county, Wilcox, to create an industrial park to locate a major industry. Now, he is copying Tupelo's healthcare model and will soon build a new regional hospital.
No longer the student, he now lectures on how to succeed in rural communities at Auburn's Economic Development Institute.
"His insight was invaluable," said Rowell.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Meridian (crawfolk@gmail.com)
7 comments:
Jackson metro could use a developer like that
Who is Bill Crawford. Nobody ever heard of him
3:52 - obviously not into keeping up with anything. Go back to reading your comic books and leave this serious blog stuff to the adults in the room. Many of us have not only heard of Bill Crawford, but some of us have actually even seen him. For what its worth, I'll put his knowledge base up against yours, and that is obviously sight unseen since your anonymous status could let you be most anybody. But I am assuming you are in the lower level IQ base of the JJ commentator.
low family poverty rate of 13% AND 63% who qualify for free and reduced lunches? So 13% of the families have 63% of the kids or do we pay for free and educed lunches for people over the poverty line?
Amazing what getting a couple of plants into the area will do. Of course the other things being done helped to bring in the plants.
@ 11:19 He's talking about public school. Tons of kids go to private schools there.
1. Free & Reduced Lunch does not equal Federal Poverty Level. One qualifies for reduced lunch at nearly twice the FPL. That's a problem with the MAEP formula. "Poor" doesn't mean really poor, it means "poor" and up to 125% of the AVERAGE MS household income.
2. It is an interesting article and the man is to be commended. There are certainly some takeaways that can be applied to nearly any community. However, to model a town of 4000 people after a town of 40,000 is interesting. It seems like maybe luck had as much to do with it as planning. Also, Tupelo has done well over the long-term, but the past 15 years haven't been their best. They have lost some of their core citizenry (read: Middle Class) to the Lee Co. suburbs.
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