Cooperative Living January 2015 - 16

COVER STORY
Among Virginia's greatest assets are her small towns and rural, agricultural communities. Today, more than ever, these
locales often face challenges ranging from economic hardship to diminishing population that, in some cases, threaten their
future. Following are three stories examining the challenges facing Virginia's small communities. The first is an essay
about the challenges facing small towns by Dr. Charles Lee, a retired college president and Mecklenburg County, Va.,
resident with rich experience in working with small communities. Next is a profile of Monterey, Va., a tiny hamlet in
Highland County written by Highland Recorder reporter and community journalist John Bruce. The final part of this
small-town trilogy is a story about Exmore on Virginia's Eastern Shore, by veteran Eastern Shore journalist Bill Sterling.
The Future of Small Towns
I
by Dr. Charles Lee, Retired President, Mississippi State University
was recently invited to share
some thoughts about the future
of small towns at a Chamber of
Commerce Banquet in a modest
Southside Virginia town.
Like everyone, my views are
shaped by my background. So let
me begin by sharing some experiences
that have influenced my
views.
First, my wife was working for
our local chamber in North Carolina
when we were married 54 years ago,
and yes, it was a small town.
During the ensuing years, we
Dr. Charles Lee, retired president of Mississippi State University, at the
Welcome to Clarksville sign. He served as interim town manager for
Clarksville after retiring to Mecklenburg County from Mississippi State.
have shared 33 domiciles in six states, and
about 20 percent of these homes were in
small towns.
As a senior agriculture and natural
resource administrator and later land-grant
university president, I had the opportunity
to respond to perhaps 50 small towns across
several southern states whose leaders
believed that the university might help
them plan a brighter future.
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Just as each of our children is different,
so is each small town, and the universities
for which I worked never seemed to have
enough time or money to adequately understand
the dominant forces that powered any
particular situation. Today, many universities
have small-town specialists with great
analytical skills.
I gained more insights while serving as
interim town manager two years ago in
Clarksville, a small town in
Southside Virginia. The biggest
challenge was the difficulty in
reaching consensus agreement
about some sense of direction -
a shared set of beliefs about the
town's future, if you will. There is
a popular saying that, " Any wind is
a good one for a ship that has no
destination. " Unfortunately, the
dismal level of attendance at various
town meetings suggested that
too few of our citizens had any
destination in mind for the town.
Apathy is the bane of democracy.
These and other varied experiences
across 45-plus years and many locales have
yielded some insights that I believe can
impact the future of many typical small
towns.
* The size of the town is less important in
determining its future than what it " does
with what it has. " Towns built on a set of
shared beliefs about their futures will
continue to be attractive, if they have
Cooperative Living/January 2015
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Cooperative Living January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living January 2015