Rediscovering what we value most: Part one

A few Fridays ago I stood in a conference room surrounded by my fellow local economic developers from South Georgia. Even though it is known that our communities are “competing” for prospects – w e don’t l et that stop us from building an alliance that keeps our county lines blurred and connections strong.

When a community in South Georgia creates jobs the local economic developers celebrate as a region. True to southern nature – we also mourn as a region when there are jobs lost. If you’ve been to the former mill site anytime soon, the smokeless stacks and bare yard at the lifeless mill certainly make it feel like a death in the community.

During the meeting – the tagline that was adopted a couple of years ago by Locate South Georgia was mentioned: Rediscover what you value most.

It caught my attention. A simple sentence that caused me to immediately think of Early County and all of Southwest Georgia, especially now with one of its legacy industries permanently closed. Hopefully, it has caught your attention too and has you thinking about those things that we as a community (and society) haven’t found ourselves valuing as much as we once did.

I can’t tell anyone what to value – let alone what they should value most. Only each individual reading this can answer it for themselves. What other than money is a motivational factor? As summer winds down, I think it’s important for all of us to take some time to reflect and consider this "tagline" in moving Early County forward.

Published in the Early County News on August 26, 2025.