Telling the Story of Early

Being born and raised in Southwest Georgia aka “God’s Country,” I have a strong love for listening to stories as well as telling them. I can talk about my ancestors that died half a century or more before I was born just like I knew them. I’ve been known to tell other people more about their families than they knew… or even thought possible.

I contribute the majority of the love for family stories to my parents, especially my mama, who adds so much detail that you feel like you lived it too. She still talks about leaving her red clay-stained (white) Keds on the porch at her grandparents’ house that sits at the end of East Liberty Street… and how a pack of dogs followed her Grandpa Bert across the Court Square while walking back to the house with mullet from the Blakely Fish House.

Growing up, my daddy and uncle would drive me all around Damascus telling stories from their boyhood… Like how “fox fire” would roll through Crossroad Cemetery at night making them believe “haints” were dancing on the graves or that the chimney still standing at the “Ole Lamb Douglas Place” was the one for daddy’s room. Through stories, I really did get to know my ancestors.

The rest of that love comes from Swamp Gravy, Georgia’s Official Folklife Play, where I was able to share the stories of Southwest Georgia with countless people through the years.

Generations of stories became the building blocks of my economic development foundation.

Over the past two years, I have lost count of the number of community development conferences, meetings and classes I’ve attended. Some of my favorite classes have been through the Georgia Downtown Association (GDA)’s Certified Downtown Professionals program. This past November I took an Effective Public Speaking class geared towards downtown development. Even though I have spoken publicly for years now, it’s not something I can say I enjoy. No matter the setting or size of the audience, I still get “butterflies” in my stomach.

Despite the jitters, I’ve somehow managed to train my nerves to welcome opportunities to tell the story of Early County. I learned it is always a good idea to have an “elevator speech” to pitch at any given moment about the community. You never know when or who you might be given the opportunity to share it with.

For the final “test” in class, we were allocated three minutes to talk about our downtowns. It surprised me how many “professionals” couldn’t effectively discuss their community’s largest asset. They struggled to put the words together to talk about what made it special. It’s a shame to miss out on telling why downtown matters. When it was my turn I bundled up the nerves and used that energy to tell folks about Blakely.

At the end, a Downtown Development Authority director from up above Atlanta asked me, “How do you do that? You tell the story of your community so well. It makes me want to go there.”

My response: I don’t know how NOT to do it.

The truth is this: I tell it like it is. I tell it like it was. And I tell it like it can be.

As Swamp Gravy so famously has coined, “We All Have a Story to Tell.” When it comes to community pride you may want to ask how you are telling the story of Early County – and what’s it saying to others about our community?

The story of the community is your story too, so make it a good one.

Shared with permission from The Early County News.