A BOLD MOVE
A leadership group know as The Harvest Foundation, located in Martinsville,.Viirginia - Henry County in Southside Virginia is seeking to have a four-year public college established in their area. They stand ready to back such an effort with a fifty million dollar challenge grant to the commonwealth to get the institution started.
Two Martinsville developers have offered a one-hundred acre site, off Route 58 and the development of such a four-year college and the Foundation is urging the construction as "one of the keys to economic competitiveness in the 2lst century" The general public is supporting the effort more actively since the announcement of the grant, and it is encouraging to see that the members of the Board of Supervisors Henry County have unaimously agreed to support the plan and have set forth a resolution calling for the creation of a university in the area.
It is an encouraging thing to see a community, once again, alert to the potential of the future. To aspire to such a goal seems to have vanished from the American Dream, but it is very much alive, and doing quite well, thank you, in Martinsville, Virgjnia and surroudning Henry County. Their innovative approach to a real need is inspiring and I, for one, believe they will, in time, achieve their goal.
Another key to sucess in the future, should also be considered by these same groups of civic minded individuals. The reaction of Governor Mark Warner and the Commonweath of Virginia was supportive while seeming to be inderstandably hesitant. The Governor's statement, which he made recently in announcing the fact that "MasterBrand" Cabinets is to build a new plant in the area, holds another key for Southsiders..Whether it's for a new college, the Govermor said,"or some other new project, until the state gets its finanical house in order, it can't take on new financial commitments." He was right. The members of the Foundation would, I think, realize that, and seek other ways of bringing their dream about.
With that goal in mind, It is time to open Martinsvile and the Henry County area to new business success. It can be done by actively supporting plans build a totally new Piedmont Interstate Highway from the Triangle area of North Carolina, north to Martinsville, Lynchburg and into the Frostburg, Maryland area, Such a highway is urgently needed to take pressures of overuse from Interstates 81 and 95. Now is the time for Southside legislators and leaders to act while temporary modification shemes for I-81 are meeting with renewed opposition from both trucking firm,s and private car owners. The proposed plans call for making Intertate 81 a Toll Road and proposed "improveents" are largely cosmetic in nature such as widening some areas, adding an additonal lane - theoretically for "trucks only", other "make-do" and "fix-it" gimmicks creating safety hazard thus far unknown to the 300-plus mile passageway to northern market areas.
Right now there is an open window of opportunity for the same innovative leaders of Southside who have spoken out so boldly for a college in their area, to actively support a plan for such a new Interstate highway through the area. New economic advantages will come with such a veture and the dramed-of univeristy level school facility will become more feasable and certain.
A.L.M. January 16. 2004 [c460wds]
