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Our Opinions Just weeks into the new year, there's plenty of good economic news for the area. Three great stories appeared just last week. Toddtown native Richard Pugh is the CEO of a new plastic injection molding plant that will locate in Thomasville. The $8 million plant will be built in the new South Industrial Park and will employ 75 to 100 people. The plant is a direct result of the National Supplier Conferences held in Thomasville for the last two years. Pugh, a successful California businessman, was impressed by the conferences and the prospects of helping provide jobs and revenues for his home county. New Era Cap announced last year that it would be expanding its Jackson facilities to take in functions that are now located in Mobile. The $2 million addition for the manufacturer of Major League and Minor League baseball caps will add about 40 jobs in Jackson, bringing total employment to around 400. Boise Paper closed the old M. W. Smith Lumber Co. in Jackson last year, leaving workers without jobs. Now, Gulf Lumber Co., a longtime fixture in sawmilling in Mobile, is buying the mill as Gulf Lumber-Jackson, LLC and will restart as a one shift operation with the prospects of increasing production later. The Stimpson family, owners of Gulf Lumber, are no strangers to Clarke County. Fred Stimpson got his start with a peckerwood sawmill operation at Choctaw Bluff in the early 1900s and the family still has extensive landholdings in the southern part of the county and vacation and hunt there regularly. There is other good news too. Work continues on the new Louisiana Pacific oriented strand board (OSB) plant south of Thomasville. The $215 million project will directly employ 130 and indirectly spark 300 additional jobs. A lot of capital building projects are underway in the county, too. Several school projects have been completed and work continues on the new Clarke County High School in Grove Hill and an addition to the county courthouse. Ground was broken on a new county health department last week. Clarke County and its municipalities are working together better than ever for the common good of everyone. Tom Bolton, president of Cooper Brothers Construction, was complimentary of that cooperation at a ceremony at New Era last week. His firm has that job and is also building the new CCHS. He said he has never seen the level of commitment and cooperation between industry and government that he sees in Clarke County.
We salute our business and industry leaders and our government entities for that commitment and cooperation. Let's keep it going through 2007 and beyond!
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