Another look: Small Biz

This is an encore presentation to you the community of Bladen. A town with a rich history and a promising future.

I felt it pertinent that we take another look at a very special visitor who came to help us accomplish the aspirations of what’s to come in E-Town.

Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall champions the small businesses of North Carolina with more than just a “rah-rah” from a seat somewhere far away from our many rural communities.

She has boots on the ground and Bladen County was fortunate to have her come and help bring education which promoted understanding of how we are going to move ahead and prosper as a rural community with many small businesses – not only established, but startups as well.

Her goal was to get out of her office and get to every community in the state. Not a publicity stunt or a stump for office – but she came to Bladen with her sleeves rolled up and she wanted to see and hear for herself from community members.

She wanted to know the challenges. She wanted to know the victories. She smiled when she heard of the “unheard of” miracles that we are grateful for in the midst of great odds.

Marshall truly has a heart to see North Carolina create the handbook for success in small-business in America.

I used the following in the front-page article today and want to reiterate that Marshall has already a VOLT in mind for Bladen County. To just dream that dream she would stay in her office in Raleigh and cheer on the troops which is the same as throwing up a Hail Mary. A dreamer is one thing – and dreams some fine and motivating dreams. But a visionary doesn’t sit back and hope something happens, they go forth and make it happen shoulder to shoulder with a team primed for success.

As the recent troubles of late in Bladen County have drifted out to sea – the world is our oyster now. Can you feel it? Can you sense it? Do you realize that our county is on the verge of a breakthrough that other counties can only dream about? (The world as your oyster vernacular simply means that we have the freedom and opportunity to do whatever we want and go wherever we want.)

What can a small-business do in the midst of great odds? Marshall offered some ideas, some help, she learned things she didn’t know about us and rest assured – she is a woman of action that will find solutions.

But in the meantime, I am reminded of the eulogy that Ted Kennedy offered at his brother Bobby’s funeral service and the great words RFK spoke boldly to counteract the discouragement of the statement, “Who am I and what can I do to change things?”

“It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation; a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth; a young woman reclaimed the territory of France; and it was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the 32-year-old Thomas Jefferson who [pro]claimed that “all men are created equal.”

“These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

“The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society. Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.”

What does a visit from the Secretary of State do for Bladen County? She brought tools. She offered us a new mindset to work and to succeed.

What can we do Bladen County? I think… anything we want. And it’s nice to know, sitting and listening to Elaine Marshall that we have sincere government working for us in North Carolina. Pick up a hammer and hammer out an idea. Pick up a saw and cut away the excess discouragement. Follow Marshall’s lead and roll up your sleeves. There’s work to do.