Chamber Notepad: Chamber gearing up for a busy summer, fall season

By Paul Hooper, Chamber of Commerce

As I moved about this past week and weekend, I found myself thinking how much our community has to offer us. Yes, some will say we have a lot of work to do, but others will say we have so much to be proud of and to be thankful for. I know that a lot of this depends on where you live and who you are, but there certainly are a variety of options available.

Think about all the graduation ceremonies taking place this week. Speaking of graduation, have you noticed that at this time of the year you do not have to check your mail daily any more, especially if you have a graduating senior in your home as the mail somehow is always there when you get home. While my children have long gone and are working to stay in and/or complete their college education, I remember all the graduating invitations and thank you notes sent. While we cannot all send each graduating senior a “special” note of recognition, I would like to extend congratulations to each and every graduating senior this year on behalf of the Chamber Board of Directors and all the Chamber members. Today is just one of the many “big” days in your life to come and you all have our best wishes?

Yesterday I took advantage of the county wide cleanup, I noticed many, many others did to. As I drove in, I met Ron Smith and B.F. Risinger, only to be greeted and passed onto a number of stations where volunteers where there to not only help you, but to unload all the “trash” I brought to our local landfill. I was expecting to have to unload it myself as when I pay to use the landfill. Okay, maybe all the volunteers where not there by their own choice, but I did appreciate their help after all the sweat loading it all up. While there, I did bump into Faith Holt, James Olsen and Butch Warren there greeting and sweating like all the other volunteers. This made me think about all the time they put in doing their jobs that many of us never hear about or see. “My junk/things” are some things that I have been holding onto for several years now thinking I would do something with but never have. The county wide cleanup provided me with the chance to do some much needed cleanup and “dumping.” Unfortunately, after dumping my junk and driving out, I noticed that along the narrow and less traveled road, others have chose to dump their “junk” on the side of the road less than a half mile from our landfill. To those who choose to cheat and dump your trash on lonely roads and areas that you do not live in, shame on you! I hope you are not teaching this example to your children and others. Surely, you must feel guilty as you are dumping your trash somewhere else rather than doing the responsible thing. How would you feel if others where dumping their trash in your neighborhood? We are all in this together and together we can make a difference, so I encourage you to look around and look at what we all can do to make our community a better place to visit and live. I would like to thank to all those who gave of their time in organizing, planning and making this a successful event for both the city and county.

After leaving the landfill and heading into the Chamber to write the Chamber news, fortunately, I needed gas and came across a group of kids urging me to get my truck washed. It was a fund raiser by the First Baptist Church youth group to take 50 to 60 youth to a Christian retreat in Silver Cliff Colorado during the week of July 12. This was something to behold as I noticed two young ladies spent more time on the roof of my truck (which I never know is dirty or not) than any others on the rest of my truck. Not to be alarmed, the smiles and enthusiasm of all the youth there made me feel good about pulling in and having my truck washed and making a donation to the youth in our community. By the way, if you missed the car wash, you still have a chance to contribute by going by the First Baptist’s Family Living Center on June 14 at 11 a.m. or noon for a spaghetti luncheon as the funds for will be used for their youth retreat or you may call the Youth Minister, Geoffrey Nance, if you would like to make a contribution towards this youth retreat.

The Chamber’s Community Outreach Committee’s County Wide BBQ at Bunert Park will be held on Saturday, June 20 and everyone is invited! We are now down to just two weeks and there is still time to enter in the cook-off and/or reserve a booth.

Last week I talked about the Black Hills Community located off Highway 22, west of Corsicana City limit and a few of the families that grew up there that you may recognize: Frances Spurlock Seale/Geneva Spurlock Drain, Calvin Rich, Carmack Watkins, Tommy Watkins, Edna Earle and Garland Gray and Valda Poarch. There is still a cemetery there that is supported by a board of descendants from times past that have created a really great recipe book that sells for $20 with approximately 300 recipes and many pictures from times past that are on sale at the following locations: Chamber of Commerce, Visitor Center, T & Company, P & S Pharmacy and The Hair Bender. Please visit or call one of these locations and order this recipe book as the funds will be used to continue to maintain the Black Hills Cemetery.

Since I have been following the success of Alexus Daniels, a Rice freshman track star, into the UIL Track and Field Championships this past week, I read Todd Wills’ report in the Daily Sun on Alexus’ results this past week. While Alexus did not reach her personal best at the UIL Championship, as Todd and Rice coach Donna Gent noted, Alexus learned a lot and will be a force to deal with in years to come. Congratulations Alexus, we are proud of you and all you have accomplished this year! We know and look forward to hearing more and more about you in the near future.

The Chamber Ambassadors will host a Ribbon Cutting this coming Tuesday, June 9 at 5:30 p.m. at Shell Quick Mart on Second Avenue. Shantosh Karki is a new owner and would like to invite everyone to his business.

Please do not dismiss this piece of information since I will continue to report on it each week due to the importance and impact it will have on our City and County as we look to the long term future. Lee McCleary, City and County Economic Director, established the SPG Advisory Committee to assist in working on identifying our strengths, weakness and needs in order to develop a strategic plan that will not only address the issues we face daily, but the one’s we need to address today that will have an impact 10, 20, 30 years from now. One committee on this SPG Advisory Committee is the Community ID/Branding Committee who received funding from the City and Corsicana Development Commission (CDC) from the Hotel/Motel taxes received by the City to fund Phase I and Phase II of a community branding project. The purpose of this campaign is to build a unified identity brand for the promotion of Corsicana and a marketing plan that will build awareness of Corsicana’s attractions, benefits and features in order to stimulate economic growth through attracting visitors, new residents, new business and industry to the area. The SPG is made up of local citizens, the Chamber and city staff members who have the backing and support of the city and county governments. The purpose of SPG is to grow Corsicana and Navarro County economically by attracting industrial and retail business, residents and tourists. If you would like to learn more about SPG, please go to their Web site at www.corsicanachallenge.com. You can sign up on this Web site to receive regular updates on their efforts and projects.

As a Chamber member I encourage you to take advantage of the ability to add pictures and information about your business in the member’s directory on the Chamber’s Web site. Currently the Chamber Web site receives approximately 40,000 hits per month and the more information we have about your business on the Web site, better are the chances those searching/looking for a service or organization will find you. If you would like to know more about how we can help you, please contact Semonna at the Chamber.

What’s Coming Up?

June 9th — Ribbon Cutting – Shell Quick Mart, 2890 West Second Avenue. New owner, Shantosh Karki, recently became a Chamber member and has asked the Chamber to conduct a ribbon cutting to acknowledge his business and invite everyone to come by.

June 20 — 1st Annual Navarro County B-B-Q Cook-Off. The cutoff is June 12th to register for the Navarro County Wide BBQ Cook Off at Bunert Park. There is a $15 registration fee for a craft booth. Anyone planning on selling BBQ, there will be an additional $25 fee for a health permit. There will be a cook off contest, prizes and trophies, food sampling tickets and entertainment and much more. Booths requiring electricity will be reserved on a first come, first served basis. Please mark this date and you will be hearing more from the Chamber on this event in the local papers, e-mail blasts and flyers placed around town. Please contact Semonna at (903) 874-4731 for more information or to sign up for booth spaces. Everyone is invited to attend this county wide event.

June 29th – Child Advocacy Center Bowling Outing. A bowling party for the local CASA kids is going to be at the Corsicana Super Bowl on Seventh Avenue on Monday, June 29 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. We will have the entire bowling alley to ourselves. Thank you Jerry Stroud and the Corsicana Super Bowl — he has done a marvelous job working with the Corsicana Super Bowl bowling alley to get us such a great deal. Sodas, popcorn, and video games will be included along with up to two bowling games per child. This will be a great opportunity for you all to spend time with your CASA kids over the summer.

October 23-25 — C.A.S.T Fishing Tournament. Prior to this weekend there will be a number of people fishing at Richland Chambers Lake for the C.A.S.T. Championship Tournament that will bring 400 people to our community on the above dates. There will be a banquet held at the Star Hall at the America RV Park on Friday, October 23 that will be catered by Dickey’s BBQ. These folks spend a lot of money while in our community and I would ask any business with a marquee to put up something welcoming them and consider offering some type of “special” inviting these folks to visit your business. Remember that while they may be here during this time fishing, the hospitality they receive while here may bring them back to find out more about what all we have to offer.

October 23-25 – “Entertainment & Heritage Package.” The Corsicana Development Commission has a committee working in conjunction with the Palace Theatre, Warehouse Living Arts Center, Pearce Museum, Magnolia House, Collin Street Bakery, Pioneer Village and many others are working to bring 100 tourists to Corsicana. More information will be forthcoming as more information is confirmed and can be communicated. If you are a local merchant you may want to mark these dates as these “tourist guests” will have free time to shop and tour downtown Corsicana and other areas.

On behalf of the Chamber Board of Directors, I would like to extend our thanks to all the Chamber members and volunteers who are instrumental in the success of the Chamber.

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Paul Hooper is executive director of the Corsicana/Navarro County Chamber of Commerce. He may be reached by e-mail at phooper@corsicana.org. Want to “Soundoff” on this column? E-mail: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com

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