Bill Cook Comes Back Home to Canton

He spent his first grade of school in nine different schools in nine towns, following his traveling salesman father. But, by the third grade his dad bought three grain elevators near Canton, IL and the moving around was over. Bill Cook spent the rest of his formative years there. At the age of 32, Bill Cook started Cook, Inc with $1,500 in a spare bedroom in a $165/month apartment in Bloomington, IN. Today, Bill Cook is a multi-billionaire, having grown Cook into a leader in the medical device industry.

Cook is best known for his incredible restoration projects in French Lick and West Baden, IN. I’ve written a number of blogs on them, that you can read here.

I was back in Canton this past week doing a talk at their Economic Development annual meeting. I was supposed to do the event in 2008, but was bumped by Bill Cook who was back home in Canton. I would have bumped me, too!

Canton was largely a one industry town, having grown up around The Plow Works, a 33 acre site adjacent to their downtown. Plows were made in Canton from 1852 until International Harvester, which bought the business from the local owners in 1919, closed it down in the early 80s.

Mayor Kevin Meade told me, “The whole town revolved around that plant. Our high school nickname was the Plow Boys and later the Little Giants, named after one of their product lines. The company whistle, which now sits on top of city hall, blew seven times per day and literally ran the whole pace of the town. It was incredibly devastating when they closed down.”

I had visited Canton in the mid 90s to look at the old IH plant and site, but it was well beyond our capabilities at the time. And, today the site still sits there, having gradually been cleaned up from its brownfield status.

And, it might still be an empty site in 2020, but for a letter Mark Rothert, head of ED, wrote to Bill Cook a couple of years ago. Cook invited Rothert and Mayor Meade over to Bloomington to talk about Canton. From that initial meeting and further visits, Cook decided to return home to refurbish the old Randolph Building (shown in picture), a $2 million restoration that opens this month.

Later this year, a new Cook Group factory that will hire 300, opens on the old Plow Works site. My guess is that future investments are on the way for Canton, from the hometown boy who made good and returned home to invest.

After my talk, an elderly lady approached me and said, “I went to school with Bill Cook. We graduated in 1949 and will be celebrating our 60th class reunion in September. I used to date Bill and didn’t think he would ever make more than $1,000/month. I was sure wrong! My one regret in life, is that I wasn’t nicer to him in high school.”

My question to the audience at my talk was, “How many future Bill Cooks do you have in Canton. What are you doing to nurture them into future entrepreneurs? What are you doing to stay in touch with them after they leave home?”

Those are the key questions that every small town should be asking themselves. It could be the difference between having empty buildings and sites, or having vibrant, economic activity in the future.

Switching to Twitter

After sitting out from the blogging scene for several months, I’ve decided to switch more of my energy from blogging to tweeting. I will continue to post some blogs when I have items that I want to expand upon. However, I’ve found that being able to quickly put out a number of items in one day on Twitter allows me to look at more items and is of greater interest.

Since I started blogging in late 2004, I’ve done just under 2,000 blogs. With Twitter, I’ve done over 200 tweets in less than two months.

You can sign up for my twitter account at www.twitter.com/jackschultz.

I also have recently started a facebook page which you can access at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=635513330

I hope that you will continue to stay in touch and let me know what you are doing in your towns. Feel free to email me at anytime at jschultz@agracel.com.

Mary Lee Emmert: Remembrances of a son-in-law

My mother-in-law, Mary Lee Emmert, passed away this week. Here is what i said about this wonderful woman yesterday at her memorial service.

I want to tell you about a pioneering woman, one of the most amazing people that I’ve met in my life.

Mary Lee Green was born in San Benito, TX. It was always Mary Lee and not just Mary. And, you only called her Mary Lou ONE time!

If you’ve ever driven down into the valley, you’ll have remembered San Benito by its huge water tower with the picture of Freddie Fender, boasting San Benito as his hometown. Last month Mary Lee was talking about that water tower when she was down visiting us, a bit dismayed that Freddie Fender was her hometown’s claim to fame. After she left we thought of renting one of the big billboards along 77 and adding

San Benito
Birthplace of Mary Lee Green Emmert
And in little type… also Freddie Fender

She would have loved it!

The next time you drive down to the valley, please look at that big Freddie Fender water tower and think of Mary Lee’s billboard. I only wish we had time to put it up for her to see!

Because, in our eyes even though Freddie Fender was a character and well known around Texas, our Mary Lee was known in countries far from Texas, but more on that later.

When her mother suffered debilitating health problems and passed away, Mary Lee was raised by her loving father Bill in Sinton. In Sinton, her women role models were Aunt Ruby and Mrs. Landrum who looked after young Mary Lee when her father was working in the oil fields. I wish that I would have known Aunt Ruby and Mrs. Landrum as I’m sure that they would have some rare stories to tell about young Mary Lee. As I reflect upon those days, it must have been tough for her but is also where she developed her determination, independence and willingness to explore everything new whether it was new people, new ideas or even new lands.

One of her proudest moments that she often related to us, was sneaking off with a friend to see the scandalous Elvis Presley at the Corpus Christi Coliseum.

From Sinton, she went to college at Texas A&I, now Texas A&M in Kingsville, where she first met the love her of her life and lifetime partner, Pete Emmert, a bull riding, stereotypical cowboy from Refugio. I believe it was love at first sight or at least that is what I would love to believe.

During summers she worked at the old Liechtenstein Department Store in Corpus, not so much for what she could earn but more for the discount she got on purchases and the interesting people of Corpus that she met.

Pete and Mary Lee were married on January 2, 1957, spending their honeymoon in Monterrey. Pete’s future boss gave them $100 for their honeymoon, quite a sum in those days. Mary Lee thought that they should blow the whole $100 on activities in Monterrey, but Pete was more financially grounded, wanting to save some of the $100. They went home with money in their pockets. It was one of only two arguments I ever heard of her losing.

While Pete was finishing his degree, Mary Lee taught English at a largely Hispanic school in Kingsville, one of the early pioneers of teaching English as a second language. Her pioneering work was starting! Upon Pete’s graduation from A&I, they moved to Las Vegas. But, probably not the Las Vegas you are thinking of, but rather Las Vegas, New Mexico. And, Las Vegas, New Mexico is about as far from Las Vegas, Nevada as you can get. They spell remote there with a capital R!

And, it was not only remote but also cold, VERY cold. I’m certain that the first time that Mary Lee saw snow in her young life in Las Vegas it was exciting. But, by the time her first born Betinha was born in February and Mary Lee had to go into town a week before she was due because of the snow drifts, I’m guessing that the thrill of the white stuff had long passed.

I’m also guessing that it was Mary Lee who found the ad in the Cattleman’s Journal, advertising for ranch managers for new ranches that the King Ranches and Swift Meatpackers were opening in the exotic country of Brazil. Tropical Brazil might be just as remote as Las Vegas, New Mexico but it had to be warmer! A train trip to Chicago for the interview, where the interview of the spouse and their ability to adapt to a strange country and language was as important to Swift-King as the ranching ability of the manager, resulted in a job offer and off they were, on literally “the slow boat to Brazil”, landing there on December 9, 1958.

And, even though the King ranches in Brazil were even more remote than New Mexico, Mary Lee fell in love with them. The hardships of no roads, no electricity or phones didn’t deter her. The fact that it took two to four days, depending upon weather, to drive the 350 miles from Sao Paulo to the ranch, added to the excitement of a new language, new surroundings and of course new friends. I told you she was a pioneering woman!

New children started coming every two years almost like clockwork. After Betinha; Jimmy followed in 1960, then Theresa and finally Michael. With the closest American school that 350 mile drive back to Sao Paulo, Mary Lee again pioneered in homeschooling her four children, decades before homeschooling became a fad. Of course, Mary Lee wasn’t going to be just teaching it strictly by the book. Classes were taught around the swimming pool, heavy on Greek Mythology, Art History, English and Social Studies. Less so on math and science. And, lots on Texas history! Mary Lee was a true Texan at heart and her children were going to learn everything and more that they would if they were at school in the states.

In the beginning, they would take states-side leave every two years, when Mary Lee would plan the usual visits with family and friends and also long sojourns on Padre Island. As important were educational trips that took the family to Colorado, Wyoming, Mexico and of course all over the vast state of her beloved Texas.

I’m told that when the Emmert kids were getting bored on one of these trips, they would make statements like, “Gosh, there are a lot of streets named Sam Houston. Wonder what that guy ever did?” They knew that it was sure to illicit a reaction and a twenty or thirty minute lecture on what this Texas hero had accomplished. There were certain buttons like that which could be pressed, almost guaranteeing a known response.

Mary Lee and Pete’s Brazilian ranching life was a true partnership. While Pete might have earned the paycheck, even he would admit years later that Mary Lee had as much to do with his success as his knowledge of cattle, horses, pastures and ranching. Theirs was a true partnership with Mary Lee taking care of the guest house, visitors and making sure that any cattle or horse buyers felt right at home. Famous international guests like Henry Ford II, Prince of Turin, Daniel Ludwig, and even TV stars like Starsky and Hutch were constant guests. Starsky and Hutch fell in love with Mary Lee’s Texas accent and asked her to read Uncle Remis’ Burr Rabbit to them over and over.

The big event of the year was the annual Leilao or cattle sale when 60 quarter horses and 20 Santa Gertrudes bulls and 65 heifers were sold each year, It was THE event in the cattle business in Brazil. Preparations included finding accommodations for those travelling from afar as well as preparing a churrasco for 800 and a late night dinner/party for 200. All with extreme style and grace.

It was at the Leilao in 1980, that an American farm boy who was raising soybeans in the wild west state of Mato Grosso attended and instantly fell in love with Mary Lee’s oldest daughter, Betinha. As the two began dating and became more serious, Mary Lee tried to dissuade her daughter, warning her, “Do you want to drive a combine for the rest of your life?” Fortunately, Mary Lee lost the second argument of her life.

In 1981 Mary Lee and Pete moved back to the USA, running the Chaparrosa Ranches for B. K. Johnson in LaPryor, TX. They were the same winning team that they had been in Brazil, with Pete running the ranches and business and Mary Lee anything that had to do with marketing, something at which she excelled.

They say that you never want to outlive your children and Mary Lee and Pete suffered when son Jimmy was killed in an auto accident at Sul Ross University in Alpine, TX. Later Pete would suffer through rectal cancer and passed away on December 20, 1993, leaving Mary Lee a widow at only 61. It was a very traumatic time for her and someone of lesser will might have given up on life after losing the love of her life.

But, Mary Lee went pioneering again. She signed up for the Peace Corps and was assigned to the Philippines where she taught English for two years, living in incredibly primitive conditions on less than $100/month. Even though all the rest of the Phillippines Peace Corps were “kids” in her words, they gained a great deal of respect for the “old lady” (their words) from Texas who ended up becoming someone they looked up to, respected and friends until today.

Later, she moved back to the Corpus Christi area, finally landing in Trinity Towers where she didn’t lose her knack for collecting new friends like most of us might collect seashells. Everybody always knew Mary Lee and she made everyone feel as though they were special.

She continued to reunite with her many friends in Texas from her days when Pete was on the Santa Gertrudes board, her Texas A&I days and even from her schoolgirl days in Sinton. She was usually the leader of reunions and get togethers, always taking on new challenges with enthusiasm and wonder.

She was very proud of the accomplishments of her children and grandchildren and delighted in the almost daily calls that she received from her children. She died peacefully this week, a proud, proud Texan.

Banks Lending More!

"Banks need to start lending again!"

That has been the rallying cry from DC, over the past several months. While, I've found that small town banks are carrying on business as usual, the large ones and Wall Street appear to be be frozen up.

As you can see from this graphic from the St. Louis Fed, it is a good thing that the small town banks are still lending and carrying the USA forward.

Perhaps it would help if the national media looked beyond the Beltway and Wall Street for their information.

Beach Adventure or Women are From Venus, Men are From Mars

One of the major attractions of TX to us is the long stretches of virgin beaches and that the state allows you to drive right on the beach, right next to the pounding surf. We took off on Sunday morning from South Padre Island (SPI) up to the Port Mansfield Ship Channel, as far as you can go on the island.

It was a rather cold (mid 60s) morning for SPI, windy and with a fog hanging over the horizon. We were hopeful that as the day brightened, we would see the fog lift and the wind diminish for our romantic, leisurely drive up the beach. We hoped to have a nice picnic lunch, catch some sun and walk on the deserted beach.

It took us a little over an hour to drive the 27 miles up to the ship channel, passing a handful of cars the last half of the journey. A couple of miles back down the beach, Betinha said, “Can you please stop the car.”

And that is where our stories diverge.

Betinha’s version
“Stop the car. I want to walk down the beach to look for shells. You can pick me up in awhile.”

So off I went, walking fast at first but gradually slowing down, wondering where Jack was. I turned around a couple of times in order to walk back but the strong winds (20+ mph) right in the face hurt my ears, so I just kept on walking down the beach. There was no way he could drive past me as there was only one beach and only a small track of packed sand that he could drive on.

And, I kept walking….walking…walking. No Jack! Did he have car trouble? Is he lost in his book? Where is he?

Wish I’d brought my phone or a watch. I wonder how long I’ve walked?

Carrying all of these great shells and the neat message in a bottle, is getting a bit awkward. Hope that he shows up soon. Wish I’d brought some water and my phone. Where can he possibly be?

Jack’s version
“Stop the car. I want to walk into the dunes back there.”

So I pulled over and got out a great book I was reading and didn’t look up from it for over an hour. Hmmm, I wonder why she didn’t come back from the dunes. Oh well, she must be exploring. Back to the book!

Two hours! Maybe I should go out to look for her. Checking her footsteps in the sand (isn’t there a song by that name?), I headed toward the dunes, calling our her name. Remembering her previous warnings about rattlesnakes (BIG rattlesnakes) in the dunes, I walked v-e-r-y carefully, keenly watching for anything that moved, as I climbed up onto the highest dune I could find. Damn, this is a big island! “Betinha!!!”

Nada! Only a howling wind and blowing sand!

Fortunately, the phone worked. “Hello, 911! My wife is lost in the dunes….Ok; I’ll wait here for the park ranger.”

More trips back and forth between the dunes and car with a phone that worked about half of the time because of our remoteness, wondering how we were going to mount a search for her before nightfall, what was I going to tell our boys, thinking about how cold it was out there with that wind blowing, etc. I wasn’t moving the car because I wanted for the trackers to see her footprints in the sand. Hopefully, not her last!

Betinha
Finally, a park ranger pulled up and asked, “Are you Mrs. Schultz? Can you get in the pick-up truck with me? You know, we’ve lost kids before, but you are the first adult who’s gone missing!”

Jack
Finally, a voice mail that they had found her on the beach! Wonder how she found her way out of the dunes?

So I started driving down the beach to meet the park ranger and her. And drove…and drove…and drove.

Reunion
Four hours after that “Stop the car,” we were reunited. We won’t go into the conversation back down the beach, leaving that to your imagination. Let’s just say that it seemed to be a lot longer drive back down the beach than up to Port Mansfield. The picnic lunch went uneaten.

Later, we tried to figure out if she had walked 12 or 15 miles in those 4 hours. The next morning, Jack had to duck when he asked, “You ready to go for our regular walk on the beach this morning?”

EagleBay Auction Results

The online auction that I wrote about November 19th ended up raising $8,257 which will be used for Make-A-Wish and the local United Way. Great results from a tremendous local company (Paterson) helping some great charities.

Merry Christmas

I hope that all of my readers have a wonderful Christmas and great New Year.

I'm going to take some time off from blogging and be back next year.

Duck Stamps

One of my favorite movies is “Fargo”, the 1996 film about a car salesman who hires two men to kidnap his wife for an $80,000 ransom. The star of the show is the pregnant small-town police chief Marge Gunderson, played by Frances McDormand, a role that won her an Academy Award.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Marge is lying in bed with her husband, Norm. Norm is a wildlife painter, who lacks a bit of confidence. Here is the dialog from that scene:

Norm Gunderson: They announced it.

Marge Gunderson: They announced it?

Norm Gunderson: Yeah.

Marge Gunderson: So?

Norm Gunderson: Three-cent stamp.

Marge Gunderson: Your mallard?

Norm Gunderson: Yeah.

Marge Gunderson: Oh, that's terrific.

Norm Gunderson: It's just a three-cent stamp.

Marge Gunderson: It's terrific.

Norm Gunderson: Hautman's blue-winged teal got the 29-cent. People don't much use the three-cent.

Marge Gunderson: Oh, for Pete's sake. Of course they do. Whenever they raise the postage, people need the little stamps.

Never in a million years, would I have believed that there actually is a Hautman painter, something that Norm mentioned several times in the film with his awe-shucks, “Oh the Hautmans will probably win.”

Turns out there really are the Hautman brothers. Bob, Jim and Joe have won the Federal Duck Stamp Contest, the most prestigious event in wildlife art, eight times since 1990. Brother Joe won the competition in 2007 and Jim placed second this year.

I’m learning all sorts of things out on the road. I’m just not certain that some of them are going to ever do me any good.

Small Town...Big High Tech Cluster

Warsaw, IN (population 12,415) has always amazed me. This town in NE IN is 45 miles west of Ft. Wayne. It is a stand-alone town that is the county seat of Kosciusko County, a county that has 42% of its jobs in manufacturing (35th highest percentage in the USA), paying an average of $55,974. And, what has brought on this prosperity?

Warsaw bills itself as the “Orthopedic Capital of the World” and with three of the top five international orthopedic firms headquartered here, it’s easy to understand why no one disputes its claim. These three (Zimmer, DePuy and Biomet) collectively produce over $10 billion in sales, hold 65% of the worldwide knee replacement market and 60% of the worldwide hip replacement market, and employ over 7,000 people in Kosciusko County.

This unique cluster started when Revra DePuy married the local sheriff’s daughter, taking her back to MI. When she grew homesick for Warsaw, he moved his young family to the town. There he invented the fiber splint to set a fracture, quickly replacing the wooden barrel staves that had been used up to then.

Later, the national sales manager for DePuy’s company suggested to Revra’s widow that the company add aluminum splints to the product line. When she refused, J. O. Zimmer left the company and started Zimmer Holdings, now the largest employer in the county with 2,800 employees.

Later a Zimmer employee, Dane Miller, left that company to set up Biomet along with local investors.

Recently, when Zimmer announced plans to invest another $19 million to expand its foundry operations, adding another 100 local jobs, Richard Stair, VP of Global Operations and Logistics told Inside Indiana Business, “Warsaw really is a jewel in the state of Indiana. It’s impressive that in the city of Warsaw several of the largest orthopedic companies in the world are selling devices globally to help people live a better quality of life.”

It started in Warsaw. It continues to grow in Warsaw. Do you have any potential clusters that you could exploit to create a cluster like Warsaw has done?

Tom Sawyer of Cattle Drives

For six generations the Kerns Family has been driving their cattle each spring up into the Big Horn Mountains in north central WY. About 15 years ago making a living raising cattle became much more difficult. So they decided to begin offering to let “wannabes cowboys” tag along on the ride.

This year’s ride back down occurred from September 6th to 13th, a 4000+ foot descent down to their Double Rafter Ranch in Ranchester, WY. The cowboys spend at least eight hours/day in the saddle, sleep on the ground and get roused out at 4 am for biscuits and gravy. And, for that privilege they each spend $2,000.

The Kerns refer to their drives each year as, “City Slickers (the movie) is just a pony ride!” You can see a video of one of their drives here.

That Famous Brain Bank

Many towns that I visit bemoan the fact that, “there aren’t any jobs here. Everyone moves away as soon as they can. We are down on our luck.”

If you are one of those towns, pay attention to my blog of yesterday and this one today. Bill Cook was born and raised in Canton, IL, and went onto great fame and fortune, starting his own medical equipment company. But, he did all of that in Bloomington, IN, where he went to college.

Mark Rothert, head of the Spoon River Partnership for Economic Development in Canton, wrote to Cook a year ago. Here is what the letter said:

Dear Mr. Cook:

My name is Mark Rothert and although we have never met we share a common bond of growing up in Canton, Illinois. I read an article about you in the Dec./Jan. 2007 issue of "Bloom Magazine" and thought I would write.

Canton has probably changed since you grew up here, but it was a great community then and still is today with much potential. However, Canton does face some major challenges. They include the former International Harvester Brownfield site, deteriorating housing, fewer employment opportunities, and a declining downtown.

I am the director of the Spoon River Partnership for Economic Development, a local 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit economic development organization for the Canton area, tasked with bringing new development, jobs, investment and business to the area, including revitalizing the downtown and the former IH site. I understand you played an integral role in the revitalization of Bloomington's downtown. I would be interested to come to Bloomington and meet with you to learn more about your past projects, talk about what we hope to achieve in Canton, and gauge your interest to help.

Basketball and music aside, I know you also deeply care about community, preservation, and producing results out of ideas. Your philanthropy in the Bloomington area to provide for the community, preserve historical sites and create results is truly admirable. It reminds me of what the Orendorffs and Ingersolls did in Canton so many years ago. Canton was once a booming town but has taken many hits over the past 30 years as I am sure you are aware. However with the support of successful Canton natives, we can become as proud of our city's future as we are of its past.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my request.

Cordially yours,Mark A. RothertExecutive DirectorSpoon River Partnership for Economic Development

Two weeks later, Mark Rothert received the following letter back:

Dear Mark:

Thank you for your letter. As you know, Canton has always been a special place for me.You are more than welcome to visit Bloomington and discuss the problems I see in Canton. We can tour Bloomington and have a look at what has happened in the last 25 years to this city. Mrs. Aimee Hawkins-Mungle has my itinerary and she can set up a day we can be together.

Best regards,

William A. CookChief Executive OfficerCook Group Incorporated

From that letter and subsequent visits Cook has begun a major reinvestment into his hometown. Do you have any Bill Cooks that used to live in your hometown?

Write to them today!

I Gotta Meet this Guy!

I’ve written several times this year about Bill & Gayle Cook’s efforts to resurrect and restore two early 1900s resorts to their past glory in French Lick, IN. You can see those blogs in our archives (May 3, May 29 and October 16, 2008).

Now, he’s back home in Canton, IL, where he was born and raised (graduated Canton Senior High School, 1949), doing something similar. But, first let me tell you a bit about the Cooks.

They started their business, Cook Group, in 1963, in a spare bedroom of their apartment in Bloomington, IN. The company quickly became a leader in medical technologies and is still headquartered there. The Cook’s have done very well, landing on numerous lists of the wealthiest Americans.

Here is what Forbes said about Bill Cook in October in their Forbes 400 List:

Used blowtorch, soldering iron and plastic tubing to develop cardiovascular catheter. Now the world’s largest privately held medical device manufacturer. Products include stents, embolization coils, needles, vena cava filters. Sales now $1.5 billion. At work by 5 a.m.; eats in company cafeteria.

In June, Cook returned to Canton to purchase two historic downtown buildings that date from the 1880s. Already they have taken off the exterior façade, stabilized the buildings, and are beginning the meticulous restoration of buildings that Cook shopped in as a youth. When completed, the buildings will consist of retail space on the first floor and well-appointed apartments on the second.

And, then last week he was back again to announce plans to rehab an old International Harvester industrial site that has been unoccupied since the early 80s into a new manufacturing plant that will hire 100 jobs and help to bring added vitality to the adjacent downtown. The plant will produce high tech “vascular introducers” or tubes that go into blood vessels so that stents can be inserted.

Cook compared what he is doing to planting a seed, “Once it blossoms, we anticipate the roots will spread throughout the community and nourish further growth.”

And, he returned home with these projects, because, as he added, “My personality came from here.”

We need more Bill Cooks in this world!

Tomorrow: How Canton enticed Bill Cook back home.

Tool Crib of the North

“It was the most incredible operation that I’ve seen in my 30 plus years in the business,” was how Bill Brennan explained to Jeff Smith and me at a recent holiday bank party in Chesterfield, MO.

He was telling us about Acme Electric in Grand Forks, ND, a company that he had just visited that is part of his own tool buying cooperative that supplies his Brennan Tools. His enthusiasm was so great that I decided to research. Here is what I found.

George Kuhlman, who passed away in 1995, started the company in 1948 out of a garage in downtown Grand Forks. His son, Don, who runs the company, said of his dad, “He ran the business out of his wallet. At the end of the month, he’d empty the wallet and see who’d paid and who still owed him money. He had a very good sense of right and wrong that he passed on to me.”

From very humble beginnings (that is their second location on the right), the company has grown to nine retail stores in ND, MN and IA and a 177,000 sf distribution center. Two hundred families make their living at the company’s operations.

In 1999, Amazon came calling, looking to expand into internet tool sales. Acme sold them their Tool Crib of the North catalog division which Amazon renamed Amazon Home Improvement. It is still headquartered in Grand Forks.

In my travels, I’ve found some great examples of very innovative North Dakotans. I’m glad that Bill Brennan filled me in on another one.

Catch 'em Quick....Save 'em!

In 1969, a juvenile judge in Fort Lauderdale looked at a kid standing in front of him in court and knew that a sentence in standard juvenile justice would be the end of any bright future the young man might have. On a hunch, he called a friend who was the director of a marine research agency asking for a favor. He asked the friend to take this young man, put him on a boat, work with him as a marine biologist, give him responsibility and keep him away from his neighborhood. A month later, the friend called back asking for eight more kids.

From that first delinquent, Associated Marine Institutes (AMI) has grown into 57 programs in eight states. The programs have expanded beyond just marine to include environmental programs, farming, dog training for the handicapped, horse training and even programs for girls with babies.

To date, over 80,000 students have gone through the AMI Program, with 70% of them never having any more problems with the law.

Do you have an AMI type program in your town?

Will our Kids be Ready?

“Within the next six years, 89 percent of jobs in Illinois’ fastest-growing sectors will require some education or training beyond high school. Yet, we have 41,000 dropouts per year from our high schools. One out of every four students who start freshman year drop out; two of the four will graduate but not go on for much higher education; and only one of those four will get out of high school with the skills to really excel,” stated Robin Steans, Executive Director of Advance Illinois, who was in Effingham to explore ideas of what could be done in rural Illinois to help turn these alarming statistics around.

Advance Illinois is a non-partisan, non-profit that is focused upon improving the educational and resulting work experience of all Illinoisans. It is chaired by former Governor Jim Edgar, the best governor we’ve had in our state in my lifetime, and Bill Daley, former Secretary of Commerce and brother of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Joe Fatheree, last year’s IL Teacher of the Year and Effingham educator who I’ve written about in the past, is one of the fourteen directors of the organization.

The consensus of our group discussion was that most of the current problems begin at the lower grade levels when parental problems often lead to long term problems.

Mike McCollum, principal of Effingham High School said it best, “They might drop out when they are 17, but they give up in the third grade.”

Debbie Owens, Assistant Superintendent added, “We’ve seen a dramatic change at home. Today less than 25% of the students live in a two-parent home with their biological parents.”

As I’ve studied the educational system over the years, I’ve become more convinced that we’ve got to reach the very youngest students, making certain that we don’t have ANY that fall through the cracks. And, with falling enrollments and the resulting squeezing of budgets, we’ve got to do more with fewer resources. I’m convinced that using more volunteers and concentrating recourses in critical education-only programs is needed.

One such program started several years ago at two of our local schools, is a mentoring program that places a volunteer with at-risk students one-on-one each week. The program has grown to over 130 mentors-mentees. I participated until my travel schedule didn’t allow me to be certain that I would be with my mentee each week, something that is critical to the success in the program. During my short tenure, I had one student whose parent committed suicide during the school year and another whose mother was in jail for prostitution and drug dealing. Talk about at-risk!

The program costs the school district about $30,000 with over $150,000 donated in time, material and cash from the community. Yet, the school district is looking at cancelling the program in 2009/2010 because of funding problems. It seems like a very short sighted savings but a very long term cost.

Rainiest Town in LOwer 48....Twilight Mania!

Who would have thought that being known as the rainiest town in the lower 48 states, would lead to fame and fortune?

Forks, WA (population 3,120) has that distinction, although I didn’t know it at the time that I visited it in July 2005 on our way up the western slopes of the Olympic Peninsula on Route 101. I just knew that it seemed to rain all of the time on our visit. I only learned in researching this blog that they get over 120 inches per year.

The town was built upon logging and they still call themselves the Logging Capital of World. But, logging is for the most part, long gone. Like many other rural towns in the mountains of the west, Fork’s logging was killed off in the early 90s when the spotted owl became more important to some people than rural jobs. But, I digress!

In 2005, Stephenie Meyer decided to write a series of books about a young girl, Bella Swan, who moves to a small town and falls in love with a pretty boy, Edward Cullen, who turns out to be a vampire. Meyer chose Forks after doing an internet search of the rainiest spot in the USA.

The Twilight Saga, a series of four books and a new movie released last month, have grown into a mini-Harry Potter cult. The local Chamber has cultivated “Twilighters” who are beginning to flock to the town to see. They’ve put together maps, tours and even redone a 1953 Chevy pickup truck that Bella drove in the book. They’ve started an annual look-alike festival to commemorate Bella’s birthday on September 13th, the first one this year drew over 1,000 people.

Those efforts have resulted in more than 7,000 Twilighters visiting the town in 2008 with many more expected with the release of the first movie in the series.

I’m not sure what part of “fiction” these Twilighters don’t understand, but Forks is leveraging a very unique resource. I hope that they can leverage it for a long time.

Tween Craze Entrepreneur

Maddie Bradshaw, who is now 12, first got the idea for Snap Caps when she was 10. She started making necklaces out of bottlecaps that she decorated around the kitchen island in her home with her mom and six year old sister, Margot.

When her innovation started to become a craze, they set up M3 Girl Designs LLC. The M3 is for Maddie, Margot and Mom. The new company quickly outgrew their home and today has 15 employees, four sales reps and sells 30,000 bottlecaps per month in over 500 stores nationwide.

Maddie is now writing a book about her experience, “Beyond the Lemonade Stand,” which will focus on how to start a business from a kids’ perspective.

I keep preaching about these incredible Millennials who are going to be the most entrepreneurial generation in the history of the USA. Any Maddie’s in your town?

City Winery

I’m always looking for new ideas that might work in small towns, and today’s blog takes us to a big city, the very BIG city of New York City, where I found an interesting new business called City Winery.

The idea for City Winery is that it is a place that you can go to get assistance in making your own wine. The restaurant/winery ships in grapes from all over the country and then assists you in producing your own special vintage.

The operation started in September when a refrigerated truck delivered 10 tons of wine grapes from Napa Valley. About 200 New Yorkers are now making their own wine from those grapes, each producing their own barrel of wine (about 250 bottles) at a cost of around $7,000. While a bit pricey for most, it is an idea that could possibly work in certain agurbs®.

But, even if you have no interest in doing anything, get onto their website and sign up for their updates. The City Winery does an excellent job of promoting their offerings with frequent emails, something that every business in our towns should be doing.

Mr. Agracel 2008

Each year at Agracel we try to raise money in different ways to help support the very needy charities of our local United Way. This year Lynn Higgs, our own fundraising dynamo, decided to hold a competition with myself, Agracel’s president Dean Bingham and CFO Mike Mumm competing for the very prestigious title of being known as Mr. Agracel for the rest of this year.

Votes were collected in donations for the favorite candidate throughout the month of November with a total of over $3,000 raised in the effort.

I am very pleased to report that Dean Bingham is the new Mr. Agracel. He was honored on Thursday with an outfit chosen by Lynn and her “dress the guy” committee. Dean is shown in the photo receiving congratulations from Linda Hemmen, head of United Way, and Tina Schwinke, the campaign chair for 2008.

A complimentary lunch was given by Chuck Keller at his elegant Hilton Garden Inn to Dean and our team, along with a complimentary manicure, pedicure and hair cut given by Desiree Wasser of The Beauty Shop and also a pair of the famous Sarah Palin glasses donated by Eric Zeller of Visionary Eyewear.

I can’t wait to see Dean’s manicure on Monday!

Your Own Dollars

In today’s economy, I’ve heard of more people putting their money under the mattress. Well, if they are going to do that, why not have it be your community’s currency?

Several towns have developed their own currency, something that was common in the Wild West of yesteryear and made a comeback during the Great Depression, as a way to encourage local purchases. It is perfectly legal to do, as long as you don’t make it look like the real thing and you do the project as a not for profit organization.

Communities can print up their own currency, with serial numbers, anti-counterfeiting details and even pictures of local landmarks or famous (or not so famous) local citizens. The local residents benefit through an advantageous exchange system, say for example a hundred traditional dollars that can be converted into 150 or 200 local dollars.

Ithaca, NY has been doing it since 1991. That’s their currency on the right. Berkshire County, MA started theirs in 2006 and has had about $2 million exchanged for BerkShares.

Looking for something new to do in your community? You might want to research this idea.