Purpose drives progress

Infrastructure is not our greatest asset. Natural resources are not our greatest asset. People are.

Small groups, large groups, it doesn’t matter. What matters is commitment, shared vision, and an insistent drive toward a goal.

Look at today’s Front Page. Three stories. Three very different missions. Three very different scales.

A small group of citizens. A Rotary Club. And a potential multimillion-dollar economic development project in Valdese.

Each demonstrates what can happen when people organize around a purpose and don’t worry about who gets credit.

Rotary Club of Valdese has about 52 active members. It continuously supports and leads a broad variety of civic and community projects. The quality of life in Valdese would suffer if the club lost focus or disbanded.

That success is particularly notable at a time when Rotary membership nationally has declined 30% over the past two decades. Valdese has moved in the opposite direction, increasing membership 30% since 2022.

“We make people want to become involved, want to do what is right for their community,” said Valdese Rotarian Lu Griffin.

It is one of three Burke County Rotary Clubs. The other two are Sunrise Rotary and the Morganton club. They are three of the 45,000 clubs in 200 countries.

Another Front Page story is about a smaller Burke County group, led by Lake James resident George Milner, with an equally focused purpose: helping Ukraine survive.

Milner’s team has delivered humanitarian, medical, and battlefield support by repeatedly asking one simple question: “What else do you need?”

What is the common thread? People willing to show up repeatedly for a shared purpose.

Project Arlington is a potential new industry in a former textile mill in Valdese. Burke is in competition with southern Virginia for the $7 million net investment that could generate 64 jobs.

Congratulations to the Burke County Commissioners, County Manager Brian Epley, and BDI CEO Brandon Ruppe and their teams.

Burke may win Project Arlington. It may lose it. Burke County Commissioners, County Manager Brian Epley, BDI CEO Brandon Ruppe, and their teams deserve credit for putting Burke in contention, and for telling taxpayers what they are pursuing.

Economic development shouldn’t require residents to discover only afterward what their government was pursuing.

We hope that Project Arlington is the start of a reversal of what Epley called economic development “stagnation.”

“A lot of investments have been made to try to get Burke County in a position where we could see job growth and tax base growth,” Epley told county commissioners recently.

The evidence of aggressive economic development is all around us. Prysmian recently announced a $1 billion project in Claremont, Microsoft plans a $1 billion data center in eastern Catawba County, and Google has announced another $1 billion investment in Lenoir.

Project Arlington’s proposed $7 million investment is modest beside those billion-dollar announcements. That isn’t the point.

Burke doesn’t need to win every project, and every project doesn’t need 10 digits attached to it. It needs people consistently putting Burke in contention.

Economic development can involve millions or billions of dollars, but those investments don’t arrive because somebody owns a particularly attractive piece of dirt. They come from teams pursuing clear goals with focus, persistence, and purpose.

Whether it is a small group assisting a European country 5,000 miles away, or a Rotary club in Valdese working throughout the year to improve the quality of life there, or dedicated teams of leaders bringing industry small and large to our counties, all are direct examples of relentless pursuit of goals.

Civic engagement doesn’t always require a lifetime. Communities don’t improve themselves. People improve them.

Sometimes it is 20 minutes to vote. An hour at a public meeting. A Saturday spent volunteering. A willingness to serve on a board.

The scale matters less than the decision to participate.