Condolences and gratitude

Let’s first note the recent passing of Birnie Pryor, a kind and successful Fort Smith businessman who was a lifelong supporter of downtown Fort Smith. He was 73.

Birnie was way ahead of most of us in pushing for a cool, vibrant and happening downtown Fort Smith. As a long-time member of the Central Business Improvement District and a downtown property owner, he knew of the economic development potential of reawakening the soul of the Fort Smith region long before we all got caught up in quality-of-place buzzwords.

Mr. Birnie Pryor wasn’t the vocal, aggressive type, however. He was more the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race kind of guy. He was about as affable as they come. He probably had a few bad days like we all do, but I never saw one of them.

The staff of The City Wire send condolences to Birnie’s family. As are many others in the area, we are grateful for the impact he had and will continue to have on this fair city.

•••

Speaking of being thankful …

Maybe it’s just an end-of-the-year thing, but we’ve witnessed numerous recent acts of charitable giving and philanthropic support. And then there is this amazing thing with wreaths.

The Fort Smith region has had a spell of good and refreshing news in the midst of getting kicked repeatedly in the economic crotch during this depressing national recession. Sure, the economists tell us 2010 may suck just as much as 2009. Our regional jobless problems, big dips in area retail sales and potential state and local government budget cuts loom large. And some of us have little to no confidence that our civic leaders will pull together a quality-of-place proposal that passes a financial and/or common sense test. But if this cynical old hack of a journalist is willing to take notice of the points of light in the darkness, then maybe we can all stop for a second and consider the following as reasons to keep our chins up.

• First, there was the news that Mitsubishi Power Systems will build a wind turbine generating manufacturing plant at Fort Chaffee that will employ up to 400. OK, so the thing won’t be finished until 2012 and the wind industry sector is in a bit of trouble right now, but we’re in the pipeline. Good for us!

• And then the Milken Foundation folks recently put out a list of best-performing cities on which Fort Smith improved from 69th in 2008 to 62nd in 2009. And this list is not the typical BS list you get from Forbes or Newsweek or some lame economic development trade magazine. This list is closely watched by folks who make big-time decisions on where to place jobs and capital.

But we’re just getting started.

• Up and out of the blue the folks at Fort Smith-based First Bank Corp. donated $500,000 to the U.S. Marshals Museum to support its $50 million fundraising goal needed to build the museum in downtown Fort Smith on the Arkansas River. With the bank’s donation, museum officials announced they were over the $5 million mark. First Bank Corp. is the holding company for First National Bank of Fort Smith, Citizens Bank and Trust of Van Buren, National Bank of Sallisaw, First National Bank of Rogers and Brown-Hiller-Clark & Associates. Each affiliated company donated to the overall gift.

• What’s more, the Marshals Museum folks hooked former President Bill Clinton into being the ceremonial host for a fancy goings-on Dec. 18 at the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock. Folks who get invited to this event are the type of folks who donate six-figures or more on Friday and don’t miss it on Monday. Yours truly had some initial doubts about this $50 million goal, but count me as one of the folks who won’t be surprised to see enough money raised to begin museum construction in 2012.

• The Celebrity Classic pops up on Nov. 16 to announce it will hand out $190,000 to the Alzheimer’s Association; Bost, Inc; Helping Hands for Children; the Gregory Kistler Center for Children; the Donald W. Reynolds Cancer Support House; Making a Difference One Kid at a Time; Make A Wish, and the Good Samaritan Clinic. Possibly more impressive is that the Celebrity Classic has handed out $2.2 million to charities since its first event in 1992.

• Also, The Fort Smith Classic — the only mens PGA Tour event in Arkansas — handed out $71,000 to the 2009 Beth Koprovic Charities. Those charities are the Children’s Emergency Shelter, Children’s Service League, Fort Smith Boys & Girls Club, Girls Inc., The First Tee of Fort Smith and WestArk RSVP.

Two prominent Classic events push more than $261,000 to area charities. Nice.

And sure, there are some of you who will suggest the charity events aren’t the most efficient way to funnel what is primarily money from the community back to community charities. Whatever. And maybe you are right. But I’ll let you be the one to tell the lady at the Cancer Support House who just survived a wretched round of chemo that her wig was purchased with inefficient charitable proceeds.

• Then there is this Philip Merry character who had this wild-ass idea to place a Christmas wreath on the roughly 12,000 headstones at the Fort Smith National Cemetery. The thing is, not even the folks at Arlington Cemetery place 12,000 wreaths. The thing is, this has the potential to generate a healthy amount of national publicity for Fort Smith. The thing is, Merry didn’t hit upon the idea for any reason other than to show the world that Fort Smith is serious about showing respect to Veterans. So, he convinced Fort Smith Chamber President Paul Harvel to support the idea. Members of the Education and Quality of Place division of the Fort Smith chamber are busting their backsides to make this happen. They’ve gotta raise more than $60,000 to cover costs — costs, by the way, which were greatly reduced by the fine folks at Walmart.

This is going to be wildly popular, and many of us won’t get it until we see the pictures and video of row after row after row of wreath-adorned headstones, and see the hundreds — if not thousands — of folks come out to help place the wreaths and/or admire the display with respectful reverence for folks on both sides of the clay.

You read it here first: This wreath thing will grow into one of the leading regional events/traditions, and you’ll at some point see a U.S. President participate in what will become a nationally recognized Christmas event honoring Veterans.

• To round out the list, let’s remind ourselves it will soon be possible to buy a beer to wash down barbeque at a restaurant in Cedarville. Join what is a big club if you thought you’d never see BBQ, Cedarville and beer in the same sentence. But as early as this week, Ima Jerk BBQ may sell you a cold one with a hot rib platter. It would almost be unAmerican to not be thankful for something like that.

Whether its beer in Cedarville or millions of dollars for a museum, we’ve seen interesting and impressive accomplishments in recent weeks. Such reminds of something I’ve noted repeatedly and — please forgive my arrogance — will repeat here again: What’s wrong with the Fort Smith regional economy is no match for what’s right with the Fort Smith area. Within our people and within our many public and private entities, we have the potential for great things; we have the potential — through better leadership — to direct overwhelming people-power on whatever problems and obstacles we face. We are a great people, in a great place, and we are capable of great progress.