By the numbers

By By Buddy Bynum / editor
July 21, 2002
One of our avid readers, Herb Stott, shared a personal story and some interesting statistics after reading my column last week on "I-69 and East Mississippi." I-69 is the new multi-billion-dollar interstate highway whose route through a portion of the Mississippi Delta has been heralded for the economic development benefits it's supposed to bring to the whole state.
The column went into the belief that interstates are magnets for economic development, both retail and commercial manufacturing, because they offer speedy access for shopping and distribution. Plus, I probably should have added, they are supposed to make the simple act of getting from one place to another more efficient.
Stott recalls that in early 1951, he drove through East Mississippi from North Carolina on his way to an Air Force assignment in Texas. Part of his route was on what he, and may others, remember as a very narrow, two-lane Highway 80. He particularly remembers driving from Demopolis, Ala., to Cuba, Ala., to Meridian and then to Lost Gap, Chunky, Hickory to Newton and on to Texas.
In late 1975, he said, he moved to Meridian to work at a manufacturing factory that had just located here, where it was positioned to take advantage of cost opportunities in inbound and outbound freight distribution.
That was almost 27 years ago and Stott has combed through U.S. Census records to find what's happened to the population in east Mississippi since then, and compared the figures with Lee County, which has never had immediate access to an interstate.
Among his findings are these:
From 1950 to 1970, Lee County's population grew by 26 percent. Lauderdale grew by 5 percent and Clarke, Jasper, Kemper, Newton and Neshoba all lost residents.
From 1970 to 2001, Lee County's population grew by 66 percent, Neshoba County's grew by 37 percent and the other East Mississippi counties grew by lesser percentages Lauderdale by 15 percent.
All told, over the last half century, from 1950 to 2001, Lee County's population swelled by 101 percent, Lauderdale grew by 21 percent, and Neshoba County by 11 percent. The populations of Clarke, Jasper, Kemper and Newton are all down from 1950.
In other words, collectively, the population in these selected East Mississippi counties grew by 5 percent while Lee County with no interstate highway grew by 101 percent.
Obviously, some other forces have been aggressively at work in Lee County for a long time. I agree with those who say the driving force around progress in any community always involves good, solid, visionary and, what Stott calls, contributive leadership.
In that connection, the third class in a series of sessions on the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" wrapped up last week and, thanks to the Meridian-based Riley Foundation and Montgomery Institute, more than 100 local people have been through the course. The Franklin Covey program is comprehensive and I could never do it justice in a few words. Suffice it to say that in my own participation in the second class I discovered a great tool for learning how to achieve personal growth and balance. Others have found it a wonderful resource for emerging leaders as they, too, begin to uncover the mystery of how to make good things happen in your community by thinking different and approaching problems differently.
As I understand it, over the years several thousand Tupelo area residents have been through the program. Enough said.
A former superintendent of Jackson public schools once told Jackson Rotarians that "if you keep on doing what you're doing, you'll keep on getting what you've got." The same sentiment can be expressed in various ways, but maybe the lesson is that change can be a good thing.