Barbour, Riley headline conference

By Staff
from staff reports
Feb. 6, 2004
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley are expected to headline a day-long conference today designed to highlight issues affecting East Mississippi and West Alabama.
The 2nd Annual Leadership Summit is set to begin at 8:40 a.m. on the campus of the University of West Alabama in Livingston. The first summit took place a last year in Meridian.
Barbour and Riley are scheduled to speak in the morning. Also set to attend are U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, Mississippi's 3rd District congressman, and U.S. Rep. Arthur Davis, Alabama's 7th District congressman.
The Commission on the Future of East Mississippi and West Alabama is staging the conference. The Montgomery Institute and the Regional Center for Community and Economic Development at UWA are coordinating the event.
Besides bringing attention to the region, other goals include turning that interest into specific results and informing people about opportunities available in the area that could lead to future development.
The event also will include the release of data showing the East Mississippi-West Alabama region's performance toward achieving the Cycle of Prosperity Benchmarks for Accountability and Decision-Making.
Those benchmarks were unveiled at last year's summit.
The 41-member Commission on the Future includes the heads of eight area institutions of higher learning and a representative from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
Also on the commission are two representatives each from Clarke, Jasper, Kemper, Lauderdale, Leake, Neshoba, Newton, Noxubee, Scott and Winston counties in Mississippi and Choctaw, Greene, Hale, Marengo, Perry and Sumter counties in Alabama.
The commission's purpose is to assess conditions across the region, identify key issues of importance, recommend regional strategies to address the issues and communicate its findings.