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Tourism, Ford sites focus of Richmond Hill Chamber Lunch and Learn
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Mark Campbell, treasurer of the Henry Ford Heritage Association in Michigan, speaks during the Richmond Hill/Bryan County Chamber of Commerce Lunch and Learn on Wednesday at the City Center. - photo by Photo by Brent Zell

Tourism — and its effect on area businesses — was the main topic of Wednesday’s Richmond Hill/Bryan County Chamber of Commerce Lunch and Learn at the City Center.

Most of the focus of the event was on the Henry Ford attractions around the city and how Richmond Hill can benefit from them — especially this year, which is the 150th birthday of Ford’s wife, Clara.

Christy Sherman, the Richmond Hill Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director and Richmond Hill Historical Society president, opened the event with an overview of the city’s attractions, including the Henry Ford Museum, Ford’s barbershop and the Martha-Mary Chapel on Ford Avenue. She also discussed the Historical Society’s new partnership with the Henry Ford Heritage Association, which includes other Ford-centric historic groups around the country.

Cheryl Hargrave of the Georgia Department of Economic Development then discussed the economic importance of tourism in the state. Tourism had a $57.1 billion total impact in Georgia last year, which was up 6.7 percent from 2014. That resulted in $2.8 billion in state and local tax revenue, 425,000 jobs and state and local tax savings of $767 per household.

Domestic travel expenditures in Bryan County increased each year from 2009 to 2014, to a high of $41.8 million in 2014. When visitors come to the coastal region, 24 percent of them go to historic sites. Hargrave cited the coast visitors’ love of heritage sites as “good news” for Richmond Hill.

Mark Campbell, the secretary-treasurer of the Henry Ford Heritage Association in Michigan and a great-great-nephew of Clara Ford, gave a presentation on the history and importance of Henry Ford to the world, from his automobile production to his labor practices.

He then talked about the Heritage Association’s initiative beginning in 2012 to begin partnering with other Ford historical associations. The association has several partners in Michigan and others in Indiana and Florida. When Campbell announced that the Richmond Hill Historical Society was the Heritage Association’s newest partner, the audience applauded. The Heritage Association’s goal, he said, is to promote the Henry Ford story and each partner in the group.

Prior to coming to Richmond Hill in May, Campbell said, he didn’t know much about the city. But after talking to key members of the community, he said, “I am very excited about the possibilities of our new partnership for telling the Ford story to the rest of the world.”

Campbell pointed out that the Fords’ winter estate in Fort Myers, Florida — which Campbell said they visited fewer than a dozen times in their lives — draws about 250,000 visitors a year as part of the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. They embraced the Ford story and made it a major part of the tour there, Campbell said. On the other hand, Richmond Hill has hundreds of personal stories about Henry and Clara Ford that are not widely known.

“The possibilities are endless, and I hope you are willing to help us tell these stories to the rest of the world,” he said.

Campbell said two good ways to help in that regard are to financially support the Historical Society by becoming a member or volunteer with the group.

The event’s final speaker was Historic Savannah Foundation President and CEO Daniel Carey, who said preservation of historic sites is key and to jealously guard unique aspects of a community. Today, the city draws about 13 million visitors a year and takes in $2.5 billion in tourism revenue, but in 1965, he said, Savannah had a moribund downtown. However, the foundation created a revolving fund to buy properties and has saved more than 350 properties throughout the city, he said.

Carey also said that through Savannah’s friendship with Charleston, there was an understanding that travelers were interested in getting off Highway 17 and Interstate 95 and visiting the towns.

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Later yall, its been fun
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This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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