Hereford on right economic path

I come from Colorado. Like Texas, it’s been a boom and bust state.
Right now Colorado is feeling a bust based mostly on the real estate crisis there. Texas, however, seems to be thriving, and Hereford in particular.
On the front page of Tuesday’s paper, we had the groundbreaking for the new clinic for Hereford Regional Medical Center. Below it was a picture of the new runway being built at Hereford Municipal Airport.
Across the highway from the airport is the Panda ethanol plant, which is due to go into service in October. The White Energy ethanol plant went into service earlier this year.
My own struggles with trying to find a house here tells me the real estate market is strong. I was walking down Main Street not too long ago and noticed that most of the buildings are occupied.
Downtown Longmont, Colo., where I’m from, has mostly vacant buildings. The city council there recently declared the Twin Peaks Mall a blighted area so that it could try and get government grants to help the owner remodel it. Many shops in the mall are vacant, though the mall itself is very nice.
I point these things out so that people here can better understand just how good they’ve got it. I’ve met some people recently who have indicated they would like to get out of Hereford. I can understand that, especially for younger people who want more out of life than they think they can find here. That’s normal in any small town.
It’s interesting, but everywhere I have lived outside of Colorado – Minnesota, North Carolina and, most recently Amarillo – people have asked me why I would leave Colorado to live here. I don’t get that in Hereford. Most people are proud to call this town their home and usually ask me how I like it.
I like it very much, thank you.
I want to live here and raise my family here. Hereford is good people. I like the values and work ethic of the people here. Sure, it’s not paradise, but it’s a good place to be.

Changes at the Brand
One of the things I want to bring to Hereford is some stability and dependability at the Hereford Brand. For too long the people of this community have suffered with a newspaper that was, to be blunt, less than adequate. We’ve got a long way to go to get where we need to be, but I feel we’re on the right path.
We have a new publisher who will be starting by July 7. His name is Grover Ford and he comes to us from Oklahoma. He’s a good man with a good mind for the newspaper business. Having a solid leader at the helm will help.
On the editorial side, we were without the services of Sports Editor Skip Leon for a couple weeks, but he’s back now. Unfortunately we are now without the services of reporter Patricia Gardner for several weeks while she takes a leave of absence to deal with a family situation.
While being shorthanded again will be a struggle, we will strive to improve the paper. We are working on a redesign of the newspaper that I hope will be more than cosmetic. I hope to make needed improvements in the content and the presentation of that content. Any suggestions you, the reader, might have for things you want to see in the paper (or no longer see), please let us know.
One thing I want for sure is more reader involvement. I want to encourage readers to send us pictures and items they feel are newsworthy. We’ll do our best to get them into the paper.
I also want to get our Web site running again soon. It’s been down for way too long. Until that happens, I am putting my column on my personal blog. You can find it and columns I wrote when I was in Colorado at www.joesouthern.blogspot.com.