Jamesport gal examines small towns from MCBC judge’s point of view

The experience offered her some insights into what successful small towns are doing. She was able to bring that new perspective back to Jamesport, where she is a member of the community association.
Lu Ann took a four day tour of towns in the category she was judging.
“It opened up my eyes to see what’s really happening in small towns,” she said. “And what they’re doing to improve their quality of life.”
One of the biggest changes going on is in government funding to small communities.
“There isn’t hardly any,” said Lu Ann. “After 911 the government sort of threw all the funding under Homeland Security for emergency, fire and medical services. We’ve been left kind of out here without anything to eat. But they’ll take us to the hospital in their new ambulance.”
Because of this lack of public funding, Lu Ann discovered that most of the community betterment projects have to be done through private donations and fund-raising efforts.
“It definitely shows up in these small towns,” she said. “If they want to improve, they do it themselves.”
Lu Ann said she was surprised to discover that a lot of things that used to be provided by taxpayer money, no longer are.
A school in one town she toured had no library and couldn’t get any funding. (Lu Ann can’t divulge the names of the towns or the results of the judging). The city and county partnered and built a modern public library connected to the school building. “They call it ”packaging" to get grants and loans and make funding programs fit their needs," she said.
One town took the concept of “private funding” as far as it would go. The town, with a population of less than 600, owns its own nursing home, its own senior center, its own library, its own track and field, and its own municipal skating rink.
“They decided if the townspeople didn’t own it, nobody else would,” said Lu Ann.
This town held “formal” town meetings to get ideas. One of that town’s projects was to have a general store franchise come to their community.
“This town just didn’t plant flowers,” said Lu Ann. “They own their own Dollar General store and it’s really something. They built the building and leased it to Dollar General. They hire the people that run it. It’s the cleanest, nicest Dollar General store I’ve ever seen. You can get two carts down every aisle. There are no big boxes sitting in the aisles. The floor is clean and the store is neat and dusted.”
During the tour, Lu Ann found out that some small towns do little to win the Community Betterment award. Those towns sign up for the competition because it is a requirement of the Department of Transportation which has donated the town’s entrance sign.
“One old town we toured with a lot of German shops didn’t even try,” she said. “It’s a town with a lot of rich business owners. One man gave the town $750,000 to build a gym.”
The towns that were really into the competition, of course, did a better job. Those towns also kept track of their goals and strategies.
“The little towns that really shined didn’t start out the best, but they are now because of the competition,” Lu Ann said.
One small town stood out among the competitors in Lu Ann’s opinion. It was the town’s first year competing. This town practiced what turned out to be a common thread among the communities getting the most things accomplished — informal organization.
“The best community we visited was a town that had no money but still pulled itself up by the bootstraps,” she said. “It was the best example of informal organization that I saw. They would have an idea to do something and just go do it and others would follow their lead.”
A community group in that town decided to go door to door and ask people if they would like to have their house painted. They painted 18 houses in their town of a little over 600 population.
“Most of the time 20 people would show up to paint with them,” Lu Ann said. “People that couldn’t help paint brought them food and drinks. The youth and adults worked together. They said that it became a big block party every time they painted someone’s house.”
Strong towns, strong youth
Successful communities coincided with strong community betterment youth groups.
“It seemed that the mothers and fathers of the youth were high school graduates of the town,” Lu Ann said. “These parents didn’t just try to do things to entertain the youth. They asked for the youth to help them build up the community so they would stay in the community as they had done.”
She said the tour towns also had many people who came back to retire. Just about every community also had several new people, many moving to the Midwest for the small community lifestyle.
If a few good people will lead as the movers and shakers, others will follow, Lu Ann said.
“Most of the people in these little towns that do all this stuff aren’t elite or anything,” she said. “They really cared about the kids and the town.”
The “best” little town spoken of earlier once raised $13,000 overnight for an area girl with leukemia. The town had a barbecue, a band that donated its service, and a street dance. The town didn’t have a newspaper so people received a note about the event in their water bill.
“People came out and donated so well,” Lu Ann said. “They made it a big party and had fun.”
Jamesport, like most of the small towns she toured, doesn’t have any money, Lu Ann said. Jamesport’s retail sales tax revenue was once very beneficial for city services. It has declined 26% in the last three years.
“The customer base doesn’t have money to spend,” she said. “With the high gas prices, once the customers get here, they don’t buy anything. It’s the same everywhere.”
Lu Ann notes that the present economy is almost exactly the same economy small towns experienced during the farm crisis of the 1980’s.
“In 1985 Gary and Carol Ellis started the Jamesport Community Association in a similar economy,” she said. “Our hope is to sort of duplicate that effort to get things rolling again.”
Dreams are crucial
People’s minds and their imaginations are Jamesport’s biggest asset, she said.
“I believe we can creatively think our way out of this crisis,” said Lu Ann. “It’s been the one thing in common with the successful small towns we toured. We have to take everybody’s suggestions, choose the best, and go with them. We have to focus on what we can do with what we have.”
Tourists drawn to Jamesport’s Amish community have given the town an advantage over most.
“If the downtown stores aren’t doing well, the town won’t either,” she said. “The Amish stores are hurting, too. Even if people come, they’re not buying. That’s the economy.”
Lu Ann thinks the festivals are not drawing the crowds as they once did and lack the support of the vendors and townspeople. “They may be a thing of the past,” she said.
A lot of Jamesport’s antique stores have closed.
“People say they want more ”high end" antiques," she said. “A lot of what we call ‘collectibles’ are actually stuff you can buy at Wal-Mart. They’re not really crafted items.”
She also thinks the stores would do better if they would keep with the theme of Jamesport, “Step Back In Time.”
“Some of the stuff sold in the stores is too modern,” she said. “They sell everything under the sun. That’s not what people come to Jamesport for. Amish things sell very well. That’s what people come to buy and they don’t want to have to wade through a bunch of other stuff to find it.”
She adds, “That’s just my idea.”
Lu Ann does have her own ideas for how Jamesport can try to reinvent itself.
“Things are changing,” she said. “I think we need more events-based activities to draw people to town and buy out of the stores in town and outside of town.”
“I got this idea for a garden/nature miniature golf course from young adults,” she said. “That type of thing would work in our town. We have so many flower and greenhouses and the produce auction. We could have waterfalls, small buildings and country themed features. I wouldn’t want it to be a comic book type deal.”

Event-based attractions
Lu Ann works at the visitors center located in the “Little Brick House” in south James- port and hears people ask a lot to tour an Amish house. She envisions a living history Amish homestead from before the 1950’s. The Jamesport Community Association owns land south of the visitor’s center that is not being used, Lu Ann said, the replica of the Amish home and barn could be built there.
Another idea she has tossed around is for a stock dog competition.
“It doesn’t cost the host organization, they bring their own short gates, and we would get half the jackpot,” she said. “Everybody likes to watch dogs work.”
The idea is to get the tourists in Jamesport.
“We don’t have to try to sell them something right off the bat,” she said. “Event based things would draw the crowds and they’d have plenty of time to shop downtown. Then they can tour the heart of the Amish colony and stores out in the country.”
Jamesport’s quilt auction, Christmas show, and parade and Livestock Show are all successful events.
“We should expand on those things that have worked in the past and are still going good,” she said.
Amish attitudes help
One of the biggest positives Lu Ann sees, is that Jamesport’s Amish community is open to tourism.
“Our Amish community isn’t the only one in Missouri, but it’s the only one open to tourism, that I know of,” she said.
Jamesport’s Amish are also one of the few Amish communities that changed after the farm crisis in the 80s.
“The first Amish families came here to farm,” she said. “Now they do construction work and have home businesses and greenhouses or a store and that’s their livelihood.”
Lu Ann grew up near an Amish community in Canton, where there is still a colony. She has seen the Amish moving to Bethany, Spickard and Clark. Jamesport is a solid business based community.
“Some Amish communities are still trying to make a living from farming and surviving with 15 kids on a small farm,” she said. “That’s hard to do for anybody. Things have changed for them as well as us and I think it’s commendable that the Amish here did see the need to change.”
Economy a factor
The economy has hurt every place and there’s no one locally to blame, Lu Ann said.
“Some say the city is not doing what it should, others say JCA isn’t doing what it should anymore,” she said. “But it’s not anybody individually. We’re all in the same boat. It’s a catch 22. If the stores don’t do well, the city doesn’t do well and vice versa.”
Lu Ann thinks a lot of people still care about their town and will still work to accomplish things for the community, the businesses and the children.
“If we drive on by the critics and keep doing what we think is best, we’ll be okay,” she said.
Jamesport has several new store owners with an entrepreneurial spirit.
“The new people are asking for help and a lot of the old ones are coming back and helping,” she said. “If we use our heads and have a vision, we can come back.”