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Thursday, September 06, 2007

Small Kentucky weekly solicits, gets 'big ideas' from readers for community progress

The Todd County Standard of Elkton, Ky., has a circulation of about 2,500, but it does a better job than many larger weeklies of putting items on the public agenda. On May 17 we noted its four-story package about the need for broadband Internet service in the county, part of the paper's year-long "Focus on the Future" series, which continued with "Some BIG Ideas" for the county of 12,000 people, which we noted July 11.

The paper presented ideas without regard to what they might cost, but none were outlandish. "Let's just talk about what might be possible and perhaps someday someone with the resources or the drive might just succeed," said the staff-written story. The paper planted seeds, giving them a first dose of water and hoping others will agree to take over. Then it invited readers to submit their own ideas, published this week.

The ideas included a Corvette raceway and resort, linked to the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, where the sports car is made; improvements in the current Jeff Davis Days festival (the Confederate president was born in the county) and making sure that visitors know that the county is also the birthplace of Robert Penn Warren, America's first poet laureate. The Standard has no Web site, but click here to see the story.

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