Town bids farewell to a major industry; paper treats it rightly

Workers who completed the final engine on Line 51 were, from left,
Jeff Durham, Chris Paschall, Carlos Cartagena and Alex Aizpurua.

How do you write the obituary of a factory that has been important to your town for decades? John Wright of the Murray Ledger & Times in southwestern Kentucky provides a good example, as he chronicles the closing of the city's Briggs & Stratton small-engine plant and the loss of 300 jobs.

"Fittingly, it rained Friday in Murray, providing seemingly the perfect backdrop for a sad day," Wright begins, but his story isn't maudlin.

"The final engines that will ever be shipped from this place, a large complex that once housed the Tappan appliances plant and became Briggs & Stratton in 1985, were sent into the world. And with that, the final chapter was written: a total of 91,650,827 small engines, mainly for push lawn mowers, had been built at the Murray plant." Wright spells out the number in capital letters and quotes Calloway County Judge-Executive Kenny Imes: "Say that again? Wow! That’s just astounding. I don’t think anybody realizes that. But, more importantly, the employees they hired down there produced over 91 million of those things that have gone worldwide."

Mark Manning, president of the Murray-Calloway County Economic Development Corp., "recalled his own uncertainty more than 30 years ago when he lost a job as a field laboratory technician in the oil business," Wright writes, quoting him: “I know how bad it hurts, on a personal level. I’m not just saying, ‘Oh, I feel for you.’ No! I’ve been there.”

"Manning eventually climbed out of that situation, and he said he believes the same will be true of the Briggs workforce because it consists of a wanted commodity," Wright reports. And the community didn't burn bridges with Briggs & Stratton, which moved Murray's production to Poplar Bluff, Mo., 125 miles west. “We have consciously worked as a community to maintain a positive relationship with the company because there’s no benefit to anyone in trashing the company on its way out of town,” Manning said. “First of all, how’s that going to look to others wanting to relocate here? We can’t ignore the fact that Briggs & Stratton has been an outstanding community citizen here for many years.”