Mike Randle, Editor

Ten Years of Traveling the South

If you visit enough places, you're bound to see some amusing things

The next edition is SB&D's 10th anniversary edition. We began this quest of bringing you the best sites in the South to do business in 1993. My family and I were vacationing in the mountains of east Tennessee. At the end of that vacation, my wife took our one-year-old and four-year-old back to Birmingham and I crossed the mountains into North Carolina to sell my idea. Salisbury, N.C. was the first market I visited and Winston-Salem was the second. I've had more than 3,000 appointments since and have visited over 1,500 markets in the region in 10 years.

One thing I've found during my visits: if you travel the South extensively, you're going to see some funny things. I was in Greenwood, S.C. one year and Peter Arnoti, the economic developer there, insisted that I walk with him from his office up the main street in town. We stopped on the sidewalk and Peter said, "look on top of that building and tell me what you see." I looked at the top of the Christian college's building and saw a sign that read, "Jesus Saves." Peter then told me to walk five paces to my right and look at the sign again. It was then that I saw another sign behind the first. From the angle Arnoti had positioned me, the two signs together read, "Jesus Saves at First Greenwood State Bank."

While on a trip to South Florida in 1995, I pulled into a motel in Dania. The motel was located adjacent to John Lloyd State Park, which is near the port in Fort Lauderdale. The motel is one of those where you pull up to your room's door. I woke up early the next morning and had to walk two parking spaces to the right to get to my car. As I turned to walk between my car and another, I saw something extraordinary. Walking directly towards me between the cars was a four-foot-tall spider monkey. I leaned up against my car to let him pass. He looked at me and kept walking, jumping the gate to the pool. I went on to my appointment and when I came back to check out and get my things, I parked and saw about eight monkeys in the dumpster, on top of the dumpster and hanging from the dumpster. I drove off astonished. Two years later, I pulled in to the same motel hoping to see the monkeys again. As I checked in, I asked the clerk if the monkeys were still around. Exasperated, he said, "There are no monkeys here. I've never seen any monkeys here and I'm tired of people asking about them!"

In about 1996, I visited Philadelphia, Miss., and the Choctaw Indian reservation there. The Choctaw Nation owns a very large, very successful casino on their land near Philadelphia as well as sites where the Choctaw recruit industry by partnering with them. It was a unique economic development system that I had to see for myself. As I was walking up to the Silver Star Casino, I noticed just how successful the Choctaws were. There were several black & white police cars in front of the casino. Each was a Lincoln Town Car.

And finally, a visit to Paris, Tex., produced a unique sight. Gary Vest, the economic developer there, insisted that I go with him to visit a large cemetery near downtown. We were walking among the headstones when Gary stopped at one that featured a large statue of Jesus. I don't remember the exact date of the grave, but I do remember it was from the late 1800s. Gary asked me to look carefully at the statue. I did and saw nothing out of the unusual. The marble figure, while old, didn't seem out of the ordinary. Then Gary said, "look at His feet." Jesus was wearing cowboy boots!

Whether you're a site searcher or an economic developer, if you have seen some amusing things while traveling the South, tell me about them. Email your story to mike@sb-d.com and I might print it.