By Natalie M. ZeiglerCity Manager
The Hartsville community is blessed with many truly excellent leaders. Some serve on our City Council or our boards, committees and commissions. Others lead the many businesses, civic organizations and nonprofit organizations which make this city an excellent place to work and live.
The Greater Hartsville Chamber of Commerce has helped to cultivate leaders with its Leadership Hartsville program, and already we are seeing great things from their Class of 2013 in the form of the Tales on the Town project.
For those who haven’t seen the news about this effort, here is the short version: Tales on the Town will be an installation of bronze sculptures in the form of red foxes placed throughout downtown, providing a fun scavenger hunt activity. It will connect many of our landmarks and institutions and serve as yet another reason why Hartsville is a destination and a memorable standout among South Carolina’s small cities.
Hartsville students Brittany and Bennett Joyce got the ball rolling when they gave us the idea, which is a distinctively local twist on something which has been a proven success in other cities. The Black Creek Arts Council helped organize the student art contest which provided the visual concept for the sculptures, and now Leadership Hartsville’s Class of 2013 is hard at work raising donations to make this installation a reality, potentially this fall. More details on the project, including information on how to contribute, may be found at the City website, www.hartsvillesc.gov, under the “Residents” tab.
Leadership Hartsville’s participants take different days throughout the year to learn about many aspects of our community like its businesses, education, recreation and more. This week, we gave them a presentation on City government and showed them around our beautiful new City Hall right after showing it off for the official open house. Former Hartsville Downtown Development Association Executive Director Judi Elvington and former Downtown Development President Bobby McGee followed us with a presentation on how Centennial Park came to be another excellent example of Hartsville renewing itself and reinvesting in itself.
This park was built at the major intersection of 5th Street and Carolina Avenue, across from City Hall’s new location. We have had it as one of our many downtown assets for about two decades now, so it can be easy to take for granted. The presentation from Judi and Bobby, however, reminded me of how the park came to exist only because a number of people had a dream to create something valuable and new from a property left vacant by demolitions. Those involved worked hard to design it and raise the needed funds, much like Leadership Hartsville is doing now.
Today’s Hartsville is built on the efforts of these and many other leaders. When I see how many leaders are working in Hartsville now, I can only feel very excited about the Hartsville of the future.
