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By Bob Weaver
The Minnora Center is an overdue project for southern Calhoun,
bringing needed
services close to the community, including health care and police
protection. Several
people, including some of those currently involved with the center,
have worked hard
to make it work.
It is distressing to observe the in-fighting of community leaders and
board members,
which could result in the center's collapse. It has been well
supported by civic-
minded folks, agencies, politicians and business people.
The center's leaders and board members, for justified reasons or not,
have found it
necessary to choose sides with some holding their coure.
In the middle is the future of the center and what is means to the
people of the upper
West Fork community.
Currently Minnie Hamilton Health Care is providing up-front medical
services with their
primary care center. The Calhoun County Committee on Aging has just
opened a
nutrition site to help seniors in the area. The Calhoun Sheriff's
Department has
opened a sub-station and new deputy Ron Bandy is essentially working
from that site,
covering southern Calhoun. Calhoun's Emergency Medical Service has
placed
personnel and ambulance service in the center, cutting response time
nearly up to
thirty minutes.
Other projects include a one-year computer class for displaced
Kellwood workers, an
after-school tutoring program, a library, archery club, basketball
games and other
services and events. What a positive thing.
Additionally, the Upper West Fork Volunteer Fire Department and the
Upper West Fork
Park bring special services and events to Washington District, adding
to the quality of
life in the community.
We would not attempt to assess who is right or wrong in the management
of the
Minnora Center. There seems to be plenty of blame to go around in the
affray, where
each group is bent on being "right."
Experience says, however, all the principal parties, the board and
certainly the people
the center seeks to serve, will be losers unless civility and
resolution happens soon.
For starters, focusing on the Mission Statement for the center might
help:
"The Mission of the Minnora Community Center is to preserve the former
Minnora
School building for the benefit of the surrounding community, to
enrich the health,
welfare and community life of southern Calhoun County.
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