We are coming together! Entities working for a better Manchester/Clay County

I’ve talked about this before, but I want to mention it again. Now, more than any in my lifetime, Manchester and Clay County has public officials working together for a common goal.

I attend numerous meetings week after week, and I continually see various entities working together like never before.

Most recently I attended the Clay Historical Society Annual meeting. The society, a group of volunteers, have worked with various agencies in this county during 2023. That’s just one example of the things I am seeing.

You have the fiscal court and city council working together. You have County Judge-Executive Tommy Harmon and Mayor Steve Collins communicating on ways to improve things and the needs of our citizens.

You have Senate President Robert Stivers working with all agencies to help make Clay County better.

You have William Sexton, Clay Superintendent of Schools, and the board of education doing much-needed work in our schools and collaborating with other agencies when they can to help.

It even goes beyond that. You have Sheriff Patrick Robinson, Jailer Linda Smallwood, PVA Paul Durham, County Attorney Joe White, and County Clerk Beverly Craft all with fantastic working relationships and helping one another and other agencies.

To this extent, it’s never happened before. Let that sink in…it’s never happened!

Along with that you have 1Clay County doing some amazing things in our town working with Volunteers of America. And let’s not forget all the great work Manchester Tourism is doing.

The list just keeps going on and on and I feel these people need recognized for what they’re doing.

For so long I’ve seen forces within our county work against each other. It’s not a secret, you know it’s happened in the past also.

But now, it’s different. It has a different feel. I don’t see divisions like I have before. I don’t see the spiteful attitudes like I did before.

It goes even further, you have the Clay Public Library, the Historical Society, Stay in Clay, Oneida Tourism and Project Hope all doing things in our community.

For example, look at the Christmas Parade Saturday. Our parade was as nice as anyone’s around. All due to the hard work of Danielle and Steve Collins. It would have been easy to just not have a parade, but Danielle always takes the bull by the horns and wants better for Clay County.

All these people and agencies deserve credit. We are like a big family in Clay County, we may not always disagree, but at the end of the day we are there for each other.

And now, right now, I can say we are here for each other more than I have ever witnessed.

If you see any of these people, tell them you appreciate their hard work. I know I sure do, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds!