It’s not what you know, but who.

That’s what they always say anyway. I’m not sure it’s entirely true. After all, if you know nothing at all of interest, knowing a lot of influential people who knew that you knew nothing wouldn’t benefit you much. Would it?

Either way, I may not be the best example of this saying as I spend the vast majority of my time squirreled away in our workshop making sawdust. Because of our workload, my presence is required here. But I do get out and involved in outside projects as I can and people know where I am and call upon me regularly.

Marie is our “people person”. She handles most of the face-to-face stuff and she’s good at it. Some things we attend together, but most of the local meetings are handled by her alone.

But, between us, we have come to know a considerable circle of people. Some of them quite influential. This is a situation new to us. In our previous lives, we did our jobs then went home and kept to ourselves. Being public figures never appealed to us at all.

When we came here, we knew very few people. But those few introduced us to others, and those opened doors to still others. A few of these people have been key in getting our business up and running after the move. I’ve talked about them before, so I shan’t rehash it again here.

But lots more were simply open and helpful to us in a way we had not experienced in The City. Wilma Webb is an example.

When we met her, Wilma was running a candy store. Scrumptious hand made chocolates. I *love* good chocolates. We had made up some wooden gift boxes sized to precisely fit around a 1 pound box of chocolates. They were nicely finished and had a picture of chocolates on the top. Quite unique, and we hoped Wilma would be interested in buying some to sell in her store.

In talking to her about it, we found that the art & craft items she had for sale in her store were on consignment from local artists. But she didn’t charge them any consignment fee. Whatever she made on them went to the artist. In St Louis, consignment fees typically ran 50% to 70%. This amazed us. But she said, “If the crafts draw some folks in that wouldn’t have stopped otherwise, I get an opportunity to sell them some candy that I wouldn’t have had. These artists and I scratch each others backs.”

We ended up putting some things in her store, but the biggest help to us was the way she started rattling off other places we should go and people we should talk to. She had lived here all her life, had owned and sold off a flower shop and two restaurants – all still bearing the name of “Wilma’s” as well as the candy store. She knew her stuff. And she freely shared her expertise with us.

She was the first of many such people we’ve met. And we are grateful to them all.
As a result, I run a small side business using my skills as a web site designer to help local businesses who want to get onto the Internet, but can’t afford – or trust – the ‘professional’ design firms. I don’t advertise this service, but word of mouth keeps me busy. I’ve done work for several businesses and have at least a couple of sites under development most of the time.

Marie was elected to serve on the county’s Tourism Council, I serve as it’s web master, and we keep busy helping the county market it’s many tourist opportunities. As a result, we hob-nob with local and state level officials quite often.

We are active members of the Chamber of Commerce which is now part of the newly formed County Partnership. So we have contact with and access to many of the most successful business persons of the community.

And we assisted in getting Treasures of Appalachia opened up and serving the many talented people we’ve run across here who have no viable outlet to sell their work in this county other than public craft shows. We serve as officers on the board of this non-profit corporation. I serve as a volunteer shopkeeper one or more days per week in the gallery, and take care of the bookkeeping. Marie alternates weekends with Varena and serves as Visual Marketing Director. Treasures has grown over the three years it’s been open and is serving a vital need in the community. We are proud to be a part of it, and happy to have befriended so many talented and creative people.

Many other opportunities to serve the community come along regularly and we always do what we can to help out. We feel it is important to be active in our community, a community that welcomed us so warmly. As a result we are rarely bored. But we lead happy, fulfilled lives. And that is a good thing!