One of the quotes coming out of last week's celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Northwest Arkansas Council was spot on.
It came from John Elrod, a founding member of the private, nonprofit organization of business and civic leaders.
"The fact that this organization is still going is testament to the group," Elrod said last week. "Back then regionalism was right up there with communism."
He's got that right.
There was a time when regionalism was definitely viewed by many around here as something to fear.
The idea was seen as a means to lessen the individual communities that make up the greater Northwest Arkansas.
Fortunately for the region, those who feared cooperation took a backseat to those who encouraged it.
The cities here kept their high school rivalries, which drove some of those old anti-regionalism ideas; but they also learned the benefits of working together.
What they found out is that their collective push for improvements, particularly in infrastructure, brought more results when they presented a united front.
Remember, the region's population back then, although growing, wasn't anything like it is now. The area's direct representation in the state Legislature was considerably less. So slight was the population a few decades ago that candidates for statewide office visited the region infrequently. Consequnetly, candidates didn't always know what Northwest Arkansas needed and, once elected, often didn't seem to care.
The environment is now quite different. A Northwest Arkansas native, Asa Hutchinson, sits in the governor's chair, which is evidence enough of how much more political clout the region wields these days.
The region's size (half a million and counting) and economic strength simply demand attention from decision-makers that an earlier generation of Northwest Arkansas leaders had to scrap for.
And scrap they did, uniting to win state and/or federal support for major projects, like the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, critical highway improvements to U.S. 412 and what is now Interstate 49 and extension of water service to rural Washington and Benton counties.
Much of the credit for the region's successes, although not all of it, rightly goes to the evolving membership of the Northwest Arkansas Council.
To be sure, there is still work to be done to improve local infrastructure; but the council has broadened its goals beyond infrastructure in the years since its inception, always advocating for Northwest Arkansas interests.
The council's continued existence really is, as Elrod said, a testament to the group, which might have dissolved after securing such ambitious goals.
Instead, the group continued, fixing its eyes on the future.
Elrod, a lawyer, was one of only a handful of the founding members present last week for the 25th anniversary celebration. Alice Walton, best known now for her role in creating Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, was there, as were Mark Simmons, chairman of Simmons Foods, and Uvalde Lindsey, who was the council's first executive director and was honored last week with an honorary lifetime membership.
Alice's dad, the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart fame, was among those who pulled the organization together long ago. Other Northwest Arkansas giants, like J.B. Hunt and Don Tyson, were also involved; but there were many others, too, all of whom put their shoulders to the wheel, promoting Northwest Arkansas as a region.
Dozens of others have stepped in over time to play a role on the council, which is still about the business of identifying needs for the region and advocating for them.
The challenge to the council now is to bring in a new generation of community, business and civic leaders to the work.
Jim Walton, another of Sam Walton's offspring and chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank Group, has taken over as the council's presiding co-chair. It is his third time around in the leadership role and he was the first to suggest the council needs to recruit future leaders.
"Getting more younger people involved will help us build this region," he told the council last week.
He's got that right, too.
Whether the leadership comes from inside the Northwest Arkansas Council or outside the private organization, the region needs the energy and ideas the next generation can bring.
Brenda Blagg is a freelance columnist. E-mail comments or questions to [email protected].
Commentary on 07/26/2015