By Sonny Simmons Panola Partnership CEO

This month I am writing a follow up article to the one I wrote in April that addressed the functions and other activities performed by the Panola Partnership that bring investment and job creation to Panola County.

Only a few years ago, there were several empty industrial buildings through out the county that had been vacant for many years. Did you know that almost all of those buildings are now occupied with new industries and new jobs?

The Batesville American building, located on Highway 51 south is now home to Anderson Technologies, a company we recruited from Grand Haven, Michigan.

The ARI/ Moog building, located in the D. R. Craig industrial park in now home to Toyoda Gosei, a tier I supplier to Toyota in Blue Springs. The old Steel Services building is now occupied by Serta Mattress. The Toro building, located in Sardis, is now owned and occupied by United Solutions.

These are all new companies that we recruited and are now investing in our community and creating new jobs for our citizens.

And, let’s not forget GE Aviation. This company looked at multiple locations in multiple states before making the decision to locate in Batesville. We have also assisted six of our existing industries with expansions that included new investment and additional jobs.

We recruited Tractor Supply Co. and assisted Zaxby’s, Chili’s, Love’s Truck Stop and others with information they needed in order to make a decision to locate here. These projects don’t just happen. They are the result of a lot of hours of hard work and preparation by the Partnership staff.

Just a few months ago, a top state official said, “Batesville has seen more growth and new investment over the past few years than any other town of it’s size in Mississippi.” Now that is something we should all be proud of.

I point all of this out to say this.

There are still a few out spoken citizens in our community that constantly feel they need to be critical of our efforts. We hear it all the time. But, for the ones of you who appreciate our efforts I want to say thank you. I feel we are very fortunate to have seen the success we have had and we will see more in the future if we stay positive and optimistic.

We are going to continue to work hard to bring new jobs and investment to our community and we are not going to allow a few negative people who don’t know the facts and want to criticize our efforts affect our commitment to help grow this community into a better place for all of us.