Top lineup awaits at Fall Forum on Thursday

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Top lineup awaits at Fall Forum on Thursday

The lineup of knowledgeable session speakers featured Thursday at the Panola Partnership’s Fall Forum will offer appropriate, topical and useful information for Panola County leaders and citizens who want to learn how they can use the resources of the Partnership, private and government sectors to boost their business, industry and quality of life.

Melissa Halsell is the Tennesee Valley Authority’s go-to person for retail development strategies. Her concentrations include engaging upcoming generations — Millenials and Gen Zs — to fast-track their entrepreneurial and leadership skills. Her session begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Batesville Civic Center

Appropriately, it is the Young Professionals of Panola — YPP — who will follow Halsell’s presentation. They are sponsoring a between-sessions “networking break.”

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Next will be the Mississippi Development Authority’s Malcolm White is Director of MDA’s tourism arm, “Visit Mississippi.” Who better to remind us of how we can best channel and utilize the visitor interest that the Polar Express Train Ride has exploded onto Batesville?
For Mississippi Economic Council CEO Blake Wilson, the Forum’s noon luncheon speaker at the Panola Country Club, it will be his third visit to Panola County in his official capacity in the last year.

There’s a reason he keeps getting invited to come back. Wilson has a keen eye to find and describe a community’s advantages and to link them to developments throughout the region and state. And when he describes those advantages, he’s not looking through rose-colored glasses. He is utilizing his years of experience in economic leadership to lift out the positive attributes of our county to help us see them better.

Excellent weather —high of 81 degrees, humidity below 50 percent — is forecast for Thursday afternoon and the four-man scramble tournament that will provide further networking opportunities as will the late afternoon reception that will conclude this year’s Fall Forum.