Episode Two of Save Our Towns highlights St. Paul, Galax, and student projects on the Clinch River
Rivers are a big part of the natural beauty of Virginia's Appalachian region.
In Episode Two of Save Our Towns, Lara Browning of Virginia Tech's Community Design Assistance Center tells how students helped communities on the Clinch River make it more accessible to residents by designing trails, campgrounds, and small parks.
Save Our Towns, a monthly Internet video series designed to guide and inspire leaders working to build strong communities, is produced by Virginia Tech each month and distributed to mayors and town managers in 80 Virginia towns and independent cities in 25 counties.
In the new episode, St. Paul Mayor Kyle Fletcher argues that his town will succeed in attracting tourists where others have failed. Fletcher has agreed to be documented in Save Our Towns over the course of the upcoming year.
Also in the episode, C.M. Mitchell, mayor of the city of Galax, talks about the culture of mountain and bluegrass music. The field report from Whitney Bonham of Virginia Tech's Office of Economic Development shows how, in the Twin Counties region of Southwest Virginia, community members exercised leadership.
Episode 2 is posted at Save Our Towns or can be viewed in this YouTube video:
Save Our Towns is designed to help community leaders:
- learn about Virginia Tech projects in Appalachia
- find resources such as case studies and funding opportunities
- contact experts interviewed in the series and read their full transcripts
In Episode Three, due to be released in October, Larkin Dudley, professor emerita in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, discusses the vital work of citizen advisory boards in small towns. She has worked in Appalachia under a Kettering Foundation grant. Mayor Lee Coburn of Glade Spring shares insights about how his tiny community, though ravaged by a tornado, overcame not only natural disasters but also inertia to resuscitate its downtown.
Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 240 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of $513 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.
