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Students aim to help Fort Scott attract business; KU journalism seniors to present findings in Lawrence in May
As part of a capstone project wrapping their studies at the University of Kansas' School of Journalism, 31 students are looking at ways to promote and bring business to Fort Scott.
Recently, civic leaders and business people from across the community gathered in the City Commission room of City Hall to be grilled by students about the strengths and weaknesses of the community.
Recommendations will be put into reports issued by four different groups of the students and formally presented at 7 p.m. May 11 in the Big 12 Room at KU in Lawrence. The reports will then be made available to people in Fort Scott.
Finding young people to work assembly line jobs, attracting businesses here and combatting the disconnect between what the town has and what people think it has were also discussed. "I think a lot of small towns in Southeast Kansans are in the same boat we are ... of trying to hang on to where we are and not shrink," Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce Board Chair Becky Tourtillott said.
Regarding economic development, Tourtillott said it's hard to compete with a town like Pittsburg because, although it's a small town, it has more amenities than Fort Scott does.
Some of Fort Scott's assets cited by those attending the focus group are its dedicated workforce, Fort Scott Community College and ease of getting involved in civic activities.
UMB Bank President and Nu Grille owner Cindy Bowman said the work ethic here "just amazing."
Steve Buerge, president of the Bourbon County Economic Development Council, said in small towns, when you tell someone you're going to do something, you do it.
FSCC President Clayton Tatro said his school is able to be more responsive to community needs and can offer targeted job training. "We're a little bit more flexible and a little more responsive than bigger schools," he said.
Jim Pitts, who co-owns Life + Style with his wife, Cynthia McFarlin, said in his two years in Fort Scott, he feels like he knows more "movers and shakers" than he did when he lived in Tucson, Ariz. He can walk down the street downtown and people know his name and he can visit with the city manager if he wants -- with an appointment.
"It's very easy to integrate yourself into the business community," he said.
Attracting businesses to downtown and people assuming they need to go elsewhere for things beyond the basics are two things Fort Scott has to overcome, group members said.
David Lewis, president of Liberty Savings, said if he owned a downtown store, he would rather be somewhere like Parsons because you can't just jump on the road and be in Kansas City in an hour and a half. "That's why it's hard on a small downtown business. It's probably the reason we have a hard time attracting small businesses to downtown," he said.
Pitts, who also owns Pro Tech Home Services, said there are a lot of people who live in Fort Scott, but don't participate in community activities. "As a business, we have to let those people know we're here," he said.
He and others noted that new people and returning residents tend to have the most enthusiasm for the city, while those who live here are often complacent. This feeling is found in most small towns, Pitts said.
"It's easy for new people to integrate into the community because they're excited and seek that involvement," Tourtillott said. "People who have lived here and never left here don't seek that involvement."
David Guth, associate professor of journalism at University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass communications, said students working on the project are part of the Stategic Communication Campaigns course. "These are basically graduating seniors. It's called a capstone course" because it brings together everything they've learned, Guth said.
Guth met with Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Lindsday Madison and the city's former Economic Development Director Dale Bunn October 2010. Madison and Bunn told Guth they had two areas they would like to focus on -- tourism and economic development, an e-mail from Madison said.
Students were also given a "realistic budget" and one showing what it would cost to do anything the community wants. "We gave them a figure of $10,000 for each area," for the realistic budget, Madison wrote.
Guth said he likes to give students real clients with real challenges.
Fort Scott, he said, has a lot going for it but it also has issues. "About a year and a half ago, this same class did a project for a Freedoms Frontier National Heritage Area, a 44-county region in Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas designated by the federal government," Guth said. "I had come to Fort Scott in connection with that project. I was so favorably impressed with what I saw down here" that he proposed it as a class project. "I'm already sold on Fort Scott."
He talked to officials here about what his students could do for the community.
"By the time (the students) finish the project, they will have put in hundreds and hundreds of hours of work," he said. "It's a great learning experience for students as well," he said. The plan books turned in will be hundreds of pages long.
"Because it's journalism, we're focusing on marketing and communications -- how to better tell Fort Scott's story," Guth said. This will include creating sample commercials, billboards and press releases, he said.
Half the students in the class are from Kansas and half from outside the state. "By the time it's done, they will all feel like they're from Fort Scott," Guth said.
Jessie Anderson is from Derby, near Wichita. "When I found out who the client was, I was really excited to be doing something in Kansas, something close to home. I had no idea how much history was in Fort Scott. I don't think people know how much Fort Scott has to offer," Anderson said.
Madison said she plans to attend the presentation in May and hopes others will come along. "We hope to have good presentation from Fort Scott," she said. "Anyone interested in attending is welcome to."
She said there was a study done on Fort Scott a little more than a year ago, but nothing was followed up on. "I think we're really looking forward to it," she said of the KU presentation. "I hope the community is really behind it as well."