Stellar process has paid dividends

For months now, dozens of individuals have been working without pay on a project that could transform Jay County and literally change your life.

Working together in countless meetings over countless hours, volunteers from every corner of the county have been dreaming of an exciting new future for our community.

Dreams came first.

The old that-will-never-happen-here attitude had to be set aside.

In its place was substituted an attitude of what-if, why-not, maybe-we-could, how-about, wouldn’t-it-be-great-if, is-there-any-reason-we-couldn’t, now-this-may-sound-crazy-but-it-just-might-work.

Optimism prevailed.

Dreams grew. They were refined. They were tested. They were challenged.

But that only made them stronger, because by then they weren’t pie-in-the-sky musings. They had been transformed into credible goals.

Sure, they were ambitious. But that was the whole point of the process.

There was nothing to be gained by settling for the status quo.

The result of all this work was taken to Indianapolis last week and presented in front of leaders from the various state agencies involved in the Stellar Communities program.

This has not been Jay County’s first experience with the Stellar program. Portland made a bid several years ago during Mayor Bruce Hosier’s administration. And Dunkirk was on the brink of success during the administration of Mayor Dan Watson.

But this time around was different.

This time around we were working together as a countywide community. That was a recent change for Stellar, but not a first for the community.

We’ve worked together for more than 50 years for the United Way. We’ve worked together as Jay School Corporation for more than 40 years. And we’ve worked together on issues of economic development as a countywide community for more than 30 years.

That experience — working together — gave this effort special strength.

Turf battles and rivalries were gone; friendships and neighborliness took their place.

Will it pay off with a Stellar Communities designation?

That remains to be seen.

But the process has already paid big dividends. We know one another better than before, we’ve been reminded of what we can accomplish when we work together, and — maybe most importantly — we’ve set cynicism aside and dreamed together as one. — J.R.