Editorial/Op
This Is Central
By |
Let me first issue a challenge to Central’s high school football fans, then I’ll explain my thinking. I challenge us, and I include myself, to leave Wildcat Stadium and Rebel Field trash-free Friday night.
Describing Central to someone who does not live here is not easy. Central is more than 27,000 people in 10,000 houses with 600 businesses and 5 school facilities. Central is a culture, one that I have heard summed up in the phrase “This Is Central”.
“This Is Central.” Even those three words mean very little unless you can hear the inflections in the voice of the speaker. When I hear it spoken by some, it is filled with pride and a determination to be self-sufficient and to be the best. Behind every successful effort in Central, from the incorporation of the city to the founding of all of our public and private schools to the programs and events sponsored by all of our civic organizations, there is a desire to be the best and to have the best that can be summed up in that phrase “This Is Central”.
This week three things happened that pushed me to challenge us. The young men and women of the Amite River Preservation Association featured today in an article in this paper have quietly spent most weekends this summer cleaning up trash thrown into the Amite River. I had several elderly citizens call me this week disheartened about the trash people throw out of moving cars into the ditches in front of homes and I remembered that the young citizens group Central Leadership for Tomorrow sponsors an annual cleanup day to address this very issue. Then I went back to the stadium last Saturday morning to do a check of the radio broadcast phone line and I found contractors paid by our tax dollars cleaning up the cups, napkins and containers our fans left in the bleachers.
I believe Central can be a beautiful city. I also optimistically believe that if we all thought about everything we did, there are many things we just would not do. I believe that tossing or leaving a piece of trash anywhere is not something people “think” about, so I would like to plant a thought. When you see the trash you or someone else is about to leave somewhere, say to yourself “This Is Central”, because clean or trashed, “This Is Central.”
I am hoping enough people have read this by Friday night to make a difference. As we each get up to leave the stadium look around and think to yourself “This Is Central” and grab a cup or container, maybe not even your own, and drop it in a trash can. Let’s start this at the football games and then carry that same culture of Central pride out into our daily activities in the community. All of you who are already practicing what I am suggesting, let’s take it one step further and lead by example and pick up someone else’s trash. A culture of community pride is contagious, so let’s spread the pride, because “This Is Central” and that is Good News for a Great City.
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