Chamber Chat | Colby - Thomas County Chamber of Commerce
Chamber Chat | Colby - Thomas County Chamber of Commerce
What in the world have you done?
Y’all have been busy while I’ve been gone!
You completed the Colby Event Center, started a new Ag building and completed the new tennis courts at the college. You broke ground on the new hospital, tore down and rebuilt the TA Travel Center, got a new city manager, and started several new housing projects. Businesses have expanded, others have popped up… even the Ag prospects are looking up this year.
I leave you alone for nearly 18 months and look what you get done!
I’m so proud of you!
And the state is taking notice too.
Every so often, they release pull factor numbers. They’re stats that measures the good things a community has going on that draws people from outside of their area to do business there. It’s our cool factor.
And Colby looks pretty cool to our neighbors.
In 2022, Colby ranked second out of the top 100 cities in the entire state in pull factor. We were second only to Merriam, Kan., which is in the Kansas City area and has an IKEA store. So, of course, they have a great pull factor!
It’s not just our neighbors that like us, people traveling through northwest Kansas think Colby is pretty cool too. The state just released some numbers that show in 2021, Thomas County ranked second in the northwest corner of the state in the amount of money travelers spent in our community. Only Hays did better than we did. That’s pretty cool!
At a time when the rest of the country is slowing down, cutting back and generally losing their minds, we’re hard at work. Taking care of business.
Yes, I know we have felt the pinch too, but we haven’t let that stop us. I think it is because of the deep sense of determination, persistence, the never-give-uppedness that resides deep within our DNA.
We should probably thank our grandparents for that.
What I am saying is… I’ve missed you. I have missed your energy. I’ve missed your brilliant ideas. And I’ve missed your tenacity. So, now that I am back I want to get in on the action.
What are we going to do next?
Original source can be found here.
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