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The oldest inhabited city is Damascus, Syria.
And Now You Do
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29:21, He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at the length.
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Tribune Columns: Kerens.Com #20
The National Center For Small Communities
June 25th, 2000
Posted on Thursday, March 04 @ 16:22:44 EST by Webmaster
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Sometime late last Monday afternoon, Janie Quinn and Gail Christie put their signatures on a document, addressed a large envelope to Washington D.C., and threw down a challenge to the rest of the United States. America had better watch out, because Kerens has its face in the wind and is on the move. Janie signed as the President of the Kerens Ex-Students Association, and Gail put her formal signature down as a duly elected official of this great city of Kerens and as a member of K.E.S.A.
What is this group up to now? Kerens has a chance to be in the National spotlight?
About eleven years ago, our Federal Government created an organization titled “The National Center for Small Communities” (NCSC). The charter of this group is to provide resources for the smaller towns in America that do not have the monster budgets to work with like our Metroplex cities do.
About four years ago, the NCSC created an entity called “The Rural Telecommunications Congress” (RTC). Their charter is to attack the digital divide that exists between rural towns and large cities. What is the digital divide? Well, as most of us know, when new communications technology is deployed such as advanced cable television systems, internet access, or high speed fiber optic communication lines, who is the last to see these advances? We know who the first to receive these benefits is, New York City. The last of course are the rural communities like Kerens. We don’t have any one-way streets, so why bother installing new technology?
In order to provide small cities with an incentive to begin making use of Internet communications, the RTC is recognizing and promoting innovations in telecommunications technology that strengthen and improve rural communities. This recognition comes in the form of a nation wide contest and solicitation of papers from any city that can describe and show specific results in this area of modern technology. They also have the requirement that the paper submission must come from a city with a population of 10,000 or less.
Sometime in August, ten finalists will be selected and will receive a $2,000 award for the effort. By September 1st, a winner will be selected and will receive a $10,000 reward to be used for furthering this effort in their hometown. The winner will also receive a $1,000 check. This is to be used for expenses to travel to Washington D.C. during the first week of September where they will be recognized at a government ceremony and presented with the reward. In October they receive another $1,000 check to travel to Aspen, Colorado to present a paper at the National Rural Telecommunications Congress convention attended by communities all over the United States.
So what has KESA done? We drafted a six-page paper describing the promotion of Kerens on the Internet. We showed specific participation by many of our Alumni scattered across the nation. We were able to describe the planning for the Kerens Alumni Center and point to our web site showing detailed timeline progress of the construction of this building. We pointed out how this can be used as a role model effort for other rural communities throughout the country to make use of the Internet and recognize the efforts of their volunteers. Also, and most significantly, we were able to point to the successful completion of a tremendous funding effort made possible by the many outstanding citizens and ex-citizens of this rural town.
Can we win it? Of course we can, no doubt about it. And if we don’t, do you know what we will do? We will examine the paper submitted by the city that does win, we will learn from our mistakes and we will do it again next year. That is what winners like Kerens do.
Webmaster@Kerens.Com
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Average Score: 5
Votes: 2
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