Desire to retain small-town values
Ledford hopes that even as Madison County grows, it will retain its small-town values.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with John Ledford, January 3, 2001. Interview K-0251. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
Well, like you say the new people coming in too.
There'll be a point in time where that population will
overcome the Baptist population that is kind of restricting the sale of
alcohol.
- JOHN LEDFORD:
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Sure. And you know-
- ROB AMBERG:
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But that adds a whole 'nother level of problem.
- JOHN LEDFORD:
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It does. It's an amazing amount of problems. It's
also going to require that the sheriff of the county is going to have to
be educated. The county commissioners are going to have to be educated
because of a different set of issues. Used to be I think, my father is a
very, he's a very quick study. If you've ever been
around my father, he would amaze you with his ability for numbers and
memory and read something and grasp what it says probably much in excess
of my ability. Don Anderson is just phenomenal. He also had the ability
to stand at that store behind that counter, and the farmer could come in
and tell him his problems and concerns were and dad would keep that in
the back of his mind. Always when he got in these meetings, that problem
was in the back of his mind. So he could balance it out.
There's going to come a point in time though where as you
say, retail's going to come up. New people coming in. Farming
land is going to go down. It's going to maybe be a tourist
type economy, that type thing. So the decisions that the commissioners
are going to make may not be influenced by native Madison County people
who were fifth generation or whatever it is. Somewhere I hope somebody
will keep that in the back of their mind and be here at that store, a
man can still walk in and lay that number down and they'll
still say, 'I may be busy but I'm still going to
call and make an appointment for you.' That's what
we can't lose. If we lose that, we've really lost
everything. It's a shame. I think it's a shame.