Category Archives: Chamber of Commerce

Lemonade Day is Coming!

By Agribuisiness, Business, Chamber of Commerce, Charity, Columbus, Community Development Growth Alliance, Culture/Entertainment, Education, Entrepreneurship, Foodservice, Golden Triangle, Main Street, Quality of Life, Recreation, Retail, Starkville, Uncategorized, West Point

GOLDEN TRIANGLE – Courtesy of the Dispatch

– all photos are Courtesy photos unless specified otherwise –

June 1st, 2019 will be Lemonade Day! It’s an opportunity for kids to learn the basics of running a business, marketing, and (hopefully) turning a profit. An offshoot of the national LD program, it began last year in Starkville, and its success – over 150 kids up to 6th-grade level took part, setting up 64 lemonade stands throughout the city – has led to expanding the local program to both Columbus and West Point.

The Golden Triangle program leader is Jeffrey Rupp, director of outreach for Mississippi State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship. He’s hoping that the number of participants this year will double or more.

ld2018 – Kadie Eldridge, left, and Abigail McTaggart pour lemonade at their ‘Lemony Spickets’ stand on the Mississippi State University campus in this 2018 Dispatch file photo

Participants can now sign up online; they will receive a free workbook, which gives them the basics on starting a business, marketing it, and how to handle finances at a basic level they can understand. It also encourages kids to donate some of the profits to local charities in order to help others, which many did. The kids can also receive advice & feedback from local business owners. Last year, Cadence bank even offered $40 micro-loans to the budding entrepreneurs; Rupp said all of these micro-loans were paid back 100%. They will be doing so again this year.

Main Street Columbus Director Barbara Bigelow said: “I thought it was just so cool,” she said. “… I love the program. The whole premise beside it is to teach young people how to set up a business and follow through.” She is currently looking into obtaining booth spots downtown for the event, and she has reached out to local schools in order to solicit interest from students.

“All you have to do is go buy lemonade,” Rupp said. “So it’s really easy for the public to get involved.” – And THAT’S Good for Business!

To learn more about Lemonade Day or to sign up and volunteer, go to lemonadeday.org/golden-triangle.

Click here for the FaceBook page for the event.

Please click here to read the original article.

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Baptist’s Business Over Breakfast Brings in the Best

By Business, Chamber of Commerce, Columbus, Culture/Entertainment, Foodservice

COLUMBUS, MS – Courtesy of the Columbus-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce


courtesy photo

Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle sponsored Business Over Breakfast this morning, and it was a resounding success! BOB is an extension of their existing Business After Hours program, which has proven to be quite popular. Now, business professionals and curious citizens alike have more opportunities to check out local businesses, network with one another, and have some good chow while they’re at it. All are welcome to these events — Please see the CLCC FaceBook page for a schedule of these and other events.

Baptist CEO Paul Cade presented an informative overview and update on BMHGT for the assembled crowd.

The next BOB is scheduled for 7:30 AM at CSpire on Hwy 45, where one of the first BOB events took place.

courtesy photo
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Business After Hours at the GTR Airport – Jan 17, 2019 (image gallery)

By Banking, Business, Chamber of Commerce, Columbus, Culture/Entertainment, Golden Triangle, Hotel & Hospitality, Manufacturing, Quality of Life, Retail

COLUMBUS – Courtesy of the Columbus-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce

This month’s Business After Hours was a rousing success! Here are some photos of the event, courtesy of the CoC:

Photo gallery above. Original post and more photos can be found here.

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Starkville Wants to Keep Downtown Historic

By Business, Chamber of Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Government-related, Starkville

Starkville Wants to Keep Downtown Historic

STARKVILLE, Miss. Courtesy of WCBI

Starkville is looking into ways to help its Historic Downtown area remain just that – Historic and beautiful. They are looking into working with the Carl Small Town Center and soliciting funding from the state to help protect the historic buildings.

Buddy Sanders

Local citizen Buddy Sanders hopes “[to] put together a design guidelines for downtown Starkville and they would not be any type of regulatory document. Something suggestive to a person that is buying a building or going into a building for their store of how to appropriately renovate the building in a historical fashion . . . To protect the character of downtown. To give someone an idea of how to keep their store while maintaining their brand also keeping the storefront like a historical 1920’s 1910 building,” he went on to say.

Rebecca Tabb is a store owner in Starkville. “Keeping Main Street historic, I think there’s a draw to that, versus necessarily like Highway 12 or a high traffic street. I think people really have come back to shopping local and wanting to shop downtown and wanting things not necessarily be exactly how they were built really but really try to keep that downtown hometown feel,” said Tabb.

“We hope the Carl Small Town Center can use it as a template for other Mississippi communities to use so that they can use it to essentially either start some type of redevelopment in their downtown or just try to keep character historical character of their downtown,” said Sanders.

Please click here for the original article.

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Allegro to Acquire North Columbus Medical Clinic & Lowndes Medical Clinic

By Business, Chamber of Commerce, Columbus, Golden Triangle, Health & Medicine

Allegro to Acquire North Columbus Medical Clinic & Lowndes Medical Clinic

PRESS RELEASE (excerpt) – Courtesy of the C-L Chamber of Commerce

COLUMBUS, MS – November 28, 2017

Allegro Family Clinics, a subsidiary of Dutch Health Services, Inc., announced today that it will acquire two clinics in Columbus, MS from North Mississippi Medical Clinics, Inc. – the North Columbus Medical Clinic, located at 4508 Highway 45 North, and the Lowndes Medical Clinic, located at 56 Dutch Lane. The purchase will be effective December 1, 2017.

Patients should expect only a change in name, not in the care they have come to expect at these clinics.  Practitioners have stated that only the names have changed, and that they look forward to offering the same great service as always. The North Columbus Medical Clinic will become the Allegro Family Clinic of North Columbus, and the Lowndes Medical Clinic will be renamed the Allegro Family Clinic of East Columbus. Clinic telephone numbers will remain the same.

“Our addition of these two clinics strengthens our ability to provide families in the Lowndes County area with convenient, high-quality medical care focused on the needs of the patients. The providers and staff at the new clinics are exceptional and experienced,” said Joe Gillis, founder of Dutch Health Services. “This investment represents an important strategic commitment to improving the health of the people of Columbus and Lowndes County, and we look forward to collaborating with North Mississippi Health Services to achieve this mission for our patients.”

Please click here for the full text of the press release.

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C-L Chamber Announces New Members

By Aurora Flight Services, Business, Chamber of Commerce, Columbus, EMCC, GTR LINK, Other Manufacturing

C-L Chamber Announces New Members

COLUMBUS – Courtesy of The Dispatch – PRESS RELEASE (Exerpts)

From left, Matt Bogue, Greg Stewart and Jill Savely (courtesy photo)

Columbus Lowndes Chamber of Commerce is pleased to announce the results of the 2017 board election. The new members are: New CLCC Board members elected are Matt Bogue, The Dutch Oil Group; Greg Stewart, Aurora Flight Sciences; and Jill Savely, EMCC Golden Triangle Early College High School. Bogue, Stewart, and Savely will serve a three year term from October 2017- September 2020 and were elected by majority vote by the Chamber membership.

The CLCC Board Chair for 2017-2018 is Melinda Lowe, Director for the Office of Outreach and Innovation at the Mississippi University for Women.

“The Chamber would not be where we are today without their leadership, and I am grateful. I look forward to working with such a great group of inspiring leaders and a great representation of our membership,” said Lisa James, CLCC President. “Together with the staff, this group will help build a successful future for the Columbus Lowndes Chamber of Commerce.”

Board members serve staggered terms and are elected by the Chamber membership from a slate of 6 approved by the Executive Committee of the Golden Triangle Development LINK.

To see the full press release, please click here.

 

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Local Entrepreneurs Picking Up Steam

By Banking, Business, Chamber of Commerce, Columbus, Foodservice, Retail, The W

Local Entrepreneurs Picking Up Steam

COLUMBUS – Courtesy of The Dispatch

MUW played host to a small business seminar Tuesday night, that was put on by BancorpSouth and the Columbus-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce. The hall was packed with people young and old who wished to learn more about how to go about starting up their own small businesses.

“The majority (who attended) were people who were just thinking about (starting a business) or have ideas to do it and needed to know where to start,” said Emily McConnell, director of programs and events at the CoC. “The seminar was great for that, just in encouraging them to do it, to get out there and try.”

Mary Jennifer Russell (courtesy photo)

One of the featured speakers was Mary Jennifer Russell of New Albany. In 1997, she had been moving from job to job while dabbling in baking on the side, as a way to bring in supplemental income. She gradually grew her business, and, a year after beginning, she had (what was then) her first major sale — ten cakes, sold to a yogurt shop. Fast forward nearly twenty years, and now Russell’s Sugarees Bakery puts out a thousand cakes a week, while employing 37 people. Her story has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and Oprah’s Magazine, and Russel earned her place as this year’s Mississippi Small Business Administration (SBA) Small Business Person of the Year.

She had this advice to give to people just starting out: “What do you want to see?” she said. “What do you want to smell? Really, really envision it with lots of detail.” She also emphasized the need to keep good books, constantly improving the business even after it’s up and running and – in particular – making sure to take good care of good employees.

Russell went on to offer this piece of advice: “It’s easy enough if you start with low-risk,” she said. “…It can be done. It should be done.” She recommends keeping your old job for as many years as it takes to get the new venture to a profitable stage; it took her four years to do so, herself, resulting in her opening her own dedicated shop after proving that her business concept was viable simply by doing exactly what she set out to do.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy – The more of them we have, the more people who are willing to take on that risk – The more success stories we’ll hear, given time, investment, and a lot of hard work. And that’s Good for Business!

You can read the full article by clicking here.

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New Terry Brown Amphitheater Phase 1 Done, Usable for Free Events. Phase 2 Next Up

By Business, Chamber of Commerce, Columbus, Culture/Entertainment, Golden Triangle, Hotel & Hospitality, Main Street, Parks, Recreation

New Terry Brown Amphitheater Phase 1 Done, Usable for Free Events. Phase 2 Next Up

Columbus, MS – The Dispatch

The Terry Brown Amphitheater (Phase I) on the Westbank of the river

The new Terry Brown Amphitheater, located on the west bank of the river, as part of the Columbus Riverwalk, has completed Phase 1 of its construction, and they’re ready for Phase 2 to begin as soon as funding can be raised. The work thus far has cost about $3 million, and another $2.5 million or so is being called for in order to finish everything up.

City Engineer Kevin Stafford said that going over the usual list of making sure every little thing works properly is all that needs to be done before formally turning over the keys to the City itself: “We’ll be testing all the systems next week to make sure everything’s ready to go,” Stafford said. “What you have is basically the same thing as across the river (an existing outdoor stage under the Old Highway 82 bridge with grass seating). It’s just bigger, less likely to flood and is fully ADA accessible.”

Once these tests and inspections are all done, the amphitheater facility will be usable for free events; once everything else is done (such as fencing, ticketing, permanent restrooms, etc), it will be usable for private and paid events, as well. Stafford says that, once funding is secured, “I would estimate it would take about nine months, start to finish.” All of the physical infrastructure and groundwork is in place already.

“It’s a great facility,” said Barbara Bigelow, director of Main Street Columbus. “At this point, I haven’t discussed how we might use it. Sounds of Summer could certainly be held there, but people love where it is now, so I’m not sure my board would want to move. But I do think there is a lot of potential for the new facility. It’s another attraction for our downtown and we’re excited to see what happens there.”

Please click here to view the full article.

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Hardee’s on 45 Gets a Great New Look Inspired by Columbus Itself

By Business, Chamber of Commerce, Columbus, Foodservice, Retail, The W

Hardee’s on 45 Gets a Great New Look Inspired by Columbus Itself

 

hardees starThe Hardee’s  on Hwy 45 recently held their Grand Re-opening, showcasing their newly-expanded and renovated dining room. The Columbus Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting to celebrate the event, which marked the culmination of a several-months-long expansion and complete remodeling of the dining area, which was extended by about ten feet. The interior was completely redesigned, and now includes a curvy seating section with large circular booths for families or other large groups; the addition of new tables in order to handle more customers at a time; and a raised “bar” section with stools, wi-fi, and outlets for laptops/chargers. Long-time patrons of the store will be glad to know that the restrooms have been totally redone, as well, and moved inside the actual main building. Imagery meant to evoke the city of Columbus itself – including a prominent mural representing The W– serves a distinctive feature of the venue.

I’d like to applaud the ownership group for their investment in improving and completely remodeling their property – it helps our community, and our tax base. As with a many other businesses featured on this blog, the ownership is all local. Their food in general – and especially their fresh-made, hot breakfast biscuits, have been a hit with locals for many years, now, as has their friendly, smiling staff. Come on out and give them a try sometime!

Image courtesy of www.hardees.com

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