By James Ronald Skains
Editorial Commentary

I was truly impressed by Governor Kathleen Blanco's Rural Economic Development Conference held recently at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. However, the amazing thing about the Conference was its focus point, "entrepreneurship."

The word, "entrepreneur" was a dirty word for my generation, the 1960's and subsequent generations. Bankers of my era certainly did not "like" or appreciate people who were bitten by the entrepreneur bug. The words of wisdom from all sides in those days were, "get an education and then you can get a good job."

People who wanted to be in business for themselves were looked upon as "weird" or out to make money at some else's expense. Many great ideas (big and little) for economic development in Louisiana died due to lack of peer acceptance.

One of the champions of "entrepreneurship" in the Piney Woods was the late Eck Bozeman of Winnfield. He saw a vision of Louisiana being one "giant tourist attraction" dotted with numerous family operated business along with other larger "tourist type attractions" to take advantage of Louisiana's unique culture and heritage.

Eck preached and pitched his vision of Louisiana to anyone who would listen through countless letters to the editor and numerous speeches to civic clubs and Chambers of Commerce all over North and Central Louisiana. He told everyone in earshot, "develop the tourist industry in Louisiana, and they will come." He pointed to Silver Dollar City and Branson, Missouri as illustration of how that region made millions in marketing the Ozark Hillbilly culture.

But in the era of the 1960's, 70's and 80's, oil was the King in Louisiana, the Chemical industry was the Crown Prince, timber was Prince Charming and farming was the Pearl of the Delta and entrepreneurship was the road less traveled. Every Chamber of Commerce dreamed of a Fortune 500 company locating in their backyard.

We know how that tightly knitted economy has unraveled and the dreams of the major corporations coming to Louisiana evaporated because we have lived through it, and now face the stark reality of a helpless economy.

Louisiana in its political wisdom saw fit to allow millions of barrels of the world's oil to flow through its refineries in exchange for jobs and a steady stream of tax revenue but without any plans for when the pipelines ran slow. The chemical companies claimed every tax break imaginable by the wizards of Baton Rouge because due to the nature of their industry, the chemical companies needed to locate along the Mississippi River near some of the major oil refineries.

The chemical companies came to Louisiana in droves, not because of the tax breaks which they accepted as lagniappe, but because they needed to be located along the big River. Timber was truly Prince Charming (remember the days of the $500 stumpage) until the Federal level politicians with the blessing of some "me-too" state level officials, traded away the lumber and paper industry to the third world countries.

\Timber was just a commodity in the Federal level politicians quest to break-down trade barriers for the Fortune 500 companies to sell their computers, telecommunications equipment and financial services in the second and third world countries. But the backbone of America, the farming industry would always be safe and secure and it was until the same political gurus realized that farming was just a commodity that could be traded for free trade agreements in the globalization process.

So now that our economy is in shambles, especially in the rural areas, the powers that be have decided that the only way for rural America to survive economically is for entrepreneurs in each community come up with bright ideas of products that they can manufacture locally and marketed to the rest of the world.

That sounds wonderful in theory, but in practicality, will it work? If all or some rural areas across America, see a surge in entrepreneurship, looks like the bright ideas market would become flooded. The economy of the United States was un-questionably built by entrepreneurs who had great ideas in many different fields who brought those products to market and established ``Corporate America.''

I've been an entrepreneur at heart all my live and have practiced the art of entrepreneurship throughout out my career. Some of you old-timers in the Piney Woods may remember my entrepreneur efforts back in the early 1970's to develop the Coochie Brake area in southwest Winn Parish into a major Theme Park.

In recent years my entrepreneurship efforts were focused on the wood conversion to liquid fuels project in Pollock that was noted in an article last September in the Journal.

I certainly endorse and applaud Governor Blanco's efforts to find solutions to the economic problems in rural Louisiana.

However, for some reason while I was sitting there during the recent meeting at NSU, a story my grandfather told me came to mind. My grandfather, who was a professional horse-trader by trade, had a young colt which was coveted by another man in the community. My grandfather sold him the colt for $40. A couple of months later, my grandfather visited the new owner of the colt.

The colt was growing and looking good so my grandfather decided that he wanted to own the colt again and offered the man $65 for the colt. A few months later, the previous owner came by my grandfather's place and offered him $90 for the young horse. Over the next year, my grandfather and his neighbor, bought and sold each the horse until finally the price of the horse had got up to $220.

During a period of ownership of the horse by my grandfather, a man from another parish came by his place, saw the horse and offered him $285 for the horse. My grandfather accepted his offer. When the neighbor and previous owner heard that my grandfather had sold the horse to an outsider, he came over and said to my grandfather, "Why did you sell the horse to the stranger. Me and you both was making a good living with that horse."

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