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Melinda: My name is Melinda McTaggart, and I’m the director of the Schoharie County Historical Society and director of Historic Properties for Schoharie County. One of the most important activities that I’ve had the opportunity to do while I’ve been here in Schoharie County is participate in the Appalachian Leadership Institute, which is a program that was created through the Appalachian Regional Commission, one of several economic development commissions created throughout the United States. This one covers 420 counties from Schoharie all the way down through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama. And I was selected by the Commission to participate after being encouraged to apply by the former county administrator, Steve Wilson. When I was a brand new director here in the county and we were talking about skill development and knowing what I don’t know and learning more and all of that. And he said, you should look into this. And I did the application and interestingly enough, I did not get in on the first batch, but that was the best thing that ever happened because that year was still COVID driven as a hybrid.
This year was the first that every single trip was you got or a location was done in person. So, I had the opportunity to travel throughout the region. And once we got to each place, every place had a theme, whether it was economic development, whether it was creating a healthy workforce, cultural, natural assets, dealing with difficult environments, dealing with pushback and all that. For example, orientation took me to Asheville, North Carolina, and that was a sort of a brief dive into what is the Appalachian Regional Commission, what they have been doing since the 1960s when they were founded during Kennedy Johnson time in the presidency. And we got to know one another there. The program had 40 fellows, 39 of us graduated in July of 2023. We had the opportunity from Asheville, went on to Chattanooga, where we talked more about economic development and opportunities to assist communities in attracting and looking for opportunities. We discuss the idea of what’s your blue ocean, what would be the ideals, and perhaps how you can modify those ideals to make them doable.
So, we had those opportunities, even met with people in the medical field to talk about maintaining a healthy workforce, which is key in any community. So, from that I had the ability to work with not only experts in their fields with the opportunity to talk with Gayle Manchin, who is the federal co-chair. I had the opportunity to interact with Pete Buttigieg who’s the Secretary of Transportation, just a whole variety of experts, medical people. And we talked about healthy work in the workforce, had the opportunity to visit some of the most beautiful places in the world, which is southwest Virginia. We went to Abington, where we talked about how to capitalize on your natural resources and the historic resources.
So, the opportunities just to see things were great. But I think one of the most important pieces of the whole program for me was all of the opportunities to meet some of the most incredible people that were part of the fellowship class. We had people who worked in education. We had people who worked in tourism. We had people who worked in creating trail systems. So wide variety. And what I’m looking forward to is seeing that the opportunities for interstate, even into interstate and intrastate partnerships develop and the ALI [Appalachian Leadership Institute] opened a whole new world for me. And I’m so excited to see where it will take Schoharie County and myself over the next few years.