My what a difference a year can make when business leaders get fired up and fully engaged.

Almost exactly one year after the Adams County Board of Supervisors opted to plunge a stick into the spokes of the community’s economic development wheels, the stick was officially removed this week.

On Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009, the supervisors voted to pull their funding from the economic development authority, raising the ire of many in the business community.

This week, on Tuesday, Jan. 19, after months and months of meetings, talks and a third-party study by a group of consultants, the business community put their money where their mouths were.

Local businesses committed $369,000 in private funds over the next three years to help provide extra funding for a soon-to-be created, new economic development entity.

That’s more than $1,000 a day for each of the days since the county pulled the rug from beneath the current EDA. But they didn’t raise the funds over the course of a year, more like five weeks.

That’s an amazing feat and one that we hope shows the city and county elected leaders and the state and regional economic development folks that this is not the same old Adams County.

Hopefully, when the new economic entity, Natchez Inc., becomes a reality through legislative action, we can get down to the business of encouraging businesses to come here and help improve the businesses that we already have.

Our thanks to the volunteers who have help see the process to where we are today and to the folks who will continue to carry the torch in the days ahead.