115th Year, 13th Issue Thursday, November 6, 2003 Sparta, North Carolina

Angelou to return Nov. 13

AngelouEconomics will present its final recommendations — five-year economic recovery strategies — for Alleghany and seven other counties next week.

Angelou's presentation for Alleghany is scheduled for Nov. 13 at 8:30 a.m. in the community conference room at Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation just south of Sparta, according to a spokeswoman for Annese Public Relations.

That event is open to the public.

The unveiling of the five-year plans represents the culmination of Angelou's nine-month project in northwestern North Carolina. Last year the Northwest North Carolina Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy committee (CEDS) — a group of leaders from Alleghany, Ashe, Davie, Forsyth, Rockingham, Stokes, Surry and Yadkin counties — hired Angelou, an economic consultant firm based in Austin, Texas, to study the region and form the five-year plans, for each county individually as well as for the region as a whole.

CEDS also hired Annese, a Winston-Salem based company, to help promote the project.

The study is being funded through a $400,000 grant package awarded to CEDS, $320,000 from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration and the other $80,000 through the N.C. Community Development Block Grant program. Angelou listed its contract cost at $280,000.

The presentation for the eight-county region overall is slated for Nov. 14, from 10 a.m. until 11:30 a.m., at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem. Speakers at that event will include David Sampson, U.S. assistant secretary of commerce for economic development, and U.S. Rep. Richard Burr. The eight-county region roughly corresponds to the Fifth District, which Burr represents in Congress, and it was he who helped secure the funding for the study.

Get the rest of this article in this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

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