Up & Coming Weekly

December 17, 2019

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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4 UCW DECEMBER 18-24, 2019 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM BILL BOWMAN, Publisher, UP & COMING WEEKLY. COMMENTS? BILL@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484- 6200. STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman Bill@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/EDITOR Stephanie Crider editor@upandcomingweekly.com OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Paulette Naylor accounting@upandcomingweekly. com ASSISTANT EDITOR Jenna Shackelford jenna@upandcomingweekly.com HOPE MILLS AND SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR Earl Vaughan Jr. EarlUCWSports@gmail.com REPORTER Jeff Thompson news@upandcomingweekly.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Elizabeth Baker art@upandcomingweekly.com MARKETING ASSOCIATE Linda McAlister Brown linda@upandcomingweekly.com DISTRIBUTION MANAGER/SALES ADMINISTRATOR Laurel Handforth laurel@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS D.G. Martin, Pitt Dickey, Margaret Dickson, Karl Merritt, John Hood, Jim Jones, Shanessa Fenner, Prudence Mainor, Avery Powers, Elizabeth Blevins, Crissy Neville ––––––––––– Up & Coming Weekly www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan St. P.O. Box 53461 Fayetteville, NC 28305 PHONE: 910-484-6200 FAX: 910-484-9218 Up & Coming Weekly is a "Quality of Life" publication with local features, news and information on what's happening in and around the Fayetteville/Cumberland County community. Up & Coming Weekly is published weekly on Wednesdays. Up & Coming Weekly welcomes manuscripts, photographs and artwork for publication consideration, but assumes no responsibility for them. We cannot accept responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts or material. Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. The publisher reserves the right to edit or reject copy submitted for publication. Up & Coming Weekly is free of charge and distributed at indoor and outdoor locations throughout Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Pope Air Force Base, Hope Mills and Spring Lake. Readers are limited to one copy per person. © 2019 by F&B Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or advertisements without permission is strictly prohibited. Various ads with art graphics designed with elements from: vecteezy.com and freepik.com. PUBLISHER'S PEN HIGH HIGH 60 60 LOW LOW 39 39 HIGH HIGH 54 54 LOW LOW 34 34 HIGH HIGH 49 49 HIGH HIGH 49 49 HIGH HIGH 62 62 WOO! LOW LOW 38 38 LOW LOW 35 35 LOW LOW 38 38 DECEMBER 23 DECEMBER 22 DECEMBER 20 DECEMBER 21 DECEMBER 24 Sunny Partly Cloudy AM Showers Partly Cloudy Showers Mostly Sunny DECEMBER 19 HIGH HIGH 44 44 LOW LOW 26 26 Humidity 73 43 67 67 50 71 Fayetteville's future is bright by BILL BOWMAN I believe Fayetteville is a wonder- ful place to live, serve, work, raise a family, educate children, grow a business and enjoy the golden years. I have traveled the world and lived in many places, large and small. Fayetteville is special. Our amazing arts, business and bank- ing, churches, downtown, education, families, geography, homes (are wonderful) ... but the people, they make Fayetteville special. I chal- lenge those with repeated negative thoughts to take the time to share what is great about the place we call home. Fayetteville and Fort Bragg are primed to experience a historic revival led by Generation Z and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We are primed to realize the tremen- dous competencies from Fort Bragg, which will fuel our future. We are on the eve of breakthroughs in economic, community and quality- of-life advancement grounded in cyber, drones, robotics, artificial intelligence, data and the careers of the future. e future is here. We should spend less time on the last 150 years and the history it produced and more on the next 50 years and the value and quality of life it will birth. Populations are changing and citizens are moving. We are in the perfect location to benefit from this change. e future is very bright, and it is about people first. When we make people first and operate with integrity and fairness, then we will realize our best future. e future is bright, and that is where we are wise to place our focus. People first, our best future. Rodney Anderson, soldier for life and proud parent of three young adult children — Lindsay, Danielle and Rodney Jr. I covet my editorial space in our commu- nity newspaper and I'm reluctant to yield it to others unless their message is of vital importance to the residents of Fayetteville and Cumberland County. retired Maj. Gen. Rodney Anderson has such a mes- sage with his response to my editorial last week, "People Over Politics." For the most part the general and I agree on the virtues of this community and the opportunities afforded here. Actually, we agree on almost every point. However, his experience, training and intellect being what they are, he introduces two concepts that I doubt many people in our community are familiar with — the first being Generation Z and the second and, most important, the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Granted, together these two phenomena are the reality of the nation's future. So, if you have never heard these terms then I suggest you Google them right away. In addition, Anderson puts tremendous value on the virtues of integrity and fair- ness. is is what "people first" is all about. e reality is that intelligent, focused and visionary leader- ship puts people first. It is this type of leadership that is needed to attract young talent to our community and keep them here to capitalize on the changing nature of our world and com- munity. He is right. e question now is do we have the leader- ship and resources to attract and retain such talent to grow our population here in Fayetteville and Cumberland County? Well, as Margaret Dickson points out in her article "Growing Pains," probably not. In eight years, 2010-2018, Cumberland Coun- ty's population grew a measly 1.4% lagging embarrassingly far behind smaller counties like Harnett (+15%), Hoke (+13%) and Moore (+12%). So, while Anderson provides us valid and intellectual insights into the future, in reality, it is history that becomes the looking glass into our future. In this particular case of 1.4% growth in eight years, a study of our past would reveal what we have done or, not done, that resulted in these dis- mal numbers. It's the difference between "talking the talk" and "walking the walk." e proof of success, or failure, is always in the net result. Knowing what to do and understanding what to do are useless if the leadership is not there. People first! We always enjoy hearing from our readers. I want to personally thank Anderson for his letter and his valuable insights. Now, let's see where this will lead us. anks for reading Up & Coming Weekly. — Publisher Bill Bowman Ret. Maj. Gen. Rodney Anderson has high hopes for Fayetteville's future.

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