Playing to the Hometown Crowd

Disclaimer: This is a blog about our event in Toledo. It gets there eventually.

Faraway Places Thai Restaurant (RIP) in Marion, MS - just outside Meridian (this will be important later, so pay attention). Photo by me.

Happy Tuesday!

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far, and staying cool and/or dry - depending on the ridiculous weather in your part of the world.

It’s been a bit of a slow spell here at the Rail Passengers Midwest HQ, thanks to Congress in August recess. My fellow staff members have been spending time in the field over the last few weeks (Jim & Sean were recently in Maine, Jonsie spoke at a conference in Baltimore, and then Jim was right back at it in NYC). So, I’m going to take advantage of a little downtime today to stretch the fingers and jot down some thoughts.

[insert random, obscure pop culture reference here]

I feel like I may have written this blog before because it’s something I talk about frequently with people on my work travels (or even in non-work conversations about my job).

I like what I do. I really do.

While I don’t travel as much as I have in past years, I still get to hit up locations I normally would have zero reason to visit before I got this job (which is a shame, because I do love going to new places).

Me trying to figure out where La Junta, CO is in 2016

For example, and as I mentioned during an interview a few years ago, one of my very favorite places in the US is Meridian, Mississippi. I have been there 3–4 times for work, including a week for our fall conference in 2023, and I personally would have had no reason to ever go there beforehand. I didn’t know anyone there, from there, or who had previously been there.

Then I got this gig.

The picture at the top that I said would be important later? Well, it’s important now. That restaurant, in a double-wide trailer in the middle of an old truck rest stop parking lot, was (sadly) home to one of the best dishes I’ve ever had in my near 47 years on earth (a very spicy bowl of fish curry) that I can still picture in my head. If it wasn’t for this job and meeting former long-time Amtrak employee and my local tour guide (and good friend) Jerome Trahan, I would have never found it on my travels preaching the good word of passenger rail advocacy.

It was on that trip back in Jan 2020 that I knew I had to get back there - work or otherwise - to find more “hidden gems” to talk about when I traveled.

Then the world stopped cold.

Fast forward to the Spring of 2023, and, thanks to Jerome, who was now on the Association Council, Meridian was nominated as a potential location for the fall meeting that year, and I waited with bated breath as the votes rolled in.

When the white smoke billowed from the chimney, we were heading to the Queen City. And it was time for me to get to work.

Okay, at this point you are asking yourself: “Self, what am I reading here and what does this have to do with Toledo? It’s in the subtitle, right?”

Well, dear reader, you have reached that part now. Don’t be so fussy. I told you I would get there.

As the staffer who is responsible for running point on the drafting, planning, and execution of the agenda and run of show for the fall meeting, I’m also the one who works with the local groups and advocates to build a theme. While each city that hosts our meetings will have its own story to tell that makes its theme unique, it was because of my time in Meridian that I came up with the heart and backbone that I start with on that blank draft page each year…

“My Hometown”

Every place is someone’s hometown. From the major cities to the one-stoplight towns. We are all from somewhere, and that place has a story to tell. Each year, after the Council votes on the winning location, I will travel to meet with members, locals, officials, etc and get the lay of the land (especially if it’s a place I have never been). And it’s during those trips that I have, as our Chief of Staff Jonsie Stone calls them, my “eureka moment” where the story clicks.

In the case of Meridian, it was the growth of the downtown thanks to the rehab of the train station in the 90s, led by Mayor John Robert Smith and the building of places like the MAX Museum. For Tucson, it was looking toward the future by building on the past of a historic railroad town that was clamoring for greater access.

For Toledo, it’s telling the story of incredibly resilient advocates who have built a statewide network in the face of decades of anti-passenger rail politicians. A story that so many of you can relate to. But I’m not the one to tell the story. They are. And that’s how I develop the agenda by talking to those on the ground and finding the best voices in each area so you can then go back to YOUR hometown and fight for the same things.

You want the funding that Kansas City got for the streetcar that brought in billions in investment. You want the station rehab like Meridian that sparked growth and expansion by businesses and universities. You want to fight the seemingly endless highway construction like San Antonioans deal with and give people the true freedom of choice in transportation.

You also want people to come find those “hidden gems.” You want people to travel there and find your version of the fish curry bowl served in a doublewide trailer in an old gravel parking lot that people will talk about for years.

Working with Congressional offices on the Hill and getting funding bills and good policy over the finish line is a massively important part of life on this tiny Association staff. As is the data, the research, the fundraising…

But for me? The “professional extrovert”? My job is to tell those stories that are behind the policy.

And I really like what I do.

(Will I see you in Toledo to hear these stories and more?)

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Leave a comment and let me know where your favorite “hometown” spots are - either in your literal hometown or along your own travels.