All-American City

I’m happy to pass along that my old hometown of Richmond has once again been designated an “All-American City.” Fort Wayne was the other Indiana city that received the designation — Fort Wayne’s third. South Bend came close but lost out. The All-America City designation is given out to 10 cities each year by the National Civic League. The ten cities receiving the designation this year were:
Richmond
Fort Wayne
Phoenix, AZ
Inglewood, CA
Wichita, KS
Somerville, MA
Albany, NY
Kinston, NC
Statesville, NC
Caroline County, VA

Richmond won the designation back in 1987, and I remember it seemed like a pretty big deal for the community. I drove back through town recently and, on one of the water towers, there was a very faded “All American City” sign. That faded sign struck me as a very apt symbol for Richmond.

This time around, the kids led the way. From a previous article:

A core group of Logos eighth-graders, including Alaina Keene, Elaine Brady, Matt Sheridan, Haley Owens, Andrew Stevens and Shauna Flanagan, did much of the research and compiled the written application. They had assistance from [Mary Jo] Clark, Pat Heiny, Fonda Wilds, Valerie Westbrook, Kathy Lucid, Judy Studebaker and Francie Klinge.

After the victory, I was particularly struck by this comment:

Later, after the honor began to sink in, Collins told his fellow teammates, “Who would have thought? The ‘drop out factory’ would be come an All-America City.”

That drop out factory designation has apparently stung more people than myself. In fact, the drop out designation seems to have motivated one of the projects that helped Richmond win the designation. It set up a “Third Grade Reading Academy,” “motivated by the Wayne County Learning Corporation’s Education Summit of October, 2007, the entire community set out to address the 30% high school drop out rate by raising third-grade reading levels.”

Anyway, good going Richmond and Fort Wayne.