Downtown Farmville won't be flipping coins and calling heads or tails to select the organization's executive director. The more than two dozen applicants for the job precisely articulate the position's attractiveness, which necessarily speaks well for the entire community. The fact that those applicants come from Maine, California, and points in between, amplifies the meaning.

The Main Street program is founded upon a four-point strategy, developed in 1977 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, focusing on design, economic restructuring, promotion and organization. Farmville and Downtown Farmville were added to the Virginia Main Street program last year.

When hired and on board this fall, the executive director will find an enthusiastic, visionary core of volunteers eager to shift into a higher gear and accelerate into the Main Street program.

Volunteers, however, will remain crucial to the success of Farmville's Main Street program. “Essentially, this person will be working for the board of directors and consequently they are lending support to our four subcommittees, which is the four-point approach of the Main Street program,” Downtown Farmville co-chair Jimmy Johnson noted regarding the position of executive director. “But they will not be actually running the organization…They will be assisting with the program and managing it, helping keep us on point.”

Nevertheless, the Board of Directors faces a crucial decision when hiring the organization's first executive director. The fledgling Main Street program will benefit greatly through selecting the person who is the right fit but, equally, it cannot afford the mistake of just missing the target. There are a lot of people watching and the first impression made by the executive director will go a long way to define Downtown Farmville's Main Street initiative for nearly everyone who isn't already involved in the effort.

Expect success, just not overnight.

Downtown Farmville's Board of Directors is comprised of intelligent, determined folks with a mission and they will have a good pool of applicants from which to choose.

Once the choice is made, a five-year plan will begin to unfold as program takes hold, and then takes flight.

-JKW-