Ashley County, Arkansas

nity and gives people who don’t have a large income a place to buy quality household goods at an affordable price. In another warehouse, plastic bottles, books, newspapers, and maga- zines are collected and shredded, and put into bulk containers. The county owns equipment to press paper and yard waste into small cubes, which are then sold to Georgia-Pacific for use as fuel. “We are an industrial county that just needs a shot in the arm to help us grow a little bit big- ger,” says Hudson. “We have a vocational school that’s a part of the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM). They just consolidated with UAM and you get the same credits you’d get at college, but it’s vocational. They offer welding classes, an instrument orientation class, a com- puter class – a program where they’re teaching students who want to go into the workforce the basics of how to machine; how to do setup. We’ve got the technology and the skilled labor for computer jobs, but the blue-collar jobs are in more demand than the white-collar jobs and we do not have a workforce for those. We’re training the younger ones now at our Vo-Tech that it’s good to do a blue-collar job - a plumber makes $150,000 a year and there is a shortage. To make a business work, you need white collar and blue collar. We’re trying to fill the niche for both, here.” He adds, “I would love to have a tech-based company move in, because we just don’t have any of those jobs available. The Silicon Valley started out just like Hamburg, a rural commu- nity. This is a great place to raise your children. Our crime rate is very low, our drug problem is ASHLEY COUNTY, ARKANSAS