14 MAR 06: KIA KRAZY
Instant Message to all radio stations between LaGrange and Auburn: I did some online checking Monday - and from what I can tell, there's still time to change your call letters to W-KIA.
Monday was the day the news sunk in for the Columbus and West Point areas. We're getting a $1.2 billion Kia assembly plant! Well, as long as Kim Jong Il in North Korea doesn't do anything foolish and desperate....
(Longtime blog readers will recall one of our first posts in 2003 declared a personal war on North Korea. Once Kia arrives in West Point, I will declare absolute victory.)
The Kia commitment is SO HUGE that Monday's Ledger-Enquirer had perhaps its biggest front-page headline since the 2003 attack on Iraq. The Valley Times-News sent a photographer to South Korea. And WRBL may be waiting for the Opelika-Auburn News to tell it what people there have to say.
Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue will talk with reporters in Atlanta today about the agreement to bring the new car factory to Troup County. Perhaps we'll learn details about what must be the biggest "Kia package" since the Berlin airlift.
But did you hear Don Siegelman's reaction Monday to the Kia announcement? The former Alabama Governor called it a sad day for his state, and a "missed economic opportunity." Mr. Siegelman truly DOES need that education lottery - because he apparently thinks Lanett and Valley are part of Georgia.
Lanett and Valley seem to be thrilled with the news about Kia. Lanett City Manager Joel Holley called it "the fountain of youth" for towns struggling with mill closings. Be careful drinking that Kia water, though - it might be mixed with antifreeze.
Lanett Police Chief Ron Docimo said the Kia plant will allow thousands of job opportunities, which he hopes will stop crime. Apparently he never heard that old Johnny Cash song "One Piece at a Time" - about an auto worker who stole parts and built his own car.
Some people in West Point expressed concern Monday that their home will lose its "small-town feel" because of the giant Kia plant. That talk might stop once they sell their homes at inflated prices, and move to Hamilton.
It's been years since I drove along Interstate 85 past the site of the Kia plant. But someone who's been there says about the only things at Exit 2 in West Point right now are a gas station and a Travelodge motel. If I worked for Waffle House, I'd be on the phone with developers already....
But how much will Columbus benefit from a Kia plant in West Point? The closest Kia dealership to the factory site is Kia Autosport on Box Road -- and employees said they had a lot of phone calls Monday. So how much is Bill Heard offering to buy them out?
Officials from the Columbus Chamber of Commerce plan a trip to South Korea in the next month. They hope to gain one of the secondary factories supplying parts to the Kia plant. Too bad Char-Broil is outsourcing its jobs - because Columbus can't supply grill work now.
Becca Hardin of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce says Kia executives consider Columbus the "urban area" for the West Point plant. Officials in LaGrange might consider that a slap in the face. After all, they'll have a college football team this fall - and an interstate highway with no dead end.
Groundbreaking for the Kia plant is still six weeks away, but it's not too early to start the one-liners....
+ What's the favorite beer of a plant employee? A Kia-stone!
+ What are salespeople told before customers take test drives? "Be Kia-full out there!"
+ What do you call a Georgia native who works at the new plant? :Peachy Kia-n!
Now for other items which made news Monday:
+ The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer was sold, as Knight-Ridder announced McClatchy newspapers will buy the entire chain for $4.5 billion. If McClatchy has this much money to spend, maybe they can invest a little cash into developing newspaper ink which doesn't stick to your hands.
+ The Muscogee County School Board committed itself to build a new Rigdon Road Elementary School by July 2007. The board is reaching for technology grant money to build this school - so if there isn't a wireless Internet "hot zone," we may demand an investigation.
+ Major Steve Warren of the Third Brigade told WDAK radio the soldiers who returned to Fort Benning from Iraq were replaced by only one-third as many troops. Optimists will say that shows the U.S. presence in Iraq is being reduced. Pessimists will argue the new soldiers are three times smarter than ours.
+ A witness tells me WRBL morning anchor Tim Reid referred to fill-in weathercaster Blaine Stewart as a "meteorologist." Maybe Reid meant to call him a "METER-ologist" - you know, someone who reads meters.
+ "Crossover Day" in the Georgia House found Rep. Debbie Buckner giving an impassioned speech in favor of the "morning-after pill." She says women who are raped should NOT have to face pharmacists who "opt out" of dispensing it. I never realized every pharmacist in Georgia was a fundamentalist Baptist.
(This controversial bill in the Georgia House would give pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense abortion drugs for reasons of conscience. Women's groups claim the pharmacists' beliefs are being forced on them - so they want to force their beliefs on the pharmacists instead.)
+ On another matter, the Georgia House approved a proposed state law requiring e-mailers to warn you in advance if their messages are obscene. Well, we all know how successful the NATIONAL law about that has been....
+ The first case of mad cow disease in Alabama was confirmed on a small farm. So why kill the ten-year-old cow? If it's really mad, retrain it to work in rodeo bull riding.
+ My old alma mater Kansas canceled classes, after windstorms and a possible tornado damaged 60 percent of the campus's buildings. A call to a niece in Lawrence, Kansas checking on her well-being brought no response. But it appeared the most important building was spared -- and basketball practice went on.
COMING WEDNESDAY: E-mail about everything from the Riverwalk to Serbia....
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