Last Thursday, part of my hometown’s Main Street burned down. One of the buildings that burned down was where I had my first job - People’s Pharmacy. The drugstore was at the front, the pharmacy counter in the middle and Hallmark cards and gifts in the back. I learned to blow up balloons there. I learned to wrap presents (Kind of). There was a glass Coke bottle machine I loved when I was little and a little bell above both doors that rang every time someone walked in. When I started working at People’s, I had to make sure I didn’t spend my entire paycheck on glass bottle Cokes and Hallmark gifts. I couldn’t even drive yet when I started working there. My parents had to drop me off. The business has been closed for years. I think it was replaced by a restaurant, and then Thursday, the building and the businesses were just … gone.


I live in Texas now (you know everything’s bigger in Texas) and when people say here “Oh I’m from a small town” I think - we will see about that. I’ll say, what is small? They say 40,000 and I say, I’m from a town of about 3,000 people. Then they say - oh yeah that’s small! I consider Walhalla, South Carolina my hometown (I technically lived in a town called West Union - population 312). Walhalla is a German word and it means Garden of the Gods.


Which feels sort of perfect for the town you drive through to get to the Blue Ridge Mountains. I haven’t lived there in over 20 years. Most of the businesses that burned down were not there when I lived in this little town. And yet the people in buildings still standing come together for friends and neighbors, that part of a small town I know.

I may live in this big giant state now but you’ll find me mostly behind a computer screen, working with executives across the country, building a virtual community of EAs who are scattered all over the place. But this week I found myself thinking a lot about the pharmacy, the Bantam Chef where you can get an amazing burger and fries, “The Steak House” on main street that is oddly enough known for its fried chicken. (Those businesses are still standing).

We all know I consider myself Chief Introvert and have to remind myself to get out from behind the computer screen and go outside every once in a while (to touch grass!). The small town feeling of community is why I love supporting and partnering with executives and their teams. It’s why I built the VAP Slack community. It is why I had the vision of the EA community growing and all of us chatting, helping each other and having our own little corner of the internet.

The goal is to create our own little internet CHEERS. Minus the beers. (Say it with me - NORM!)

We all carry our communities with us. The communities and schools where we grew up, the communities we build at work and our neighborhoods. Time passes, businesses come and go, but the community you build with purpose stays with you — you carry it on.

To everyone in Walhalla right now: I’m thinking about you. I’m thankful I carry you with me.


Main Street in Walhalla, SC before the Annual Christmas Parade