By STEVE STEWART / editor
Monica was my ninth-grade sweetheart. Pretty, smart and talented, she was my transition out of puppy love. In a giddy, junior high sort of way, we talked of eventual marriage and happiness ever after.
We never married. Our relationship didn’t even survive the ninth grade.
Phil, a high school senior with a driver’s license and his own wheels, decided he too liked Monica. Monica, who’d been smitten with me, decided she liked Phil more. Nothing I could do would change that fact. I begged, pleaded and cajoled. I wrote her a long letter, making a methodical, point-by-point case (good practice for my future career as an editorial writer) that I was the better choice, which I believed with deep conviction. I challenged Phil’s credentials, pointing out — prophetically — that his loyalty to her would be as fleeting as the next cute freshman who caught his eye.
Didn’t matter. If anything, the letter hurt my case, because then I had questioned her judgment, which a wise, savvy ninth-grader like Monica didn’t much appreciate. Mine was a hopeless pursuit.
I thought about Monica the other day as I read the latest in a series of published reports that Kia Motors Corp. will announce, possibly this week, its choice of Georgia, not Meridian, as the site of the Korean automaker’s first American plant. Industrial recruitment, it occurred to me, can be a lot like being in love with a girl who’s in love with someone else: Sometimes your best just isn’t good enough.
Meridian, as recently as last summer, was the apple of Kia’s eye. Our governor called a press conference to tell us so — and to ward off other Mississippi suitors who might be inclined to cut in on the dance floor (Columbus, apparently, didn’t get the memo). Even Kia herself went public in the Korean media with her affection for Meridian.
The courtship appeared only a formality. Meridian and Kia were the perfect match. A formal engagement announcement surely was imminent.
Then, out of nowhere, came Georgia to sweep Kia off her feet. Unless all of the industry and media speculation is wrong (unlikely, given the varied sources from which it’s coming), Meridian will be confirmed soon as the jilted boyfriend, left at the altar by a girl we courted so aggressively and believed was ours.
It doesn’t seem fair — or rational. Any knowledgeable Meridianite can make the case, as I did so passionately with Monica 25 years ago, that our town is right for Kia. Even objective observers would be hard-pressed to deny Meridian’s superiority — perfectly situated between Atlanta and Dallas on the emerging Interstate 20 automotive corridor; easy proximity to Kia’s Hyundai sister plant in Montgomery, Ala.; excellent highway and rail infrastructure; a two-state workforce from which to draw employees; generous local, state and federal incentives. The list goes on.
It will be tempting, if Kia indeed picks Georgia, to second-guess ourselves, to find fault with the players, whether at the state or local level, who were charged with making the deal happen. Such self-analysis, done correctly, can be useful. If mistakes were made, they should be corrected before the next pursuit of a mega-employer.
Some pundits already are blaming Gov. Haley Barbour and state officials for being unwilling to sweeten the incentives pot when Georgia entered the Kia sweepstakes in a serious way. That seems unlikely, given that Kia, by picking Georgia, would leave on the table at least a quarter-million dollars in federal tax incentives that Mississippi can offer by virtue of its inclusion in the post-Hurricane Katrina Gulf Opportunity Zone.
Others will blame it on Meridian’s supposedly limited workforce, which Kia officials cited as their reason for cooling on our community, despite the fact that thorough demographic information had been readily available to the automaker from the earliest stages of its interest in East Mississippi. The workforce excuse was probably just Kia’s way of letting Meridian down easy, as classy girls are wont to do when they decide to place their affection elsewhere. The truth is, East Mississippi and West Alabama can easily supply a skilled workforce for a 2,000-employee plant. Independent studies have documented that fact.
Even the most thorough of postmortems is unlikely to pinpoint what went wrong — if indeed Meridian and Mississippi did anything wrong. The more plausible, albeit frustrating, explanation is that Kia decided — whether for a combination of reasons or based on a simple gut feeling — that she liked Georgia better.
The good news is that Meridian remains an attractive catch for an automobile plant or other major employer that’s looking for a great community to call home. The qualities that first attracted Kia to this community haven’t changed.
A few months after Monica broke my heart, along came Denise, an equally pretty, smart and talented girl who would become my high school sweetheart and make Monica a memory.
If Meridian can’t have Kia, another mate awaits.
Steve Stewart’s e-mail address is sstewart@themeridianstar.com.
