White is hoping to get all four cities on board with as “Character Cities” and then once that happens, she wants to see Logan County declare itself as a “Character County.”
What does that mean, though?
White wants to get everyone in Logan County thinking about the attributes that make up a person of strong character.
Some of those include traits like thoroughness, dependability, contentment, benevolence, availability, deference, compassion, determination, wisdom, honor, decisiveness, alertness, truthfulness, obedience, gratefulness and generosity.
She got the idea while attending a training workshop on building character in school children.
But the idea of having Logan County become a Character County goes much farther than just the classroom.
“Trying to instill character qualities is larger than what schools can do by themselves,” White said.
So she contacted the Logan County ministerial organization and partnered with them to get a group started.
The group, which will be seeking non-profit organization status, is called “Character Works” and will be working with leaders in the business community, the schools and the local government to help bring strong character traits to the forefront of everyone’s thinking.
“This is going to be a big undertaking,” White said.
The group will focus on one trait each month.
“You might have February as respect month – or it could be about hope or compassion,” White said. “This is non-religious in nature, but it is character traits that make great people and great leaders and we want to implement that those traits in everything we do.”
Whatever the character trait of the month is, White said she would like the community to really get behind it.
“Once we get our calendar down, I want to send out a reminder of the trait at the beginning of the month,” she said. “And then each business can implement that by having that word and its definition in a display or up on its sign.”
She said that whenever a business or a classroom has an individual show that specific trait that month, something simple could be done to commemorate it.
“Maybe they could drop a marble in a jar or put a bead onto a string – just something to constantly keep it on peoples’ minds,” White said.
Character Works has already had a few organizational meetings and will be putting their action plan together on March 1 at 5:30 p.m. at the Russellville Technology Center.
White said that any business leaders that would like to come and be a part of that are welcome to take part.
“And eventually we want to have a meeting for the public in general, to really get them on board too,” she said.
Once the action plan is implemented, White wants to start picking out children in the various schools around Logan County that exemplify the specific character traits.
“We want recognize the young people that exhibit that trait to both give them the incentive to keep it up and show them to their peers as leaders in that area,” White said.
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