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Our Brand is Beauty
Written By: William McReynolds - Highlands Plateau Audubon Society | Issue: 2020/06 - June | Photograph By: William McReynolds
Ask people who live here on the Plateau what they like most about living among the mountains and forests and before long the word ‘beauty’ gets uttered. That same beauty of place is what lures vacationers and seasonal residents here and back again, year after year. We all have seen awe play on the animated faces of “first timers” who discover to their surprise and delight that, “This place is beautiful!”
Not that “full-timers” ever grow immune to that same arresting experience. Our wilderness areas, waterfalls and hiking trails attract as many local residents as visitors. We take our houseguests and visiting family to our favorite beauty spots, which include many secluded and secret vantage points on field and stream, mountain high and forest primeval. Seems like bragging but we do it anyway. It’s that look of awe on animated faces that we can’t resist.
Where else do folks just pull off the roads and stand transfixed by a lovely gorge or distant range of mountains or field of wild flowers? Waterfall pull-offs are crowded much of the year. Nature stirs the human heart here in the mountains.
The Jackson County Tourism Development Authority or TDA has hired the company BCF to “brand” our area. That brand will be used to advertise the area and attract visitors. Our Crossroads Chronicle has kept us abreast of the developments. Early surveying, only as good as your survey questions and sampling methodology, has identified positive aspects to be cool weather, escape and relief, rustic feel, eclectic small towns, hiking and fishing and, of course, natural landscapes. Repeat visitors surveyed talked about loyalty and vintage hotels and inns which become homes away from home.
This is all true; these are notable attractions. But there is something more profound and moving going on here where once again the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
That something greater and more profound is the human experience of beauty. Whether the survey or any other measure shows it or not, this is a place of beauty and we are the people who have succumbed to and glory in this beauty. Mention the beauty of our mountains and trees and wildlife and stars to folks here and watch their faces. This is what has inspired so many artists and photographers and musicians.
If we were a tribe, we would be the Tribe of Beauty. Our emblem is the forested mountain with a waterfall.
Our brand is Beauty.
