As everyone probably knows by now there are three final candidates in the running to be the next president at Jefferson Davis Community College. Five people were interviewed for the position last week and I was lucky enough to be on hand as those interviews took place.

During those interviews of people who probably never heard of Brewton before they applied for the vacancy pride in my community began to swell.

Seriously, there were five people who were doing everything in their power to get to Brewton. For just about all of my life I had heard people (mostly teenagers) say how badly they wanted to leave Brewton — and then, here are people just dying to get into our community. Imagine that.

From what I understand, all of the candidates for the job had actually been in the county for a couple of days before their interviews. They had even made the drive over to Atmore to check out the JDCC campus there and they all still showed up for the interviews.

One candidate said she had visited around the community and even asked a few questions about the college. Now, mind you, the folks she talked with didn’t know her from Adam, but they responded positively about the community and about the college. She even said that the majority of those who talked with her spoke very fondly of their own experiences or the experiences of their friends and family when it came to attending JDCC.

What does that say about our community? A lot.

It says that we have friendly people here who aren’t generally afraid of speaking to a stranger. It says that JDCC has a good reputation and the faculty and staff don’t look at students as just a tuition payment. It says that we open our arms and doors for strangers and welcome them to the community even if they don’t have a southern accent.

America is known as the melting pot of the world. Based on what I heard and saw last week, I began to take a closer look at our community. I came to the conclusion we are a melting pot, too. We have a variety of nationalities living in our community and, for the most part, everyone lives peacefully here. We are lucky.

I’m glad to live in a melting pot community. I’m glad to call this my home and thankful it is the community where my child will grow up and learn to love and accept others.

No doubt my child will someday utter the phrase “I can’t wait to get out of here” — but just like his mother, he will probably be happy to come home when the time is right.