I just saw a very funny commercial.  Almost as funny as the one from Geico with the mom calling the James Bond-like son during a high pressure situation and wanting to talk to him about the squirrel infestation at the parental home.  I want to say right up front that I would never do something like that to my own busy and important children but my mom did it to me a fair amount.  And the squirrels cavorting around the pool are a riot.

Anyway, the commercial to which I am referring is for some sort of computer software that prevents viruses.  It features a security guard in the middle of a bank robbery announcing repeatedly that the bank is being robbed.  The customers lying on the floor are looking at each other in complete bafflement as are the bank robbers.  The gist is that it’s not enough to announce that something bad is happening, something actually has to be done to fix it.

So from this entertaining commercial I have created the theme for my column.  Despite being a force of positivity, I’d have to be in complete denial not to see that major changes are happening in the Cowboy State.  Life as we know it is going to change and it doesn’t matter where you want to place the blame when it comes to the instability of coal.  It’s a fact of our lives, especially as taxpayers, and it’s going to have lasting effects.

If Sheridan were a community represented by the security guard, we would all be standing around, wringing our hands and announcing that the end is near and we’re toast.  But we’re not.  Sheridan is the kind of community that the security software purports to be – it works to fix the issue.

The Sheridan CiViC Project kicks off on May 23rd with a new crop of incredible emerging and existing leaders.  They’re ready and rearing to dedicate a week out of their busy lives to learning all the facets of community leadership.  They’ll join nearly 100 other graduates who have gone through the CiViC program and are working with a shared set of tools and language to keep our community moving forward in a positive direction.

I claim that one of the reasons why we’re such a rock star county (I feel a Bruce Springsteen simile coming on) is because we aren’t satisfied with the status quo.  We are always looking ahead to both identify obstacles and recognize advantages.  The first we work to mitigate and the second we capitalize upon.  This isn’t just our elected officials who manage topsy turvy budgets.  This is our tireless volunteers, our visionaries, our funders, our educators, our workers, our entrepreneurs – everyone here who recognizes what an incredible place Sheridan County is but refuse to let it sit idle.  Our collective foot is always on the accelerator.

Let’s breathe a collective sigh of relief that we’re not the security guard in Sheridan County.  And let’s celebrate the invention of caller i.d. – keeping the number of potential maternal calls about rodent invasions or similar to a reasonable level.