Time to get over loss of the air base

CBS News has yet to announce when they will air the “60 Minutes” segment that will apparently feature Nucor Steel and Blytheville in some capacity.

A crew from the popular news magazine was in town last week to film footage. They spoke with several Nucor officials, as well as some community leaders. They filmed footage at the Chamber of Commerce, and made several trips to the steel mills out by the river (and apparently got a couple of speeding tickets along the way). Even veteran journalist Lesley Stahl was here to report on the story.

It will be interesting to see how “60 Minutes” portrays our community. The overall angle seems to be generally positive, but when it comes to network news — especially TV news magazines — you never know.

One angle I hope they don’t pursue is the “poor little town that lost the air base” approach. It’s an approach that’s not uncommon when out-of-town media visit Blytheville. Indeed, it’s hard to ignore the array of timeworn buildings on the Arkansas Aeroplex, and it’s no secret that the Eaker Air Base — and it’s closing — is part of our community’s history. And there’s not a person in Blytheville who hasn't taken part in a conversation that begins with, “Back when the air base was here …”

But more and more, the base closure is a part of our distant history; and less and less part of our recent history. It's an event that is quickly losing relevance. And it’s become a pet peeve of mine to hear people continue to blame the closure of the air base for our community’s woes.

There’s no doubt that losing the base was a blow to our community. It was, in fact, a devastating blow. But it was a blow that occurred nearly 17 years ago. That’s a long time. And our community has become a completely different place since then.

Consider our industrial base. Save for Nucor-Yamato Steel, which briefly overlapped the time Eaker was open, nearly all our industry has come here since the base closed. This includes everything from Nucor Hickman and Tenaris, to IPSCO and Roll Coater. When the air base closed, we were barely a blip on the steel industry radar. Today, Mississippi County is one of the top steel-producing counties in the world.

Or, take a look at the retail development near the Highway 18/Interstate 55 interchange. On the day the base closed, you could stand atop the overpass, look east, and see nothing but cotton fields, all the way to the Mississippi River. Today, there is a retail supercenter, a big-box home improvement store, a strip mall with a dozen tenants, three restaurants, a gas station and a bank.

Or consider this: For today's high school seniors, there is no memory of the air base ever being open. The idea of an open Eaker Air Base has no place in what they know about their hometown. The same goes for everyone who has moved to Blytheville in the past 17 years (including yours truly.) To an ever-growing number of Blytheville citizens, the air base has never been open.

And all this is why it frustrates me to hear people use the closure of the air base as a crutch for what’s wrong in our community. The fact is, the loss of the air base is part of our distant history, a history that has long since faded from our collective rear-view mirror. Our community has its share of shortcomings and challenges, for sure. But those shortcomings can no more be blamed on the loss of the air base than on the the collapse of the local logging industry.

We’ll have to see what “60 Minutes” does with its steel story. They may very well take the knee-jerk path, and show how steel has saved “the poor little town that lost the air base.” It would be hard to blame them if they did.

But for the sake of people in Blytheville continuing to look forward, I hope they look for something different.