Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Last week, we had a little fun on Facebook when we asked followers for their “wish list” for Troup County.

Basically, we asked people to dream. If you could add any store, restaurants, etc. to LaGrange and Troup County, what would it be? Within about 12 hours, there were over 1,000 comments on the post.

“Target!” a ton of people posted.

Target started as the odds-on-favorite to be the most popular answer, and it didn’t disappoint.

Others want Olive Garden so bad they can’t stand it. Yes, we expected it to be the second most popular answer.

And there were hundreds of other ideas thrown out too.  If it’s a major store or retailer, it was probably listed.

We all have a favorite place to eat or shop, and we all wish it was five minutes down the road.

The exercise was all in good fun, though we plan to expand upon it in the days and weeks ahead.

It’s fun to dream big, wish for more and think about how our community could one day develop. The point of the entire discussion was that.

In no way did it mean to imply that anyone could snap their fingers and make any of those businesses want to move to LaGrange or Troup County. It’s not that easy, although some think it is.

In the meantime, we think it’s important to remember how good we have it.

There are not many communities of our size with a huge lake, an amphitheater, a 10-mile long walking trail (that keeps expanding), a water park, museums and more. In fact, we’re guessing not many do.

The small businesses we have in our community are truly the backbone of everything in LaGrange and Troup County.

In these trying times where it feels like it’s harder and harder to find good, honest, hard-working employees, small businesses feel the brunt of economic downturns.

It’s important to continue supporting them. That’s part of the reason we have our “Best of” contest each year, as it’s a chance to highlight our local businesses and celebrate who’s really doing it right in LaGrange and Troup County.

So yes, Newnan, Opelika and Columbus might have Best Buy, Five Guys, Olive Garden, Target and more, but we’ve got it pretty good too.

And we’re only 40 minutes from all of them. That’s a pretty nice amenity as well, if we do have to drive out of town.

Let’s dream big while still appreciating what we have.