This is a shout out to my wife, Crystal Laughlin Mersh. She is a lightening rod in her home county, Calhoun.
She always knew that would happen after we bought the old high school in Grantsville and planned a project to try and breathe life into a poor, deprived and depressed place. Change is a notoriously difficult process at the best of times, but in a small community with entrenched interests it is even harder.
As the project started Crystal did try and engage with the politicians in the community, and at first that worked, but not for long. Change is often a rough process because people can be motivated to change or motivated to resist. The malcontents can resist for a number of reasons: financial impact, loss of control, loss of status and just general fear of change. The last one can be overcome, which can reduce the number of malcontents, but they can then become even more entrenched. Change is hard, but necessary if you want to reverse decline and create opportunity for the next generation.
The malcontents can be an odd group, diverse in outlook, some mean, some misguided, some plain wrong and some bad. There are always casualties in this process as people get exposed. It is rough, but necessary. Crystal is a change agent – it doesn’t mean she is never wrong, as all humans are of course fallible. But, in the big decisions, she tries to be very careful, at times maybe too careful (I have less patience than her). She gets criticized for being mean or running people off. Those accusations couldn’t be more wrong, asking tough questions, exposing poor decisions / management / financial control, not settling for the old status quo is often rough.
So a shout to Crystal, who took on the Calhoun change project for no personal benefit.
