East Texas

By BETTY WATERS
Staff Writer

The Lake Palestine Area Chamber of Commerce didn’t have a home, nowhere the chamber could say that it lives and no one to answer the phone and respond to enquiries.

Theoretically, it serves a bunch of individual communities scattered along Lake Palestine’s approximately 125-mile shoreline, such as Poynor, Larue, Cuney, Coffee City, Berryville, Dogwood City and also Frankston, which is not on the lake.

All of them are too small individually to have a chamber.

Although about 150 people from around the lake and the Frankston area turned out for annual chamber banquets whether they had paid membership dues or not, only five or six active members came to chamber meetings in recent years.

The chamber had started in the mid-1980s as the Berryville Chamber of Commerce serving the town of Berryville, which at one time had businesses, although now it is mostly residential.

Estimates of regular members at its peak range from 50 to 60, with other people just participating. It reorganized with new bylaws and the new name of the Lake Palestine Area Chamber of Commerce in the late 1980s.

The chamber began withering in about 2000, said Larry Paxton, new owner of Lake Palestine Resort. “It was fairly active until then, but somewhere in that neighborhood in the last seven or eight years, members became less and less active and there was no real effort to build it and to recruit new business members,” Paxton said.

Something had to be done, a few “old timers” decided.

“We got together and kind of made a commitment we were either going to relaunch this thing and grow it, build it, and do what a chamber is supposed to do or it will die a natural death,” Paxton said.

The push to rejuvenate the chamber is in full swing. “There is probably no time any greater than now that business needs what a chamber does,” said J. Tom Graham of Frankston.

Official reliance of the chamber occurred during a recent meeting at Lake Palestine Resort. Supporters had spent a couple of months in advance calling on and signing up people and businesses, resulting in “17 brand new people” turning out for the meeting. Their hope is that the rejuvenated chamber will draw members from other areas not directly on the lake, such as Bullard and Chandler.

What created enthusiasm that led to relaunch of the chamger was the chamber’s having gotten behind successful staging of the Bass Pro Shop’s National Catfish Tournament on Lake Palestine last February, Paxton and Graham agree.

“We’ve been doing a lot of promoting of this lake … it’s a beautiful lake, very clear, very clean and experts tell me it’s one of the top three fishing lakes in the state,” Paxton said, although it is not a high profile lake and as well known as other some other lakes in the state, such as Lake Texoma.

Graham credited Paxton with having come to Lake Palestine Resort with a vision for the catfish tournament and the chamber. “I think that fishing tournament showed us how much we were missing in terms of promotion because all of a sudden, Lake Palestine was on the map and people were coming and talking and phoning,” Graham said.

“We realized if you call the chamber, it goes to an answering machine and you might be days or weeks getting your question answered. I think that’s what caused us to think we’ve got to relaunch. The choice was to let it die and start another organization or try to rejuvenate the organization that we already have. We decided it would be better to try to rejuvenate the organization that’s already here.”

During the relaunch meeting, the group picked three projects that the chamber will undertake.

The chamber’s Web site will be updated and kept current. Also, Paxton donated staff for Lake Palestine Resort to begin answering the chamber’s phone, 903-876-5310, so that callers do not hear a recording. A brochure display area and a desk for the chamber also will be set up inside the resort to also field numerous enquiries from people wanting information about Lake Palestine.

“That’s badly needed,” Graham said, “for the chamber to have a physical place where people can call and pick up brochures and information. This chamber has been living out of people’s drawers … it was too small to have a staff or a building or any professional people.”

Secondly, a chamber brochure will be developed listing chamber membership services, locations of restaurants, marinas and boat launch areas on the lake and similar information.

The brochure is expected to be printed within about 60 days, while a third project will be relaunch of a chamber ambassador’s club to assist at ribbon cuttings and other business ceremonies.

Another project the chamber likely will expand is sponsorship of more fund-raising events similar to a recent picnic in the Frankston city park featuring a band, hot dogs and balloons for kids that attracted about 300 people.

Besides generating funds for the chamber, it promoted visibility of the chamber among citizens. “If we can do it for Frankston, we can do it in other areas,” Paxton said.

And, he added, “We have the opportunity to do the catfish tournament again. A lot of people came and we got a lot of visibility. It was a national tournament.”

Summing up where the effort to rejuvenate the chamber stands presently, Paxton said, “I think the excitement will continue to build. We are tickled to death with where we are at and where we are going.”

The purpose of the rejuvenated chamber, according to Paxton, is to help businesses grow and do things that chambers are supposed to do to help them.

“There’s a need for that in every community where businesses can get together for a common purpose and share ideas and get publicity,” Paxton said. Graham added, “We are both true believers in the value of a chamber of commerce because it’s an organization where businesses get together and if they agree on a common goal, they can all go after it together.”

The chamber’s 12-member board meets at 6 p.m. on the third Monday of each month, while committee meetings are conducted as needed. The membership due is $89 annually.

Officers are Paxton, president; James Colvin of Frankston, treasurer; Sharon Lacy of Smith County, secretary; Jim Paul of Frankston, banquet and picnic chairman; John Edgar of Bullard, membership chairman; and Graham, brochure chairman.