Refusing to Lose
Residents experienced economic disaster, but built a boom town anyway

Many of the communities that rely on a single large company for most of their economic base become near ghost towns if those companies cease operation.

But Campbellsville is not just any other community.

The Central Kentucky city of about 11,000 people (approximately 23,000 in Taylor County overall) was hit with a huge blow in the summer of 1998 when Fruit of the Loom, a company that had employed generations of area residents, announced that it would close its Campbellsville plant. Almost overnight, about 3,500 people were out of work. Then, as if to add insult to injury, the Batesville Casket Company closed its Taylor County plant shortly thereafter, costing another 200 people their jobs.

“That tumbleweed you thought you saw rolling across the Taylor County landscape was just a temporary mirage,” jokes Campbellsville Mayor Paul Osborne. “That was a tough time. But we got through it in grand style.”

Remembering back to when he first settled in Campbellsville in 1973, Osborne recalled the influence that Fruit of the Loom once had on his community.

“Fruit of the Loom was the giant,” he said. “It seemed like this was a one-industry town. At its height, somewhere around 4,300 people were employed locally at Fruit of the Loom, which also had satellite plants in nearby counties. From that, the company scaled down to about 3,200 people. They announced it would close in 1998, during my campaign for mayor.”

Along with the initial reactions of shock, Osborne was concerned about how the community would respond to the economic jolt. “Besides being a real estate broker, I sit on a bank board,” he said. “The first thing you think of is that there will be all sellers and no buyers in the real estate market. But that didn’t happen. Other companies realized what a treasure we have in our workforce here. In Louisville, UPS wanted to bus people up to work. A factory in Glasgow had an interest in having people bussed there.”

Companies had an interest in Taylor County’s talented, though newly unemployed, workers. But Osborne noticed that the area’s residents responded to hardship with resourcefulness and determination. Even though the unemployment rate approached 30 percent, those living in and around Campbellsville didn’t give up.

“In the worst-case scenario, people migrate away,” he said. “But our people like it here. They found other jobs and commuted. And it seemed that the entire community realized that we had to pull together or we’d be pulled apart.”

Fortunately, the newly-elected mayor, Taylor County Judge Executive Eddie Rogers and a local economic development group had the smarts to come up with an effective, unified economic development plan for the area.

“I was new, the mayor was new and Team Taylor County was new,” recalled Rogers. “We all had the same vision. We weren’t going to give up. Our people weren’t going to give up and we weren’t either.”

One daring step made by Rogers, Osborne and local government leaders was the passage of an occupational tax to help fund economic development efforts. “The tax made us eligible for some very important grants,” Rogers said. “We were at 28.6 percent unemployment, then went down to 26.4 percent and stayed there for about nine months. Then we started to get industry in here.”

And boy, did industry come to Campbellsville. It began with Amazon.com’s announcing that it would establish a distribution center in Taylor County in the old Fruit of the Loom plant along Route 55. The Internet bookseller would eventually employ more than 1,200 workers. More than a dozen other companies have established plants or facilities in Taylor County since, creating hundreds of more jobs.

“We’ve seen unemployment go down as far as 5.6 percent,” Rogers said. “Right now we’re a little over seven percent, since the economic downturn after September 11.”

A crucial point in the community’s recovery from Fruit of the Loom’s departure was the announcement by Campbellsville University officials that the institution would offer training courses for displaced employees in the area at only the cost of what federal job training funds would pay. “That was a substantial commitment on the part of a private institution that really depends on tuition,” Osborne said. “It took courage and a lot of faith in our people. It paid off for so many members of our workforce.

“Campbellsville University is an incredibly important member of our community. They do so much for us all.”

True to its commitment to Taylor County and the region, the University has established a Technology Training Center to train workers to be important members of Campbellsville’s 21st Century workforce.

“There’s a spirit of cooperation between the university and Taylor County,” said Campbellsville University President Michael Carter. “Because of the university’s tradition of strong leadership that’s unafraid of risks, its leadership realized that it wasn’t some sort of elite ivory tower, sitting apart from its community. Early on, the university leadership realized that we’re all in this together.”

With Amazon.com’s announcement in January 1999, other economic development victories have followed. A leading corporate travel company, Rosenbluth International, placed a high-tech “Intellicenter” in Campbellsville, employing 200 more quality Taylor County workers. In June, 2000, travel trailer manufacturer Fleetwood purchased a 48,000 square foot spec building constructed in Campbellsville’s industrial park. That move created 200 more jobs.

New employers continue to come to Taylor County.

“We call it the Campbellsville Comeback,” said Kevin Sheilley, executive director of Team Taylor County. “It’s our people that make the difference. Everyone from the mayor and county judge to institutions like the university and the hospital all cooperate for a single goal, which is to make Campbellsville a better place. That ability to cooperate is what has set us apart.”



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