Tribune editorial staff

Speak now, or forever hold your peace. Those words sound familiar to anyone who has ever attended a Christian wedding. In the context of a wedding, those words usually follow the line "If anyone in this assembly knows a reason these two should not be married should …"

That phrase, or at least the first part, has special meaning on Thursday.

If you have an opinion about the future of this community, whether it comes in the form of a grand idea, a tiny suggestion or just a shared interest in helping decide which direction we should point, we want to see you on Thursday.

Designing Our Future, a leadership conference, will get under way at 8:45 a.m. at the Ohio University Southern's Campus & Community building, across from the city pool on South Ninth Street.

So why do we need you there?

Because you are unique. You bring your experiences, your history and your knowledge to any conversation. But more important, you care about the future of this community.

Think about it.

Does it frustrate you to hear people talk down on this community, your home?

You may feel like one of the rare few whom truly still care. But what you'll find out on Thursday is that you are not alone. Dozens and dozens of your neighbors feel just like you do.

For some reason, in recent years we've allowed the negative nabobs in the community to drown out the people who want to see positive things happen.

The mood on the street is changing. Look no further than the recent success of the first Rally on the River. Had organizers listened to the negative naysayers, they'd have heeded their warnings. And what would have happened? Hundreds of people wouldn't have spent the weekend in Ironton. They wouldn't have met our people, shopped in our stores and helped invest in our economy.

If you, like us, prefer to focus on the "what ifs" instead of the "what if nots" come out on Thursday, invest a little time in the future and meet some folks, who like you, have an interest in seeing it be positive.