Tribune editorial board

One man's junk is another man's treasure. The clich\u00E9 rings true in many, many cases.

In late August, a representative of The Way Station, a Columbiana County organization spoke to participants of the Designing Our Future seminar.

During the discussion, the spokesperson showed some examples of how the organization had raised funds. One of the more interesting ones was reusing a rather common, often thrown away item.

With a little ingenuity and a pair of pliers, the group transformed wooden crutches into art easels. Apparently the old-becomes-new holders are quite popular in online auctions.

That creative use took an often cast aside item - who needs a crutch once a broken bone has mended? - and made something useful from it.

That same ingenious use has been proposed by Lawrence County. The county is urging the Ohio Department of Transportation to give its soon-to-be-vacant garage facility to the county.

While the aging ODOT facility is too small for ODOT's current needs, it fits the county garage's needs just fine.

What a wonderful way to repurpose the building.

Organizers at The Point industrial park are also repurposing buildings to an extent. Former metal buildings on the site have been "reskinned" with new sheet metal and are home to several new, apparently flourishing, businesses.

In Ironton, Fee Corp., an industrial cleaning company, recently purchased the former Matlack building.

We encourage all of our leaders, city, county, village and township to always be on the lookout for ways to preserve what we have.

And we encourage the state to allow the transfer of the building.

Doing so is a win-win for all involved and takes one group's trash and makes it another group's treasure.