As part of their effort to make it easier for the public to attend their meetings, the Lawrence County Commissioners met on Tuesday afternoon on the campus of Ohio University Southern.

Commissioner DeAnna Holliday introduced the eight boys sitting in the front row as “Lawrence County’s finest youth we have to offer here and we are very proud of them” — the fifth-grade youth basketball state champions from Rock Hill Elementary.

“That is huge, that is not just our area or the district, it is the whole state,” she said. The commissioners presented them with a certificate and named Feb. 26, 2020 as Rock Hill Fifth Grade Boys State Championship Day in Lawrence County. “So, you can go back and tell all your classmates that you have your very own day in Lawrence County. That doesn’t happen for very many people.”

After the “fun part of the agenda,” the commissioners moved onto regular business including approval of flood plain permits, appropriations and transfers, construction change orders, approved the appointment of Mike Foster to the county planning commission for a three-year term,

They also approved a resolution allowing the Lawrence County Economic Development Corp. to apply for Rural Park Industrial Park program to get a grant to build a new spec building in The Point Industrial Park in South Point. They also approved the LEDC to apply for a grant to build a spec building in Ironton. The LEDC builds a spec building in an effort to attract a new business to the park as part of creating jobs in the county.

OUS’s director of workforce success and external relations Sarah Diamond Burroway shared some information with the commissioners and the crowd about an upcoming technology workshop at the university.

Called TechCred Application Workshop, the course will be for employers to learn how to access training money to improve technology training for their employees.

“It is on a reimbursement basis,” she said.

Burroway said OUS was asked to help leverage applications for the southern part of Ohio and for any area of work that deals with software or technology. Businesses can get up to $2,000 in reimbursement per person.

The workshop is 1:30–4:30 p.m. on March 11 at OUS. Seating is limited and registration is required. To learn more, visit https://techcred.ohio.gov. “It is free to attend. We just want our area employers to access this resource to have training.”

Jill McCleese, a member of Southern Wayne Advocacy Council (SWAC), gave a report on the group’s work in Wayne National Forest and making the forest accessible to the public.

The WNF is currently seeking public input on what they want the forest to do over the next decades. The comment period for the draft assessment is ongoing.

“You need to comment now,” she said. “It is very important for our future generations.”

To find out about out more go to www.fs.usda.gov/main/wayne/landmanagement/planning.