Next Monday we celebrate Labor Day, 24 hours a year set aside to thank the folks who make the newsprint used to bring you this message, the steelworkers who formed molten ore into usable materials that eventually were milled and machined into the press that printed it with ink made partially from soybeans grown and tended by again, laborers.
In today’s hustle and bustle, we often forget to thank the folks who do the everyday things.
In a town like Sweet Home, Labor Day hits close to home, since so many of our neighbors earn their living turning a raw product into a usable, sellable one.
Look around and we see many examples each day of the skills that bolster Oregon’s economy from the ground up.
Our loggers bring in the raw product from which all new economic dollars start.
Our millworkers saw or peel the logs into a starting point for housing walls, floors or roofs and yes, even shingles.
Down at Rainier Wood Products, laborers are making wood products that will trim out windows, doors and give folks a step up now and then (ladders).
At invesTicast, titanium is being molded into lightweight, yet extremely strong, products for work or play. Everything from golf club heads to roofing hammers.
The Smurfit plant is turning newsprint and other materials into recycled panels.
Cirtek and White’s Electronics provide us with our high-tech electronics jobs, with products shipped worldwide.
All of these industries create the money that eventually trickles its way through our town. Whether it is spent at the local grocery stores, gas stations, to buy back-to-school items for kids, or a nice dinner out for mom and dad.
It all starts with someone’s sweat. Our town’s economic ball doesn’t roll unless it is first pushed by labor.
A.P.