Lexington, KY - On the surface, Nancy Stone's career path might not seem very congruent -
she studied non-profit management in college, then worked as a radio announcer for nearly 20 years before landing the position of executive director for the Simpson County Chamber of Commerce; after recently retiring from the same position with the Jessamine County Chamber, she now serves as a consultant for transportation issues for the Jessamine County Fiscal Court. However, as Stone will tell you, all of this work stems from the same place: a passion for community development.
"Radio and newspaper work really did whet my appetite for community issues," said Stone, who worked part-time for a family-owned radio and newspaper business in Franklin, Ky., for nearly two decades out of college while simultaneously devoting much of her time to raising her two daughters. Stone added that her work in journalism also instilled in her a certain confidence and ability to figure out what kind of questions she needed to ask to get the information she needed - skills that invariably carried over to her subsequent positions. But because her first full-time job wasn't until she became director of the Chamber of Commerce in Simpson County at the age of 52, Stone considers herself a "late bloomer, professionally."
If she was a late bloomer, she certainly came into full bloom rather quickly, being named Outstanding Chamber Director for the state of Kentucky in 1997, five years after taking the job. She attributes the honor to having overseen significant progress in Simpson county transportation issues during her tenure. As Stone explains it, the mayor had approached her about having the chamber conduct a study on why the county was having trouble getting funding for road projects. The format that the chamber subsequently laid out for the county to follow resulted in a nearly 2,000 percent increase in funds for transportation projects over the next five years. When Stone moved to Jessamine County Chamber in 2000, to be closer to her daughters, who live in Nicholasville and Versailles, she worked to set up a similar program to study transportation issues in the area. Though she claims it took a couple of years to get all the players on board, her diligence paid off, and the county was finally awarded funding for a feasibility study on a connector route from Nicholasville to I-75 - something it had been working toward for more than 20 years, and which opened the door for state funding on the project. Having also increased the Jessamine County Chamber membership from 120 to more than 500, Stone was named Outstanding Chamber Director again in 2010.
Though she retired from the chamber in March of this year, Stone's involvement with civic issues remains a focal point in her life. She continues to work with the Jessamine Fiscal Court on transportation issues, and serves on several committees, including the board of the Kentucky Retired NFL Players Sports Complex (an initiative to build a 5,000-seat stadium in Jessamine County) and the Bluegrass Regional Policy Group, which works to promote and lobby for the needs of the entire Bluegrass region.
The concept of developing the Bluegrass region as a whole, rather than focusing on individual counties and towns, is one that Stone holds is very high esteem. She is planning a trip to Washington this year to lobby on behalf of the region for issues ranging from transportation to education, her sixth trip with the group.
"The regional concept for developing the Bluegrass region to me is going to be one of the most important factors for progress in this area. We no longer compete with just the northern Kentucky area and the Louisville area; we're competing worldwide," Stone said, stressing the importance that areas within the region not consider other areas of the region as competition.
"We're going to have to stand together as a major force with pre-determined issues that we can support for each other," she added. "We've got to come together and act as a unit, and that's the only way we will flourish."