How Hartsville became an All-America City twice
This undated photo shows downtown Hartsville probably in the 1940s. PHOTO COURTESY BRIAN GANDY
By Bobby Bryant, Editor
editor@newsandpress.net
Every year, the National Civic League honors 10 U.S. cities with the All-America City Award. About 500 cities have received the award, which, according to the League, recognizes communities using “inclusive civic engagement to address critical issues and create stronger connections among residents, businesses and nonprofit and government leaders.”
Hartsville won the award twice, in 2016 and 1996.
In 2016, Hartsville stood with some infinitely bigger cities as All-America City honorees. Its fellow honorees included San Antonio, Texas (population 1.5 million, one of the biggest cities in the nation); Norfolk, Va. (population 244,000); Hayward, Calif. (population 162,000); Lakewood, Colo. (population 155,000); and Fall River, Mass. (population 95,000).
Hartsville’s residents, at the time, numbered about 7,800.
“Size doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter,” says Nancy McGee, who was on the teams that led Hartsville’s winning effort both times. “The award is based on how cities approach their challenges. . . . We were the smallest city in 2016 to win.”
“A small community may even have an advantage,” says McGee, who works with her husband, Hartsville City Council member Bobby McGee, at McGee Financial Group.
The All-America City competition “doesn’t have to do with having pretty flowers, or pretty streets, or pretty buildings,” McGee says. “It’s about how a city faces its challenges.”
“It was just a huge honor” both times, she says. “Everybody on the team thought we’d been made Miss America.”
The competitions required a “herculean” amount of preparation and research, plus scripting and staging an in-person presentation for the judges, she says. In 1996, when she was working for the Hartsville Chamber of Commerce, McGee wrote the presentation. Then-City Manager Bill Bruton decided that Hartsville would enter the competition for 1996, she says.
For the 2016 competition, Hartsville sent 23 people to Colorado to do the presentations for the judges, McGee says. “Because the focus was young people, we took a lot of teenagers with us. … I can’t say enough about how the young people contributed to the 2016 presentation.”
Tequan Coe, one of those teens, played “Amazing Grace” on a violin to help introduce Hartsville’s team before its presentation.
“I know they’re here for me, so I couldn’t help but break out in tears,” he told reporters at the time. “I look at my beautiful town and all the people who were behind me and backing me up. … It was an amazing experience, and it shows you how much young people can bring something together.”
