A Talk with the Bland County Administrator

By Nicholas Rosenberg

On Monday we ended the day with a meeting with Eric Workman, the county administrator, in the Bland County Courthouse. The courthouse was in the center of town, right across the street from Grants, the only grocery store in Bland County. Eric was a big friendly guy and was thrilled to meet with us. We first talked pleasantries like how long Eric had been in Bland, how we had been enjoying our stay, and a few other light topics. During that conversation Eric talked about his educational history, which was pretty extensive since he has a doctorate degree. One interesting bit of info we learned was he used to play football and one time his team came to the UMD campus to play the Terps.

From there the conversation moved into the issues facing Bland County. Eric was surprisingly open about the issues facing bland and according to him the biggest issue for Bland is economic stability. He is constantly look for ways to bring in new companies and jobs for the citizens of Bland. One example he gave was the grocery store, one of his proudest accomplishments as county administrator was to bring Grants to Bland, because before the store was there citizens of Bland had to drive to neighboring counties to by a lot of their groceries. Eric was also a strong believer is education, it was the focus of his post-secondary education and he was a teacher and principle for the bland school for several years before became county administrator. He believes that education is the pathway to a better life. One of the more interesting things we learned about the education opportunities of bland is that for residents of Bland and Whitfield counties the first two years of Wytheville Community College is free. 

Near the end of our visit, I asked him about any efforts to make the county more sustainable, and he didn’t give the answer I was hoping for. Eric’s main focus was economic sustainability, while I was hoping to hear more about environmental sustainability, which from my observations the county is greatly lacking when it comes to things like recycling and other green initiatives. Overall we had a great conversation with Eric, and he is really doing his best to improve the county.