It has been a year. Not the best, not the worst by far. In 2012, things started to turn around from a latent recession.
A stately new hospital is being built in Bermuda Run. Promising new industries chose Davie County for their homes. Ashley Furniture was the biggest prize. And the high school issue remains …unresolved. We lose count: Has it been 12 years or 15 that this debate has lingered? Readers often accuse us of recycling headlines from year to year about the dreams of a new high school.
Indeed, the school board members win the prize: Most Optimistic.
There’s hope, albeit faint. New plans are on the drawing board, but much of the cast of characters in this long-running play has changed little. For some, the sun rises and sets on the high school issue.
Former school board chair Marty Carter said recently the argument for building a new school may have focused on the wrong incentive. We have always argued that  a new school would promote better education. Instead, Carter argues that a new school may be far more important as a tool for shaking the county out of the economic doldrums — as a way of increasing property values, selling homes and stimulating the economy.
He says voters understand pocketbook issues.
Certainly, Davie has been stained by the protracted debate about the high school. Outsiders know just enough of our bickering to often think we are nuts.
Will we finally agree on a remedy for Davie High in 2013? The odds are only slightly better than those offered that the world would end on Dec. 21 based on an ancient Mayan calendar.
The future is bright on other fronts.
WinMock’s refurbished barn offers a stunning gateway to Davie from the east.
The long painful recession that has gripped the nation continued to have its influence on us. Real estate remained well below the go-go days.
Politics was on our minds during 2012. Davie County voters backed Mitt Romney over President Obama by a commanding 71-29 percent, but that only served to demonstrate Davie is out of the national mainstream. President Obama easily won re-election.
Deep in a story last week about Bermuda Run we reported the comments of new mayor Ken Rethmeier, “I think this …