acter of the people in Perryville and how it has shaped their business community. “Perryville was full of entrepreneurs before entrepreneurs were even a thing, really. There are incredible people doing incredible things here… We’ve been doing things the right way here in Per- ryville for a long time, and our motto is “plant your family here” which we truly believe.” “I think it’s probably the nicest park between St. Louis and Memphis for soccer.” On the chance that there is an influx of people getting away from the big cities to live and work in Perryville, the City is preparing for change. “We’re working hard on housing.
from 90-100 teams depending on the weather so that’s thousands of parents, grandparents and kids that come to Perryville for the weekend. We are doing a lot of those kind of activities, baseball tournaments, volleyball tournaments, that sort of thing.” “Other tourism opportunities include Tower Rock which is in the Mississippi,” Buerck goes on to explain. “It’s a huge tower that is literally built out of rock that just pops up in the river. Lewis and Clark spoke about it in their explorations. Perry County is unusual in its topography. It has the longest caves in the state of Missouri. The longest cave here is 30 miles. People love to go down there and explore.” There are many religious shines and historical buildings and artifacts for those interested in the early settlement of the area, but Buerck emphasized that the City and County also are keen to express great reverence for their veterans. “We have a long history of service organizations. A couple years ago we brought the traveling Vietnam Wall through the city and it was a great moment for the community in a lot of ways. A lot of folks found peace in viewing the Wall and it was well received.” The traveling exhibit was so moving, it inspired one veteran to donate substantial funds toward the construction of their own Vietnam Wall. “The veteran said ‘if you guys will do something on a permanent basis I’ll donate money.’ And he started with $1-million donation, and it’s up to over $2.5 million now and over 46 acres. Right here in Perryville, we are building the Missouri National Veterans Memorial, which is going to include the only full-size exact model of the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC. So, all 58,000 names will be on the same black granite. We went to India to get the granite, just like they did in Washington DC.”
The community is being built out. We need subdivisions, we need to invest in the community so people can live and work here. Many times, people come to Perryville for the jobs but they’ve had to find houses in neighboring commu- nities. And that’s the next thing were fixing. We’re working hard with the Development Corporation to increase our housing stock so more people have an opportunity to live here.” It is staggering to see what Perryville has achieved, and continues to attain. And it shows no signs of sitting back and resting on laurels. Undeniably, Perryville is booming. Businesses are setting up shop, and unemployment is under five percent. It just might be what you’re looking for!
Buerck concludes with a statement about the unique char-
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JUNE 2018 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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