Jan. 21, 2026 Editor, The News-Gazette: Why do you live here? A simple question without a simple answer.
Sure, we can gather up the usual suspects, but they won’t tell us much, such as my job is here or my kids like the place. Our hunters and fishermen can’t help us much either, in spite of being unable to stop talking about their latest kill or catch. Then there are the shopkeepers who say this is where I always wanted to set up shop. As for our small army of retirees who made their money elsewhere, they would rather spend it here.
What does all this tell you? Not much, except to say that many have found a good thing and see no good reason to look elsewhere. Buena Vista is especially remarkable. BV has lost jobs over the years, but not residents.
This is also true of our “Rockbridge Born & Breed” brethren. RB&B folks tend to stay put. Your newspaper may be to blame. Each and every week a list of our area’s places of worship can be found near the back page. My count for last week was 76, covering many different religious stripes. Maybe there’s a clue here for why so many choose to stay than to move elsewhere. They prefer to leave only when there is a higher calling.
That clue also helps us to boil down from over 36,000 answers (the population of Rockbridge County and our two very independent cities) to just a single reason — happiness. Happy people tend to hang around other happy people. They enjoy having a life well-lived. You can do it here. DAVID REYNOLDS Rockbridge County
