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![TMCNet: Christensen leads charge in promoting Southwest Virginia culture, heritage [Bristol Herald Courier, Va.]](http://images.tmcnet.com/siteart/invisible.gif)
Christensen leads charge in promoting Southwest Virginia culture, heritage [Bristol Herald Courier, Va.]
(Bristol Herald Courier (VA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 29--ABINGDON, Va. -- If you ask Todd Christensen's boss at the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, he'll tell you Christensen has "led the charge" behind the cultural heritage tourism movement in Southwest Virginia.
But Christensen, an Illinois native who's always seen something special in this region's culture, said his role has been merely to help a collaboration of many talented individuals.
No matter who gets the credit for starting an economic shift that's decisively taken hold in the region, Christensen now is bringing his skills to Abingdon -- to lead the newly created Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage Commission.
"The communities in Southwest Virginia have to be looking toward a new economy," said Christensen, who rattled off a list of industries that have declined in the region or moved offshore in recent years. "What we've been trying to do is help them go to a more creative economy, an entrepreneurship-based economy that's more self-sustaining."
Currently the deputy director of community development for the state housing department, Christensen will start work Monday as the commission's first executive director and will relocate here in early 2010; his office will ultimately be in the new Heartwood artisan center under construction in Abingdon.
Ground was broken in August for the $16 million, 28,000-square-foot artisan center.
Housing department Director Bill Shelton said Christensen has shepherded "a long list" of Southwest Virginia projects over his 28 years with the department -- the most recent of which have snowballed in their positive regional impact.
"He's been a leader on things like the Crooked Road and 'Round the Mountain and the whole cultural heritage movement," Shelton said. "Before that, he's certainly been a leader on infrastructure issues."
Among the highlights, Shelton said, have been innovative water and sewer projects for remote communities, housing rehabilitation and a region-wide downtown revitalization effort, along with projects related directly to preserving and marketing the region's unique cultural heritage.
"We've made a major investment in a lot of the projects related to the whole cultural heritage effort," Shelton said. "I'm very excited ... that he'll be a steward of making sure we're successful in those efforts."
The 23-member commission, created in 2008 by the Virginia General Assembly, was formed to bring the whole movement under one umbrella to help it drive economic development and cultural preservation in the region, said state Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, who sponsored its creation.
Initial funding comes from the state and the Virginia Tobacco Commission, though Wampler said the plan is for the commission to become self-sustaining.
"We have tremendous ... natural and cultural heritage items that I think the traveling public would love to come and experience, and visit and see," Wampler said.
"The commission is what is trying to pull all of that together. And while folks have been doing that, we've never been able to coordinate all of our activities, and that's what we hope to do under the umbrella of the commission."
Wampler said Christensen will oversee two gateways to the wealth of cultural experience in the region: a physical gateway, in the form of Heartwood; and a virtual gateway, in the form of an interactive Web site that enables people all over the world to plan trips to the region encompassing a variety of arts, music, history, cultural and recreational activities.
By making those experiences available to visitors on an ongoing basis, Wampler said, the commission will help preserve them for future generations -- at the same time that it provides opportunities for entrepreneurs and economic development.
"We never want to lose our originality, what is genuine, and I don't think that we will," Wampler said. "The experience hopefully will not change, and we still will enjoy tomorrow what we've enjoyed today, but ... it gets the focal point and critical mass to entrepreneurs who say this is something other than just a love of ours; we think that we can put together a business plan that makes sense, and we can try to make it a prosperous venture."
Christensen said it all began about seven years ago with a question: How do you get people to visit a tourist destination in Clintwood or Cleveland, or any of the other rural communities of Southwest Virginia?
The first response was the Crooked Road, a 250-mile route linking dozens of traditional music venues. Then came 'Round the Mountain, a network of artisans. These projects grew into an effort to assess all of the region's cultural assets.
"Southwest Virginia has an extremely unique culture, and it hasn't been tainted by commercialism," Christensen said. "It hasn't become water slides and Dollywood and all that stuff, and the music is true -- everything about it is true."
He said he wants to keep the unspoiled cultural riches alive -- a culture not presented as a museum piece but as a vibrant small-town scene with music, cafes, restaurants, shops and markets -- and a high-tech economy based on tourism and small business.
"A lot of people kind of compare it to Tuscany in Italy," he said. "You come down to Southwest Virginia, if you're not from here, and it is so different ... you can't explain it."
His goal: for visitors and future generations to experience the magic of a Friday night jam session and learn to clog in the street -- and for locals to have viable career options without leaving their home and culture behind.
Christianson said the Southwest Virginia of the future will reflect its culture but will be more high-tech, with more homegrown businesses.
"There will be people from the outside that want to move in, but they will accept the culture and they will embrace the culture when they move in and won't want to change it," Christensen said. "There will be people who grow up there and graduate high school there and want to stay there instead of going to Northern Virginia or Richmond or someplace. ... It will be a place where you can feel and breathe the culture."
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Copyright (c) 2009, Bristol Herald Courier, Va.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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