Our Market grocery store and butcher shop celebrates its grand opening today in Humboldt. Yet amidst all the fanfare, it’s easy to forget how long a road it was in getting here. In what follows, then, we take a look back over the past two-and-a-half years in order to construct a timeline of events that ultimately made Our Market a reality. We’ll begin on the last day of the year, Dec. 31, 2018, when Register veteran reporter Bob Johnson wrote the Moon’s Hometown Market building in Humboldt had been purchased by Monarch Cement. Owner Mike Moon of Osawatomie had been facing a number of challenges, including low inventory, flat sales and competing businesses, so Monarch stepped in to relieve some of the pressure.
Source: The Iola Register

Matt Godinez has the recipe for success in housing. He’s director of the Chanute Regional Development Authority (CRDA), an organization working to revitalize and rebuild not only Chanute, but communities throughout the region. “We can all be feeding off of each other,” he said, and contended that regionalism is a key ingredient to economic development projects of all kinds, where county borders and city limits matter less than perhaps they used to. Consider the following example. “OK developer,” Godinez said, “you won’t build five houses in Chanute, but what if I can get you to build 100 houses in southeast Kansas?” “Maybe 10 in Iola, 10 in Chanute, 10 in Parsons,” and so on. “Our buying power is in all of us together, not in standing alone,” he added.
Source: The Iola Register