Throgmorton, "Big Six" work to unite community

There are roughly 1,500 students living on campus at Texas A&M University-Commerce, and Mayor Quay Throgmorton wants each of them to get involved with the community.

Only 500 people voted when Throgmorton was elected mayor, and he wants to see that change.

"There is a lot of power in the students," he said.

This is the third year in a row students have run for city council positions, and Throgmorton said he sees a definite benefit in this trend.

"We need people who have ideas on how to change this community," he said. "It would be great to see a large student turn out vote for a candidate of their choice."

Throgmorton said he is working to create a more communal environment in Commerce using both the citizens and the students.

"We are a town with a university, but we need to be a university town," he said.

President Dan Jones said Throgmorton has shown he is committed to working with the university.

"He is very involved with the idea of taking advantage of having a mid-sized university in a small town," he said.

With this initiative in mind, Throgmorton created a group known as the Big Six. The group is composed of A&M-Commerce, the Chamber of Commerce, Commerce's government, the Commerce Independent School District, the Commerce Economic Development Department and the Commerce hospital. Its purpose, according to Throgmorton, is to aid in the development of the community. Representatives from each group show up to meetings to discuss ways of improving Commerce and then bring back the information to their respective organizations.

"We ask each other, ‘What is your strategic plan for moving forward?'" Throgmorton said. "Then we figure out how we as a group can help each other with long term goals."

City Manager Dion Miller said the Six is a wonderful idea, and the group is ready to grow.

"We started out meeting quarterly, but I think we need to meet more often to keep the momentum going," he said.

The Six is fairly new and has only met a few times, but has already made steps forward to improve Commerce.

Jones said the Six is great for the community.

"It's a major step forward for the university and the community," he said.

It had been awhile since all six entities in the group have sat down and worked together prior to formation of the group according to Jones, but now that they are involved positive changes can occur.

"We all knew each other, but we did not have discussions like we do now," he said.

At the moment the group is gathering information about the community. Throgmorton said the Six put out a city-wide survey to find out what the community needs.

"This will give us direction to make improvements," he said.

Throgmorton said current trends show Commerce being a city with a population of 16,000 by 2030, which is something the Six is looking at.

"We are asking ourselves, ‘What do we need as a whole to get there?'" he said.

Another goal of the Six is to instill more pride in the community for the university and high school. Throgmorton said the Six made a decision to have the fire hydrants near the Commerce high school painted the school's colors of orange and black as well as painting the hydrants near the university blue and gold.

"We are calling on student organizations to help with little things like that," he said. "It will create a better sense of community and hopefully bring a larger turn out to events."

Throgmorton said sometimes putting these changes into effect can be difficult. In regards to the city council, he said there are some differences in opinion.

"When you get a group of five people together they are not going to agree on everything," he said.

In the end, Miller said the group has one common goal.

"We need to come together and create a better Commerce," he said.

Entertainment venues in town are an area where opinions are split in city council according to Throgmorton.

"We know as a community we need more entertainment," he said. "Different groups want different things. The important thing is no matter how we get there we need to move forward in completing these goals."

Throgmorton said he does work to keep the entirety of the council involved in what goes on in the Big Six meetings.

"We will have council workshops to keep members aware of what we are doing," he said.

There is one thing the group does agree on though.

"We all know Commerce could be a lot better," he said.

With the election coming up in May, Throgmorton said he is hoping some of the work he is doing will start a new trend among the students.

"I don't want them here for four years," he said. "I want them to stay here, and for that we need to become a community where people want to live."