Big Sky

In County Judge Steve Young’s column last week he talked about three different solar companies coming into Milam County. One in Milano, one in the Burlington area and the largest one at the former Alcoa property, Sandow Lakes Ranch.

So now Milam County will be the solar capital of the world as well as the Bitcoin capital because of Whinstone and Bitmain. That is a lot of tax revenue and construction jobs—and hopefully permanent ones, too—for Milam County and Rockdale.

Some of you Rockdalians probably already know this but some might not, including me, because this all happened before I moved back to Rockdale. Sandow Lakes Ranch was put on the market in 2016 for $250,000,000 but it hasn’t sold yet. There are several leases on it though, but they make up only a very small portion of the land available.

When Kara Clore was head of the MDD she oversaw the production of the Big Sky commercial to help attract Amazon to Sandow Lakes Ranch.

While that didn’t happen, that video put Milam County on the map. Clore partnered with the county and Ginger Watkins of the Cameron EDC to get that video made.

The video has been sent to every prospect imaginable including all three of the solar companies coming to Milam County. And it is so very well done. If you haven’t seen it in a while here is the YouTube link: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=nCzxAiSyjJE.

That video is bringing businesses to Rockdale and the county, and it was money well spent. It seems like Milam County is right on the verge of getting back to where we used to be when Alcoa was Rockdale’s major employer.

We need a large company to come in to lift us up financially, so hopefully there will be a buyer who will employ lots of Rockdalians one day soon.—K.W.C.