Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Thursday, November 3, 2005

This past Tuesday, the sign that served as the “welcome mat” to visitors and locals alike was taken down at a beautiful blue house at 615 North Main Street in downtown Mount Airy. The sign that is going up in its place identifies the home as the Robert Smith House; the building will remain open to the public. For those of us who have watched the extraordinary job that Ann Vaughn and her staff have done at greeting the many visitors coming into town over the past decade, this transition is a bittersweet moment.

What a gift this visitor center has been to the entire community and region—a gift given by the board of directors of the Gilmer-Smith Foundation. Ann and her staff have been serving up genuine Southern hospitality to everyone who walked through the doors. Listening to the joys and troubles of visitors, participating in celebrations, finding overnight accommodations, dishing up hospitality have all been in a day’s work for the staff, but they have fulfilled their duties with unfailing enthusiasm. However, as the visitor center takes up its temporary new quarters around the corner from our Simple Living office at the Greater Mount Airy Chamber of Commerce Building, we know that Ann and her staff will find new ways to channel their many talents. Good luck to Mary Kathryn Robinson, Vonne Nichols and the others at the Chamber of Commerce as they take on this new duty. They have some very large—and gracious—shoes to fill.