Of course, many of those that were on hand were hospital employees -- but wouldn't you show up at a meeting if you thought your job might be on the line?

The good news is that there has been no organized opposition to the sales tax issue, and even those who will be hurt by the implementation of such a tax supported its passage. It's tough for a businessman to make that decision, but it would be a lot tougher should we lose our hospital.

Since the issue first came to the forefront in the past couple of months there has been some confusion, but the misinformation is slowly being dismissed. I've had people tell me that the hospital belongs to Dr. Muse and Dr. Duckworth, not the city -- which is just not true. The hospital is a city-owned and operated entity and falls under the scrutiny of state auditors. The clinic now belongs to Dr. Mallard, Dr. Blake and Dr. Sheridan --- and no money from the hospital sales tax would ever be used to benefit their operations. They are a private business, while the hospital is a public entity -- it belongs to the people of Piggott.

There were several comments made about the hospital board, and how it could be improved. If you go back and read the history of the hospital board you'll find that it was set up in a manner to try to alleviate politics from their decisions. That was why the city council set up the board as it is -- to keep new members from being added as political favors with the changing administrations. State law does not allow much to be changed, other than switching to the same system as our other boards.

The drawback to that is the highly technical nature of hospital operations, and the time it takes for a new member to be brought up to speed. It's much simpler to keep the same group, and as it was pointed out to me "it's worked fine for 31 years."

For my money, and I'm just one person in this town, I can't think of five men that I would rather have looking over the operation. All five are deeply vested in this community and reflect a fairly conservative attitude. If I had a business that was being overseen by Guy Brinkley, Jr., Tom Sneed, Danny Brown, Don Roeder and Cord Sutfin I would not give it a second thought.

I'm not asking anyone to make a decision on how they'll vote on the sales tax issue today -- it's still too far down the road. But I encourage everyone to be an educated voter, get the facts and make sure the story is straight. You don't have to agree with the way the hospital is run, or even like those involved, to know how important it is to our people and the local economy.

As was echoed many times in the public hearing, if you want to know how important this hospital is to Piggott just go to Corning, Walnut Ridge or Malden and ask them how it felt to lose their hospitals.