Boy’s wish delivers corporate gift

Published 8:44 am Monday, December 6, 2010

Thank you Charlie McClurg.

It seems that you have been able to succeed where professionals haven’t, and in doing so you reminded us all that you need to have a little faith to get something accomplished.

In case you missed The Daily Citizen’s story on Saturday, it would seem that McClurg, a third-grader at Westwood Elementary School, is the reason that we will soon have a Books-A-Million bookstore at Walnut Square Mall.

Clyde Anderson, the chairman and CEO of Books-A-Million, was at Westwood on Friday morning to announce the store opening in Walnut Square Mall and said it was a direct result of Charlie’s letter-writing campaign that eventually included 500 students from several schools.

Who says letter writing is old-fashioned and no longer effective?

Charlie, who had to work hard to learn how to read, decided that Dalton needed a bigger book store because he was tired of being driven back and forth to Chattanooga whenever he wanted to get a new book.

“Charlie had an idea this summer that he wanted to write a letter to Books-A-Million, because he got tired of always driving back and forth to Chattanooga going to the bookstore,” said his mother, Jody McClurg. “I thought it was a great idea. We found out about a week or two later who his teacher was going to be, so he said he thought it might make a good class project.”

Eventually, nearly 500 Dalton elementary school students wrote letters to Books-A-Million asking the bookseller to start a store here.

Anderson was at Westwood to meet Charlie and his classmates and tell them how impressed he was by their campaign.

“You’re a very persuasive letter-writer, and I’m very glad to meet you,” Anderson told Charlie in front of his classmates, and then told his teacher Debbie Reynolds, “I know what you’ve done, you’ve got a lot of great writers.”

Anderson produced Charlie’s original letter — he had all 500 letters under his arm — and told the kids, “Y’all really wore me down, and I’ve just come to tell you and all of the class we are going to open a store in the mall here … and we hope to even have it open even before Christmas. So thank you for doing that, we’re excited about it.”

Thank you Charlie. It is because of you and your friends love of reading that we will be getting a new bookstore in town.

Now, when you get older and start learning how to drive, do you think you could write an automaker to see if they would like to set up shop in Dalton? All it takes is a little faith, right?