Remembering to be our 'bestest'

This year, Downtown Macon is full of centennial celebrations. Our grand dame Terminal Station will celebrate her 100th birthday in April. Crossing the century milestone with her are Nu-Way Weiners and the Cox Capitol Theatre. From our stunning train station to the city's first air-conditioned movie theater to everyone's, including Oprah Winfrey's, favorite misspelled weiner, you can definitely look back and see 1916 was a banner year for Macon. And it's that same sense of excitement that surrounds 2016.

Downtown now has the public-led Macon Action Plan and $3 million in available funding to implement it through the Downtown Challenge Fund of the Community Foundation of Central Georgia. The Ocmulgee National Monument has serious, strategic momentum behind it to become the state's first National Park. The Capricorn Records Studio block is being turned into one of the largest mixed-use developments downtown has witnessed — all while returning the historic studio space to its original purpose. Students are arriving from all over to attend — and thrive at — our local universities. Macon is also home to world class medical facilities, including a leading cancer treatment institution, impressive museum attractions like the Tubman African American Museum, the Museum of Arts & Sciences and Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and volunteer-driven nonprofits, like the Volunteer Medical Clinic, Loaves & Fishes Ministry, the Daybreak Shelter and more. We're in the midst of good works that our successors will celebrate 100 years from now.

The reasons to celebrate Macon are almost too numerous to name, but much of what I've mentioned has a common thread that deserves additional recognition. April 9 would be the 109th birthday of Peyton Tooke Anderson Jr. The late newspaper publisher and philanthropist left a legacy here that continues to transform the community he deeply loved through the work of the Peyton Anderson Foundation. The foundation began with these basic instructions: Reward good doers, instead of do-gooders.

Since its inception in 1989, The Peyton Anderson Foundation has invested over $86 million in Central Georgia. The funds support economic development, spur downtown Macon revitalization (including the founding of NewTown Macon), preserve historic treasures, promote the arts, support disaster relief, feed the hungry, invest in health care and foster education and well-being of children, including the highly acclaimed Peyton Anderson Scholars program that has awarded over $1 million in college scholarship funds to highly promising Bibb County students, with a new class of scholars to be announced soon.

Anderson liked to close his letters with his signature sign-off, "Bestest." So, in celebration of Peyton Anderson's birthday, I encourage us all to leave our own mark by getting involved with the many game-changing, good-doing projects the foundation supports. Now and 100 and more years from now, may Macon be its bestest thanks to our shared legacies.

Josh Rogers is president of NewTown Macon.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 6:58 PM with the headline "Remembering to be our 'bestest' ."