PALESTINE — Calling it the “culmination of a process that started a little over a year ago,” state and local officials ushered Palestine in as the state’s 17th GO TEXAN Certified Retirement Community Thursday afternoon.

On hand to officially announce the city’s designation were Texas Department of Agriculture commissioner Todd Staples, state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville and state Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, as well as Mayor Carolyn Salter, Palestine Economic Development Corp. executive director Brian Malone and former Mayor Jackson Hanks, who spearheaded the local committee which put together the successful application for inclusion in the program.

“I am very excited about what this community has achieved, and what the possibilities for Palestine are,” Hanks said during the press conference. “What the GO TEXAN Certified Retirement Community allows us is the chance to lose the label, ‘the best kept secret in Texas.’

“What it also does is provide us with tremendous economic development opportunities with all of the various industries there are with retirees who come to this community. The committee members and the real estate sector know what a driving force they are in a community, buying and selling real estate as well as community volunteerism. The list just goes on and on and on.”

Some 30 community members volunteered hundreds of hours to put together the application, Hanks said, researching the information required by the state and formulating marketing and long-term strategic plans, a process which will continue to benefit the community even after the designation was won.

“To me, one of the most significant parts of what our certification does is make our community accountable,” Hanks said. “Because now there’s a plan in place, both a long-range plan and a marketing plan. When we start re-certification, about five years away, the long-range plan and the marketing plan must be activated, implemented, followed up, so that in five years when we re-submit, we’ll still be a certified retirement community.”

Salter, who helped with the application, said she was thrilled that the PEDC had been willing to participate and help market the certification for bolster the economic benefits for the area.

“This is another opportunity we have to market our city and show the world what a treasure we live in,” Salter said. “We are a family community, very family-oriented, we try to take care of our kids from cradle to college.

“Seniors are such a wonderful resource for us in our community. They provide lifelong experience in some of the things that those younger have not yet seen and it’s going to be wonderful to have a place that is warm and welcoming to them.”

Cook commended the volunteer effort to bring about the certification.

“I think sometimes communities don’t realize what they have going because they’re looking from the inside,” Cook said. “I have the advantage of having to cross the Trinity River to come over here and I can tell you, there’s very few communities that have people that put their heart and soul into things like Anderson County does, and Palestine specifically.”

With the Baby Boomers reaching retirement age, the timing couldn’t be better, Nichols said.

“The timing is perfect with the demographics of the state, the country,” Nichols said. “The Baby Boomers are now reaching that point where they’re going to start looking around for where they want to go and they’re going to find Palestine, Texas on that Web site, and they’re going to come to Palestine, buy homes and move here. So that’s good for you. That’s great.”

To be able to welcome his hometown into the program that the state Department of Agriculture oversees was especially meaningful for Staples.

“This is one of the highlights since I’ve been in office to be able to come back home and formally announce my hometown is part of one of our state’s premier marketing programs,” Staples said afterward. “I talked to former Mayor Hanks and Mayor Salter and others in the community many times about the process.

“It is a difficult task to complete. The application process is voluminous and it’s quite time-consuming but it’s that way by design because it requires a community to develop a strategic plan of action and it assists them in accounting for the many great assets to use in the marketing program.”

The certification’s impact will be far-reaching, he added.

“Attaining this designation will pay dividends for many years and I think it’s important for the entire community to buy into this process,” Staples said. “We live in an extremely competitive world today. As we have travelers and potential retirees visit Palestine, we need to provide them a very hospitable environment and show the character and quality of our people because that will speak volumes about the quality of life in Palestine.”