page_32 < previous page page_32 next page > Page 32 Doris Goehring recalls attending a meeting with Dale Weaver, requested by the Earl Township Farmland Preservation Trust, at Nevin Kraybill's office to look at plans for Garden Spot Village and "get the lowdown on what was happening." Goehring was "sitting there as I usually do with a pad and pencil, since I'm the secretary for the group, and Dale Weaver turned to me and said, 'No notes! I don't want you to take any notes!' I said, 'Well, I'm just writing down names because I have a tendency to forget them.' 'No,' he said, 'I don't want you to take any notes!' I should have come back at him and said, 'You have no right to stop me in just this conversational meeting that we're having.'" Then she adds quietly, "I put the pencil down anyway." During a conversation one morning with an extremely successful Lancaster Conference Mennonite businessman (who asked to remain anonymous), I vented my frustrations to him, saying, "I just don't understand what's happening in Earl Township. I've been to a number of township meetings, but" "Well, that's the problem," the businessman interrupted. "What is?" I asked. "Stop going to township meetings and start going to Mennonite Sunday School!" Wondering "Why So Many Mennonite Developers Are Successful Here," a 1988 Lancaster New Era article noted: S. Dale High, Clyde Horst and John Thomas. They are the big three, but there are numerous others on a smaller scale. All are successful Lancaster County businessmen with a Mennonite heritage. High is chairman and president of High Industries, Inc. Horst is chairman and president of the Horst Group, Inc. and Thomas is chairman of Willow Valley Associates. As developers and builders of homes, corporate centers, [and] retirement villages ... those businessmen are change agents in a conservative county. Yet they belong to or were raised in a religious denomination that has its American roots in religion and preservation. Until a generation ago, the Lancaster Conference of Mennonites was largely insulated against the outside world by living in a self-contained community.... Of the three Anabaptists groups (Amish, Mennonite and Church of Brethren) it's fair to say developers with a Mennonite heritage are the biggest 1980s change agents. [Besides these three families] there are dozens of other Mennonite-run construction, development, hospitality firms that form a solid network of Mennonite success stories based on growth. "The Mennonites have become so rich, they're totally removed from the farm," says Denson Groenendaal, director of the Center for Cultural Heritage and Conservation at Penn State University. "The Mennonite community has amassed so much wealth, its kids are never going to go back to farming." 1 Â < previous page page_32 next page >