COLUMN BY BILL BRADBERRY — It felt a little bit like I had been transported back in time and simultaneously whirled into the future; it was one of those déjà vu moments, you know, when you feel like you’ve been someplace, or experienced the exact same thing before, and that it’s happening again; do you know what I mean?

It happens!

And it happened to me twice on the same day; first while I was sitting as part of a panel watching and listening intently to tourist attraction business proposals presentations being made by the Niagara Charter School’s fifth-grade class at the Niagara Falls Conference Center, and then it happened again later in the afternoon as I listened carefully to the pros and cons at a public hearing at City Hall on the issue of whether or not to give tax abatements to a proposed downtown tourist development.

I got that strange, but familiar feeling that I had been there before; it’s the oddest thing…

On average, most 10 to 11-years old fifth-grade students are approaching the height of their developmental potential, growing like weeds, and as I can recall from my own experiences often imbued with an indomitable spirit fueled by raging imagination and a fomenting desire to experiment with ideas, and if given the opportunity to implement them.

At least that’s what my best buddy, Tommy and I were like when we were that age; we were outrageously curious, absolutely fearless, and had every expectation that we would grow up to fulfill our dreams, and if possible, to travel through time and space. OK, we’re still working on things, but for the most part we’ve accomplished much of what we set out to do.

And some of our most amazing ideas were hatched more than 50 years ago on Old Falls Street at the Strand and Cataract movie theaters and other kid-friendly businesses that once lined the streets not far from where I was sitting last Thursday morning being completely and totally overwhelmed by those beautiful fifth graders, their amazing ideas, and their absolutely dedicated teachers, parents, sponsors and cheering supporters who packed the DeVeaux Room at the recently very busy Conference Center.

Co-sponsored by the Cannon Design Group, USA Niagara, and the BiNational Tourism Alliance, the Niagara Charter School’s fifth-grade teachers organized a learning expedition which they appropriately called, “Are We Missing the Boat?” The expedition, a very successful component of the school’s hands–on approach to learning gave the students the opportunity to “diligently” study and understand the problems that our city is facing in trying to design and address a need for building and operating “exciting and engaging tourist attractions” from the students perspective.

As their printed programs distributed to the participants explained, “With an understanding of the problem, our students took charge and began developing ideas for their own tourist attraction … and with the help of USA Niagara, our students generated business plans and wrote proposal letters that detailed their tourist attractions … architects from Cannon Design” helped create blueprints and some very sophisticated computer software to create 3D models for their projects.

The students actually came up with some really brilliant concepts including interactive museums, adaptive re-uses of existing buildings in and around the tourism corridor adjacent to the State Park property as well as some very well thought out ideas for some properties located outside of the “district.”

Equally as impressive as the substance of their proposals, were their presentations themselves; the students were obviously well prepared, they showed no signs of nervousness, trepidations or fear of any sort, and they did not hesitate to answer some tough questions and strong challenges from the very critical audience or the discerning panel.

Most impressive to me was their firm grasp of some of the fundamental issues that led to the city’s decline; they all prefaced their presentations with a clear, but non-judgmental articulation of “the problems.” They laid no blame, took no credit and cast no aspersions. They even willingly and happily accepted criticism and suggestions aimed at making their good ideas better.

They each acknowledged that our neighbors across the river have enjoyed a head start, having begun to take tourism development seriously more than we “forty years ago, while we just got seriously started ten years ago” and that we need to, “do something now because our situation is depressing and is unacceptable.”

Think about that; their perception is that we just “got serious” about this depressing and unacceptable situation ten years ago, since they were born. That is a significantly better perception than those that may be held by the generation who preceded them.

Unlike their grandparents and parents who may have grown up here in this community where they have only witnessed a city in steady decline, these students could be witnessing something else, something better. They appear to be able to see the potential that resides in the premise that “if you build it, they will come” and are still young enough to dream that there may be some possibility that, if their ideas are seriously considered, there could actually be some sliver of hope that this otherwise “depressing and unacceptable situation” will be changed in their lifetime.

I personally found their enthusiasm and their apparent hope for a better future attainable in their lifetime completely infectious, so much so that I hope that it contaminates the rest of us who, if we are as smart as these fifth graders, can make their dreams for a better, healthier, more vibrant community where people will want to come and stay a little longer, happen.

Contact Bill Bradberry at bill.bradberry@yahoo.com