Although I didn't know I was looking for gold, I found many treasures in the past two years while visiting the towns of the Golden Plains for the Community Spotlight series.

I'm not talking about monetary rewards. I'm talking about the soul-satisfying pleasure of meeting and visiting with the people who live in Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas.

I'm prejudiced of course. I've lived two-thirds of my life in this area. But, in my opinion, the people of the Golden Plains are among the best people anywhere. What you see is what you get. The people in this area are honest, open and true. And, as I found in my search for Spotlight stories and pictures, they are nice and helpful, too.

And, so, today's column is a great big thank you. My heart-felt appreciation goes out to every person I encountered along the Spotlight trail.

During the two-year project -- starting in August of 2004 in Cambridge and ending this month in Trenton -- I visited 22 towns. In most cases, three different trips to each of the communities were required, adding up to more than 7,500 miles to gather information for the series.

I was left with some distinct impressions. First of all, the towns of the Golden Plains -- especially the smaller ones -- have been riddled by change. Most Main Streets have lost retail businesses. Dozens of store fronts stand idle. Some towns -- including Stratton and Maywood -- no longer have grocery stores.

But don't let that fool you. While area towns are losing old, familiar stores, they are progressing in other ways.

Economic development is happening throughout the area ... and even more exciting changes are coming.

Take ethanol, for example. Who would have believed 10 years ago that this area would be so dominant in the alcohol fuel field. But it is, with the plant east of Trenton now producing 40 million gallons of ethanol a year and planning to increase production to 80 million gallons before the end of 2007. And more plants will be completed soon, with work under way on projects in Cambridge and Madrid and plans still in development for biomass in Imperial and ethanol west of McCook.

And ethanol is only one part of the development story. There's also the Timber Creek Homes' plant in Stratton, the trailer manufacturers in Beaver City and Benkelman, the worldwide distributor of searchlights in Culbertson, the orthotics producer in Herndon and the furniture accessories' builder near Imperial.

Equally as impressive are the forward strides made by established area enterprises, whose owners are not only growing the businesses in this area but expanding into other regions as well.

Things are changing, that's for sure. It's hard to accept the decline of the mom and pop stores which once populated our small towns. But a new way is emerging ... a way in which communities embrace economic development as a means of providing jobs for the people of the plains.