MACON, Ga. — Each year Macon leaders choose a different city to travel to with the goal of learning from others about how to make Macon a better place to live.
Macon-Bibb leaders want to bring some of Tulsa's successes back home to Central Georgia. Josh Rogers with NewTown Macon says these trips help form important connections with other local governments.
This year, more than 50 Macon-Bibb leaders will fly to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The steering committee considered several cities, but Tulsa got the edge this year thanks to historical connections to Central Georgia.
"Ocmulgee Mounds is a special place. I mean, it's part of our Muscogee people. It's part of our story roots. A part of our homelands," Joy Harjo, former US Poet Laureate and member of the Muscogee Creek Nation said while visiting Macon on Wednesday.
For thousands of years, the Muscogee Creek people called the Ocmulgee Mounds home. It was a thriving capital city until many of its people were forced away to Oklahoma in the 1800s.
Today, the mounds and memories still live.
"We are still part of these lands here at Ocmulgee Mounds," Harjo said.
As Macon-Bibb County looks toward the Ocmulgee Mounds becoming a national park, they also want to forge relationships with the Muscogee people.
"The important part is creating that connection. Or continuing or reopening, which it seems like it's happening," Harjo said.
That's part of the reason 54 county leaders will visit Tulsa, hoping to learn from city and tribal leaders.
"We're spending a lot of time with First Chief and Second Chief, and also the heads of all the agencies for the whole nation," Rogers said.
This is the group's first trip since the pandemic, and the largest group yet. Rogers says they hope to learn specifically about how Tulsa and the Muscogee Nation approach law enforcement.
"If we get to the end of this trip and everybody has the same lightbulb moment. That, 'Oh my gosh! Tulsa and the Muscogee Creek Nation are doing this really well, and it's something that could help Macon.' That would be my dream come true," Rogers said.
He hopes the trip strengthens a developing connection while giving the county's leaders a chance to develop their own bonds.
Joining the delegation are Macon-Bibb Commissioner Al Tillman and Mayor Pro Tem Seth Clark. Sheriff David Davis will also make the trip along with several non-elected officials and business owners.