COMMERCE SHOWS ITS COMMUNITY SPIRIT

The people of Commerce -- the small, Scott County community that finally paid the price for being situated along the Mississippi River -- aren't letting a federal buyout of properties in the town's floodplain get them down.

The town recently held what organizers appropriately called a Flood Fest, an event designed to bring people to town for a weekend of fun and games. Despite a rainy day, turnout wasn't too bad for the first of what Commerce intends to become an annual event.

Residents of the historic town are used to river floods, but when the government offered -- after two devastating floods this decade -- to buy out the properties that flood, property owners decided to sell. People living outside the floodplain are still there, and they hope to turn the town into a tourist spot. Flood Fest is the beginning of that effort.

Said one resident: "The whole idea of Flood Fest is to celebrate Old Man River instead of moaning and groaning about it."

That typifies the attitude of the Commerce townsfolk, who are displaying a spirit of turning a bad thing into good.