Designated Site of Collider Counts Its Blessings : For Waxahachie, It Was a ‘Super’ Day

WAXAHACHIE, Tex. — Minutes after he began to preside over his court Thursday, Judge Gene Knize was handed a note. He raised his arms, looked out on his courtroom and intoned, “supercollider, supercollider, supercollider!”

And then he called a recess, because the note said a bigwig would be landing a helicopter in minutes outside the courthouse. There was a helicopter all right, but instead of some dignitary swooping in to congratulate Ellis County on winning the supercollider sweepstakes, the judge and his troupe found a television cameraman leaning out of the door.

It was that kind of day here in Waxahachie, a neat community of gingerbread homes that was designated Thursday as the preferred site for the proposed $4.4 billion superconducting supercollider.

Financial Security Seen

For Waxahachie, a bedroom community 30 miles south of Dallas, the project is expected to bring financial security for years to come. In a depressed economy, the supercollider--if funded by Congress--is expected to create 4,000 construction jobs and, when completed, more than 3,000 permanent positions.

It will also mean that Waxahachie will be ringed by the 53-mile, 10-foot wide underground superconductor that is 20 times as powerful as any existing particle accelerator--the largest and most expensive scientific instrument ever built.

And the reaction here was nothing short of ecstatic, as leaders in the community brushed aside charges that Texas had somehow stacked the deck to win the long competition that was finally narrowed to sites in seven states.

“We’re celebrating in Texas this afternoon because we are the best,” said Republican Rep. Joe L. Barton at a gathering of Ellis County citizens.

Hundreds of red, white and blue balloons decorated the front of the Waxahachie Chamber of Commerce building as local officials congratulated themselves, many taking a measure of credit for landing the supercollider.

Headlines in the Waxahachie Light, this town’s daily newspaper, blared: “It’s here. It’s a great day for Texas.”

Edwin Farrar, a broker for Coldwell Banker real estate, said that housing prices in Waxahachie and other Ellis County communities shot up immediately and that already his office and others had received calls from people asking about the price of land.

Audrey Hodge, a Waxahachie bank teller, talked excitedly about how good the supercollider project would be for the economy.

And Waxahachie Mayor James Self said things were already hopping, with television and radio people calling for interviews every time he turned around.

“Immediately, it means that we are going to be, without a doubt, a beehive of activity,” he said. “Fortunately for us, it is a project that is going to come about in phases and not something that is going to happen overnight. We couldn’t build things fast enough.

“We knew that on the technical merits of the site, we had a strong proposal,” he said. “One of our strong suits was the local support for it. The vast majority of the people in the county were for it.”

That support, however, has not been universal. A number of townspeople have expressed fear that the supercollider and the prosperity it brings with it will destroy the small-town atmosphere of Waxahachie and other surrounding towns.

And, at day’s end Thursday, all was not the sweet harmony in Ellis County. Local Democratic officials were fuming at not being invited to Rep. Barton’s morning press conference to discuss the supercollider.

“He didn’t invite any of the Democratic people that we know of,” said Bud Brannon, the executive director of the local Democratic Party. “Barton is really one of the minor cogs in this and will be less so now because it is a totally Democratic-controlled Congress.”