Plato celebrates status as new census center of United States population

Pulaski County Daily News ^ | 5/9/2011 | Darrell Todd Maurina

[darrellmaurina]

PLATO, Mo. (May 9, 2011) — Local community leaders, state and federal officials, and hundreds of students from the Plato R-V School District joined U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves Monday afternoon in unveiling a stone pedestal marking their community as the center of the United States population, based on 2010 census data. “Our village may be small but it has a big heart,” said Plato village board chairman Bob Biram. Unlike many rural communities, Plato is rapidly growing, mostly due to the presence of Fort Leonard Wood, the Army’s largest training center which trained more than 100,000 military personnel last year — even higher than its prior peak training load during the Vietnam War era. Particularly for personnel assigned to training duties on the south end of Fort Leonard Wood, living in Plato allows a much shorter commute to work with significantly lower housing costs than the St. Robert and Waynesville areas. Col. Charles Williams, the post’s garrison commander, noted the presence of numerous veterans including one with a World War II veteran cap. “We are your Army,” Williams said. “This is probably the best place we have ever been for one reason, and that is because of the community, the most genuinely patriotic community we have ever lived in. You don’t know if you’ve never left here, but not everyplace the United States military is at is feeling the love.”

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He couldn't have done it without Socrates.

But don't celebrate too soon.

Not if Aristotle has anything to say about it.