By FULLER ROYAL
Staff Writer

Last month, I read where the creator and owner of the immensely popular social networking website Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, had sold 1.6 percent of his site to Microsoft for $260 million.

The site, launched in 2004 when Zuckerberg was a 19-year-old student at Harvard University, has 60 million subscribers and is worth $15 billion.

Not a bad day’s work.

Now, if I had created Facebook and someone told me that I could collect that much money for a company that existed only on miles of wire and computer chips, I would sell it today.

I told someone that and they asked, “What would you do with $15 billion?”

Now, I have never played the lottery, but I have often fantasized about what I would do if I won $250,000 or maybe $1 million.

But what would I do with $15 billion?

First of all, I can tell you that I would give most of it to charitable causes. With that in mind, I figure I would probably have $12 billion after taxes since it would be going to non-profits.

So who would benefit?

I can tell you from the start that it would almost all be used locally.

The churches would benefit first. Need a new sanctuary? No problem. Need a new education building? No problem. Need a family life center? No problem.

Whatever churches needed – choir robes, buses, sound equipment or new pews. It would be handled.

This would include major funding of social programs such as Alcholics Anonymous, the Literacy Council, after school programs and others.

The schools would be next. I would replace every existing school with brand new facilities – all state-of-the-art including high-tech media centers, auditoriums, gymnasiums, stadiums, performing arts centers, television studios, and computer work-stations for every student ... the list goes on.

There would be a centralized high school created to host every vocational program imaginable.

Southeastern Community College would be rebuilt from scratch with all new buildings and anything they wanted.

Keep in mind that all of the schools would be built with population growth in mind because folks are going to move here in droves when we finish.

A permanent fund would be set up to pay public school and SCC teachers and staff supplements ranging from 25 to 50 percent.

We would also have our own teaching fellows program, paying all of the costs of highly qualified local youngsters who agree to come back here and teach.

The North Carolina Museum of Forestry would have in place everything it wants and more.

My billions would fund programs to restore the look of our local towns to the elegant days of the 1930s and 1940s – no vinyl, no aluminum.

I would even like to see some of the old landmarks – long gone – rebuilt to their exact look.
The railroad would be restored and made active with passenger excursions.

I would go and find all of our old fire trucks and bring them home.

Major centers with every conceivable form of recreation would be established and built including bike trails, swimming pools and major tennis and soccer complexes.

We would build our own Boy Scout and Girl Scout complexes and camps.

A great cultural arts center would be built and using a special fund, we would have top-notch headlining entertainers come to Whiteville.

We would also set up a film production center and host a major film festival each year.

Columbus County would be “vintage” with people from across the nation wanting to visit and perhaps live here.

The Lake Waccamaw State Park would have a canoe base and horseback riding.

There would be a massive tree-planting effort since so many of the great oaks planted 100 years ago are dying out.

How nice it would be to see trees down the middle of Franklin Street again.

Our city and county parks would be huge with every conceivable outdoor play set in place for kids to play on.

Our county library would be as large as a university’s.

There are probably a few things I forgot to list.

My $12 billion would probably go a long way here. It would definitely lift our county.

But for now … I have to see if I can still cash in the free M&M McFlurry I won in the McDonald’s Monopoly game.