La Grange Tourism Director Leaving to be Dalhart City Manager

A Brooklyn native who has been the driving force behind La Grange tourism for the past decade is now heading to the Texas Panhandle.

Stacey Norris, who has been La Grange’s Director of Community Development & Tourism for the past four years, and the head of the La Grange Main Street program before that, has accepted a job offer to be the new city manager of Dalhart, Texas.

She’s starting that new job in mid-July.

“It was time to look at the next step in my career ... but I will miss La Grange,” Norris said. “I adopted my kids here. La Grange has been special.”

Norris leaves behind quite the legacy in La Grange – thousands of miles away from where she grew up.

Norris has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Ramapo College of New Jersey and a Master in Political Science from Fairleigh Dickinson University of New Jersey.

But after working for the City of Washington D.C. after college she felt called to make a bigger impact.

She came to La Grange a decade ago initially as a Red Cross worker in the Americorps program. She did things like teaching CPR classes and babysitting classes locally and taking care packages to local veterans.

After a year here she went to San Francisco, again via an Americorps program, to work with children of people in prison.

But when the funding for that program ran out, she remembered the little town in Texas that she had enjoyed so much and came back, initially as Assistant Main Street Manager under Scott Byler, but six months later she was running the program.

Here she has been behind such things as Movie Nights on the Square, the downtown Oktoberfest, the local Shop Small Saturday initiative, as well as the numerous grant programs (for signs, security, facades and murals) and micro loans the city distributes.

She also oversaw the city’s tourism office transition from the old jail into the Casino Hall, and helped turn that facility into one of La Grange’s most rented out spaces.

Dalhart Mayor Justin Moore said “Stacey will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the City of Dalhart that we need to support and grow the economic health and vitality of our community. She will also bring a tremendous level of energy and highly developed customer service skills that will serve our residents well.”

Norris was also a past president of the La Grange Rotary Club, and it was in her dual capacity with Rotary and the City that she helped make some of the most meaningful impacts in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey flooding here in 2017.

“We were here at Casino Hall and people just started coming here and showing us pictures of what had happened with their homes,” Norris said. “I called Shawn (city manager Shawn Raborn) and said we’re going to do something.”

For three weeks after Harvey, the La Grange tourism department at Casino Hall became a sort of basecamp for hurricane recovery. The parking lot was filled with food trucks feeding volunteers and flood victims alike. Meanwhile, inside, city staff was coordinating donations, and the upstairs became a day-care center.

Additionally, the Rotary club was able to raise $400,000 for Harvey victims.

“This is a community that responds. It was a powerful experience. Not many families left La Grange after the flood, and that’s something we can all be proud of,” Norris said.

Through the roles Norris has held, she has a special insight into what La Grange was, is and can be. She warns too much sprawl and too many “big box” stores would cause La Grange to lose it’s charm. She said ‘heritage tourism” is what La Grange should focus on. She said downtown is missing nightlife, but that could come if people start living in lofts downtown (there’s a city grant program trying to encourage that).

Norris said the potential of her new home, Dalhart (a city with a population of 8,000 near the New Mexico and Oklahoma borders), is very promising too.

“They are interested in being a Main Street city,” Norris said. “I know a little about that.”

She said she learned a lot about Dalhart during it’s exhaustive city manager search process, one La Grange might want to copy as it seeks to replace retiring longtime city manager Shawn Raborn.

A private search firm whittled down 22 applicants for the job to just three, who all interviewed during a two-day process May 21-22. This process included a “meet and greet” with residents at the Dalhart Coliseum, a dinner meeting with business leaders, a tour of the City, interviews with city staff and the city council and extensive written questionnaires and video interviews.

As excited as she is for the new challenge, Norris said, “I’m really going to miss the people here in La Grange.”