By David Rogers. BLOWING ROCK, N.C. — You just never know who you are going to run into along Main Street in Blowing Rock.
Tim Cockerham sells tractors, as well as landscaping and construction equipment. His company owns several retail outlets around the region. His customers include farmers, landscapers and contractors.
“My family has been in the tractor business for about 65 years. Growing up in Charlotte, it was not unusual for us to go to the mountains or to the coast,” said Cockerham. “Several years ago, my wife and I came to Blowing Rock for a wedding at Chetola. We had an opportunity to walk around a bit and just fell in love with this town. You have just about everything here. If you want to hunt or fish, you can hunt or fish. If you want to sit on a porch, you can do that, too. It is a foodie’s paradise, there are so many great restaurants. Between here and West Jefferson is some of the best horse country in the nation and Blowing Rock has a great horse show every summer.”
For Cockerham and his family, Blowing Rock has become a periodic destination.
“I have a farm up in Surry County, near where my son lives. It is not unusual for him to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway down to Blowing Rock just to have lunch,” Cockerham added. “He loves it here. It takes a little over an hour to get here on the Parkway.”
As a successful businessman with an outsider’s viewpoint, Cockerham is quick to hand out compliments.
“I commend the Town of Blowing Rock,” said the North Carolina native. “Growth has its challenges but they seem to be doing it right. People are still coming, again and again.”
Cockerham, who has helped navigate his company’s growth through several changes over the years, offered some insights about growth.
“I’ve heard the rumblings about people who want to shut down growth in Blowing Rock. They found it, so now they want to raise the drawbridge and not let anyone else in. But if you are not growing with the forces of changing market dynamics, you become stagnant and eventually are left behind,” said Cockerham. “You are not going to stop Blowing Rock from growing. It is paradise. It is a year ‘round place. You have an eclectic group of locals, an eclectic group of visitors. There are a lot of opportunities for people that live here year ‘round.”
Cockerham did see one deficiency in paradise.
“The only negative I see in Blowing Rock is you need a hardware store!” he said, with a smile. “If I had that expertise, I would be all over it. You need a bolt, a hammer, this or that as you are piddling around the house, you really don’t want to go all the way to Lowe’s in Boone. I am an advocate of buying local!”
