Paying it Forward: "It ain’t over 'til its over #136
Baseball player and manager Yoga Berra's 1973 quote reminds us to step up to the challenges and change the trends while most forecast, like piloting a rowboat, predice the future based on the past.
Jack Browne, Wichita Falls Times Record News edition, Sunday October 19, 2025
As the Texas Demographics Center released population projections September 30th, I joined other Wichitans in dismay as Wichita county was forecast to lose 12,000 people by 2060.
Our local governments and chambers of commerce continue recruiting new businesses as well as enticing local expansions of existing businesses. My September 28th column shared results metrics with links to more data.
This year we have seen decreases in tax rates by local taxing entities along with ongoing increases in population and school enrollments as $1.5 billion of new investments join the tax rolls while construction of over $500 million of additional projects is underway.
This week both the city and county governments made decisions supporting additional data center and solar power generation projects.
My column headline, “It ain’t over ‘til its over,” recalls Yogi Berra’s 1973 quote as manager when the New York Mets were in last place in their divisional race.
The Mets went on to win the National League East advancing to the World Series against the Oakland Athletics. Though the Athletics won the seven-game series, the amazing Mets’ comeback is often cited as an example of never giving up when facing overwhelming odds.
I spent my sales and marketing career in the semiconductor industry. Annual growth averaged over 20% with many categories doubling several years running.
I learned that while most projections of the future are based on past performance, current events and new wins have significant influence. Not only do those wins add to the future size of a market but wins encourage others to join the market.
Metaphorically, forecasts based on past trends are like navigating a rowboat. While facing the rear – you see where you’ve been, but not where you are going.
The Texas Demographic Center forecasts for Wichita county ignore the good economic progress of the last few years with almost two billion of new businesses and construction growing our tax base and population.
I reached out to the TDC with a phone call to Helen You, Ph. D. Dr. You is the associate director who oversees the Population Estimates and Projections program as the senior demographer and lead in developing population estimates for the state of Texas, counties, cities and Metropolitan Statistical Areas.
Dr. You said that the projections leverage the prior decade as the basis for the future estimate.
While the team creates data sets through 2060 for each of Texas’ 254 counties as well as the 26 MSAs, it is quite difficult to include results for announced business actions of local importance to individual counties and MSAs, she said.
The methodology used for these projections starts with the base population and factors deaths, births and net migration, You said.
The local additions of new businesses increase migration into our region, I concluded from our discussion. When reviewing the data released and the yearly population changes from 2020 to 2024, the addition of a few families per week builds annual increases of several hundred new residents.
I can see that in the face of the drought-driven population losses, the aforementioned trending didn’t show the attraction of new residents coming for construction and the new jobs created from the aggressive efforts of the Chamber of Commerce, EDC and City Council.
Dr. You said the data sets are available for download such that other organizations can model the impact of local decisions that affect the future population.
She was impressed with the new businesses we have attracted and acknowledged that these wins are not reflected in the projections published September 30th.
We agreed to stay in touch in discussion about our local growth and successes.
Another great Yogi Berra quote is, “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours!”
Jack Browne is a community activist and former technology engineer, sales and marketing executive at Motorola and other top tech companies.