This region's prominence in the field of growth and development is reaffirmed by this month's Site Selection, a national magazine with more than 44,000 subscribers. The N.C. Research Campus — our biopolis — is the cover story. And North Carolina tops the magazine's 2005 Top State Business Climate Rankings.

Earlier this year, the magazine identified the Statesville-Mooresville area in neighboring Iredell as the Top Micropolitan of the Year.

If they haven't heard about it already, thousands of site selection consultants and businesspeople will get a taste of David Murdock's vision for Kannapolis.

"I like the term 'biopolis' very much," Murdock is quoted as saying. "The dictionary might say there isn't such a word, but it's a new term that will be used extensively about our town.

"I want to make this entire town into a think tank."

From mill town to think tank. Excellent.