White County’s Searcy sweeps up votes, wins small-business makeovers

SEARCY — Residents are celebrating after finding out Tuesday night that the White County town of Searcy has been selected to be the focus of a streaming series’ upcoming season as well as the recipient of $500,000.

Searcy was one of six finalists in a competition to win the $500,000 “marketing and business transformation” and be featured in the fourth season

of Small Business Revolution — Main Street.

The city learned of its victory during a watch party at Harding University.

“I have never seen this much excitement over one project in my life,” Searcy Mayor Kyle Osborne said. “These people in Searcy right now, we’re ready, we’re excited, and I can’t wait for things to kick off tomorrow and get started.”

Small Business Revolution is a reality show that airs on Hulu and stars Amanda Brinkman, Ty Pennington and experts from the small-business marketing company Deluxe Corp. Brinkman, Pennington and their team work with a different small town each season, providing marketing advice and other support to business owners.

In its first three seasons, Small Business Revolution visited Wabash, Ind.; Bristol Borough, Pa., and Alton, Ill.

The race to become the top choice for the show’s fourth season began in the fall, when roughly 12,000 nominations were put forward, many by community leaders, according to a news release by Deluxe. Stephanie Mann, a spokesman for the company, said she believes it is the largest number of nominations the corporation has received since Small Business Revolution began. In November, the show’s team visited their top 10 choices, including Searcy, which made its way into the top six. Mann said typically the team members narrow the competition to the top five cities, but they couldn’t bring themselves to eliminate so many this time.

“We put them in the top six because we could feel this incredible momentum here,” Brinkman said. “We could feel what a beautiful community it is. People really understand the value and importance of supporting small businesses, and that is what the small-business revolution is all about.”

At one point Searcy led the vote tally, which began Feb. 12, but it dropped to the No. 2 spot the day before voting ended. That led to a “tremendous push” in calling for people’s votes in the final hours before the poll closed, according to Amy Burton, executive director of Main Street Searcy.