The strength of economic development in Junction City and Geary County is fueled by the Consolidated Chamber of Commerce.

The Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce houses the Geary Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, Membership Enhancement Division, Military Affairs Council and the Economic Development Commission.

Dennis Beson, Chamber of Commerce CEO said that the beauty of having a consolidated chamber is that the ability to seamlessly work together.

“The consolidated Chamber in itself provides an opportunity for all four of our divisions to actually address economic development, each division works off each other…let’s imagine our Convention & Visitor’s Bureau brings somebody in on a tour that sees the area and says ‘wow this is a great place, I’d really like to establish something here’, and from that we could flow a lead right in to economic development,” said Beson. “Maybe on of our members has a need to expand, well – economic development; a military person that is coming out the military and wants to start a business – they all flow together and that’s the beautiful thing about the consolidated chamber.”

Beson said that economic development is largely why he supports building a new high school.

“From an economic development standpoint, a brand new high school is a very big selling point, obviously there’s taxpayers that say ‘well I don’t care, I don’t have kids in school’ and so on and so forth; however, it’s a bigger picture, having a nice world class facility or at least a new facility makes a great difference when a company is locating here,” said Beson.

Beson is part of the Steering Committee to determine whether or not to build new, renovate or do nothing in regards to Junction City High School.

The Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce operates under one roof at 222 W. 6th Street in Junction City.