State Sens. Dick Elliott, D-North Myrtle Beach; Luke Rankin, D-Myrtle Beach; Yancey McGill, D-Kingstree; and Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, did a wonderful thing last week in making sure $7 million for a trade-show center got inserted into a state economic development bill. If the S.C. Senate signs off on the change Tuesday, as it should, that money will be available for 18 months, meaning that its highest and best use likely would be land acquisition.

The catch: The state will spend it on a trade center only if Grand Strand advocates of the project also line up other private and public (local and federal) donations.

So the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, which is working on moving the trade center from concept to reality, needs to step up efforts to line up the necessary support, especially on the private side.

As for the public side, the city of Myrtle Beach financed feasibility studies for the trade center, which would be built on the site of the Myrtle Square Mall across the street from the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. City officials caution that they don't have spare cash lying around but seem amenable to finding more.

With Horry County, it's a different story. The attitude of County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland seems to be that the county does enough already to enhance economic development locally. If this is code for "the project would be east of the waterway, hence would lack countyside impact, so we don't need to support it," Gilland and other County Council members need to think again.

Elliott, McGill and Leatherman don't represent Myrtle Beach, yet they understand the trade center's potential to create jobs and new economic development across Horry County and the Pee Dee. They understand the benefits of such a project don't stop at the boundaries of the political jurisdiction into which it falls.

Not only would the center itself be a magnet for large-scale national and international trade shows, but it also would give the magnates whose companies sponsor and attend such shows an entry point into Horry County, the Pee Dee and the rest of the state.

We wish the four senators well Tuesday as they work to get the bill through the Senate and onto the desk of Gov. Mark Sanford.

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