From the editor: I've had a firsthand view of the explosive growth in Leland

When I first started as a reporter at the StarNews in 1999, I mostly covered regional education. But my beat also included covering small towns in northern Brunswick County.

Yes, that’s right, small towns, which at the time included Leland.

I don’t remember a lot of the stories I wrote back then, but I do recall that Leland was already starting to see signs of growth. I remember talking to the town manager at the time about how the population was increasing and what that meant for this 10-year-old town.

I had no idea that 25 years later, I’d be living in Leland and that it would be one of the fastest growing in the state. My husband and I moved to Leland in 2017 because you could get a lot more bang for your buck. Our exact same model house in Wilmington neighborhoods was going for about $30,000 more than we paid.

We spent more than a year looking at houses before deciding that moving across the bridge was the best option.

Today, Leland is by far the largest town in Brunswick County. You can read more about Leland’s beginnings in Owen Hassell’s "From the archives" feature in today’s StarNews.

From the archives: Faced with a possible demise, Leland steers toward incorporation

Today’s cover story from Jamey Cross is also about Brunswick County and how it’s shifted from blue to red politically in the past 20 years.

Like Leland, the county has grown by leaps and bounds. We take a deep-dive look at how and why the political landscape has changed.

While North Carolina is considered a swing state, some say Brunswick’s shift to red could be a sign of things to come elsewhere.

Sherry Jones is the StarNews executive editor. You can reach her at sjones1@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: StarNews editor writes about watching explosive growth in Leland, NC