About a dozen local businessmen and women gathered in Mathews Memorial Library last Thursday evening to gauge the interest in revitalizing the Mathews County Chamber of Commerce.

Lynn Jaeger of Cobbs Creek, who along with her husband, Donald, owns and operates KayJae Inc. (a business that sells adjustable desks), called the meeting in hopes of bringing back the business networking group that withered away over a decade ago.

Into the late 1990s, the Mathews Chamber was an active group and around the turn of the century it “kind of morphed into other stuff and died on the vine,” said Jay Black of Davenport and Company.

Originally, the Mathews Chamber was a “meet and eat” organization, with members gathering at Salem United Methodist Church for monthly dinner meetings, said Carlton Moore of Sally L. Moore Auctions. Olive Faye Hutchinson of Faye’s Secretarial Services was the chamber’s paid administrative staff.

Then the chamber took on a number of i...