"They treated us like we were dignitaries," Liebe said.

"I consider this an investment for the community. I think this is going to reap benefits for the community," he said.

Tribble and Liebe were in Japan last week at the request of the Hopkinsville–Christian County Economic Development Council. They traveled to Japan with EDC staffers Mike Baker and Kim Schippers and board chairman Don Henderson.

Representatives of two local plants, Harry Kano of Copar and Matt Kasai of Amfine, also traveled with the group during separate legs of the trip and served as interpreters and tour guides.

The group visited five plants with ties to factories in Hopkinsville and several others that may be potential recruits for Hopkinsville.

Schippers declined to identify those plants or how many the group visited. "We are trying to keep those quiet," she said.

The trip included visits to nine cities. The group traveled by train and carried a banner with the slogan "Hoptown Means Business" as a prop for photographs at several stops.

"Mike (Baker) always says you can't ‘outnice' the Japanese people and it's true," Schippers said.

Gifts were presented to plant officials, including wooden bowls from the Brushy Fork Creek in Christian County and bottles of Maker's Mark bourbon with special Kentucky labels.

During a stop at the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development office in Tokyo, Tribble and Liebe were interviewed by Jiro Hashimoto, the state's Far East representative, for a story that will run in a newsletter distributed to industrial plants across Japan.

"I think we will have some visitors from Japan in the next six months or so," Tribble said. "I really believe some good will come of this."

Despite their agreement on the value of the trip in terms of economic development potential, Tribble and Liebe differed on whether the EDC should pay for the trip.

The EDC voted to pay for Tribble and Liebe's expenses for the eight–day trip; however, Tribble later changed his mind about that arrangement and said he now plans to personally pay for his portion of the trip.

Schippers said the cost for airline tickets, train tickets and hotels rooms will be about $2,000. Henderson also planned to pay for his expenses, she said.

Liebe said he was surprised by Tribble's decision.

"My feelings on that are a lot different from his," Liebe said. "The EDC board voted for us to go. It wasn't a vacation. We were working."

The EDC receives some funding from both city and county governments.