Small Town Scenery

While driving around the roads of Topeka, I can't help but think about how crowded it is. Buildings, houses, people, and cars fill acres of land with not much visible nature. I come from a small town that has maybe 10 buildings total, along with lots of land in between each established home. It is incredibly common for people to own 20+ acres. In a city I've noticed that having a really nice car and house stands as as social status of wealth in Topeka. As where I'm from, the amount of land and cattle owned is a pretty big representation of wealth.
 No matter which direction you drive in, all you can see is grass and cattle for miles. Dirt roads are also very common where I'm from, so watching my city friends try to drive on them is pretty hysterical. More time than not dirt roads are surrounded by corn and wheat fields, so there is a little more to see while driving on them. A major difference I've noticed with small town life is the normality of animals being everywhere. It is not an uncommon thing for cattle to cause traffic jams on main roads. I remember one time I was late to school because my neighbor's cow got out and was blocking my driveway. I simply called my school and told them I would be a little late because of it and they excused my tardiness.
I'd say one major plus to living in the city is the rules on burning leaves and everything. In the spring farmers usually burn off their fields so they can grow fresh crops. I always hated that because smoke triggers my asthma, so when the whole town smelled like smoke I always felt like I couldn't breathe. Overall I would say being from a small town is really pretty nature wise, but there is an artistic beauty to to set up of cities too.

Small Town Restaurants

When you live in a city like Topeka, you have an unbelievable amount of options to eat at. You can just drive down Wannamaker and find pretty much any chain restaurant you want to eat at. If you keep navigating throughout Topeka, you can find so many local restaurants to choose from as well. In a small town, it is not like that at all. The town I'm from didn't even have a restaurant. We had a gas station and a historic sandwich shop (Which I must say makes the best sandwiches ever!).  If we wanted food, we had to drive a town over. Even then our options were very slim. The only food places in all of the surrounding towns are Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Sonic and Subway. If you want anything else you have to drive to a city. (Which is a good 20-25 minute drive). If you wanted to get groceries at Walmart, or go shopping at a mall, you had to make a day of it. Luckily where I am from, Joplin isn't that far away, but for other towns sometimes it can be up to a 45 minute drive. Trying to put that into perspective can be hard for people from big cities. Just imagine every time you wanted to go out to eat or go shopping, you have to drive to Lawrence or Manhattan. When that's all you know it's not as big of a deal. I mean yeah, it's kind of inconvenient but not that bad. Because of the lack of restaurants, none of our surrounding schools allowed high school students to leave school for lunch. We could order from Pizza Hut and have them deliver, but that's about it. Moving to a city really showed me the luxury of having so many restaurant options so close to where I live. That is definitely something I like better about city life than living in a small town.

Small Town Athletics

Being from a small town, youth athletics are a huge deal. Parent's start signing their kids up for flag football and T-ball at age 4 and more times than not those kids play all the way through at least middle school. The entire town fills the stands to watch Friday night football as if it was a sacred tradition. If a sporting event is away, the folks that can't attend are more than likely listening or watching the game live from their radios or computers at home. Friendships and chemistry are made  for many athletes, and even the fans, throughout this 12-14 year span. It is truly heart breaking for the entire community when an athlete has play their last game as seniors in high school. 

I've been a multi-sport athlete for as a long as I can remember. It was like I was born with a ball in my hand. I spent 90% of my childhood at some sort of practice or game, whether it was mine or my siblings. Sports camps consumed my summer breaks and weekends to the point I felt burnt out and wanted to quit everything by my Junior year of high school. It was so easy for the coaches to pack each of their sport with as many training camps as possible, but they never stopped to think about the multi-sport athletes that would spend 9-10 hours a day going back and forth between camps and practices. Coaches at a small town are typically also faculty members at that high school. Whether they are the PE coach, or the history teacher, they usually have a job at the school. One of the major downfalls to small town athletics is the unbelievable amount of favoritism. More times than not their is always a few students who have the "last name" that gets them their spot. Whether that "last name" indicating that they are the coaches kid or the principal's kid, or even just a popular family in the town, they still usually get special treatment and playing time that is definitely not earned. Don't get me wrong, not every coach is like that, but the ones that are really take away from the overall chemistry that has been building with that group of young athletes for years. When it comes the fans, there are so many homegrown people who have followed a local school's athletic department for years on end. They proudly wear our school colors in public, and contribute to every single fundraiser they know about. Without them, small town programs would be hurting. I will say, the thing that really separates city sports from small town sports is the amount of change. In a small town, you grow up playing whatever sport you do with the same small group of people. So by the time you're a senior, you have an unbelievable amount of chemistry. With city schools having so many different kids not joining together until high school, it makes it a little harder to find that chemistry, but at the same time there are a lot more options to choose from. 

Small Town School Life

When you go to a big city, typically there are multiple elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the area. Graduating classes are ridiculously big and you typically don't even know half the people you graduate with. That is definitely not the case in a small town. My elementary-high school was all in ONE building. As I said before, I graduated with 48 people, so my average high school size was a little over 200 students total. Though there are always pros and cons to everything in life, I can honestly say the good out-weighs the bad when it comes to small schools. 

One of the most annoying things about being from a small high school was gossip spread like wild fire and it sticks around for so long. Even the teachers would know what was up and call us out on it individually. Everyone you know then knows what you did or what you said, and it's just super irritating honestly. You see the same faces every single day in the hallways and we all each lunch at the same time. Athletically speaking, it was a disadvantage to be from a small school because your talent options are limited, compared to a big school where you may have to try out and really want to be apart of the team.

My favorite part about being from a small town was the ability to be involved in everything and anything. I was apart of almost every club offered, and even president of some. Teachers feel more like family than just teachers, honestly. They genuinely care about your well-being inside and outside of the classroom. They do their best to provide knowledge and opportunity that will benefit you later in life, instead of just on a test. I had numerous heart-to-heart conversations with my teachers, and they still check up with me through social media to this day. Another really cool opportunity provided by a one-building school district is the opportunity to mentor the youth in the community. My senior year I spent more time in the elementary volunteering in classes, then in actual classrooms learning through a textbook. So many big opportunities were provided to me through my small school that I probably never would've got elsewhere. For example, because my class was so small, our senior trip was to Disney World for 4 days. I also was selected to go on a 10-day trip to see  historical sights on the east coast, including Colonial Williamsburg, all of  Washington D.C., and some spots in Maine. Those kinds of trips are a lot harder to arrange when you have 200+ people per class.

Even though I never knew what it was like to go to a big school, from what I've been told, it's so different. All I know is I loved high school and the meaningful relationships and memories I was able to make during that time in my life. 

Small Town People

It's hard for me to understand what outsiders think of country folk, but from what I've learned it is pretty stereotypical. If you are moving to a small town, you will quickly learn, and may even be a little overwhelmed, by the amount of attention and support you are given to make you feel welcomed.  When I think of my community, I think of family. Living in an "everyone-knows-everyone" town does have some advantages to it. When disaster strikes or a family is in need, everyone in the community helps in whatever way they can. Everyone is just trying to help their neighbors, and being a stranger is just a foreign concept. You wave or say hello to everyone you see at the grocery store, whether you know them or not. Locked cars and house doors isn't a main priority because you can usually trust the people around you. Some may call it "southern hospitality" but I believe that it is just a genuine respect for other people that should be found everywhere.

Being involved in every club, leadership role, and sports team available, I was blessed with an unbelievable amount of support throughout my time in Riverton, and still to this day. I represented my community at many highly competitive track meets my senior year. I began breaking javelin records everywhere I went, and I promise you I couldn't have done it without the big hearted people I had supporting me. Teachers and random community members would send me messages of encouragement, provide me with snack bags for meets, and even wrote me a "Good Luck! We are proud of you" message on our community advertisement board. Even though I'm not even in the community anymore, I still get messages, letters and Facebook comments from random people back home, asking about me and my new life.

Topeka is definitely not the same as Riverton in that way, mainly because the city is so big. I've noticed people take advantage of other people and are quite bitter to people they don't know. Where I'm from, if you have someone's back, you always have someone's back. Several of my city friends are completely shocked by the things I will do for strangers, and amount of effort I put in to people and friendships, but that's just all I know. I get an "everyone-for-themselves" vibe from Topeka and it is honestly kind of disappointing. But at the same time it is nice to focus on myself a little more, definitely creates less anxiety in my life. Overall, small town life is more welcoming, but city life isn't so bad either.

Introduction

Hey y'all, my name is Shelby Edwards. I was born and raised in a small town in the southeast corner of Kansas called Riverton. If you're having a hard time figuring out where Riverton is, it's probably because it isn't even on the map. I graduated with a whopping 48 people, all of which I can list and could tell you fun facts about individually if you were really that interested in learning about strangers. I am writing this blog to share what it is like growing up in a small town in Kansas, and comparing it to the city life I am still adapting to.

I chose this topic manly because I grew up in a small town and faced a bit of a culture shock when I moved to Topeka. I was very well known and what some might say to be apart of the "in" crowd in high school, due to my involvement in athletics and social events. Moving to a place where no one knew my name or story was incredibly strange. Small town life really stuck out to me as the perfect topic because I have now experienced the best (and sometimes the worst) of both worlds. I absolutely love it here in Topeka, but there are quite a few differences that city people wouldn't understand about us small town folk. My intended audience is really anyone who is interested in the diversity in Kansas locations. Whether my viewers grew up in a small town and can relate, or have never stepped foot in a one-stop-light town, I believe there really isn't a limit to who I am trying to connect with. Anyway, stay tuned to read about my life experiences!