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Volume CXVIII, No. XXIII |
December 8, 2005 |
Ignore those small-town stereotypes
I've been hearing it all my life, and it is just getting worse.
Just because I'm from Stearns County, and not from the Twin Cities, doesn't automatically make me unintelligent.
Almost everyone has heard the rumors and myths.
People from Stearns County are hicks. We are racists.
We inbreed because there aren't enough un-related spouses to go around. We can't speak as well as other Minnesotans, and we definitely do not know how to drive.
I beg to differ.
Simply because I don't live next to Jamba Juice doesn't mean I am lacking a sense of worldly ideals.
The Twin Cities is a large metropolitan area, full of businesses, shopping malls, banks and suburbs, which are full of future Bennies and Johnnies waiting to leave their urban surroundings to attend college in Stearns County, of all places.
Imagine that — a bunch of educated professors and other intellectual individuals also decided to live and work here when they could have gone just about anywhere else to pursue a teaching career in the field they love.
I was born in St. Cloud and I have lived here all of my life.
My family's home is about 10 miles south of St. Cloud, close to other family members.
My dad owns and operates a contracting company, and he buys two cows every year for fun.
I grew up next to several farmers, some who grew up in the country and others who farm for fun.
Experiencing childhood in the country was great.
I was close to my family and sheltered from a lot of the violence that comes with living in a big city.
Most importantly, I still received a great education in a small town, an education that would qualify me for a college education at the same place as students coming from big cities.
Some of the students at our institutions appear closed-minded by judging the students from small towns.
They claim we do not know about worldly matters, and that St. Cloud sucks because there are no decent malls, or because we're missing some stupid restaurant.
What is it that you're looking for?
There are students who get so caught up in materialistic things when they are supposed to be getting a good education.
I would also think that the food from the long-lost restaurant would taste even better if I couldn't go pick it up every day.
Others watch the movie "North Country" and think that every town north of Minneapolis/
St. Paul is thickly infested with racism, ageism, sexual harassment and rape, because we ‘don't know any better.'
I would argue that these issues are just as present and happen even more frequently in larger cities.
The next time someone starts complaining about Stearns County, I urge you to stand up for your school and also for the great community that has assisted you into becoming a functional adult.
It's time some of the students here learned about some other important worldly ideals — the fact that small towns exist and the people who live in them are just as intelligent as they are.
