Homegrown Heroes

Many people believe that anyone who lives in our sparcely populated areas such as Western Kansas, are living in no man's land. Most of us have to travel at least an hour to find the nearest Wal-Mart. Some of our towns don't even have a grocery store to rely upon. It is true that I definitely have my times of when I wish we had this or that in our community but there are also many things that our little communities have that our larger metropolises will never have. The main thing that I am talking about is how we take care of one another.

Case in point. We've been plagued with very intense frigid temperatures off and on for the past couple of weeks. Freezing weather causes many waterlines to freeze, swell and burst. Besides the inconvenience brought on by a lack of water flow, comes the mess and damage done by water being everywhere except where it is supposed to be.

That is an issue that happened to the Greeley County School in Tribune, Kansas yesterday. Water was seemingly EVERYWHERE! The school employees dashed in to fix the problem and clean up the mess. Though that is what should have been done, the community came out in full force to help in any ways possible. Folks, we are not talking about a half dozen citizens coming in to help. We're talking about A LOT of people! The person who told me about this was surprised at first when she found out what had happened. The shock didn't last long for her though when she stopped to remember that we were talking about people in Greeley County. That is exactly how I felt about it when I first heard this story. In 1983-1985, Danley and I lived in Tribune while we ran a convenience store there. During those years, we were more than a little impressed by the good people of Greeley County. Those people drop everything they might have going at the time to help someone else who is in need.

Anyway, I just wanted to express my pride and respect for Greeley Countians. I think that many, if not all, of us could learn a lot about humanity and kindness from the people who live there. This kind of support from the people did not happen overnight. It started many years ago. Those generations passed this on to the next generation and on and on...

VLE-B