On November 22 as I was headed home from school to spend 5 days with my family for Thanksgiving, I was involved in pretty bad car accident. I’m okay and would rather not really ready to share the details, but this plays into my article. I haven’t written in a while, due to the accident, but I want my first article back to be about the advantages of growing up in a small town and picking the right college. I can honestly say I have never felt so supported in my entire life. From the moment I was removed from my vehicle until the moment I was loaded into the helicopter, I was surrounded by people that had known me since I was a baby. I was surrounded by prayers and good thoughts.

Growing up I always found myself picking out the negatives of growing up in a small town. I always thought I could be receiving more opportunities as well as a better education if I were in a bigger area. Where I grew up, you graduated knowing everyone’s name in your class. I was very close with everyone in my school and all my teachers knew my name. On graduation day I walked with 57 other students and a good portion of us couldn’t wait to get out of our little hometown and to experience everything the world had to offer. We were all so quick to leave because we thought we had been missing out but we didn’t see what we were getting that other kids from larger areas weren’t.

Everyone in my hometown knows everyone. It’s crazy to think about and you don’t realize it until something happens and then everyone supports you and it’s so breathtaking to see how tight knit small towns are. My parents would go into the grocery store for milk or something else that would typically take ten minutes or less and they would be gone for hours due to people asking about me. I still to this day cannot express how supported I felt.

Finally, I would like to talk about how I chose the most perfect school. Seems a little random, but I cannot tell you how much I love it here at Mansfield. I was emailed personally by the president of our school once he heard about what happened. The president and his wife sent a card, the Dean, head of Student Life, and my Mentor sent me flowers, my Mansfield family came and visited me since I wouldn’t be back at school on time. Once I finally returned to school the president and his wife were holding an event at their house so I went and thanked the president and he again asked how I was doing and asked what happened. I personally just don’t know if other schools would do that. Mansfield was one of the best decisions of my life and I will never regret it.

After the accident, my Facebook completely blew up. I obviously wasn’t on my phone but once I got back on I couldn’t keep up with thanking everyone. So right now if you’re reading this and you sent prayers or flowers or anything of the sorts, thank you so much. I appreciate each and every one of you so much but there were just so many people I didn’t know where to start. Thank you all so much and I am very glad to be back to writing.