Jacie Williams is a junior majoring in communication. She can be contacted at [email protected].Being away from home might have some freshmen convinced that even the small town of Starkville is a great place to live. There are no parents, and face it, the Wal-Mart is open all day every day.
Upperclassmen, having had more experience, are not so easily fooled by Starkville’s more flashy features. For three or more years, they have seen Starkville for what it truly is: a dead end town with nothing to do except frequent a bar or go see a movie.
But how many movies can you go see a month? Most recent films have not been worth watching.
You can only go to Wal-Mart so many times before you have to get your tires realigned from the number of potholes in their parking lot.
So what can you do for fun in Starkville?
Because my family moved so often during my childhood, I became exposed to a variety of experiences that most people do not get.
One of the most important lessons I learned was to make the most out of all of my travels. When you strip a place down to daily routines, everywhere is essentially the same, but each place has its own special features that make it likeable.
The problem with Starkville is that students do not tend to associate themselves with the actual town of Starkville. They are not involved in the community. Unlike some universities, you can take a map and draw clear boundaries where campus stops and Starkville starts. MSU is next to Starkville, not in it, and we treat it as such.
During my freshman year, a group I am involved with through Starkville, not MSU, marched in the Christmas Parade. I asked my friends in ROTC why the cadets did not march in the parade. They, as well as most other students I spoke with, did not even realize there had been a parade.
If the college and the town would work together, no one could complain of not having anything to do. In Starkville there are many treasures. All you have to do is open your eyes and take note of things when you are driving from the campus to Wal-Mart.
For anyone who has never tried Sonny’s Bar-B-Q, I suggest you go grab some food there. Just minutes north of campus, this little restaurant has some of the best Southern food I’ve ever had, and most students do not even know it is there.
In downtown there is a pottery studio that allows you to paint ceramic pieces. There is also a martial arts academy. If you get tired of the movies, you could try catching one of the Starkville Community Theatre’s productions. There are parks scattered throughout Starkville that are great to take a walk through or go fly kites.
We all pass the sign for Noxubee Wildlife Refugee while sitting in the morning traffic jam on the way to class, but honestly, how many of us have actually walked the nature center or hiked the paths?
If you want to keep your day-to-day routine and not add anything new, it will not hurt my feelings. If you are content to watch movies and wait in lines at Wal-Mart, then go ahead. I just don’t want to hear that there is nothing to do in Starkville. I find places to go and things to do by going and doing, not by complaining.