Good ole Pampa, Texas; the place that I could not wait to get out of! Or, so I thought. Growing up in a small town can be quite a challenge. As a teenager I would always seem to run out of things to do, places to go, people to meet. I wanted more than just shopping at Walmart or our local department store. I would daydream of story high malls, theme parks, and beaches (or just open water in general). Yet, after all of that day dreaming, I was still stuck in this small town. Eventually I left, went to college, and was opened up to so much more than I had ever experience at home. I never wanted to come back, but I did. My parents live in Pampa, so my summers and vacation time were spent back in my hometown. After my second summer of coming back home, I started to see changes. I noticed Pampa was beginning to look more kept up, small and big business where beginning to open up, and the town had a new feel. I wasn’t so miserable coming home anymore because I began to see that there was more going on while I was away at school. I can say that I am now more aware of the growth Pampa was gone through after completing the commonwealth mapping activity. I drove around town and did a bit of research online to find that my once small town is not so small anymore. We, a good sized town of about 18,000 residents, have a lot to offer; a hospital that serves individuals from our community and those of surrounding towns, a recently built water park, many parks and playgrounds, upkeep of historical building, available recycling centers, numerous places of worship, the expansion of renewable wind energy, and a community college that continues to offer more education possibilities. All of these things are assets that enhance my community and are the reason of recent grown. Pampa is not the place I once dreaded to come back to anymore. It is now a source of revenue to thousands of individuals and their families. I am proud and grateful to witness and be a part of the grown of my hometown. I hope we continue down this successful path and show the big guys what we little guys bring to the table.
