Kansas Proud - my hometown of Geneseo

I'm trading in my forecasting duties on Thursday for a trip back to Geneseo where we will feature my hometown for the day. It's what we are branding as Kansas Proud and taking an opportunity to showcase our hometowns and giving you a look back at our childhood days. Next week, Melissa Scheffler will take you to Newton, Michael Schwanke will be taking you to Colby, and Roger Cornish will have Hutch toward the end of the month.

My church growing up. The United Methodist Church in Geneseo

Just like so many small towns around Kansas, they have a hard time attracting young people to move back to the area. Unless the town is close to a bigger community that has more job opportunities, or it have ties to agriculture, it can be hard to live in these very small towns. I grew up just one mile outside of town and while I didn't spend a lot of my free time in town, I certainly did take part in many activities the city had to offer. As you'll hear in my story tomorrow, the city had a baseball team that I was on for a few years. We also had an annual "Play Day" with a parade and kids' activities in the park. The activities included box turtle races (yes.... you had to find your own turtle for the race), the money dig (tearing through a pile of straw searching for quarters), relays ... Just to name a few.  The adults had mud volleyball. 

The convenient store on Hwy 4 just on the edge of town

There are a lot of great things and good people who helped raise me still living in Geneseo. As is the case with many small towns, it's the connection you have with the people that make it special and I'm grateful for my small town upbringing. Be sure to catch our stories tomorrow starting at 4 p.m. on the KSCW, and we will be live at 5 and 6 from Geneseo. I hope you get a chance to watch. It's something different on our newscasts for a change... and we hope you like it.