Small mid-south town where the good-ole-boy networ
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8/24/2013
Small town down on its luck after the air base closed. The old air base housing is being used for a retirement community. The top paying jobs in the area are working for the steel mills. Many other companies have closed their door and left the area. The area cotton-gin owners and land owners desire this town to stay like a small rural farming type town. The town government has had scandals involving its finances and spending practices. Murders are far to common for this small town. The murder per capita rate here is worse than Memphis, TN. There is a 2-yr college here that seems to have a good nursing program and have an aircraft maintenance program with an internship opportunity possible. Street drugs cause a lot of problems here for this community. Schools aren't very good academically as a lot of people that do make good money choose to leave the area to Tennessee or Jonesboro, AR. Auto insurance rates are higher here than a 200,000 population city up north. Hot and humid in the summer with a good breeze blowing most of the time and frequent severe thunderstorms as the land is flat without hills to break up straight line winds. Winters sometimes have snow or ice storms as I do have a picture in my front yard, of a ruler showing 10 inches of snow ... yes that is unusual! Also there is a lot of airial crop-dusting that is very common and frequent spraying pesticides and defoliants that is two items away from agent orange and it gives a lot of people severe headaches!
Philip | Blytheville, AR