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Sunday Morning News

Even in New Millennium, Some Americans Still Like Small-Town Atmosphere

Aired January 9, 2000 - 9:45 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: America's small towns, are they really as idyllic as old magazine covers depict? Perhaps not. But ask small-town Americans their preferences, and you're likely to hear a variety of reasons for living where stars outshine city lights.

CNN's Larry Woods found that out in his Travels Across America.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LARRY WOODS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the new millennium descends on us with great expectations and historic pomp, let us move forward by looking back -- looking back on one of the touchstones of our social evolution, small-town America.

Under the microscope, Harrisonburg, Virginia, founded in 1780, and today a bucolic backdrop to farms and homes, places of worship, and steadfast businesses, a community where 33,000 people work through the calendar of time in reasonable harmony and economic stability.

Like most small towns anchored to a proud past, a past that's been preserved to validate the antiquity of a people and place caught up in the vagaries of early 20th century growth pains and promises, gauging the rationale for lifestyle and location in the Shenandoah Valley comes quick and easy for our local folk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, one thing, Harrisonburg is known as a friendly town.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our economy is very strong. We have a diverse economy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I just really don't know, I can go anywhere I want to and get back in five minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is where I want to raise my kids. This is a great place.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's always been an incredible diversity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know everybody and we know their problems. When they have problems, we're there to be with them and to assist.

WOODS: Many who have grown up in a small-town ethos say the experience spawns strong values, manners, character, a lasting work ethic, concern for others. To revere such attributes is readily explained.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a very good family system at home, and I rely on my parents, and my parents rely on me a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's more or less the closeness in families and neighbors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have relatives, both real close relatives and distant relatives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are able to a little better degree enjoy what's going on around us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, it's a good place to raise your family too. Crime is very low, and not crowded.

NOLEN MCCOMB (ph), HARRISONBURG RESIDENT: The stockyards have bid...

WOODS: But you know what's high on the list of men like Nolen McComb, a lifelong resident of Harrisonburg? Lifelong friends. Each year, as a new one advances, he hosts a down-home buffet at his construction workshop for business associates, employees, and good old boys he's treasured since childhood.

MCCOMB: And if you're a friend here, your -- it's sort of a responsibility. You're supposed to stay a friend.

WOODS: Caring comes in unsuspecting ways in small-town America. Artist Ken Schuler (ph) gave 60 percent of his liver last year to save the life of Deborah Parka (ph), a young woman he never knew until he saw her father on television cry for help. He immediately picked up the phone.

KEN SCHULER, ARTIST: Because I had a 20-year-old daughter, and I thought if she was in that predicament, I would want somebody to help me. And I just got up and went right straight to the phone.

WOODS: At Harrisonburg High School, small gestures of help help out too. Stephanie Spangler (ph), a senior, and Lucien Riddles (ph), a varsity athlete, are part of a pal program that identifies and works with students often excluded from teenage inner circles.

LUCIEN RIDDLES, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: Once you talk to them, they're just totally different than what they may seem like.

WOODS: Earlier this year, one such student considered suicide. The girl's depression frightened Stephanie.

STEPHANIE SPANGLER, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: We got her some help, and she's a lot better now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this is the garden spot of them all. WOODS: Boosterism is not restricted to the chamber of commerce, not when merchants are keeping faith on Main Street, trying desperately to survive the malling of America, not when James Madison University offers educational highways to a host of dreams and ambitions, not when local historian Bob Sullivan underscores the obvious.

BOB SULLIVAN, HARRISONBURG HISTORIAN: You know people by their face, by their first name. And, of course, sometimes you know a whole lot more about them than maybe we should.

WOODS (on camera): Now, every small town in America aspires to or must have bragging rights about something, regardless. In Harrisonburg, it's the turkey. That's right, the turkey.

(voice-over): Don't grin. This noble fowl primed Virginia's economic pump in 1999 with $200 million in gross income. Thus the title, the Turkey Capital of the Nation.

But once smallish Harrisonburg is starting to sprawl. New faces, new neighbors, traffic and more traffic. Sound familiar? Some concerns are contemporary and real.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This city is growing rather rapidly, and I think some people might prefer that it not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drugs is probably the big thing that worries most of us.

WOODS: Some lament the way they were.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Families don't sit down to eat any more at 6:00 in the evening or whenever it is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Back in -- oh, in the late '40s, I knew most everybody in Harrisonburg.

WOODS: Everything's changed, but nothing's changed, not all that much in small-town America.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Why did you pick Harrisonburg?

WOODS: Oh, well, I didn't, Neil Brofman (ph), my cameraman, did. You see, he had $50,000 worth of outstanding campus tickets. He went to James Madison. No, not really. But Neil did have a big influence on it.

Well, you know, you could have done -- you could have thrown a dart and gone to any small town. But I wanted something -- I really wanted one of the 13 original colonies. I wanted something with a lot of history to it, location, size, a small-town university. All those things conspired. But mainly, we tried to get Neil out of trouble.

PHILLIPS: Poor Neil, he's not here to defend himself. All right, turkey capital. Do they get a lot of grief for that?

WOODS: Well, yes and no. They giggle and chuckle all the way to the bank, as you heard the figures. That's pretty dramatic. But there's also a concomitant situation there with the turkey. Now, consider this. The churches have been going abroad and helping immigrants who want to come to America, and an awful lot of them are settling in in the Shenandoah Valley, settling in Harrisonburg because of the poultry industry, the agricultural industry.

They've got a 1 percent unemployment rate, for instance.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

WOODS: Now, this is the good news. Now, the interesting news off of that is, because of that tremendous influx, that kind of melting pot, if you will, that little high school, Harrisonburg High School, has about 900 students. Youngsters there speak 26 different languages.

PHILLIPS: Oh, my gosh!

WOODS: Now, that...

PHILLIPS: And the most unique language, what would it be?

WOODS: I believe Sephardic...

PHILLIPS: Wow.

WOODS: ... I believe one of the teachers told me. And -- but both a challenge and an interesting situation there. Nine hundred kids and 26 languages, so the school is really starting to try to cope with that. And that's a great experience, living in a small town like that...

PHILLIPS: I was going to say, usually people say, Oh, you live in a small town, you need to get out, see the world. There...

WOODS: The world is coming to them.

PHILLIPS: ... you've got all the -- yes, you've got all the cultures right there.

WOODS: And the -- yes, it's the Turkey Capital of the World, but -- or of the United States. But it's also very influential in their economic stability. And...

PHILLIPS: Well, what other stories do you have for us? I know you wanted to talk about a few.

WOODS: Well, coming up, we're going to continue our journeys across America. Next week we're going to go to one of the metropolitan centers of the world, Possum Bend, Alabama.

PHILLIPS: Ooh. WOODS: Yes, Possum Bend, Alabama's in Wilcox County, a little two-lane blacktop right outside Camden. There's a wonderful old-timer there by the name of William Payton Harris (ph). He's 90 years old. And he's an artist. He paints every day. And his artwork is absolutely astounding. It's one of those finds that you're just so happy to be a part of.

He owns a little country store there. He's had it for 50 years, and now he's leasing it to some fellows who were -- young fellows who worked for him back 30, 40 years ago, now have come to lease the store. But he paints back there. And he's...

PHILLIPS: Did you bring home a painting?

WOODS: No, I can't afford it.

PHILLIPS: Ohh!

WOODS: I'm serious.

PHILLIPS: High priced.

WOODS: No, he's very good, wait and see.

PHILLIPS: Wow!

WOODS: From (UNINTELLIGIBLE), from Possum Bend, we're going to go to Rabbit Ridge. Now, I know it sounds like a fairy-tale story...

PHILLIPS: There's a trend here.

WOODS: Yes, there's a trend. Rabbit Ridge is a great winery out in Sonoma, California, and Eric Russell (ph) and Suzy Selby (ph) are making one of the great wines that's coming off the market today, Rabbit Ridge Wines, it's...

PHILLIPS: I've had Rabbit Ridge.

WOODS: Yes, it's wonderful, it's -- they got four or five people working that little winery. I believe 15 years ago, Eric bottled something like 100 cases.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

WOODS: This year, he's going to bottle 250,000 cases. And he's all over the map. He's -- it's a good story, he's very dedicated.

We're going to run down to Louisiana here in a few weeks. We're going to get hooked up with Helen Boudreau (ph), the Cajun Big Rig Momma.

PHILLIPS: Oh, that's a Cajun name, Boudreau.

WOODS: Yes, she's a -- she formerly drove 18-wheelers, but now she's teaching Cajun music down in her home town of Lafayette. And she's very dedicated to keeping that culture going, that sort of thing. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- I'm sorry.

PHILLIPS: No, I was going to say, it's similar to the polka, right?

WOODS: Well, there's a lively beat there, but I think with that zydeco and -- it's so unique. But the nice thing about Helen is that she's played music all her life, and now she's really settling in. And she's teaching children, and she plays in local cafes on Saturday night.

But those Cajuns know how to have a good time.

PHILLIPS: And you always know how to have a good time.

WOODS: Yes.

PHILLIPS: And you know, we could keep going, too. I got a hard rap. We got to go.

WOODS: Well, all right, we'll catch up with you later.

PHILLIPS: You and I will keep talking once we get off the...

WOODS: All right, we'll do that.

PHILLIPS: How does that sound?

WOODS: Hey!

PHILLIPS: OK, good.

And if you have a story idea or a comment for Larry, we'd love to hear from you, Larry would love to hear from you. And there's the address. You can write us, write Across America With Larry Woods, at One CNN Center, P.O. Box 105366, Atlanta, Georgia 30348.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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