Quote:
Originally Posted by Selena Thayer
I am very familiar with all the places about which you inquire. None of them are free of tornados. You have to have a basement or hole in the ground and hope for the best. Most native Kansans run outside to look at tornados if there are any around before they head to underground shelter. I am 60 years old, a Kansas native, and have never seen a tornado. Perhaps one time one was near but it was raining so hard it was impossible to see anything. You can get a decent engineering education at K-State in Manhattan. It is very scenic in the Manhattan area. The downside of small towns in Kansas is the social structure. They're loving and caring if you are "local family", originally from there. If you're not, they want you to go back where you came from because your education, intelligence or talent will make them feel inferior. The main activity for young people is to drink prodigious amounts of beer, raise hell, try everything and have no particular direction in life. If you're capable of functioning socially independently and you don't crave universal acceptance from your peers, you'll be fine. A newcomer, a/k/a "Outsider" has to be very independent to survive. Given that, the slower pace, dewy mornings, fabulous skies, fascinating passage of the seasons is the upside of living in rural Kansas.
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+1000!!! I was born and lived in Kansas for 20+ years, both small towns and in Wichita. If you plan to live in a rural, small town and you are white, conservative and Christian, then you will eventually be accepted and your outsider status will be forgiven. However, if you are a minority, have liberal political leanings or do not attend some type of Christian church, then you will be treated as a pariah forever. If you are gay, or your family is non traditional in any sense (same sex couple, biracial couple, etc), you would literally be in danger and I would not consider it safe. It is a sad but true fact that beneath the friendly facade of small town Kansas, there is a level of bigotry and racism that may be shocking to people used to living in other areas or raised in big cities. In many ways, the culture of the small Kansas town is a throwback to a different era and bigotry is still out in the open, mainstream and accepted. Also, in many respects, the small towns have problems that mirror the large urban inner city areas, including a disdain for education, chronic poverty, drug/alcohol abuse and large numbers of bored, unemployed, intoxicated miscreants.
While small town Kansas can be a nice place to live, do not be fooled into thinking that it is some type of pastoral paradise where the cares of the world cease to exist.