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I'm thinking about relocating to Winona, Mississippi from Jackson, Mississippi.
YES, I'm white and relocating to Winona.
I may be as much of a racist as the next guy, but possibly having black neighbors does not bother me, especially considering that I am young and am considering moving out of my parent's house to Winona so I can write for the for the paper my dad owns, the Winona Times, in the afternoon while I attend Holmes Community College in nearby Grenada (which I handpicked) and will be renting an apartment somewhere in town.
In this forum, I don't necessarily want to hear people bash me for moving to such a small town. If you have some sort of constructive criticism I will gladly listen, but if your just gonna post something like "DON'T MOVE, WINONA IS (whatever you call it)", then I'm just not going to reply to that.
BTW, I'm eighteen, have a job writing freelance articles and columns for my dad's paper in Jackson, and I have maintained at least a three-point-zero grade point average since ninth grade.
I will be entering my senior year of high school this fall, and I will only have three courses to take since I finished three senior courses in my junior year. I believe that I could possibly graduate early if I work two of my six class periods (blocks, hours, whatever) for each course.
I've already found an apartment complex that has units available for rental in Grenada in case I consider moving there, and I'm also looking into a few complexes in Winona with units available for rental in Winona.
I know the whole process of not only leaving Jackson and putting down roots in Winona is going to be a challenge, but also the act of building up trust among the community's members in me, getting emotionally adapted to leave home and start a new life on my own, and also the feat of making even a single friend will be a very difficult challenge, and I accept the fact that it's probably going to be harder here than it is in any large city with lots of young people near my age flocking to it;
but I want a challenge, a new, extremely difficult challenge, to overcome, and I have hope that, if I overcome all of those challenges, I will earn a great reward, not only in having the time of my life adapting to a less fast paced lifestyle than I would have doing the same in a large city, but also in earning possible lifelong friends while I attend community college and work for The Times.
I have an open mind for whatever advice you throw out on this forum, so have at it!
You ain't skeert, and for that you are an American hero!
If you have a star to follow, you should follow it. I'm dang near 70, and the one thing I would never want to change about my life is my willingness to go where the situation calls. You are SO MUCH better off than most of your contemporaries who cower in familiar territory hoping that fate will not find them.
Either is a good place to live, it sounds like you know the area, so either is fine. Grenada may have a little more going on, especially for someone your age. Both are easy driving distance to state, UM and DSU. Both are safe, I would look for the best place to live for the money.
Apartment complexes can be seedy, doesn't mean they're unsafe, but not the kind of people you will much in common with. When you look at apartments look at the cars around, if the cars are poorly maintained, that's the kind of neighbors you will have.
Winona is about a 20-25 minute drive down i55 from Grenada or you can take the 2 lane route via US Hwy 51 south that will take you through the (even tinier) communities of Duck Hill and Eskridge.
There are apartments directly across the street from Holmes Community College called River Hills Apartments that seem to be very well-kept. I'm not sure what they rent for but you would have the added benefit of walking to class and saving on gas.
Winona has a Walmart, one grocery store and a couple of fast food and other restaurants where Grenada has more of both.
As far as things to do, Grenada seems to have Winona beat in that regard in that the lake alone draws a lot of visitors and offers many different activities year round including fishing, nature walks, swimming and boating. Thunder on Water, the Hot Air Balloon Festival and the Crappie Festival are all held there. There are some artsy things that are starting to pop up on the square downtown. Buildings are being renovated to accommodate art studios and party venues. Last fall was a film festival going on with music and vendors all around.
There is a lot to be said about life in a small town and Grenada as well as Winona would fit that description; Grenada is just a bigger small town.
Winona is about a 20-25 minute drive down i55 from Grenada or you can take the 2 lane route via US Hwy 51 south that will take you through the (even tinier) communities of Duck Hill and Eskridge.
There are apartments directly across the street from Holmes Community College called River Hills Apartments that seem to be very well-kept. I'm not sure what they rent for but you would have the added benefit of walking to class and saving on gas.
River Hills across the street from Holmes in Grenada rents a 1 bedroom/1 bath for $440/mo, and the cars in the complex are nicely maintained. I don't know of even better deal than that right there!
Apartment complexes can be seedy, doesn't mean they're unsafe, but not the kind of people you will much in common with. When you look at apartments look at the cars around, if the cars are poorly maintained, that's the kind of neighbors you will have.
Funny you should mention that. I just got back from Winona this evening, and I drove by the apartment complex in Winona that I'm looking at.
I did not see any run down cars. No new cars, but cars about as old as my 2008 VW Jedda, and all of what I saw in the parking lot in front of the complex actually looked a bit better maintained than my Jedda, which has a few dents on the front of it.
So, as far as neighbors go, I think they might be a bit older, but I'll probably be on par with them as far as education goes by the time I finish my senior courses and get my high school diploma.
Given your post above, I checked usa.com to look up Winona. Winona is about equal in terms of number of black and white citizens. Ditto for the local public schools.
It's not a bad town at all. I've driven through it and yes, it's on the modest side, but once you drive off the main highway through town and into the residential portion of town and downtown area, it has sort of an All-American feel. Lots of modest but nice enough cottages and bungalows and tree lined-streets. If feels very safe. More like one big neighborhood, rather than a town it seems like. So...one idea might be renting a house there, rather than living in an apartment complex. I'm betting you could rent a small house (e.g. 1,200 square feet) for less than a 1-bedroom apartment in Ridgeland.
Grenada to me has a slightly different feel. To me the older part of Grenada doesn't feel quite as safe as Winona. Maybe I"m wrong about that. It's the feel I got there. On the other hand, Grenada is much more of a growing town versus Winona and has some very nice middle class and upper class neighborhoods (roughly in the vicinity of the hospital and along Wooded Drive). There are several streets that look every bit as nice as parts of Eastover in Jackson or some of the neighborhoods in Madison, albeit in much smaller numbers.
I tend to agree that apartment complexes can be little iffy, but who knows maybe Grenada has fresh new one that feels perfectly okay for an 18-year old young man.
One other thought is Greenwood. Greenwood has a cool downtown area and the residential area across the river (North Greenwood), is absolutely beautiful. What a wonderful area to live...going running, riding bikes and meeting neighbors, and walking along the river.
One last thought is Carrollton. It's tiny, but if you like more a rural feel, Carollton is in a beautiful area of hills and trees, has a great little historic town square and is loaded with antebellum homes. I'm sure you could find a cool little garage apartment there.
You do realize that it has been considered routine for kids to pack up and head off to college since the 1920's, don't you?
In the Twenties, this was for the wealthy. I know someone whose Mississippi Delta grandmother was a Louisiana Brahmin, like her friends, the Hodding Carters. Her Louisiana cousins, sometime before the Crash of '25, were given a Springfield Rolls Royce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-...yce_of_America And off they drove, making their way across America's higgledy-piggeldy tangle of pre-Interstate roads, to Harvard.
"My Grandparents seemed to think that college was like a 1920s movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljnrJoDCSVg You went, in order to have an audience, for showing off, being "popular", wearing snazzy sweaters to football games, and having zany adventures. It never dawned on them, that college was for acquiring degrees which would enable people to make money. Not surprisingly, they died broke."
By the time I got to college, the institution was no longer just for the elites, and for a brilliant few, working their way up. Nobody gave me a car. My family ridiculed the possibility that I might go to college. "Gal, tha only place you's goin' is ta tha CRAZY HOUSE." I squirreled-away my most cherished possessions, bundled them into a paper bag, and sneaked through the woods, to meet a nice white lady from my high school, who gave me a little suitcase (and most of its contents), and then drove me up to college. It was a university built for poor kids. But I picked a good degree, which led to even better degrees. I took 'Weightlifting 101', in order to not be hideous, anymore. I met a poor, ugly boy, who was there for the same reason. We lifted weights. We organized study groups. We took advantage of every free 'culturally-expanding' thing offered on that campus. We worked at all kind of odd jobs. We left, with marketable degrees, hot bodies, glowing work references, job offers, and CONNECTIONS - connections with people who'd seen us working hard. This is SO different from connections some people make in college - with people who've been their party-mates. A former Governor, who's dropped in on your Economics study group, is a far more useful contact than is a 'frat alum', who's smoked blunts with you, and used your body, while you were "out".
What I'm saying is that you don't even NEED people to hang-out-with. Social climate is irrelevant, as long as noise and crime are not so significant as to impact your performance and personal safety. You're there for the degree. The gym, the library, your job, and a quiet/safe home in which to sleep and study: that's all that matters. I see that Holmes has a rather extensive new Wellness Center/Fitness Center. A smart cookie would spend a lot of time there. It used to be, that the college campus' weight rooms, etc., were hidden-away, and only really available for athletes. Holmes is offering you a huge resource.
As often as not, colleges are located in little, 'middle-of-nowhere' towns. So, your moving to Winona, for college, should not be raising any eyebrows. Moving off to some tiny town, to get a degree, is NORMAL/usual/routine.
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 06-21-2015 at 09:58 AM..
One last thought is Carrollton. It's tiny, but if you like more a rural feel, Carollton is in a beautiful area of hills and trees, has a great little historic town square and is loaded with antebellum homes. I'm sure you could find a cool little garage apartment there.
Believe it or not, my first choice was, and still is, Carrollton.
Apparently, Seven Gables, the house right next to the home of my father's publisher for the papers in Winona and Carrollton, who I have already arraigned for her to hire me as a Reporter for the Winona paper, the Winona-Times, has a room available for rent at this time, and since I know Amanda, the publisher for the papers in Winona, I might actually be able to network to make friends through her to keep myself from being without friends and being seen as "just some outsider we don't know" by the people of Carrollton.
I with that, I believe that I may have a certain future in Carrollton, Mississippi, hired as a reporter for the Winona Times/Carrollton Conservative, writing many stories throughout the early morning and afternoon, while commuting to classes at Holmes Community College in Grenada, Mississippi through the morning and early afternoon, buying basic material necessities, such as groceries, at the Walmart in Winona or the Walmart in Grenada or the Dollar Generals in Grenada, Winona, and on U.S. route 82 outside the town center of Carrollton;
All done while I sleep and have dinner in Seven Gables, every morning saying "hi" and making small talk with my boss right before I enter the car whenever I see her out getting the morning paper.
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