Farmington Fall Fest 2009, Photo by MilligFunk

Guest Post by Jody McDowell

The annual Farmington Fall Festival is happening downtown this Saturday, the 24th, from 9:00 to 3:00. West Columbia street will be lined with festive booths featuring handmade arts and crafts from local artists, and delicious eats.

Downtown Farmington, Missouri, Photo by MilliGFunk, 2009

There is sure to be something for everyone! Animal lovers can attend Pet Fest at the courthouse square at 11:00, sponsored every year by First State Community Bank. Music fans will be in for a treat all day with live performances at Bauhaus Kaffee from 9:00 to 11:00, and The Vault is hosting more music in front of Long Memorial Hall from 11:30 to 3:00. Kids can hang out with special guest Diego and participate in activities by Parents as Teachers and the Farmington Public Library. Throw in a quilt show, sidewalk sales from some of your favorite downtown businesses, beautiful Missouri fall weather, and you get small town charm at it’s finest. Hope to see you there!

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Jody Mcdowell is a crafter and artist from Farmington, Missouri with a passion for photography, local history, and treasure hunting for vintage supplies. Learn more by visiting her blog and Etsy shop, Peach Parlor.

If you didn’t grow up in a small Midwestern town, you might not be able to imagine living in a place where three-quarters of the town wears school colors every Friday or girls start studying dance in elementary school so that they’ll become good enough dancers to make the high school pom-pon or dance line.

If you didn’t grow up in a small Midwestern town, you may think it’s silly that people in the town get so excited about football. There’s part of me that thinks it’s silly, too, but let me share with you why it’s also pretty neat.

I had the honor of being asked to participate in my home town’s 50th Anniversary of Homecomings celebration on Friday. Here I am in 1998, moments after being announced as my high school’s homecoming queen.

High School Homecoming, photo of Small Town Girl

I was never a cheerleader, and I while I got along with nearly everyone, I never really ran with the popular crowd in school. I was just the section leader of an otherwise all-male drumline in the marching band, and I was active in drama guild and other creative and academic clubs.

When I was elected to run for homecoming queen, I was the marching band’s candidate. I considered myself well-liked but not exactly popular, so I was surprised when I was nominated to run for homecoming queen as a high school senior. I was shocked when I was elected as homecoming queen.

Just Before the Parade, photo by JBS

When I was invited back this year to ride in the parade and walk onto the field at halftime, I wasn’t completely comfortable with the idea. I felt a little shy about riding in a convertible as an adult, waving at crowds who probably wouldn’t remember who I was.

In the real world, no one cares much whether I was my high school’s homecoming queen, but on Friday, the real world didn’t necessarily matter. What mattered were the kids and families who had celebrated “spirit week” at school all week long leading up to Friday afternoon’s early out day, parade and football game, and making sure that their homecoming was something to remember.

Black and gold was everywhere – from hair bows to t-shirts to striped socks and football jerseys, the whole town became the colors of the high school, and thousands of people lined the streets to watch the parade go by.

I saw many of my high school classmates who probably helped me win homecoming queen when we were in school. Their kids were excited but bashful when I waved at them and said hello to them by name.

For many of the younger  kids I saw during the parade, retired queens and old football heroes are at the center of the piece of the world that they’ve been exposed to and that they understand. Who am I to take that away from them? Instead, maybe I can add to their experience by helping to inspire those small town kids to explore the great big world.

Small Town Girl, photo by MommaGFunk

I’m so glad I came home for homecoming. It was humbling for this small town girl to be the one person from my graduating class of 247 who was invited to be a part of this small town celebration. Riding in the parade reminded me that there are still a lot of people who are ready to rally around something that they can all believe in, and it inspired me to see that so many people are looking for a reason to celebrate together.

The site, devoted to creating a “home on the web for Missouri’s Parkland” was founded by a Parkland-area native now living and working the Washingon D.C. Metro Area. Some of you may already follow Nick (@nbarron) on twitter, but if you don’t, you should. Nick is a a small town boy who’s taking what he’s learned on the East Coast about marketing and building online communities to create a web-based community for the Parkland that’s the first of its kind.

People like Nick who are prepared to devote their personal resources to making small town Missouri communities stronger are the kind of people I like to surround myself with.

I couldn’t be happier that Nick and I have remained friends for more than a decade after we met in high school Spanish class. I’m thrilled to be able to support Nick’s endeavors on ParklandUSA by contributing photos and blog content to the site.

If you live in or near Missouri’s Parkland, please visit the site often for gas prices, sports updates, and, of course, insights and images from A Small Town Girl’s Guide and MilliGFunk Photography. You can read the announcement Nick posted on ParklandUSA about syndicating Small Town Girl’s Guide here.

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If you’re interested in republishing content from A Small Town Girl’s Guide through syndication, please contact me. Click on the following links for more information on hiring me as a freelance writer or as a freelance photographer. I’m also available to speak on social media strategy, blogging and marketing.

Logo owned by Insider573 Magazine

Two years ago I dreamed of having my writing published in magazines, and today I was published in the fourth magazine in twelve months*. Insider573 Magazine, a photo-rich, high-gloss, high-end magazine owned by a Farmington, Missouri family approached me this summer to ask if I was interested in writing for them.

I was surprised when the editor invited me to participate as second shooter for a family photo shoot in a Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri pumpkin patch and corn maze. I love taking photos, and I believe I’ve developed a strong eye for photography, but I was still excited when the September/October issue of Insider573 (see pages 61-69) became available online today and I was able to see a photo editorial with my name on the bi-line.

Seeing my dreams slowly come to life in regional and local publications and sponsorships gives me faith that my bigger dreams of publishing books and receiving sponsored travel opportunities may not be so far off after all. A little bit of faith and a whole lot of hard work, and even pie-in-the-sky dreams can come true. What are you waiting for? Go. Chase those dreams!

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If you like this story and these photos in Insider573, be sure to learn more about hiring me as a writer or photographer for your publication or website. I’m constantly seeking ways to share the beauty of rural Missouri with larger audiences, and magazines like Insider573 or publications like yours can help me do that.

*My writing has also appeared in Aire Magazine, River Hills Traveler and the St. Louis Women’s Journals

The Daily Journal is the primary newspaper in the area. This Daily Journal headline about the Knob Lick Cemetery made me sigh a deep sigh and shake my head at small town Missouri. The story itself made me sad for the woman whose body was found and the family she probably leaves behind.

I suppose the headline is effective in that I’m sharing it with people, but I’m sharing it for all of the wrong reasons.  Thanks for making Southeast Missourians look like fools, Daily Journal.

Somewhere roughly halfway between Farmington and Fredericktown, Missouri on Highway OO (just south of the intersection of Highway DD) lie forty acres of blueberries.

Liberty Farms sells pick-’em-yourself blackberries and blueberries at seriously reasonable rates. I bought just over three pounds of blueberries for less than nine dollars. If you’re having trouble visualizing three pounds of blueberries, imagine a basketball – that’s roughly the size of my blueberry stash.

Now that I’ve come home with so many blueberries the real fun begins – deciding what to do with all of them. Stay tuned for my blueberry cooking (and drinking!) experiments.

After four straight weeks of 6-day workweeks at my day job, I was due for an unplugged weekend. My boyfriend and I decided to escape into St. Joe State  Park in Park Hills, Missouri to pitch our tent and hide in the woods for a day or two.

St. Joe State Park is one of the only parks in Missouri where ATVs are welcome (in approved areas only). My family had a three-wheeler when I was a kid, but my dad never wanted me to drive it. As a result, I’d never driven an ATV.

MilliGFunk on a Four Wheeler, photo Tony

My boyfriend’s experience with ATVs is quite the opposite. Half of his wardrobe bears Fox Racing logos, and he spent his teenage years racing four wheelers and dirt bikes. There is no shortage of stories of him flying high through the air on four wheelers, and I’ve still not managed to tally of the number of broken bones he’s accrued over the years.

Peaceful Campsite

I’ve always considered the sounds made by revving engines to be testosteronic and over-hyped, so waking up to the sound of boys revving their dirt bikes outside our tent was a new and not entirely welcomed experience for me.

Always willing to give something one try, I decided to give four-wheeling a chance. I killed the engine repeatedly, and probably didn’t exceed 25 miles per hour all day long. I didn’t die though, and truth be told, I had a pretty good time. Besides that, I look kind of bad ass driving this thing, don’t I?

Riding into the sunset, photo by Tony

The moral of the story is to get brave and try something new, even if it’s something you never before thought you’d enjoy. Getting our minds out of their regular ruts is refreshing, and removing ourselves from comfort zones keeps us viewing the world from new perspectives.

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St. Joe State Park also has a nice, asphalt bicycle trail, which I ride with some frequency and blogged about in 2009.

This particular “fine dining” establishment has opted out of ladies’ room stall doors completely, leaving the two toilets in plain view.

There’s also full-length mirror in the bathroom which provides a clear reflection of yourself sitting on the closer of the two toilets.

And finally, the bathroom is laid out in such a way that anyone in the bar would be able to see the person on the first toilet if the door were opened.

You think I jest?

*sigh* What am I going to do with you, Missouri?

Chat Dump, photo by MilliGFunk

Chat dumps are where mining waste goes when it dies. Erm, I mean chat dumps are the huge heaps of mining waste. When we were kids, we’d call these sand mountains, and we’d beg our parents to let us play on them.

In winter, we wanted to sled down them. In summer we wanted to build sand castles on them (out of them). In spring and fall, we probably begged our parents to let us roll down them. Not once during my childhood did I ever step foot on a chat dump. I guess my parents were fans of trespassing. No sense of adventure, I tell you…

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I have no idea what you call these things, but if someone could fill me in, I’d be happy about it. I’m fairly certain that these things play an important role in the life and death of the mining waste that rests in the chat dump when it dies.

What Do You Call This? photo by MilliGFunk

So meet me halfway, dear readers. I’ve told you about chat dumps, so can any of you tell me what these monstrosities are called?