Teaching Our Town in Our Town

Abstract

C elery, onions, peppers, beans, corn, cows, muck fields. Mix these all together and you have Hudsonville, the self-designated Salad Bowl of a Midwestern state. Farming dominates this community: Cows are often seen roaming the thoroughfares and fields, the sounds of combines and tractors reverberate through the air year-round, and the springtime scent of cow manure and onions is both inescapable and unforgettable. The town center is a conglomeration of hometown shops, locally owned grocery stores, and farmers markets. The only restaurants are a family diner, a trendy coffee shop, and a few familiar fast-food places. Beyond the town center, large houses with wraparound porches perch atop acres of rolling farm land, seemingly on guard against encroaching suburbia. On the main street of this old-fashioned town, just off the interstate highway, sits a high school of 1,400 students. The school's parking lot boasts a combination of muddy, old pickups and shiny, new sports cars. Even the building is a combination of old and new: The passing of a recent millage request allowed the district to build an extensive, high-tech addition onto the original structure. While many teenaged residents of Hudsonville might see themselves as modern, the conservative values and closely held morals of the community shine through in the attitude of most of the members of the student There is an awful lot of Grover's Corners