Saturday, July 1, 2023

Holcomb

Holcomb is a surprisingly large town not too far from Garden City. It has elementary, middle, and high schools, some small businesses, lots of housing, a cute little park and swimming pool, and many culs-de-sac. 

On the fence in front of the elementary school, there's a sign with the message, “Show your HORNS,” which refers both to the school mascot (a longhorn) and to a character program focusing on:

Honest
Own It
Respect
Nice
Safe

It's a pretty good list of character qualities, even though some list elements are adjectives and others are verbs (or maybe nouns).

A community festival was going on in the park when we were there, which suggests that it's a fairly tight-knit little town.

Oh, and also, Holcomb is famous for being the site of the murders that inspired Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Two interesting facts about that book:

  1. Capote's childhood friend Harper Lee (of To Kill a Mockingbird fame) came with him to help warm the townsfolk up to his questioning. 
  2. We go to Sunday school with some distant relatives of the Clutters who were killed here.
I guess it's kind of a small world -- in Kansas, anyway.

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