Tulia Homecoming 2009

Last night, (Friday September 04, 2009,) I went to the Homecoming Football game in Tulia, Texas, my hometown. As I watched the game, I was at first disappointed, then angered, then resigned to what was happening.
In a 62-0 slaughter, they were soundly defeated by the New Deal Lions, a 1-A school. Tulia is a 2-A district. The football players looked like scrawny little beans, and for both halves, they never even got close to their end of the field. It was like watching a hunter shooting a caged duck.
At Half-time, the band took the field, and I was shocked when I realized that there were only 45 band members on the field. I was further dimayed at the new uniforms, which turned out to be a marching jacket over a black jumper bottom. I shudder to think about what idiot designed that uniform. The Flag corp wasn't much better, with just levis and sickening green t-shirts.

As I watched, I couldn't help but remember what Tulia High School was like a mere 22 years earlier. We were an undefeated 4-3A school. Our football team won 3/4 to all of the games of the season and often went to regionals and state. The Might Hornet Band was 300 strong, and it took 9 Yellow School buses, 1 TNMO charter bus, and an instrument wagon to take the band to multiple sweepstakes, regionals, and district events where we defeated schools bigger than we were. Our flag corp wore long grey skirts, white shirts, red felt hats, and carried maroon and grey flags, which moved in perfect synchronicity. Our drum corp was always 20 strong, our brass 100 and the woodwinds 200 strong.

And now, back to the present, with a 45-50 person band, that we could barely hear on the marching field, or in the bleachers. As they say, I felt like this was "The night, the music died."

The sole redeeming grace was that at least the 7 cheerleaders cheered, when they weren't standing around talking to each other, sometimes even during the cheers. (So much for school spirit.)

One of the cheerleaders/band members is the daughter of a friend of mine, and when afterwards, I asked her if she were going to the Homecoming dance, she said they didn't have homecoming dances anymore. She asked me if I had had dances, and I said yes. It's true, we always had a homecoming dance, a spring dance, and junior/senior prom.

I felt so sorry for her when she looked down at the ground and said that our high school now, in her words, "Sucked."

I can't blame her for saying that, since I felt that way during my time in high school, and have found every excuse to not return for class reunions. I remember being so glad to leave town, and promised myself that I would never return.

Now 22 years later, I look back and know why Tulia has had a declining population. It's because the town council, in it's wisdom, decided that they would never upgrade the infrastructure, or give anyone a reason to want to come back. They continue to tax businesses and homes (often more than neccessary,) and they refused to let WTAMU, Texas Tech, and Wayland University build campuses in town. Tulia has become a dying town, and unless something changes, it will dry up and blow away in the harsh Texas summer, and lay fallow under a deep Texas Winter.

Don't get me wrong, I have tried to go back to Tulia. Once, after I got my degree, I went back and tried to get a job at the hospital, and was turned down. Every time I went looking for a new job, I'd faithfully send a resume to that same hospital, only to get turned down.
With support like that, it's no wonder that Tulia's future leaves and never comes back.

I foresee a day, (22 years from now,) when I'll go back to Tulia for homecoming and see 10 band members, a 6 man football team, and rows and rows of dead neighborhoods.

Can that future be prevented? Yes, all they have to do is let a younger generation take the reigns of power and modernize the town, lower the taxes, and bring in new business.

Will it ever happen? Doubtful.