From Blue to Red

Abilene is No. 2 ‘Red City’

Where am I?

While Boulder didn’t make it to the Top-10 of any of the lists I was recently reading, I think few people would disagree that it is a super-blue city.  So to go from super-blue to number two of the reds is a big shift, to say the least.  It’s not that people are running around with their guns slung on their backs or publicly celebrating the passing of California’s Prop. 8, but there is definitely a different feel to things here.

One of the reasons that Abilene got such a high ranking was due to the three Christian universities the city is home to.  I have found myself going daily to Abilene Christian University (ACU) because that is where I found office space for my short stint here.  I have a wonderful contact in the Environmental Sciences department there, and he has been very helpful in getting me set up in town.  But being at a Christian university is a new experience-nothing like Oberlin.  Students are required to go to chappel every day at 11:00; girls are allowed to have male guests in their dorms on Thursday night, from 7:00-11:00, and they must leave the door open, lights on, and all four hands and feet must be visible at all times; and their was basically a riot when the school newspaper, The Optimist, decided to endorce Barak Obama during the election, something that everyone thought was not representative of the student body.  Everyone has been very nice, as everyone in town is, but I do get the sense that when I tell them what I’m doing here they give me the “liberal hippy” label.  It’s been interesting to notice the trend of people asking me when we meed “Are you a Christian?”

Another part of the city’s “redness” is the presence of Dyess Air Force Base, one of the five largest employers in Abilene.  I have yet to actually see this place, so its physical presence hasn’t been huge, but the number of veterans and “Support Our Troops” signs is very visible.  Something that I found immediately interesting about this base is that it is run entirely on renewable energy.  Wind power is very big in this part of the state (the largest wind farm in the world is located in Abilene’s own Taylor County), but Dyess is also using solar and biomass.  It’s cool to see two things that generally don’t go together-military and clean energy-finding a place where their are equally important.

So while I find myself in the #2 most conservative city, the culture shock is not as harsh as may be expected.  People are nice and generally open to my tree-huger, solar-loving ideas, and I’m just learning to how work with people of a different mindset…until I can escape back to my liberal haven.