Greater than Just Lakes by Mike Krombeen

When I was little I grew up in a small town in West Michigan, just outside of Grand Rapids. I spent my time building forts in the snow, and riding my bike across town. I went to the local ice cream shop in the summer, and went sledding in the winter. I played backyard football in the fall and signed up for little league every summer

Now, every Monday morning my alarm sounds and I drag myself out of bed and climb on the bus to go to class. It’s another week of school, it means more poli-sci classes, more student senate meetings, more college democrats meetings, and less sleep than all the other Grand Valley students. I love it. But each week I come into contact with more and more students, many of them attempting to get their teaching degrees, who don’t plan to stay in Michigan.

“I’ll miss the lakes,” they say, “but nothing else.”

It hurts a little bit, because I grew up here and I love this state. I want to get my political science degree and I plan on working in Michigan. Things are tough here right now, but I know that Michigan is its people and its people are tougher. We’re a state of the great lakes, sure, but were also a state of Mackinaw, of Detroit, a number of other great cities. We’re the state of the most colorful fall every year, beautiful leaves on rolling hills of northern Michigan. We’re the state of the Michigan Wolverines and the Big House, and of the Michigan State Spartans and the Izzone.

There is one more thing I love about this state, and that something I see every time I leave the college campus and head back home. I pull back into my little town and drive down the residential neighborhoods to see little kids, riding bikes or throwing snowballs. I know, as do many of you, that Michigan is in trouble. I know of budget crises and proposal two and all the other legal ramifications that affect us. The kid’s don’t, they just know they get to go to sleeping bear every summer, or that coming up is the Michigan vs. Michigan State Game. That’s the future of Michigan, that’s why I’m staying here.

This state, and the people of this state will figure everything out and turn everything around. I have no doubt, because the people of this state know that we have to. “We do not inherit the earth from our fathers. We borrow it from our children,” David Bower. It’s my dream of doing all that I can so that every child in Michigan grows up enjoying everything I enjoyed. It’s my dream that every child grows up with an education to do the same when they are my age. I hope the future of this state grows into doctors, scientists, environmentalists, teachers, and whatever else they can dream of, but I hope that they all stay, and all want to stay, in Michigan.