You may already know that an election has been in session to decide on a millage increase in Bryant. The last day to vote is Tuesday, March 10th. The funds would go toward the renovation and expansion of the high school. It's always a touchy issue when on one side, we have children's education, and on the other side, we have homeowners trying to hold onto their money for things like - oh, say, buying their home.

I don't normally give my opinion one way or another on the issues that evoke so much passion from either side. That's simply because I operate MySaline.com, and I don't want to give any undue influence over the 1,000 members there (yup, I had to throw that number in).

However, I have seen Bryant High School first-hand on many occasions. I have sat in the cafeteria for cross country team meetings. I have heard from my son, who's a junior there, how far he has had to walk to get a note to the office, only to trek back to his first class, two football fields away, while navigating through hundreds of other harried scurriers. I have also wondered many mornings if there wasn't a helicopter I could take into and out from the campus, as opposed to putt-putting along in the jam-packed traffic that comes from adding a much greater amount of students than the buildings and grounds were ever intended to hold.

It's not about sports. It's not about politics. It's about having a place to educate kids where they aren't cramped in a room too small, or hurried across campus to catch the next class before the tardy bell. It's about providing an adequate learning environment at minimum for those young minds from which can come Bryant's future mayor or business leader or better yet, teacher.

How many of us have grown up saying, "I can't wait to graduate and get out of this town," regardless of where we grew up? But after we do our independent thing and make our big success or our big mistakes, most of us come home.

Some of us come home to visit, and depending on what we see, we might tool around town in the car and fall in love with home again. As I drive through the place where I grew up, I'm careful to do so during the day.

After my class and others graduated high school in the late eighties, re-investment in our community was nil. As the kids became adults, they left for college or jobs or just left to be anywhere else. When folks came back to reminisce about where they grew up, childhood wasn't the only thing that would never be the same. Stores were closed, neighbors had moved, fences and security alarms had been installed. There was no way in this world someone would attempt to recapture their childhood in that place.

My friends and I had walked to and from school in that place. We had played kickball countless times in the street in that place. We had ridden our bikes over every hill and valley in that place. But as I rounded the corner to my old neighborhood 20 years after graduation, I could see it wasn't mine anymore. It was a place where I would never return.

Look at Bryant's growth. It has come up from merely a stop on the Interstate to one of Arkansas' fastest-growing cities. Is it worth re-investing in this city? In 20 years, when Bryant's current high school students will be old enough to hold the office of President of the United States, what would you hope they come home to?

This column was originally published in the Benton Courier on March 8th, 2009. See more of Shelli's Columns.