Jill's Journal: Things I love about Brandon

The other day as I was mindlessly blow-drying my hair, my mind wandered to a topic that I don’t always take the time to think about: Things I love about living in Brandon. While the following list is just a sample of the people, the moments, events, community assets that we probably take for granted. Here’s my list. What’s yours?

• The bake sale ladies at the VFW, AKA, the club’s Auxiliary faithfuls.

• Our top-notch Brandon Valley School District.

• Performances by tiny dancers at half-time of our local high school basketball games.

• The Marching Lynx.

• Caring organizations.

• My comrades from the Ed Polzine Wild Game Feed, which by the way is Saturday, Feb. 1 (a shameless plug).

• Opportunities for the elderly population at Bethany Meadows and Helping Hands.

• Locally-owned small businesses who care about their customers.

• Having the ability to snap pictures of cute kids at cute events like visits from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny at the library.

• Lynx sports.

• The “newness” of our town.

• Forward-thinking city and school leaders.

• A wealth of churches.

• Kids. Lots of them.

• Willing volunteers to help out when the call goes out.

• Our military-related organizations, Three Rivers VFW Post 4726 and American Legion Post 318.

• Our proximity to the “bigger” town to the west of us.

• Small talk at the grocery store with people you know. 

• And lastly, Cheryl Erickson at Great Western Bank who called as I was in the midst of compiling my list. We always make for a “great” team at the Chamber’s annual golf tournament, which is sure to result in a wealth of  fun that I just love to have in a town that I’ve come to love and call “home.”