By Becky Holland
My dad was born and raised just outside Bleckley County in the Dodge County community of Empire. My mom’s family made their way from North Carolina to Georgia before she eventually met my dad at a basketball game at the old Dodge County High School.
After they married, life took them on a journey that would carry them across state lines more than once. They lived in Texas, came back to Georgia, returned to Texas again, and eventually, in 1979, loaded up their family and moved to Cochran.
The reason was simple.
They wanted to be close to their parents.
At the time, I was just a kid. I didn’t realize that decision would shape the rest of my life.
After high school, later in life college, and a newspaper career that took me to communities across Georgia, Alabama and Texas, I learned something important. While I enjoyed every place I lived, none of them ever quite felt like home.
There was west Alabama for college. There were newspaper jobs in Warner Robins, Eastman, LaGrange, Americus and Claxton. Texas eventually called me west, first to Madisonville, then Marshall and Chandler. Along the way, there were brief returns to Cochran between jobs and life changes.
Every move taught me something. Every community had good people.
But Bleckley County always had my heart.
In 2017, after the death of my adopted sister, I came home to spend more time with my parents as they grew older. When my dad passed away in 2023, Mom and I could have packed our bags and moved back to Texas where much of our immediate family lives.
We didn’t.
People often ask why someone stays in a small town.
The answer is hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it.
Home is where people remember your grandparents.
Home is where someone asks about your mom when they see you in the grocery store.
Home is where your former teachers still call you by name.
Home is where lifelong friendships and memories live.
Home is where the stories are.
For me, Bleckley County isn’t home because of a building, a business or even a newspaper.
It’s home because of the people.
It’s the friends who check on Momma and me.
It’s the neighbors who ask how you’re doing.
It’s the familiar roads, churches and faces that have become woven into the fabric of your life.
Could I live somewhere else?
Sure.
But home isn’t always the place with the most opportunities, the newest attractions or the largest population.
Sometimes home is simply the place where your roots run deepest.
And after all these years, mine still run through Bleckley County.
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