Column: Reflecting on the fall festival and what it says about Ellettsville
I walked away from this year’s Monroe County Fall Festival once more marveling at the vitality of the town of Ellettsville.
Sometimes when people talk about community, it feels abstract. But on that Thursday through Saturday, Ellettsville showed what real community looks like.
Consider: With a population of roughly 6,500 people, the town hosts the county’s annual parade. Though neighborly, the town has preserved a distinct identity despite its proximity to the city of Bloomington. It is home to a significant regional telecommunications company. It has its own historical society. It has first responders with deep roots in the place they serve.
Although the town’s vitality is rooted in memory of the past, Ellettsville is also forward-looking. Over the past decade, the town has been actively creating the essential infrastructure necessary to sustain growth, and it is in the midst of an ambitious planning exercise intended to envision Ellettsville’s future.
What is most to be celebrated is the soul of the town. Its strength is seen especially in the number of civic institutions, some of them governmental, most of them private and voluntary. The town has churches and home schooling groups and a food pantry. We have an active town council and Chamber of Commerce.
There are many who care deeply about the town. They think seriously about the next generation. They have a desire to see our children become good neighbors who care about the common good, the sort of people who make a citizen republic work. The town’s vitality and concern for the next generation are especially evident in the town’s schools.
We’re a long way from the 1960s when Ellettsville had to fight to maintain its own school corporation. With RBBCSC and Seven Oaks Classical School, the town now boasts not one, but two strong school systems, giving local families a meaningful choice in public education. I have the distinct honor of serving as the founding headmaster of Seven Oaks, and I couldn’t help thinking how beautiful it was that the parade began at Edgewood High School and ended right by Seven Oaks. We had 90 or so students and parents of all ages walking with our float, and the next float was one of Edgewood’s.
Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that “[i]t is…in the township that the force of free peoples resides.” Without the town, you have the outward forms of a free government; but only with vibrant local institutions can you maintain the “spirit of freedom.”
Here in Ellettsville, we are doing our bit to help preserve the spirit of freedom through local community.
Stephen Shipp is headmaster at Seven Oaks Classical School.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist writes Ellettsville is a distinctive community
