Two Tales of a City
If You’re Judging a City by a Few of Its Teens . . .
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As a former school counselor, Shannon Reynolds has heard it all. She worked in the sprawling Aledo school district named after the city on the outskirts of Fort Worth.
Reynolds and others are aware that, although known in local sports circles for its championship football teams, the national attention on Aledo, which is unrelated to sports, has not been sunny or positive.
Those who don’t live there know Aledo as the place where a few years ago a handful of high school kids delved too deep in historical reenactment by holding a fictitious online “slave” auction of their Black classmates. That made national news.
Not long after, a former Aledo teacher sat on a Fort Worth jury involving a man accused of shooting a gun across the street into a kitchen, narrowly missing a woman and child. During voir dire, the ex-teacher said she used to live in Aledo and a woman commented the whole of Aledo was racist.
Those who don’t live there know from national news that Aledo is the place where another high school student recently posted AI-generated nude pictures with real faces of fellow female students. The pictures caused excruciating embarrassment for the women.
They also know Aledo as the place where, a few years ago, a parent from a neighboring town filed a bullying complaint after Aledo’s football team recorded a lopsided win against their son’s team. In what passes these days for investigative journalism, the national news debated the complaint with all its seriousness.
This is the first tale, of an Aledo full of racists, perverts, and bullies, at least if you’re one of those who judge an entire community by a few of its teens and the overwrought behavior of a parent.
Then there is the Aledo where, even more recently, a group of high school teens took an out-of-town summer trip and tore up people’s homes. Bet you haven’t heard the second tale of Aledo.
The group drove to the upper Texas Panhandle, stopping in Perryton. Located on a wide spur of flat land, Perryton is surrounded by circular irrigated fields, grain storage bins and grasslands further out where the range breaks into ravines.
According to Mayor Kerry Symonds, the tornado that swept through town last year hit the residents who could afford it the least. Most lacked insurance. Frustrated by FEMA rules (Perryton is too small to qualify for federal disaster aid), Symonds was thrilled to see the teens of Aledo descend on his town. A year later, housing continues to be in short supply and people are living in places most of us would shun. The teens of Aledo set to work tearing, prying, ripping, cutting, hacking concrete, sawing. To rebuild, the old drywall and siding needed to be removed.
Reynolds organized the venture, found overnight lodging, arranging for meals—high schoolers tearing off things are ravenously hungry. David Sides planned the work, even hauling materials and tools from Aledo. Most of the other adults working side-by-side with the teens were parents of the kids.
Inexperienced in construction, teens from Aledo having been trekking to storm-struck places like Perryton for decades, well before Aledo made the national negative news. Reynolds is one in a long line of youth leaders at a local church.
The teens divided into teams and set to work, prying drywall from the inside of a house, siding from the outsides of others. They hauled the debris to large dumpsters on the streets.
The adults worried about the kids collapsing in the 100 degree temps, made them drink plenty of water, take breaks in the scant shade. Everybody worried about the clock. They were there to rebuild, and they only had a few days to do it.
The drywall team of kids shook off the aged gypsum dust covering their clothes and hung new drywall and installed new flooring. One outdoor team of kids pulled, pried and jimmied old siding from the sides of a 1950s kit house and nailed new Hardieboard in its place. Another outdoor team cut and fit sheet siding to one house and painstakingly unbolted old metal siding from a 1970s mobile home before nailing on new boards. The kids worked alongside exposed, and frequently moldy, fiberglass insulation. Some of the studs were too rotten for a nail and the kids searched for better holds.
The inside kids stuck it out in the unairconditioned rooms, the outside kids in the sun, stealing a moment here and there in the ever-shifting shade of the house or a tree. Working together, they moved and climbed ladders to reach high places, they steadied ladders for one another, they operated power saws to cut the work pieces to shape, nailers to secure the new to the old.
The kids cut and fitted siding and drywall around doors and windows. They trimmed to accommodate off-kilter walls. They caulked and painted. And they worked, not banker’s hours, but full days. After three sweltering days, everyone was exhausted. Remarkably, amazingly, they did it without complaint.
They didn’t quit because they hadn’t finished. They went back for a frenzied final day to wrap up their work. They worked their hearts out.
A rare disappointment—the kids like to meet and learn about the people who live in the houses they work on. In one case, this didn’t happen, as the family justifiably stayed inside to avoid the intense heat. In full sun, the teens of Aledo worked over the even hotter exhaust of the window air conditioners.
In the first tale of Aledo, its teens wouldn’t travel to places like Perryton. They wouldn’t step away from their computers and out of their comfort zone, sweating buckets, getting grungy, repairing homes of people not their skin color. They wouldn’t care about others in need.
The teens of Aledo’s second tale, they’re a different story altogether. Just ask Perryton’s mayor, which now has a few more houses better off than before.
The teens of Aledo can tell about their hard-won skills in building houses and lives. Shannon Reynolds knows, just as with previous generations, most will repeat next summer.
All the Best,
Geoff
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Excellent post, Geoff. Thanks for sharing this!
Thanks Geoff! Did I mention I’m moving? 🤣