Last week, after visiting friends in Massachusetts and battling traffic on I93, I came home to my sleepy town of West Paris (a place where my great-grandfather could safely navigate Main Street on his John Deer), and found the little community alive with Old Home Days.

Relatives, neighbors and friends mixed with former teachers and old coaches, selling fried dough and playing beano. It was great.

I graduated from college a few weeks ago, a four-year experience that enriched my life and even took me halfway around the world. But that weekend, I recognized how blessed I am to be able to call this place home.

My senior research project at Bates College was centered on a set of diaries from my great-great-great-great-grandmother, who lived right here in West Paris. Wonderful teachers at the Agnes Gray School, the junior high and high schools, my parents, along with an amazing scholarship from the Albert and Beatrice Jackson Fund, allowed me the opportunity of attending a great school.

Even better, these same people are drawing me back to West Paris and the Oxford Hills.

Albert and Beatrice Jackson gave West Paris kids, most of us students from the Agnes Gray, the prospect of attending schools and going places we could not have done otherwise through scholarship.

I would like to thank the Jacksons, The Agnes Gray School, West Paris and the Hills for letting me go away and for making me want to come back.

Johanna Farrar, West Paris