When my husband, Will, and I first arrived in Pittsburg, Kansas in 2015 for a job interview at a chiropractic clinic, I dropped him off and decided to explore the city with our two boys, then 3 and 5. We walked around the mall and drove down Broadway from south to north. My initial thoughts were, “What, no Target?” and “What’s the deal with all the gorillas?” It didn’t help that the heat index was literally 106 that day, and our boys weren’t even interested in playing at the park. When the interview was over and I went back to pick Will up, the conversation went a little like this:
Me: “Well, I hope that didn’t go well.”
Him: “It went great and I really want to pursue this opportunity.”
We proceeded to think and pray on the possibility of moving to Pittsburg, and finally decided that we would go forward because there was an opportunity to relocate to Kansas City in the near future. I figured I could endure “small town life” for a year or two. We enrolled our older son in his first year at Meadowlark Elementary, and our younger son at Countryside Preschool. This led us to check out Countryside Christian Church, and everything quickly shifted. What we found was a family of people that welcomed us in and made us feel at home. There were great opportunities for our kids to get involved in all sorts of activities both through the church and the community. We had found our tribe, and this was home.
Seven years later, our love and pride for Pittsburg has only grown. We’ve purchased a home and started our own chiropractic clinic, Momentum Chiropractic. We have seen the way a community comes together and supports each other through a pandemic. We’ve seen incredible growth and change in our downtown, which makes me excited for the future. We can get a stellar cup of coffee, a delicious open-faced sandwich, and a brick oven pizza that would rival anything in Kansas City (I see you, Signet, Toast and Drop the H). We’ve gotten to enjoy the sports and music scene at PSU, which makes me so thankful that we are raising our boys here. We’ve experienced the caring teachers and staff of USD 250 who have enabled our boys to grow and be challenged. We are very blessed to call Pittsburg our home. I mean, if they decided to build a Target here, I wouldn’t be mad. But it’s the people who make someone stay in a town, and the people here are pretty amazing.
–Johanna Bennetts