The New Girl

This story took second place in Feature Writing during the 2009 Wyoming Press Association awards.

The New Girl

By BRENDAN BURNETT-KURIE

See, when Katie Rifenburg gets nervous, she pulls her thighs up to her chest, curls her toes around the seat of her chair and nestles her chin in the crook of her knees. Her smile becomes wider, and she sticks her neck out just a little further.

So it was quite the statement when she sat loosely in a lawn chair on a chilly, cloudy night in early August as the licking flames of a small fire cast harsh shadows across the faces of a group of gathered friends cooking s’mores and clinking glasses. Her eyes flickered in the orange glow, shimmering like a glint of sunlight off a placid pond. She was happy. And, she was comfortable.

Just days earlier, Katie, 23, had pulled into Douglas in the front seat of a U-Haul with her father, Jim, and her dog, Piper Ann – a golden/huskie mix – as she embarked on her dizzying entrance into the notorious real world.

Just months after her graduation from Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., the Lilburn, Ga., native was diving headfirst into the unfamiliar. She had never been to Douglas, never lived outside the south – except a four-month stint in Germany – and had a particularly depressing mind’s eye of what her life among the vacant plains and vast skies of Wyoming would be.

“I was very pessimistic about it,” she admitted. “I was picturing harsh winters with me and Piper just sitting alone in my room. It was pretty bleak in my mind. But it’s so much better.”

The dazzling blonde, with a blossoming smile and a soccer player’s nimble build, arrived in the Jackalope City July 29, and quickly was ingratiated into a small jumble of residents that call themselves the “Young Professionals.”

Some of this crew grew up in Douglas. More of them arrived from various stations across the nation, convening on Douglas to take a job or explore the cowboy life. Their take on the community mirrors Katie’s: Douglas is a welcoming, friendly place.

Two weeks after the backyard gathering, Katie was sitting sprawled across her chair on a porch on Ash street, sipping on a Busch Light. Her posture proved there was no uneasiness.

Around the table were a dozen 20-somethings. Four New Englanders chat: two from New Hampshire, one from Connecticut and one from Massachusetts. There’s a Sooner from Oklahoma and a Gopher from Minnesota. A woman from West Virginia discusses film and literature with a guy from Douglas in the corner. A man with a shaved head from Denver talks blithely to a man from Oregon. A woman from Glendo arrives with her kids, who are entertained by another young woman who grew up in Douglas, escaped to Kentucky – then France, then New York – before returning to her hometown. It’s an eclectic group of cultures, roots and backgrounds.

This was not the crowd that many expect to see in Wyoming, with its ever-aging population and pronounced “Brain Drain.” But as University of Wyoming President Tom Buchanan recently told the Budget, there are more and more out-of-state professionals arriving in Wyoming each year. As available jobs disappear out in other corners of the country, recent college grads are finding solace in the strong economy of the Equality State.

And within a matter of weeks – days even – they have absorbed this new girl from Georgia with an enveloping warm embrace.

“The young 20s group seemed to take it upon themselves to welcome her, be her friend, and it was very reassuring, instantly, for both her parents and myself,” said Kristine Koss, whose basement room Katie rents. “She felt comfortable.”

“Everyone seems to be so caring,” Katie said. “I like my new friends.”

The culture shock was both immediate and welcome. Katie grew up 20 miles from sweltering downtown Atlanta, smack in the midst of suburbia. Lilburn, with a population of 11,300 and home to one of the country’s largest Hindu temples, was nearly indistinguishable from its surrounding townships.

“All the suburbs just kind of mush together,” she said. “They all just kind of blend.”

When she graduated from Parkview High School, which also produced New York Mets outfielder Jeff Francouer, in 2004, she had already developed a wanderlust for the West, hoping to attend Colorado University in Boulder. But she settled on Appalachian State, only a five-hour drive from her home.

Originally a business major, Katie graduated last May with a degree in environmental biology and immediately decided to join AmeriCorps’ VISTA volunteer program. An avid snowboarder, she zoned in on the western states in her search for the perfect landing spot.

“I like mountain life,” she said. “I like the smell. There’s something about the mountains and the trees.”

She found a position with the Converse County Coalition Against Violence and accepted it, possibly too quickly as she hadn’t noticed how far Douglas is from the deep powder trails of Jackson and Colorado.

“I was hoping to be nestled in the mountains of Wyoming so that I could go skiing on weekends,” she said. “I thought all of Wyoming was one giant mountain. Then I come to the flat part. I should have Googled that.”

As she rolled into town, car trailing behind her U-Haul, she quickly realized Douglas wasn’t surrounded by mountain peaks and snow-lined ravines. But her dad, deputy director of environmental health at the Center for Disease Control, was ready to introduce his daughter to the type of small community he could only imagine living in.

“My dad feeds off the small towns,” she said. “This is his dream came true. He was mingling with the natives and rubbing elbows and giving people my name and number.”

Word quickly spread throughout the 20-something populace that a new kid was in town. Quite the opposite of a high school clique, it quickly sought out her company and accepted her into its growing community. Aiding the flow of information, her father stayed at Morton Mansion, and word spread quickly through the community grapevine.

“Staying at the Morton Mansion is more than just a stay,” Kristine said. “Betsy (Flaherty) seems to take care of people really well. I was more concerned about settling in Katie in the house, but Betsy was listening to her parents’ concerns. She made the first few contacts. She started the networking.”

A week later, Katie walked into Douglas Hardware Hank to buy some shelving.

“The people there recognized me,” she said incredulously. “They asked if I was Jim’s daughter. He was networking for me.”

Katie’s acceptance was also ushered in by now former coalition Director Chesie Lee. She spread invitations around town for a welcoming party, inviting people who had never met the newest face in town to a small soiree in Kristine’s backyard.

So here we find her, with the fire crackling and sparks scattering through the night air. She laughs easily, her smile isn’t forced and she exudes that pure warmth that only comes from a southern belle.

“It’s nice because even though there’s not many of us, since there’s nothing to do I can say ‘Let’s go do jumping jacks in the street’ and I could get three people to do it,” she said with a chuckle. “I had more friends before, but it was so hard to find people to do something with because everyone just wanted to watch TV or hang out. Here, if you throw any idea out there, everyone is willing to do it. It’s more tight-knit.”

Still, she has a few reservations about living in such a small community, where everybody knows anybody, and secrets last only milliseconds.

“Sometimes I like the anonymity of a big city,” she said. “I started a rumor about myself the other day on Facebook. I wrote ‘What is going on with my life? I give up.’ Within two hours people were calling me begging me not to move back (to Georgia).”

Yet, she doesn’t hesitate to say she’d rather have this situation than her friend Elise, a VISTA volunteer in Casper, where the bustle of the state’s biggest city forces newcomers into the shadows, struggling to gain a foothold and make a name for themselves among 60,000 others.

“(Elise) finds Douglas a little faster on the welcome wagon than Casper,” Kristine said. “Douglas should be proud. There are some advantages of a small town that we noticed in this transition for Katie.”

But the advantages of the small town were accentuated by its young population. Gaining acceptance among the older population – the grizzled lifers – takes years and a certain attitude. At the College Inn, you must have lived in Douglas for a minimum of 10 years to be able to Roll-A-Day. It’s a proving ground. Newcomers must test their mettle, demonstrate their resilience and dedication to the town for years before they are greeted as true Douglasites.

Not so much among the youthful transplants.

“I have reflected on just how welcoming I really am to someone new,” Kristine, who is in her 30s, said. “Would I reach out to befriend someone new to town that was not living with me? I imagine many of us in our thirties, and on up, with kids (and) working full time may have quite a few reasons why we would not make the time. A reflection for some of us might be that trading time for meeting someone new could be worth our time.”

Katie is scheduled to be in Douglas for one year – as so many of the 20-somethings believed when they first staked their flag in this city – and hopes to move to Jackson and be a ski bum after her year manning the coalition’s thrift store tucked behind the Purple Potato.

But among the tourists, vacationers and part-time residents of the wealthy ski resort city, Katie probably won’t find the same welcoming spirit. She won’t find her boss inviting the town to her welcome party. She won’t find a Boys and Girls Club director with two children – Abbie, 11, and Charlie, 8 – and two dogs to invite her upstairs to sit at their family dinners. She won’t find a porch-full of young cohorts, ready and willing to do jumping jacks in the road.

Hopefully, she recognizes that. She probably does. And if she doesn’t, her den mother will make sure she knows.

“I was surprised how many people quickly showed up to meet somebody new,” Kristine said. “I think that made her feel very welcome.”

So welcome, she can sit with her feet on the ground and her chin held high.