I have heard residents say it is a much farther drive from Florence to Russellville than it is from Russellville to Florence. As a Florence native who moved to Franklin County, I can confirm this.

Despite growing up less than 30 miles from Franklin County, I can count on one hand the number of times I traveled this far past the river before taking the job as staff reporter for the Franklin County Times.

I did not know much about the area or the people in the area. These were not the streets I walked as a kid or the faces that raised me. Franklin County marked the beginning of a new chapter and a new way of life.

When I first told my husband we were moving to Franklin County, he – like me – was apprehensive to move away from both of our families and the only life we had ever known. We both had that fearful pit in the bottom of our stomachs thinking about the unknown – that is, until we got to know Franklin County.

While traveling across the county, we fell in love with the people, the school systems and the way of life. Franklin County turned out to be everything we had desperately been looking for back home but were unable to find. Franklin County was our answer.

In the six months I have been employed at the Franklin County Times, we searched high and low throughout the real estate market and decided to take the big plunge and purchase our first house.

Over the past few months, the house that was once a stranger to me has turned into a home. The life I always assumed I would have went away and was replaced by a split-level home with too many stairs and a large number of projects for my husband to point out.

The sound of loud neighbors in a college town was replaced with the booming echo of Tiger Stadium on football Friday nights. The bright lights of the city changed to the lights of shining stars I can watch at night from my back porch.

Since moving to Franklin County, my world has changed, but I have changed, too. I grew up my entire life as a Florence girl with no intentions of living somewhere else. Franklin County has brought challenges and growth, but it has also brought home.

Now I know I can get from my driveway in Russellville to any family member’s house in under 45 minutes. I know now how small of a world I had been living in, and I know I am no longer a Florence girl.

I don’t know where my life is going to take me a few years from now, but I do know that right now, I am enjoying my life here with my brand new little slice of Franklin County.