The 26th reason we love West Texas: Because our spirit of community cannot be matched

West Texans are a strong, determined, don’t take any guff kind of people. They live by the motto “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Yet when a need arises, they always show their generous, loving nature in a huge West Texas way. The community as a whole is genuinely concerned about the well-being of its neighbors.

Whether it’s organizing fundraising efforts or volunteering at local non-profits, West Texas is a place where altruism and magnanimity shine. Take a look around. You can’t miss the cutting-edge facilities funded by the people who have supported our medical centers and prospering arts community. These philanthropists have helped shape our future knowing they’d leave things a bit better than they found them for generations to come and their legacy lives on in every building they helped fund.

Walk into any grocery store, movie theatre, or shop in the city and you will find that no West Texas town has lost its small-town friendliness. You can still walk into a restaurant or a meeting and be greeted with a smile. Our predecessors on the prairie taught us well. They sometimes lived miles apart making personal relationships all the more precious. Here, drivers still wave when we drive past complete strangers… and I really mean wave. We hold doors open for one another. We let someone with a gallon of milk and a box of diapers cut in line because our grocery baskets will take longer.

With the recent events in El Paso, that sense of community was reinforced as hundreds of people lined up at El Paso hospitals Saturday in hopes of helping out dozens of victims who were injured in a mass shooting at a Walmart in a local shopping center. All it took was a comment from the sheriff saying “Blood is needed urgently” and people lined up to do just that. So many people responded to help out their neighbors that hospital officials said they were at capacity and rescheduling appointments in the days to follow.

Here’s another #26 we love. Texas Tech running back and no. 26 in the roster Ta’Zhawn Henry. He has already put on 20 pounds of muscle in the offseason, so Red Raider fans are really expecting an explosive season. Lucky for us, we won’t have to wait long to see him in action. Football is just a few short weeks away.