Your Hometown

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Plain and simple...

What sets your hometown apart from others? What's your town's claim to fame?

The Quad Cities... 4 Cities, 2 States.

Host the John Deere Classic.. which was held this past weekend ironically. This year's JDC boasts one not-so-funny, but memorable incident in PGA golf. Michelle Wie, the teen golfing phenom, suffered a heat stroke on the 2nd round. How amazing. She was 2 strokes away from making the cut at last years JDC but this year she didn't have a chance. She's fine BTW.

There's 2 UFC champions, Matt Hughes and Tim Silvia. But I've never seen a UFC fight.

John Deere headquarters...

Hm... so yeah... the QCA is a pretty boring place. Let's hear about your town now.

[Travis Hoffman]

Gustavus, OH. More cows than people. First centralized school in the United States. Several houses served as stations on the Underground Railroad. Clarence Darrow lived in an Octagon House the next township over. NASCAR Nextel Cup driver Dave Blaney went to my high school.

In Warren, OH, Team 48's home, notable residents have included Dave Grohl, Paul Warfield, Neil Armstrong (his first plane ride was in Warren), Korey Stringer, Catharine Bach (Daisy Duke was born in Warren??? Who knew???), and of course, Warren's most lovable personality, Maurice Clarett. We're all so proud.

[sanddrag]

Glendale, CA has the second largest population of Armenians in the USA. (Los Angeles is first). Interesting fact.

[Cody Carey]

Corry Pa,
Lots of bars,
Lots of churches across the street from said bars.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Vernon, CT The two most famous people from here are Mark Warner, former governor of Virginia, and Bill Romanowski, former pro football player.

[MattD]

Meriden, CT

- Location chosen for the filming of Jacknife (1989 film staring Robert DeNiro)
- Known as the home of the first steamed cheeseburger
- Home of Hubbard Park, the largest municipal park in all of New England
- Home of the National Shaving & Barbershop Museum
- Known as the "silver city" during the 1800s due to the large amounts of silver products manufactured

That's about it I think...

[Hiteak]

Henrietta, NY. The PGA was here during the blackout of 2003, and home to the first and largest technological college in the world for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Wow... some boring towns in the US. I forgot to mention we have the biggest truck stop just outside of town. I80 Truck Stop in Walcot.

[Jaine Perotti]

Sharon, CT -

There are more cows than people.
The regional high school covers 6 towns but has only 600 students.
Those 600 students are a glorious amalgamation of farmers and hippies. I am at neither end of the spectrum, but I am closer to the hippie end than the farmer end.
It is not unusual for the halls of my high school to smell like cow manure and gasoline, with a slight hint of patchouli (hippies).
Our senior prank consisted of letting sheep, horses and cows loose in senior courtyard.
Downtown Sharon consists of Trotta's grocery store, the pharmacy, the Country Corner Restaurant, and the Xtramart (where all the underage kids go to smoke).
My eighth grade graduating class had only 34 kids in it.
96% of my high school is white. I think there is a total of maybe 2 black kids in our whole entire school.
In summertime, Sharon's population explodes due to the influx of city people.
I laugh when I see people acting like Sharon is fashionable because it is so "cute and quaint".
If you are under the age of eighteen, and you are seen walking through downtown Sharon, you are given dirty looks by everyone driving by in their cars because they think you are up to no good.
The nearest shopping mall is an hour away.
I have to travel at least 20 minutes to visit most of my friends' houses (haha Kent kids).
Steel toed boots and cowboy hats are cool.
I can laugh at just about any redneck joke because I will know exactly what it means.

oh yeah, I forgot to add... my dad, my brothers, and I were all born in the same hospital.... in Sharon, CT.

[Clark Gilbert]

Kokomo, Indiana aka "City of Firsts"

Kokomo has quite the impressive list for a 50,000 pop. Midwest town:

"City of firsts" inventions
1894 - Elwood Haynes makes the first successful trial run of his "Horseless Carriage" on Pumpkinvine Pike.
1894 - The first Pneumatic Rubber Tire was invented by D.C. Spraker at the Kokomo Rubber Tire Company.
1895 - The first Aluminum Casting was developed by William "Billy" Johnson from the Ford and Donnelly Foundry.
1902 - The first Carburetor was invented by George Kingston.
1906 - The first Stellite Cobalt-Base Alloy was discovered by Elwood Haynes.
1912 - Stainless Steel was invented by Elwood Haynes as a response to his wife's desire for tableware that wouldn't tarnish.
1918 - The Howitzer Shell, used in World War I, was created by the Superior Machine Tool Company.
1918 - The first Aerial Bomb with Fins was first produced by the Liberty Pressed Metal Company.
1920 - The Mechanical Corn Picker was created by John Powell.
1926 - Carl Molin developed Dirilyte Golden Hued Tableware.
1928 - The first canned tomato juice was created by Walter Kemp from Kemp Brothers Canning Company in response to a physician's need for baby food.
1938 - The first Push-Button Car Radio was created at Delco Radio Division of General Motors Corporation.
1941 - Globe American Stove Company manufactured the first all metal life boats and rafts.
1947 - The first Signal Seeking Car Radio was created by the Delco Radio Division of General Motors.
1957 - Delco Radio Division of General Motors developed the first All Transistor Car Radio.

We are also home to this guy named "Big Ben" who was named the largest calf in the world in 1902.

I've also heard we have more restaurants per capita than most other cities in the United States.

[Matt Attallah]

Team's home town - The Ford/Rouge blue-collar jobs

My Home town - Detroit - pretty self explanitory

[Billfred]

On paper, my hometown is Columbia, but I was really raised out in Irmo, which is just outside the city limits. (Literally--you can spit from Irmo to Columbia.)

Famous Irmese include:

-Andre Bauer, Lt. Governor of South Carolina
-Leeza Gibbons, TV host
-BJ McKie, who helped the Gamecocks to a few great basketball seasons in the late 1990s (and he was my first interview for Columbia's paper back in those days, when I was part of their Young Writers Staff)
-Lilian Garcia, ring announcer for WWE RAW

As a bonus, Irmo High has a few claims to fame itself:

-The Academic Quiz Team from 2000-01 and 2001-02 became the world's first and only back-to-back national champions, winning almost every national title available. (We're also the only three-time champion.)
-Irmo's band won something like 10 straight state titles
-Back in 1998, a wee scandal was touched off when the then-principal of the school cancelled an Indigo Girls concert planned for the gym.

To top it all off, Irmo is home to the annual Okra Strut, a celebration of all that is okra. (If you haven't had fried okra, you haven't lived.) Last year, 1293 marched in the parade. It was fun, until that one set screw came out of the drivetrain.

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by Ogre

Vernon, CT The two most famous people from here are Mark Warner, former governor of Virginia, and Bill Romanowski, former pro football player.

And Rockville, CT (the city within the township of Vernon) was also the home to the "Rockville Rocket", the late singer Gene Pitney.

[RoboMadi]

I really don't have a hometown as i move faster than the season changes, but currently I'm resided in Northern Virginia, suburbs of Washington DC.

I really don't have to explain whats Washington DC is known for, but Northern VA is known for being the Tech hub of USA and most of the world. 85% of the Internet information goes through Loudon and Fairfax County before it gets back to your house.

And yes we are also known for Krispy Kreme and people like Dave Lavery

[MissInformation]

Reston, Virginia... a town created by Robert E. Simon (thus RES-ton). A large planned community of single family homes, townhouse clusters, apartments, condos, schools, churches, and businesses, and lots and lots of natural areas. Reston was the third town/city in the U.S. to become certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a Backyard Habitat.

Reston... a very expensive, but nice place to live... nice, that is, if you can live with all the rules and regulations the Association throws at you... but Reston has a stain on it's pristine reputation... Anyone ever hear of the book, "The Hot Zone" ? Yep, Reston is where the monkey house was where Ebola broke out... Oh, but don't worry, that building is long gone and the last scattered bricks were removed in 2000 so that the children at the daycare center that is now there wouldn't trip over them...

Heidi