Remember to be the good host

Saturday is move-in day at DePauw University, which most certainly means longer lines at Walmart, fewer available parking spaces in and around campus and just more traffic congestion in general.

In the long term, that means for the next nine months, the friendly confines of Greencastle will be swelled by more than 2,200 students as they descend upon DePauw to further their education while simultaneously learning to make their own way in the world.

In the short term, you also might want to note that South Indiana Street will be closed Saturday evening a block south of the square to accommodate a move-in day block party thrown by Taphouse 24 and others with businesses like Moore's Bar and Completely Nuts and Candy Co. taking part as well.

Students bring an energy and excitement not just to campus but to our community. Whether locals realize it or not, their presence helps make this a special place -- a small town with a small college.

A courthouse and a college in the rural Midwest? Seems like an envied recipe for success.

It's like we're living favored nation status as residents get to share in much of what the university has to offer. Students eagerly display their athletic and musical prowess to entertain us, and we can reciprocate by teaching them the world can be an interesting and forgiving place void of discrimination and distrust.

Certainly town-and-gown relations have the potential to be better than ever these days with new DePauw President Mark McCoy -- already a proud Greencastle resident even before being named to the university's top spot -- in tow.

"Communiversity" is what McCoy likes to call the co-existence and the co-mingling of what is good about both community and university. It's an exciting and admirable vision.

Oh sure, there are missteps now and then, and certainly there will be more. Students will get out of control with their actions at times. It happens. After all, they're learning to make choices and decisions that will allow them to flourish on their own. That's part of what college is all about.

Conversely, a few locals might embarrass us all with displays of shortsightedness you'd have thought were left behind in the post-Vietnam War era. One such action can give us all a black eye. While we might forgive, let us not forget.

And just as we're not all "townies" in the student sense of the definition, DePauw students are not all "pinheads" in the local vernacular.

So it's time to be good neighbors and strong local leaders as students and many of their families visit our community this weekend.

Be good hosts. Smile and say hello. Understand people unfamiliar with local surroundings may not know every traffic pattern or local nuance.

They're moving in. We're moving on. And we can all learn to move up together.

Let's start today.