By Josh D. Simon

One expects that Denison, Texas (pop. 24,000) is much like any other small town.

Folks greet each other by nickname ("hey Stinky, have you seen Butter Hands?"), Friday nights are given completely to high school football, and you'd better be careful who you cut off on the road -- chances are, you'll be sitting next to them at Bingo, or maybe on a jury. Yes, Denison is almost certainly a lot like the countless other small towns that dot the American landscape. 

Except for one unusual fact: it's also the country's divorce capital.

Indeed, that's the (dubious) distinction bestowed on the little north Texas town by a US Census Bureau/Bloomberg BusinessWeek study, which claims a whopping 20% of all Denison residents over 15 years of age are divorced -- almost twice the national average.

So what's behind this Texas divorce boom? Married (at least as of this writing) Denison resident Jennifer Gage thinks it could have something to do with how young people are when they're getting married. 

And while the statistics paint a dismal picture, Pastor Mark Mitchell of Denison's First Baptist Church thinks some good will out of it. Referring to the "sheet" of issues that his ministry listed as important, the Pastor told Dallas-Forth Worth Fox affiliate KDFW: "When this study hit the news, I’m looking at our sheet. Divorce care was not on it. It is now...the dialogue has begun. What we have to do now is figure out how to address it.”

With files from MyFoxdfw.com.

Tuesday, May 15
at 8 pm to 8:30 EST
Out With the Tragedy: Turning Divorce into a meaningful experience
with Allison Pescosolido and Andra Brosh, founders of Divorce Detox
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