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.
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