A former Shelby resident and graduate student is tackling a project that she hopes will more accurately capture all the complexities of life in the rural American south.

Jacqueline Crowell, who formerly lived in Shelby, is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and started The Middle of the Road project last summer for her senior project.

Crowell, who is in her final semester, said she will graduate in May with her masters in sociology and criminology. Currently, she is focusing on her thesis project, an ethnography, which examines rural America, the people who choose to live there and the issues they face to create a more accurate picture of the rural south.

Crowell is seeking millennials born between 1981 and 1996, who live in Shelby or the surrounding area or who lived in Shelby but moved away, to participate in the project. Participants will fill out a consent form and schedule an interview time with Crowell. Interviews will be conducted by Zoom and include 15 questions which typically take between 30 minutes to an hour.

Crowell said her interest in sociology began as a result of growing up in Shelby and being exposed to stark social differences with areas of concentrated wealth backed up to neighborhoods with concentrated poverty. She said she was exposed to a lot of sociological issues growing up in a rural county, and she started taking sociology classes in college and was then mentored into graduate school.

“I ended up focusing on what I now know is rural sociology and studying the south as a region,” she said.

In the process, she said she read a lot of literature, both personal and academic, that created a caricature out of the rural south which she felt was exaggerated.

“I didn’t understand why in sociology people weren’t talking about the more average aspects of rural life,” she said. “There’s this narrative of rural America I don’t like. My goal of this project was to paint a more accurate portrait of average small town America.”

Crowell became interested in the millennial generation, who is starting to settle down, and why they choose to stay in places like Shelby as well as the things that make them leave.

The idea for an interview project was born, and she said so far it has been successful beyond what was expected. Initially, Crowell said she hoped to complete around a dozen interviews of millennials from varying backgrounds, but it has grown beyond that.

Crowell started with data collection last fall and then began the interviews in January. She said she got the word out about the project by posting fliers around town, talking to people one on one and posting in private community Facebook groups. She ended up with 62 survey responses as of Tuesday and has completed 18 interviews with a goal to do at least 20.

“I’m open to more. I’ve gotten approval for more. Everybody is thrilled with this project,” she said. “I want to know, in a nutshell, what people like about the area and what people don’t like about the area and different characteristics of the area. I was interested in what different people of different class backgrounds have to say about the town. I’ve noticed people from different backgrounds have a lot of different things to say.”

She said participation is 100% anonymous.

Crowell has spoken to people from a wide range of situations, including people with or without cars, with or without children and with varying levels of education, from less than a high school diploma to a PhD.

“In terms of preliminary findings, a lot of people have a lot to say about the growth in town,” she said. “Some people are not supportive of the amount of physical growth and development, and others are very supportive of it and some think there’s a sweet spot, middle ground, but how are we going to get there.”

People have discussed how they feel about the cost of living, church involvement, housing issues, rent prices and concerns about outside entities and owners buying up properties around town and raising rent on locals.

She said this issue was illustrated in the middle of her project when she was told J-Bird’s Deli closed. The popular gathering place abruptly closed its doors last month after the restaurant owners said in a post on Facebook that they were unable to come to a new lease agreement with the building owner, who lives in Charlotte, according to county GIS records.

Her preliminary findings also revealed concerns over job options, gentrification and social tensions between older, more conservative residents and younger, more progressive ones.

“I think we’re seeing a concentrated version of things that are happening everywhere in America,” Crowell said.

She said the project has garnered a lot of support, and her plan is to apply for PhD programs and eventually extend the project into a dissertation. She will also be presenting her findings at two upcoming conferences.

The deadline to participate in the project is March 11.

Those who are interested will fill out a survey to see if they meet the eligibility requirements and sign a consent form. For more information, people can contact Jacqueline Crowell at themiddleoftheroadproject@gmail.com or call or text 704-692-9124.

This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: Grad student focuses on Shelby to capture life in rural America