Video: Starkville Fourth Graders Create Ideal City

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) — The future of Starkville looks bright. That’s if some elementary school students get their way.

The nine and ten-year-old city planners are using their artistic creativity to show what they want their hometown to look like in 20 years.

Some Mississippi State students are reaching out to Starkville elementary schoolers on how they can make their city an ideal place.

“We want to show the community what the kids think,” said MSU student, Heather Lyles. “We want them to see how they can start bettering our community now, so that our kids will have a future, and that they’ll want to stay here in Starkville and make our community better.”

Lyles says they’re collecting artwork from more than 100 fourth graders. The designs show what they’d like Starkville to look like 20 years from now.

It’s for an anthropology class project.

“And it’s teaching us what we can do with our degree, and how we can implement our degree into the community,” Lyles said.

They plan to compile all the drawings for a mural to display somewhere in town.

The fourth graders already have big plans, with drawings highlighting big buildings – like a free hotel for the homeless.

“We’d have more people recycling, and picking up trash for the ocean, and just having more jobs,” said fourth grader, Soren Voges-Haupt.

“I’m drawing the new twin towers that are supposed to go in Starkville, so the people that had people die there, they can go look at the people who died, ’cause they’ll have a picture of them at the top,” said fourth grader, Whit Altmyer.

Most of their artwork focuses on helping others.

“I drew a hospital because I think we need more of them, so the people that get hurt, they’ll have somewhere to go, and people to care for them,” said fourth grader, Alonna Tucker.

The MSU students plan to eventually bring the mural to city leaders to see if they can implement any changes.

Lyles says they plan to visit more fourth graders at schools in the area over the next couple of weeks.