What comes to mind when you hear the word “townie?”  Fights at frats and catcalls on Isaacs?

Students who work in town have discovered new, more positive connotations of the term. Whether they spend their work hours helping Walla Walla residents continue their education or buy a phone, Whitties who work in town report greater familiarity and identification with the Walla Walla community beyond the Whitman bubble.

“After living here for four years, I feel like I’m finally getting to know Walla Walla, and not just Whitman Walla Walla,” said senior JJ Ooi.

Ooi tutors math and science at the Walla Walla Community College. Through his work, he has met a wide range of community members.

“I tutor kids our age who are just trying to save money, to people who are 40 years old and finally going to school, to people who are retired and want to go to school for fun,” he said.

Through his work, Ooi has developed a greater affinity for the people and the culture of Walla Walla.

“Having to go through the neighborhood and meet the people I tutor and the people I work for, the families of the people I work for, I realized that this is a really nice town, and that there are lots of people who have lives here,” he said.

Senior Iris Alden, who interns at Walla Walla’s daily newspaper, the Union-Bulletin, has similarly come to know and appreciate the town of Walla Walla beyond the confines of the Whitman campus.

“I see myself as a person who lives in Walla Walla now versus just a person who goes to Whitman,” Alden said.

Through her journalistic work, Alden has been exposed to everything from modesty beauty pageants at local churches to tense town meetings that aired residents’ concerns about potential job cuts at the state penitentiary. These experiences have both expanded her horizons and increasingly endeared her to the town of Walla Walla.

“The most rewarding part of my job has really been getting to know more people who live in Walla Walla, and really feeling more connected to the community,” Alden said.

Alden’s internship has also demonstrated the incredible number of Whitman alumni who return to Walla Walla to settle down. “I keep learning that new people at work are Whitman grads that I just didn’t know at all,” Alden laughed.

Her increasing familiarity with the Walla Walla community helps Alden understand these alumni’s decisions.

“I think the thing that’s really special about Walla Walla is it’s a really tight-knit community,” Alden said. “I can imagine myself moving back here someday; it’s a really nice place to raise a family.”

Alden also noted the similarities between Whitman and Walla Walla that could make it attractive to Whitman students.

“People think that because Whitman is really isolated, that means a lot of stuff happens on campus. That’s exactly how Walla Walla is. When I first got here was like, ‘Wow, Walla Walla is really small; there’s not much to do.’ But the longer you live here you realize, there’s lots of cool people doing really cool things.”

While students across the board have developed increasingly positive views of the Walla Walla community through their work experiences, they all expected to be isolated from it due to their concurrent statuses as Whitman students.

“I expected just because of the stereotype we have of townies as Whitman students, I expected to be judged a little more saying I was a Whitman student,” said Ooi. But he found that his students were “pretty welcoming of the people from Whitman, which really caught [him] off guard.”

Matthew Beckett, a senior who works full time at Verizon Wireless as a wireless consultant, affirmed this stereotype and shared how it affected his relationship with his coworkers.

“There’s definitely a stereotype on Whitman’s campus that says townies are evil, they start fights at frat houses, etc.,” he said. Beckett’s work in town has disproven these negative expectations.  “Definitely from working this job, I have to disagree with that. My coworkers have been phenomenal.”

While Beckett’s work experience has opened the way to new friendships: he goes to the Red Monkey with coworkers and encourages them to come to Whitman events: but he asserted that there is still tension between Whitman and Walla Walla.

“When I’m working, I’m a townie. I’m a Whittie at heart, but I don’t want to represent Whitman outside,” said Beckett.