Chances are if you moved to Russellville to attend Tech for four years, you’ll spend more time in Russellville than you will in your hometown.

This means that you’ll need to get to know the Russellville area and make it your new home. It’s important to get involved so you can meet new people.

Your friends in college will most likely replace most of your high school friends. It will end up becoming very hard to go home on the weekends, especially every weekend like some freshman do. This means you will need to find things to do and places you like in Russellville.

You can easily get acquainted with downtown Russellville area by attending an event this month.

Russellville Downtown Association, a committee of Main Street Russellville, is hosting a no-cost event on Sept. 29.

Destination Downtown will be held in Historic Downtown Russellville and is intended to welcome Tech students back to Russellville.

Students, faculty, and staff will be able to enjoy free food and a scavenger hunt starting at 4 p.m.

Destination Downtown was held last year for the first time because merchants in the downtown area wanted a way to reach out to Tech students. The merchants wanted to make students aware of the variety of businesses and services in the downtown area.

This is a good thing for students, because a lot of students aren’t aware of all of the different businesses in the downtown area. The event will have food, music and entertainment. There will be free snapshot photos by Mr. Photo Booth, a fashion show by IIIs Company, a Humvee demonstration by the U.S. Army recruiter and more. Activities are continuously being added.

The scavenger hunt will lead partakers into participating downtown businesses.

Scavenger forms and a map of the merchant participants will be available at the table located in the plaza in front of Russellville’s Historic Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot.

The people taking part in the scavenger hunt will be put into a drawing for door prizes from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m.  In-store drawings and goodie bags will also be offered by some businesses.

I think it’s smart that businesses are offering so much to the participants because it gives them an incentive to check out the businesses. We all know that’s the best way to catch the attention of students.

There will be a complimentary shuttle service beginning at 4 p.m. in front of Doc Bryan. The event is free to Arkansas Tech students, faculty, and staff members. You can find the event on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MainStreetRussellville or you can call 479-967-1437. The event will be held rain or shine.

I encourage all students to attend this event because it’s an easy and free way to get to know Russellville’s downtown area. You could find a new favorite store or restaurant. Destination Downtown opens the door for students to explore all parts of Russellville.

I always hear people say Russellville is boring, but it’s because they never get out and find things to do. Russellville has so much to offer, but you’ll never realize it unless you seek it out.