Don't make me take off my shoe!

People Ask Me All The Time, So I Thought I'd Put It Here.
I started MySaline to be a point of access for people to get to know each other and find that there is actually a lot going on around the county. It's just not widely reported. I lived in Bryant while in college at UALR, and moved back to the area in 2002. When we moved to Benton, I didn't know much about it, so I started Googling. Not much was on the Internet about Benton or Saline County at that point.

I had heard about a web site called Forgotten NY, where a guy went around taking pictures and telling the story of places in New York that people pass all the time but don't take notice. This gave me the idea to do something like this with Benton. My husband said I'd run out things to talk about pretty quickly. But everybody has a story, and figured I could find quite a few that might never hit the newspaper. I produced the blog BentOnBenton.com for something like two years. I learned a lot during that time, took a lot of pictures, and met a lot of locals.

My husband started to tell me that I needed to expand to include other cities in Saline. But he also asked me when the heck I was going to get off the computer and come to bed. How could I cover more area, but not stay on the computer even longer? A few months went by and I found something that would help me do that and even more. A social network.

Now I contribute about the same amount as I used to, but others contribute too. We get to know each other and we get together and eat sometimes, we help on community projects and become more knowledgeable and invested in our neighborhoods. If you don't know about something, it's hard to care about it. I have made it my job to let people know.

I'd love to run the site as my main job, but it's not quite to that level yet, so I am keeping my day job as a graphic designer with a state agency's publications. Donations and Advertising make all the difference (hint, hint).!

Shelli 303-4010 shellirussell@mysaline.com