Almost everyone has, at one point in their lives, experienced that feeling of being stuck in the middle of nowhere without being able to do anything about it.Now, imagine living in a town without a hospital, restaurant, movie theater or even a bar, and you’ll start to form an accurate mental picture of what Covington, Texas is all about.

Shopping at a gas station, joining the Future Farmers of America and having no fast-food restaurants around is all part of growing up in this small town, which is about 45 miles south of Fort Worth.

Covington is the home of Kraig Huse, a junior engineering major, who said nobody can really comprehend how small his town really is.

“When most people think small towns, they think a couple of thousand, but we have about 280 people in Covington,” Huse said.

He said the town is so small that stop lights or road signs don’t exist. Instead, there are two stop signs and a blinking light to help keep what little traffic Covington might have in check.

If you are not paying attention when driving through Covington, you might miss it since Covington’s total land area is less than one square mile, according to city-data.com.

There are only two places to shop in Covington. One is the Shell service station on the edge of town, and the other, Covington Collectables, is a small shop run out of a home.

With such a small population, one can only imagine what it was like to attend school there.

Huse said he was pretty much able to do anything he wanted to in high school, and said most kids either joined the FFA or the agriculture club.

Unlike the majority of small towns in Texas, Covington’s main sport is not football. High school students here focus on basketball, instead.

“My town is so small that the town population triples when we have a home basketball game,” Huse said.

Another positive thing about living in a place like Covington is that you pretty much know everything about everyone, he said.

“In Covington, whenever you hear sirens, it is someone you know who is either in trouble or about to be,” Huse said.

He said his graduating class was only 21 people, and four or five of those students did not move to Covington until their senior year.

Although living in a small town allows you to participate in numerous activities in high school, finding things to do outside of school can prove to be quite the challenge.

With a lack of built-in entertainment around, students often had to make their own fun if they didn’t want to travel 15 miles to Hillsboro or Cleburne.

Huse said they would often throw field parties and steal items from the school to entertain themselves, but would return the stolen items back at graduation.

After graduation, few people decided to stick around Covington for longer than they had to, Huse said.

“Most people try to get out as soon as possible, but about half are back within the year,” he said.

Even though he loves his hometown, Huse said there are a couple of things he wishes would make their way into Covington’s city limits.

“I would bring in a fast-food place like McDonald’s,” he said.

Covington may be lacking several big-city amenities, but the town is not completely void of facilities.

Covington recently had a new police department added to the already existing volunteer fire department and city park. While the park may look run-down, when your town’s population is under 300 people, you take what you can get.

More than likely, students who grew up in small towns wouldn’t have chosen to live there during their teenage years. But when all is said and done, students say there is no place they would rather call home.