Until late last month, I'd never heard of Harrold, Texas. Maybe you hadn't either.

The tiny town near the Oklahoma border burst into the headlines recently when it joined Texas and 10 other states in challenging the Obama administration's directive that public school bathrooms, locker rooms and showers must accommodate transgender students.

My GetReligion colleague Jim Davis made brief mention of Harrold when he critiqued initial media coverage of the lawsuit.

The early reports — which included brief mentions of Harrold with a quote or two from the town's superintendent — made me curious. I wanted to know more about the little community and its role in the bigger fight. 

Apparently, I wasn't alone.

The Associated Press sent a reporter to Harrold and got firsthand color such as this:

Kindergarteners and high school students in Harrold share 10 bathrooms in a single brick schoolhouse that is shorter than the football field, where the Harrold Hornets play six-man football because there are not enough players for 11. A few times a day, a train rumbles past the schoolhouse. Superintendent David Thweatt says "hobos" sometimes jump off and wander toward campus. Once, he said, a drifter holed up in a school bus and left a smell that took days to air out.