EVANSTON — A real-life version of The Game of Life came to Evanston High School recently in the form of Reality Town, a curriculum-based program geared toward preparing teens for the future. The simulation offers a variety of life paths and circumstances such as education, career and salary, personal life choices including relationship status and whether or not participants have children, and the ensuing financial obligations of each life path.

According to the program’s website, “students are responsible for making financial decisions and standard monthly expenditures for their Reality Town family. Students must budget and meet all of the basic needs of their family, including housing, transportation, groceries, childcare, clothing, insurance, etc.”

Trona Valley Federal Credit Union (FCU) played a crucial role in the experience. After initially offering the program to Evanston Middle School eighth-graders for the past 20 years, Trona Valley staffers ShanDee Welling, Lacey Robertson and Savannah Noorda reached out to EHS to offer this year’s seniors the opportunity to play and learn as well.

“Trona Valley FCU has done a community service project every year on Columbus Day for many years,” branch manager Welling said. “We are closed that day, but we are still going out in our communities doing some type of service. We decided that since we are a financial institution, that we would like to do some type of financial literacy in our schools.”

With the help of Susan Evans’ finance class, and the support of administration, the first of hopefully many annual Reality Town experiences went off seamlessly.

“We love this — anything we can do with our great community that helps the kids prepare for the next step,” EHS vice principal Scott Kohler said.

Seniors Tietjen Heaps and Frankie Hales were unpleasantly surprised with their respective experiences.

“I think it’s a good look into actual reality and the future,” Heaps said.

She said her backstory was one with a spouse, but a tight single-income household.

“My husband does nothing and uses all the gas in my car. Thanks, life lessons from Reality Town! I really didn’t know it was paycheck-to-paycheck like this for some people,” she said.

She concluded that the exercise was not only one of financial decision-making, but also made important points about choosing a life partner wisely.

Hales’ story included a life as a starving artist and single parent. She admitted she was “broke” and utterly unprepared for “boring stuff, like having to pay utilities, life insurance and property taxes.”

A total of 176 seniors were split up into two groups, with half attending Reality Town in the morning while the other group worked on their résumé-building skills and holding mock interviews with several local businesses.

Outfits including Rocky Mountain Power, Dominion Energy, Evanston Public Works, Trona Mines, Mitsubishi Chemicals, Union Tank, Clean Energy Corp., Evanston Regional Hospital, Wyoming State Hospital, Phillips Law and other local banking and educational institutions offered their time and services for the day’s project. Western Wyoming Community College presented information about their courses, degrees and certifications.

“There are 60 volunteers on the Reality Town side, and 20 on the career side,” Kohler said. “We really appreciate this community and these corporations for showing up today, especially on a holiday when many of them have the day off.”

EHS principal Merle Lester said the program is important.

“I think this is very needed,” he said. “We send too many kids to four-year schools; they finish with debt and a degree they never use. I’m also hoping this [the career fair] recruits our best and brightest and these kids stay local.”