This sound very similar to where I grew up. I'm also from a "white trash" rural Southern area. And I grew up near the beach, so you saw huge contrast between the million dollar+ beach houses at the private end of the beach, and the rest of my county which was mostly rural, tobacco farms, timber logging for the paper companies, and Green Swamp[1].

I knew people who turned down full tuition scholarships to the flagship state university because they wanted to follow God and marry a nice boy from their church

Uuuggghh... "follow God"... uggh. Makes me want to puke. I've come to the conclusion that Christianity is just a cult, no better than any of the others, just bigger. And due to its prevalence and ubiquity, more damaging.

The only reason I'm not still there today is that for some reason, as a nerd and social outcast, I rejected that path from an early age and my top priority out of high school was to get the hell out.

Same here. This is why I have mixed feelings about a lot of the commentary on poverty and education and what-not, however. On the one hand, a lot of my county does live in poverty and maybe that argues for some of the social intervention stuff that the Socialist / Progressive camps tend to push for. OTOH, I know from experience that, even growing up somewhere like that, if you want to get out and go build a better life, it is possible. Yeah, it means moving away, but I don't see why that should be considered such a big deal... in the course of human history, people have always moved to new areas to look for better opportunities. Not all will, but those who are motivated to do so, do.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Swamp_(North_Carolina)