Small-Town Girls

In the Final Scene of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy reminds us that, despite the razzmatazz of Oz, her Kansas community has its pluses. We'd now like to add a plus of our own: Small-town women are lookers. "Every day, beautiful women from tiny townships send us their pictures," says Playboy's Senior Photo Editor Jim Larson. "We finally said, 'Hey, forget the big city--let's honor the hometown girl.'" Winnowing down the list was the first step ("the smaller the town the better"); then Playboy's photo corps hit the road. "But this wasn't like jetting down to Atlanta for a quick shoot," Larson continues. "It was more like getting on one plane, transferring to a smaller one, then taking a three-hour car ride out to a place that's barely on the map." But, Larson reports, the treks were worth the effort. "Not only were the women fresh and down-to-earth, but the folks we met along the way were delightful. They were so flattered that Playboy would make such a long trip just to visit their town." Call it civic pride, call it a knockout pictorial. Either way, Dorothy is right: There's no place like home.