PHOTO GALLERY: Friends adjust to college, adulthood in West Plains

July 3, 2012 | 9:56 p.m. CDT

Editor's note: This photo gallery has been re-edited to more fully capture the lives of the four young women featured in the story.

For Samantha Price and her friends at Missouri State University-West Plains campus, the temptation to spend time with friends often distracts them from other goals and their studies. Editor's note: This photo gallery has been re-edited to more fully capture the lives of the four young women featured in the story.

Samantha Price leans on a car after the boy she had a relationship with ignored her at Putnam Student Center on a Tuesday afternoon in the parking lot of the student center in West Plains. "I am a Baptist," Price said. "I believe in the Bible, nothing but the Bible. I believe in salvation through grace. I know I am living wrong, and I know it is not right." | Pinar Istek

Heather Hopkins lies on the bed at her friend's house on a Sunday in early April. | Pinar Istek

Tacompsy Rawson sits outside her dorm on on a late spring day in West Plains. | Pinar Istek

Tacompsy Rawson, left, paints the fingernails of her friend Samantha Price in front of their dorm on April 1. | Pinar Istek

Samantha Price, left, and Heather Hopkins hold hands on their way back to a party that they attended earlier in the afternoon in early May in West Plains.
| Pinar Istek

Samantha Price, left, Tacompsy Rawson and Heather Hopkins hang out in the back yard at a friend's house in late March.
| Pinar Istek

Heather Hopkins watches a presentation by one of her classmates in the Student Success class on May 7in West Plains. | Pinar Istek

Samantha Price prepares to play violin on May 7 at her dorm room. | Pinar Istek

A note from Samantha Price's younger sister hangs on the wall of Price's dorm room on May 7 in West Plains. Price hardly ever spends time in her room and finds it boring there. | Pinar Istek

Samantha Price attempts to check the results of a lottery on May 7 at the computer lab of her dorm. | Pinar Istek

Samantha Price texts one of her friends after she wrote "family forever" on her hand on May 15 in her friend Katie Wallace's car at the parking lot of Putnam Student Center on the Missouri State University-West Plains campus. Price said the family is very important for her and what she wrote on her hand shows that.

| Pinar Istek

Heather Hopkins gets a cigarette lit by a friend before she goes to the post office in West Plains.
| Pinar Istek

Zack Reynolds, left, and Samantha Price watch "Troy" on TV, while Reynold's roommate sleeps on the floor on May 16 at Reynold's West Plains' home. Price and Reynolds had met recently. | Pinar Istek

Samantha Price, left, texts on her phone while she hangs out with her friend, Drake Mann, at the Hub, a coffee shop and Internet cafe. At the time, Price said she thought that Mann was cute, and since then they have been spending more time together. | Pinar Istek