PRINEVILLE — When 12-year-old Krystal Gray’s family moved from Portland to Prineville, a town of just fewer than 10,000, she was in for the cultural shock of her young life.

No more malls, multiplexes or teen-friendly community centers. Hanging out with her new friends meant fast-food restaurants, going fishing, riding horses or watching skateboarders in the city skatepark. Being a small-town teenager, she thought, was not going to be easy.

“It’s really hard living in a small town with no people,” she said. “We have nothing to do in this town.”

But around the city, some residents are working to change that perception. And though finding fun in a rural, largely agricultural community still requires a bit of creativity, things are starting to look up for Prineville’s teens.

The first Thursday evening of each month is now “late night” at the public library, where teens are given free rein to listen to loud music, watch movies, play games and chat with friends in the normally quiet space. And by the end of the year, a night at the movies will no longer mean a 40- or 75-mile round trip to Redmond or Bend when the Pine Theater reopens for business for the first time in three decades.

Back on the big screen

In the past decade, Prineville’s population has grown, and with it, the number of young people in the community has increased, too.

But the community’s entertainment outlets haven’t quite kept up: The city’s downtown Pine Theater has long been closed, and efforts to build a new aquatic center to replace the 54-year-old pool have failed. The old bowling alley downtown is closed, and the newer one, located outside of the downtown area, is tough for teens to reach without access to cars.

“There’s not tons of opportunities here,” said Jenny Higgins, 19, a student at Central Oregon Community College. “For movies, we have to go to Bend, and that’s $20 in your gas tank.”

But, after more than a year of remodeling, big-screen movies will soon be back in town at the Pine Theater. If all goes as planned, the theater will also be a venue for live music and entertainment, said Oniko Mehrabi, who has been renovating the Pine with her husband, Ali.

“It is so important to me to have entertainment that I can go to with my 3-year-old and be comfortable and warm and clean,” she said. “I’m hoping that it will be one of the key turns in getting the downtown going.”

At the Crook County Public Library, movies are already on the schedule. Last month, the library started a free Saturday movie program for families and adults on alternating weekends.

Library webmaster Traci Haley, who helped create the movie nights, said part of the goal was to provide affordable entertainment, something she said isn’t always easy to find in Prineville. All of the screenings are free and are supported by funding from the Friends of the Library and donations.

“There’s not a lot to do in Prineville, and there’s hardly anything to do that doesn’t cost a lot,” she said. “It’s my personal belief that Prineville needs a place to go to the movies, and here’s an outlet for people who can’t afford the $9 movie ticket.”

A place to hang out

The library is also reaching out directly to teens with its new monthly “late night” program, which invites students in the sixth grade and older to stop by the library after hours to check out books, watch movies, play games and use the Internet. The program kicked off in September with a gathering of 25 young people, but word spread quickly and at the second event, a “pirates versus ninjas” theme night in October, more than 100 teens turned up.

“It’s pretty awesome,” said Ladia Broughton, 13. “I’ve gone to it all three times. I just love the library and the thought of having other friends here, and being loud is pretty cool.”

On Thursday, pop music boomed on the stereo as more than 60 teens, most of them middle school students, munched on free snacks and played Twister between the library shelves.

A few gathered around the computers to play games and surf the Internet, and others took over the library’s “kids’ room” for a showing of “Spider-man 3.” Many said the late-night program was just the kind of thing that’s needed in town — especially for younger teens who can’t yet drive to find entertainment.

“They need to have this more than once a month,” said Marcene Bennett, 13. “I need to get away from my parents more than once a month.”

When the weather is warm, the city’s skatepark is a popular destination, along with other green spaces large enough for a game of pickup football or soccer.

Older teens make the entire city their playground with a sort of long-distance, capture-the-flag-style game called “fugitive.” The game is usually started by one person or a couple of friends, who then send text messages to their classmates, asking them to join in, said Austin Morell, 17.

“We play fugitive a lot — it’s really big in the summer,” he said. “It’s when someone gets dropped off at the bottom of the grade and has to make it back to the school without being caught by people on foot and in their cars.”

Others, like JoBeth Hamon, 17, said they spend most of their time at friends’ houses, watching television or movies or gathering at the Apple Peddler, one of the few 24-hour restaurants in town.

“We kind of do the same things over and over again,” she said. “We have movie nights and go to Dairy Queen, stuff like that.”

Matter of perspective

Some are taking the initiative to change that routine by bring new opportunities to their town. At Crook County High School, library tech Darcy Bedortha said she’s working with students to continue open-mic nights in the library coffee shop for students to perform songs and poetry. She said there’s also a movement under way to start intramural programs in volleyball, lacrosse and ultimate Frisbee and to use the library space for karaoke or stand-up comedy.

The key to any new program’s success, she said, will be student involvement. “We’re waiting for the kids to step up and take it,” she said. “If we say ‘come here, do this,’ they won’t.”

Hamon said more adults in Prineville seem to be realizing there is a growing need for entertainment and that the Prineville of the future will probably look very different than the place she grew up in.

“I know a lot of kids who do things that are really not good because they don’t have anything else to do, and they get trapped in it,” she said. “I think adults are kind of getting hip to the fact that kids are bored and don’t have anything to do and that they need positive, fun things to do.”

The bottom line, said Prineville Police Chief Eric Bush, is that teens in a community of any size can choose to find outlets for their energy instead of complaining about having nothing to do. He said the community has already changed dramatically in the 20 years since he moved to town.

“As far as things to do in Prineville, it’s a matter of perspective,” he said. “If you’re a young man or young woman and you’ve seen the things you can do in Portland or Bend, you might feel like there’s nothing to do. But I think the reality is if you grew up in a town like Paulina and you saw all the things you can do in Prineville, you’d be able to say the same thing.”