In a place where everybody knows everybody, a version of you circulates whether it is accurate or not, stitched together out of fragments and old news. You cannot correct it directly, because arguing with a story only feeds it, but it has one real weakness: it gets tested against your actual behaviour every single day. Conduct outlasts rumour in a small town because people keep watching.

Decide what you want to be known for and do it repeatedly where it can be seen. Skip the defence speeches entirely. Let the pile of ordinary evidence do the correcting.