The Grand Rapids Press | By Kim Reinstalder | August 18, 2010

Joel Hawksley | The Grand Rapids PressTiny Glenn School is more like "Little Home on the Prairie" than a typical public school.

GLENN — With a rural setting, hardwood floors, high ceilings, old-fashioned desks and only 41 students, the Glenn elementary school in Allegan County is reminiscent of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” schoolhouse.

The tiny school is the state’s oldest continuously operating rural school. It’s also a rarity in Michigan: one of only 22 non-charter public schools with fewer than 50 students.

It has no teachers’ union, no lunch service, no busing, no gym. When weather doesn’t permit exercise outdoors, students usually practice yoga.

Drugs? Bullying? “Not a problem,” said Mike O’Connor, the part-time administrator of the three-room K-6 school.

Parent involvement? “Off the charts,” he says, beaming.

And money?

Also not a problem.

BBC | September 10, 2010

A tractor has been "pimped up" in police livery - complete with blue flashing light - to help fight criminals in rural Lincolnshire.

The John Deere 6630 will be a star attraction at farmers' markets, where it will be used to raise awareness of crime prevention techniques.

It will help promote the use of Smartwater DNA marking and the Farm and Country Business Watch scheme.

Police said the tractor was a bit of fun but carries a serious message.

 The Clarion-Ledger | September 7, 2010

The nation's rural highway system needs significant improvement and Mississippi is an excellent example of why that's true.

A new study by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials concludes that more investment is needed in America's rural transportation system to keep agriculture, new energy products and freight moving; improve access for the travel, recreation, and tourism industries; connect new and emerging cities; and to ensure reliable access to key defense installations.

By Steph Larsen

Cuts in public spending lead to loss of services, especially for rural communities. While there’s little a community can do after it loses its school or post office to make up for that lost infrastructure, an NPR story set in Appleton, England tells of one town’s commitment to keep their “community shop”.

Listen here:

The shop serves as the small town’s grocery store, post office, bank, and gossip center. They’ve made their model work for 10 years, even as the “town cynics” said they wouldn’t last 6 months. Empowered and energized by their success of their store, they’ve begun a 10-year planning process to improve broadband access, retain their medical clinic, and build a playground.

I bet they’ll be successful in those areas too, because they have momentum in their favor - pride in their community, a furious desire to keep their town alive despite setbacks, and residents willing to take the time to make it happen and step into leadership positions.

This could be your town. Will you take the lead and make it happen?

By Lance Evans
(Editor's note: We'd like to thank Lance for his hard work with us this spring and summer! Good luck, Lance!)

Recently I was lucky to attended the Midwest Rural Assembly in South Sioux City, Nebraska. The Midwest Rural Assembly was a two day event that featured presenters, round-table discussions and delicious locally-sourced foods.

In addition to a round-table about beginning farmer programs and food access in rural areas, I attended a discussion about leadership in rural communities. This discussion group was lead by Muriel Krusemark the Director of the Hoffman Economic Development Authority in Hoffman, Minnesota.

Muriel told us a brief history of Hoffman. Before Muriel arrived on the scene it was a familiar story in some rural areas. Businesses were closing, people were leaving and the town was taking a turn down a rough road. Luckily for Hoffman, Muriel was there to grab the wheel and turn the town around. With her unique approach to economic development she has taken the community to new heights.

More than 20 new businesses, a weekly farmers market that draws over 1/3 of the 672 residents and new facility that houses four health care professionals are a few of the staggering changes that have taken place with Muriel leading the community of Hoffman.

Muriel uses community building as a way to build the economy. Muriel has a map of the town on her wall with the name of each resident written on their property. When a new family moves to town Muriel rallies the troops and brings a welcome wagon, complete with freshly baked cookies, to their doorstep. She makes it a point to get people in the community involved in the economic growth.

Muriel's great success is a lesson to economic developers and rural citizens everywhere. Look inside your community. Rural communities are bursting with potential entrepreneurs and creating a sense of community amongst citizens can lead to amazing growth in rural areas.

Muriel is an excellent example of using economic development and community development hand in hand to make a town realize its potential.
 

By Lance Evans

A few weeks ago I attended the Nebraska Energy Fair. It was a fantastic event! There were presentations on everything from helpful household tips to conserve energy at home to how to support legislation for renewable energy standards. If you didn't make it to the 2010 Nebraska Energy Fair you should definitely keep an eye out for it in 2011.

One of the interesting people I met was an elderly gentleman from Lyons who had strolled seven or eight blocks down to the fair in search of some assistance. Turns out this gentleman lived in an apartment that did not have air conditioning, and needed someone to drive him to a nearby town to purchase a fan and to pick up vitamins at the local pharmacy.

Never being one to leave someone in a pinch, I offered my services as a chauffeur. Everyone needs a help now and then. What's a seven mile ride between strangers anyway?

We arrived at the pharmacy and he went inside. After a while I decided to go in, it seemed like he had been in there quite a while. I walked in and heard him having words with the attendant. He wanted a certain kind of vitamin that they did not carry, and as he left the store in a huff he half-shouted "Small towns are dying ain't they?" I stayed back for a second to apologize to the attendant for any trouble and she said that although they don't carry the vitamins, they would be happy to order them for him.

This situation is all too common in rural America. People believe that since a store doesn't carry something they want, they need to go someplace else to get it. If we all drive 30 miles to the nearest superstore, it hurts our communities. Buying locally supports your community and keeps money and opportunities in your town.

The vitality of a community hinges in what it can offer its citizens. If a community wants to remain vibrant, it has to have a variety of services and sales to offer both citizens and tourists. By diversifying sales and services a community can cater to more diverse audiences.

Next time you can't find a particular product strike up a conversation with your grocer, pharmacist or any store manager and ask if they can get a hold of it. Just a quick conversation can save you a costly trip.
 
Stores in small communities pride themselves on customer service. Each time I do business with a local store I get a sense of personal service that one cannot find in a superstore. The willingness to go the extra mile and make the costumer happy are responsibilities rural Americans take very seriously.

Buying local can save you time, money and keep rural America vibrant.
 

NPR, All Things Considered | By Sarah Varney | August 19, 2010

EnlargeSarah Varney/KQED

Modoc County is in the remote northeastern corner of California. Residents there will soon vote on whether to tax themselves to save their local hospital.

Residents in Modoc County, in the remote northeastern corner of California, will soon vote on whether to tax themselves to save their local hospital.

The county has gone broke trying to keep the hospital open, and a fractious debate has erupted in this proudly conservative frontier community over the best way forward.

A Lifeline

The hospital hallways at the Modoc Medical Center, like the nights, are quiet. It's been years since pregnant women could deliver their babies here. A surgeon comes just twice a month to do simple procedures. Even the helicopter pad is sprouting weeds.

But it's no exaggeration to say that the county hospital in Alturas — even with its limited services — is a lifeline to the people who live here. The closest full-service hospitals are hours away, and the nearby medical centers over the mountains are often unreachable during winter storms.

"They gotta have something," says Vicky Smith, 61, who moved to the area as a young girl. She now owns the Main Street Family Diner. "There's a lot of retired people here, a lot of 'em. And if they don't have medical, they'll have to leave.

The talk of the diner, and elsewhere in the remote Pit River Valley, is the fiscal calamity that could force the hospital to close and the county to go bankrupt.

An outside audit found that county supervisors improperly used restricted funds to bail out the hospital, which was losing millions of dollars a year. Now, the county has to pay back some $12.5 million in federal and state grants. And the hospital is on its own to make ends meet.

"It's almost living paycheck to paycheck basically," says Monica Derner, the hospital's interim chief executive. She's the seventh CEO in the past four years. "And some months are better than others. And sometimes the payables are more current than other times. And it's kind of just juggling the finances around to make it work right," she says

Radio Iowa | By O.Kay Henderson | August 19, 2010

The general manager of a rural telephone company says extending “broadband” service is key to getting young people to live in rural Iowa.

“It’s a living, breathing network and it has to evolve as our needs evolve,” says Tom Conry, general manager of the Farmers Mutual Cooperative Telephone Company in Harlan. 

Broadband service is “essential” for entrepreneurs in rural Iowa, according to Conry. Having high-speed lines available can help attract “telecommuters” as well. 

 Blog for Iowa | By Paul Denton | August 14, 2010

"...the management of network discrimination (how packets of data are prioritized) on routers owned by large corporations is a matter in the public interest. Most of us have not questioned how this has been done and hold a view that there is Net Neutrality. The truth is that Net Neutrality, for those who have access, has never been neutral..."

The age of home computers dawned in 1995 at our house with the purchase of an Acer desktop computer and a subscription to dial up internet service. The computer cost more than a thousand dollars, and we felt we could afford it. In fact, we felt we needed the computer to help with our daughter's education in an increasingly computerized world. We fondly remember our small family gathering in the kitchen, listening to the modem squawk and watching the screen as we dialed into the internet for the first time.

The author had been using personal computers at work since 1989, but home use, with Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers, was exploding. The revolution that was dial-up internet service, where we could access web pages at businesses, colleges, universities and government sites, was remarkable. One of the innovative features of Netscape was that it allowed the pages to load text and graphics to appear on the screen as they downloaded. We did not understand why a page loaded the way it did, and were more interested in content than the technology behind receiving it. We understood that something was behind slow-loading web pages, but not exactly what.

We live in rural Iowa, and high speed internet was slow coming to us. While we now have three choices of service providers, for what seemed like the longest time, dial-up was our slow-moving standard. This is true throughout much of rural Iowa. Many believe high speed internet should be a utility available to all, just like electricity.