Rural Renewal Monitor

USDA seeks applicants for energy projects

Casey Francis — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:46:41 +0000

New Mexico Business Weekly | July 9, 2009

Farmers, ranchers and rural small businesses have until July 31 to apply for funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for renewable energy or energy efficiency projects.

The funding is available under the Rural Energy for America program, which was part of the 2008 Farm Bill. Farmers, ranchers and small businesses in rural areas can apply to USDA Rural Development for government-guaranteed loans to cover 75 percent of a project’s cost, up to $25 million. Grants are available to cover 25 percent of a project’s cost, with a limit of $500,000 for renewable energy projects and $250,000 for energy efficiency projects.

Eligible energy efficiency projects include retrofitting lighting or insulation, or buying more efficient equipment. Renewable energy projects eligible for the grants include those that produce energy from wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, hydropower and hydrogen-based sources. Projects that produce any form of energy — including heat, electricity or fuel — are eligible.

The program was designed to help farmers, ranchers and rural small businesses that demonstrate financial need. All agricultural producers that get 50 percent or more of their gross income from their agricultural operations are eligible. Small businesses located in rural areas can also apply, and rural electric cooperatives may be eligible to apply.

For more information on the Rural Energy for America program, visit the Web site or contact Jesse Bopp at (505) 761-4952 or by e-mail at jesse.bopp@nm.usda.gov.

http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2009/07/06/daily72.html

The Rural Life: How the Thunder Sounds

Casey Francis — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:43:07 +0000

By Verlyn Klinkenborg | the New York Times | July 5, 2009

For the past month, late-afternoon thunderstorms have coasted across this farm with an almost reassuring regularity. After three or four storms in as many afternoons, they seem almost domesticated — an aunt or uncle stopping in for a surly tea but leaving the air surprisingly refreshed in the aftermath. While the storm was building one day, I found myself thinking of new words, a new lexicon, to imagine the march of those storms. As the skies darkened around teatime once again, I could have sworn I heard crumpeting in the distance.

It is late afternoon as I write. There is blundering beyond the tree line. Soon the tuberous blunderheads trundle over the horizon; they begin to “wampum, wampum, wampum” until at last they’re vrooming nearby, just down the valley. Or perhaps they’re harrumphing and oomphing, from the very omphalos of the storm. Onomatopoeia is such a delicate thing.

But as the clouds tumble into position directly overhead, the sound changes, as does the color of the day. Suddenly the air is grackling, dark and furious in its plumage. The lightning and thunder begin to come as one — ZEBU! ZEBU! — drowning out the wishing of the rain and the concurring of the wind, which turns the maple leaves white-side up. Hail begins to adder on the skylights, and soon the only light left in the world is the sickly green of the storm’s hunkering belly. The roar in my ear is the sound of the gravel road toshing away, worsing downhill and forming a lake on the highway. Water runs in revels and midriffs through the pasture, where the horses stand indifferent to the caucus around them.

And then, just like that it’s over, only a bumbling far to the east, a last snicker of lightning. The sun gloats in the sky, casting a gleam on the pasture where there was so much umbering and ochreing only moments before. The static electricity of the day has been discharged, and with it the linguistic oddness I have been feeling. The storm, I realize, has left me ravenous, hungry as a raven.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/opinion/06mon4.html?em

Grant to help recruit librarians to rural areas

Casey Francis — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:20:18 +0000

The Daily Republic | By the Associated Press | July 6, 2009

South Dakota is one of several states in the region receiving money to help recruit and educate librarians for rural communities.

The $730,659 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services provides scholarships for 50 librarians and school library media specialists in South Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

Students studying for a master's degree in library science will participate in the University of North Texas distance education program. School library media students will attend either Montana State University or Black Hills State University in South Dakota.

The Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant will emphasize recruiting from the region's largest minority groups _ Hispanics and Native Americans.

http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/apArticle/id/D998STFG1/

Hybrid Cellular Satellite Will Boost Rural Coverage

Casey Francis — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:59:31 +0000

NewsFactor.com | By Mark Young | July 2, 2009

Arianespace has launched a satellite for TerreStar Networks, which plans a satellite/cellular service for rural areas in the U.S. and Canada. TerreStar has a Windows Mobile smartphone that will automatically switch to the satellite wherever AT&T service is not available. TerreStar-1 will also be used by emergency services.

European space transportation provider Arianespace launched its largest satellite ever on Wednesday on behalf of TerreStar Networks -- a Virginia-based company that intends to inaugurate a hybrid satellite/cellular service in the United States and Canada later this year.

TerreStar Networks has already developed a Windows Mobile smartphone with QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen capabilities for its new hybrid service. The handset will automatically switch from AT&T's terrestrial cellular network to a satellite link at any location within the 50 U.S. states where AT&T's local coverage is unavailable.

"We believe there are tremendous opportunities ahead -- in both the commercial and government sectors," said TerreStar President Jeff Epstein. "And we remain focused on our promise to help solve the critical communications and business-continuity challenges faced by government, emergency responders, enterprises and rural communities."

Creating a New Paradigm

The new TerreStar-1 satellite is equipped with an 18-meter reflector capable of sending and receiving signals via about 500 spot beams, each of which will function as a cellular tower in the sky for a specific localized area. Moreover, each individual spot beam can be custom controlled to increase the available capacity for emergency personnel responding to a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which decimated a large part of southern Louisiana's communications infrastructure.

"TerreStar-1 has the capability to increase both power and capacity dynamically across spot beams with advanced ground-based beam-forming technology," a company spokesperson said. "This feature will be especially important to emergency responders and other critical users."

TerreStar's $300 million satellite also has the potential to fulfill one of the priority objectives of the national broadband plan currently under development at the FCC. Later this year, the fledgling network operator intends to begin providing core voice, data and video services to rural businesses and consumers in areas where cellular coverage is spotty or even nonexistent.

"We are creating a new paradigm in mobile broadband network services and devices that will leverage our integrated satellite and terrestrial communications components to enable true ubiquity and reliability -- anywhere in the United States and Canada," said TerreStar CTO Dennis Matheson.

Software-Defined Radio

Last year, TerreStar completed an agreement with Qualcomm under which the chipmaker agreed to provide manufacturers with integrated satellite-cellular communications devices that can be incorporated into their handset designs, beginning next year. What's more, TerreStar announced an agreement with Infineon Technologies in April under which the European chipmaker will provide software-defined radio (SDR) technology for TerreStar's handsets, which will feature both quad-band GSM and tri-band WCDMA/HSPA radios.

"The programmable nature of SDR technology allows for feature upgrades via software and shortest-ever turnaround times for next-generation products," Matheson said.

Infineon's SDR mobile chipset, which consists of a single baseband device and one RF transceiver, reportedly contains all the technology necessary to enable a complete range of GSM and WCDMA cellular communication capabilities into a mobile device with small form factors. The new chipset will begin sampling to handset OEMs in the third quarter.

Still, previous-generation mobile satellite services such as GlobalStar and Iridium have failed to gain significant traction largely because of their high per-minute costs. For TerreStar to succeed during tough economic times it won't be enough to offer a flashy handset; it will also have to deliver services at a significantly lower cost.

"TerreStar is a carriers' carrier, so the prices charged to end users will be up to our partners," a company spokesperson said. "Our pricing to our partners is confidential, but we expect it to be extremely competitive and game-changing with respect to today's mobile satellite offerings."

http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Satellite-To-Boost-Rural-Coverage/story.x...

Obama administration touring competitive rural districts

Casey Francis — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:17:13 +0000

LA Times | By Peter Nicholas | July 2, 2009
Reporting from Washington — The White House bills it as a "listening tour," a chance for President Obama's Cabinet to get out of Washington and hear what's on the minds of rural voters around the country.
En route, the White House is making sure it reaches voters in crucial swing districts.

The itinerary laid out by the White House for its just-announced "Rural Tour" includes several politically competitive districts, which would give the Obama administration a chance to make its case to people who voted Republican in past congressional races but are now represented by Democrats up for reelection in 2010.

As part of the tour, 10 Cabinet secretaries are being dispatched to nine states over the summer. Locations include several districts that Republicans are targeting in next year's midterm elections.

The tour is one of several examples of administration officials crisscrossing the country to tout Obama's agenda and foster goodwill.

First Lady Michelle Obama is now part of the act. On Monday, she visited a community health center in Washington, D.C., to announce that $850 million in stimulus money will go to various health clinics.

The tour opened Wednesday in northwestern Pennsylvania, in a district represented by Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, a Democrat who ousted a longtime Republican in the 2008 election.

Vice President Joe Biden made an appearance, announcing that $4 billion in federal stimulus money would be made available nationwide to help bring broadband service to areas that lack coverage.

In an interview afterward, Dahlkemper said that stimulus funds could be an important tool in winning over rural voters, showing them that the federal government is pumping resources into their regions.

The stimulus money "is helping rural areas, which tend to lean politically more to the right," Dahlkemper said.

The administration's roadshow comes as support for some of the president's policies is softening. Although Obama still enjoys strong personal approval ratings, more people are worried about the deficit and are skeptical that the $787-billion stimulus will improve economic conditions. Another concern for the president is that the unemployment rate is expected to worsen; Obama has predicted it will top 10%.

In this climate, deploying Cabinet members throughout the country serves important political purposes, some Democratic strategists said.

Appearing in swing districts gives political cover to Democratic members who may be worried that they risk a conservative voter backlash if they support Obama's healthcare and global warming plans. The visits also could boost the reelection prospects of potentially vulnerable Democrats.

The locations picked for the tour were "not an accident at all," said Joe Trippi, a veteran of Democratic presidential primary campaigns. "They're sending them to districts that are swing districts."

White House spokesman Shin Inouye said the itinerary was not shaped by political considerations.

"We choose locations that represent broad geographical diversity for rural America and themes that are appropriate for each location," Inouye said.

One administration official said that a third of the states chosen for the tour were won by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in last year's presidential race -- proof, the official said, that the White House was not excluding red states that may be cool to Obama's message.

On July 18, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will appear in Ringgold, Va., to talk about plans for renewable energy. Ringgold is part of a southern Virginia district represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello, who narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Virgil H. Goode Jr. last year.

Republicans are targeting Perriello for defeat in 2010. On Monday, the National Republican Congressional Committee announced it was mounting an advertising blitz against more than a dozen Democrats, including Perriello, who voted for the Obama-backed energy bill meant to curb global warming.

Told of the visit to Perriello's district, Ken Spain, a spokesman for the Republican campaign committee, said: "The president is clearly engaged in damage control. Both he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked a number of Democrats to walk off a cliff."

On Aug. 16, Vilsack and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will stop in Zanesville, Ohio, in a district represented by Democratic Rep. Zack Space. Space won the seat in 2006, ending 12 years of Republican control.

The GOP is hoping to recapture the seat next year. The National Republican Congressional Committee included Space in the ad campaign that also targets Perriello.

The day after the Ohio visit, Vilsack and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are to appear in a North Carolina district held by freshman Democrat Larry Kissell. In 2008, Kissell defeated a Republican who had first been elected 10 years earlier.

peter.nicholas@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-obama-outreac...

Rural school's closure called unconstitutional

Casey Francis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:20:23 +0000

Arkansas Democrat Gazette | By John Krupa | June 29, 2009

Closing isolated schools because of high transportation costs violates the Arkansas Constitution, an attorney representing a group of parents fighting to keep their rural schools open argued in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Friday.

Parents of students who last year attended the elementary and high school in Fourche Valley are asking Circuit Judge Collins Kilgore to block the Two Rivers School District's plan to close the combined campus.

Under the district's plan, Fourche Valley's 139 students would be bused to the district's K-12 Plainview-Rover campus.

Plainview-Rover is 15 miles past Fourche Valley and the resulting bus routes mean some students will spend four hours per day on the school bus, parents say.

Two Rivers Superintendent Sherry Holliman said the district will save money by eliminating the cost of operating Fourche Valley, by cutting staff positions and by reducing bus routes. The district has struggled with declining fund balances in recent years. The students also will benefit from increased academic and extracurricular offerings at Plainview-Rover, she said.

The Arkansas Board of Education, which also was named in the lawsuit, voted 5-2 to uphold the district's plan in April.

Clay Fendley, an attorney representing four sets of Fourche Valley parents who filed the lawsuit, argued in court Friday that the travel time is excessive and violates the students' right to an adequate education.

The problem, Fendley said, is that the state is not providing adequate transportation funding for rural districts like Two Rivers.

All Arkansas schools receive the same $286 per student annually for transportation, even though rural districts like Two Rivers have significantly higher transportation costs than urban districts, he said.

Fendley said the state needs to undertake a study to determine how much is too much time on a bus for students, and then provide adequate funding so districts like Two Rivers can reach that goal.

"Until it addresses those issues, any closure of an isolated school [because of transportation costs] is a violation of the Arkansas Constitution," he said.

Tripp Walter, an attorney for the state Department of Education, argued that the closure, and the attendant cost savings, do not violate students' constitutional rights. No student has the right to attend any specific school, he said.

The closure, and the attendant cost savings, are in the best interests of all Two Rivers' students, he said.

Kilgore is the judge who in 2001 declared the state's public school funding system unconstitutional. His ruling was ultimately upheld by the Arkansas Supreme Court and resulted in state lawmakers revamping the funding system.

That included the passage of Act 60 of the 2003 special legislative session on education that requires school districts with fewer than 350 students to merge with one or more other districts as a way to promote efficiency.

All schools in the newly merged districts were initially allowed to remain open. Act 1397 of 2005 allows a school board in a consolidated district to close school campuses that are considered to be isolated - but only if the local school board vote on the closure is unanimous.

If the vote is affirmative for the closure of a school but not unanimous - as was the case with the Twin Rivers board - the school board can petition the state Education Board to close the school.

Long bus rides remain a concern among rural school districts affected by the state-mandated mergers.

Kilgore said Friday that before he issues a ruling the state board must file documents explaining point-by-point its educational and legal rationale for approving the closure plan in April.

The only information filed with the court Friday was a transcript of the April meeting.

Kilgore set a hearing for July 16 to consider the new information. That's three days after the next state board meeting on July 13.

Jerry Ferguson was one of more than 20 Fourche Valley patrons who attended the hearing. A group of about 10 Two Rivers administrators sat on the opposite side of the courtroom.

Ferguson, who is participating in the lawsuit, said after the hearing that her three grandchildren already spend about 90 minutes riding the school bus each day.

If Fourche Valley closes, they'll spend at least four hours on the bus daily.

That much time on the road is unhealthy, makes it difficult to complete homework and limits their participation in extracurricular activities, she said.

"They're already on the bus before daylight in the winter," she said. "If you expect children to learn, they need time to have breakfast in the morning, time to study after school and have some playtime too."

The controversy began in March when the Two Rivers School Board voted 6-1 to close Fourche Valley.

Since the vote was not unanimous - the lone dissenter represents the Fourche Valley area - Arkansas law required the Arkansas Board of Education to approve the decision.

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/263126/

Obama team members to fan out on summer rural tour

Casey Francis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:35:53 +0000

The Kansas City Star | By the Associated Press | June 30, 2009

President Barack Obama is dispatching top administration officials and Cabinet members on a "rural tour" this summer to explore ways to strengthen rural America.

The tour starts Wednesday in Wattsburg, Pa., where Vice President Joe Biden, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will discuss rural broadband service.

The White House says other events will be held in Alaska, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. In addition, Vilsack will hold "listening sessions" in other states with local and state elected officials.

Obama says "a healthy American economy depends on a prosperous rural America."

http://www.kansascity.com/444/story/1299464.html

Power Line Frenzy Hits Rural America

Casey Francis — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:24:48 +0000

To get power from wind turbines to customers in the cities will require thousands of miles of new transmission lines. Wind is the easy part. Building the lines is tougher.

DailyYonder.com | By Bill Bishop | June 29, 2009

John Curley Tens of thousands of miles of new transmission lines are being planned. They'll cross somebody's land.

My wife’s family has operated a ranch in West Texas for going on five generations, ever since an adventurous New Yorker sailed to Galveston in the 1870s, bought some sheep and settled, finally, west of the fort in San Angelo. The land isn’t pristine. It’s been grazed and sections have been punched by companies looking for oil and gas. But the ranch is an amazing piece of West Texas landscape.

The ranches are about to be criss-crossed by two high-voltage electric transmission lines to be built by a public power agency, the Lower Colorado River Authority. Our cousins aren’t happy. But there’s not a lot they can do except to try to steer the mammoth towers away from the ranch house and the motts of live oaks that thrive in the draws.

The LCRA lines near San Angelo are part of what some describe as a high-voltage “superhighway” being built across the country. There are tens of thousands of miles of new transmission lines planned or under construction, most traversing ranch and farm land. Some estimate that the country will spend up to $200 billion dollars building out a new electric grid. Most of that money will be spent in rural America, as new transmission lines are strung to connect the wind turbines on the Plains to the cities.

“The wind is the easy part, much easier than the transmission,” said Shelley Sahling-Zart, a vice president of the Lincoln (Nebraska) Electric System. Finding the billions needed for new transmission lines will be difficult. And many of the people standing in the way of this new “superhighway” of high tension lines and giant erector sets of pylons and steel will put up a fuss. Bureau of Land Management The SunZia transmission line will cut 460 miles across New Mexico and Arizona

They are already resisting. Last week, some 400 landowners in rural Central Texas showed up for a Saturday night meeting to protest a new transmission line that would require a 20-mile long, 160-foot wide trail to be clearcut through ranch land near the Lampasas River.

"This would be an ecological disaster,” said Lynn Eyberg, president of Save the Lampasas, a citizens group. “It would damage hunting and fishing in the area and seriously impact the livelihood of a lot of the landowners." The Eyberg’s (Lynn and Doug) have a ranch in Oakalla, Texas and one of the routes of the new line will go within 500 feet of the river on their property.

The news is filled with these conflicts between landowners and those who are building the new transmission lines. Two hundred people in Livermore, California, turned out last month to protest a 600-mile transmission line that would run through the farms and vineyards of Alameda County. Similar protests have cropped up in New York and California.

The oldest story in the country is that rural America pays the largest price for producing the power used in the cities. But the massive investment in transmission lines that is now underway is immensely complicated. The construction of new lines and the lease payments they bring will benefit some rural residents, while others see it as unmitigated destruction.

Landowner is pitted again landowner, environmentalist against environmentalist and region against region:

• Millions of dollars in wind energy projects are being held up because there isn’t the transmission capacity to move the electricity into the cities. Ledyard King and Larry Bivins report in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader that up to 300,000 megawatts of wind projects are on hold because of insufficient transmission capacity. "It's a huge problem for future development," said Steve Wegman, executive director of the South Dakota Wind Energy Association. "It's like sitting on 1 million bushels of corn and having no way to move it out of there other than a five-gallon bucket." Transmission capacity is the “glass ceiling for renewable energy development right now,” said one wind energy advocate.

• The argument for spending billions of dollars for new transmission lines comes from environmentalists who want to replace coal-fired power plants with wind power. They describe new electric lines as “green power superhighways.” Other environmentalists say this is a “green oxymoron,” that there is nothing more environmentally destructive than clear-cuts and power lines overlording plains, pastures and wilderness.

• Finally, there is a regional disagreement over the need to build new transmission lines. Western states see a clear need for new lines. Eastern states aren’t so sure.

Wavy...(just a figment) Powerlines cut across the High Plains of Colorado.

David Sassoon writes that Eastern states fear that spending billions on moving wind power from the West to the East will make the system less reliable and will forestall alternative energy development on their side of the Mississippi River. Eleven governors of states along the eastern seaboard wrote: "While we support the development of wind resources for the United States wherever they exist, this ratepayer funded revenue-guarantee for land-based wind and other generation sources in the Great Plains would have significant, negative consequences for our region."

State and federal officials are working through the conflicts the transmission line boom is creating. In mid-June, federal and state officials in the West signed an agreement pledging to work together on protecting wildlife corridors used by migratory animals such as pronghorn, caribou, mule deer and elk.

"By making wildlife protection an integrated part of our clean energy effort, we will tap the West's renewable energy resources more quickly and in a more responsible way," Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar said. "This agreement will accelerate renewable energy projects and new transmission lines and the jobs those projects will create."

Meanwhile, Congress may give the federal government the power to override state decisions about transmission line routing. Last week a Senate committee passed legislation that “would give the federal government authority to override state objections to expanding electricity transmission lines,” according to a Reuters report. The energy bill passed by the House contains funding for new transmission lines.

The Pew Center for Climate Change calculates that if wind power is to provide 20% of the nation’s power by 2030, as much as $4 billion a year will have to be used to build new transmission lines, a 50% increase over what is currently spent. Adding these expenses to the cost of wind raises the price of this renewable resource by 15 percent.

Pew figures these new transmission lines cost between $2 and $4 million per mile. And until they’re built, the potential for wind energy will be stymied.

http://www.dailyyonder.com/power-line-frenzy-hits-rural-america/2009/06/29/2202

Wind Farmers: United We Profit

Casey Francis — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:38:03 +0000

DailyYonder.com | By Douglas Burns | June 18, 2009

Courtesy of National Wind The "Jeffers 20" wind project, a community-based energy development managed by National Wind, operates in Cottonwood County, Minnesota, with 20 2.5 megawatt Clipper turbines. Its power is being sold to Xcel.

Organizing farmers.

It's how the United States of America won the Revolutionary War. And two Omaha, Nebraska, lawyers say that Midwest landowners can succeed with the same strategy.

Ron Comes and Steven Case, with McGrath North Mullin & Kratz, have been involved in organizing landowners and other groups to negotiate more favorable arrangements with utilities and wind companies for the siting of turbines.

The basic principle: “An individual acting on his own behalf has no bargaining power,” Comes said.

Many Iowans live in places with ideal wind patterns for turbines. As wind energy develops at a breakneck pace, many landowners, acting as if they have won a lottery of sorts when a utility or wind company knocks on their door, sign up quickly for the deals as presented, not realizing they may be able to negotiate.

Signing up might be a fine option for some people, Comes said. But with a raft of federal incentives, as well as growing political favor for higher renewable energy standards, Iowans are in a position to organize and work for better deals.

Comes said that, by a conservative estimate, a 1.5 megawatt wind turbine brings $184,000 in revenue annually. Tax incentives drive most of the investment.

Landowners who strike better deals can be “getting a little bit more of the action that’s coming in at that level,” Comes said.

Some landowners may do well for themselves by signing individual leases for placement of turbines on their property, Comes said. Alternatively, he said, landowners can organize, perhaps as townships or in other groups to work with wind energy developers or utilities, entities that will likely be chasing more arrangements in the Midwest in coming years.

“We’ve got the land,” attorney Steven Case said. “We’ve got good wind. We bring that to the table.”

There is potential beyond smaller-scale projects, Comes said. Landowners can form groups and seek out wind energy companies for utility-sized deals.

“Now we’re starting to see some really big community projects,” Comes said, for example, Dakota Wind Energy, LLC, in northeast South Dakota.

Dakota Wind Energy Board members of Dakota Wind Energy and expert Ben Kerl met with students and faculty of Lakes Area Technical College's wind assessment program, Watertown, S.D.

This project, expected to involve 500 wind turbines and create 750 megawatts of wind power over three counties: Roberts, Day and Marshall. Projections call for enough power to be created for 220,000 homes. There is significant local ownership in Dakota Wind Energy, so that much of the investment and profits stay in the area; in many arrangements, wind companies and utilities pay a limited lease to landowners and send much of the money to out-of-state investors.

Dakota Wind Energy is just one of 13 community-based energy projects under the umbrella of Minneapolis-based National Wind.

Typical lease arrangements for placement of a 1.5-megawatt turbine on property run between $6,000 and $9,000 a year, says Erin Edholm, director of communications for National Wind.
But with a community wind project, landowners pull more profit — as much as 10 times, she said.

Why? “The short answer is, you get a share of the profits from the wind farm,” Edholm said, plus the lease.

For the South Dakota project, the company is working with about 400 landowners over the three counties. Once they sign an agreement for wind rights, landowners can choose to apply an upfront cash payment for those rights to equity in the project. Residents from the project-area can also purchase equity in the National Wind development, which essentially functions as a cooperative.

Edholm said that National Wind concentrates on working with communities in a collective effort rather than approaching landowners one by one with contracts.

Steven Case said that as federal and state governments mandate higher percentages of renewable energy, more companies will come to Iowa to develop projects.

Offshore turbines will have some success, but most wind energy will be developed on land, Case said. “The majority of it is going to be in the middle of the country,” he said.

U.S. Department of Energy South Dakota has some of the greatest wind resources in the nation. This map shows areas when wind-power potential is outstanding (red), excellent (purple), good (pink), and fair (gold).

He expects mandates for more renewable energy sooner rather than later. “I think something is going to get passed,” Case said. “You have a Democratic president. You have a Democratic Congress.”

One financing structure that may work well in certain cases for local people and developers is called “the flip.” In this arrangement, the developer, usually backed by an investor seeking the large federal tax credits, will take 99 percent of the profits for the first 10 years to get the tax advantage. Once the tax advantages have been realized, the profit percentages flip in favor of the landowner.

Additionally, there are U.S. Department of Agriculture loans and grants available for wind projects, including money for initial studies.

By blending government programs with investors’ appetites for tax credits, and by organizing themselves, groups of rural residents may be able to take on large-dollar energy projects.

http://www.dailyyonder.com/wind-farmers-united-we-profit/2009/06/18/2168

Alaska seeks rural education director

Casey Francis — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:48:33 +0000

KTVA | By Staff | June 25, 2009

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Childhood Development

JUNEAU - The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development is now accepting applications for the new position of Director of Rural Education.

The intent is for the director to help bring about education reform through a variety of approaches, including bridging the cultural differences between rural communities and the public education system.

"The goal is to help students in rural Alaska be academically successful," said Alaska Education Commissioner Larry LeDoux. "The position reflects the state's philosophy of valuing public schools and formal education and, at the same time, valuing Alaska's diverse cultures and the rural ways of life and knowledge. When we blend these, we have strong schools that belong to their communities."

The director will build the capacity of the department, school districts and rural communities to meet the academic needs of rural students. The fundamental task is to engage communities in their schools and to assist educators in working with the communities. It is a hands-on, community-level position.

The director will work with local school boards and schools; parents, elders and other community members; Native and rural government and service agencies; the University of Alaska and other universities and research entities; and other resources for schools in rural communities.

"The director will be an integral part of the department's team that works for comprehensive improvement in low-performing schools,"

Commissioner LeDoux said. The director will be a leader in implementing the Alaska Education Plan to ensure academic success for rural Alaskans, and will supervise the implementation of the state's cultural standards for schools, LeDoux said.

The position will be based in Juneau and involve extensive travel. The position is range 24, paying from approximately $6,740 to $7,215 a month, depending on experience, and receives the usual state benefits. It is an exempt position and is not represented by any collective bargaining unit.

http://www.ktva.com/ci_12688584

Program targets rural schools

Casey Francis — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:30:46 +0000

The Chicago Tribune | By Associated Press | June 20, 2009

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A new program intended to put more math, science and technology teachers in rural Indiana schools is moving ahead with a first class of nearly 60 teachers.

Fifty-eight applicants were chosen from a pool of more than 300 with backgrounds in math, technology, engineering and science for the Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship program.

Eighteen of those fellows will attend Purdue University and 20 each will attend IUPUI and the University of Indianapolis. Ball State University will take a class of fellows next summer.

Each student will receive a $30,000 stipend during the one-year master's program to nurture them and turn them into teachers. In the second year, they'll teach full-time in rural schools.

Lauren Klemme of West Lafayette, a 2002 Purdue graduate who specializes in math, said she was attracted to the program because of the small-town focus.

"I really liked the rural aspect of it," she said. "I spent five years working and living in Chicago, and I never really got into city life, so I would love to teach math at a rural high school."

In addition to the one-year stipends, Purdue will provide the fellows with graduate tuition scholarships.

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., and Lilly Endowment Inc. are providing the funding for the fellowship.

The fellowship is only in Indiana, for now. But there are plans to expand the program to other schools and states.

Rural school districts near Tippecanoe County and in southeastern Indiana have already signed on to partner with the fellows and place them in schools once they complete the program.

The novice teachers attending Purdue will participate in STEM Goes Rural, a program created to staff rural secondary schools with teachers who are trained in education and science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

"Purdue is very committed to science education. This program is something that really embodies Purdue and the passion we have," said Randy Woodson, Purdue's executive vice president for academic affairs and provost.

Sidney Moon, associate dean in the Purdue College of Education, said once the fellows begin teaching, the foundation will continue to aid them as they start their careers.

"This is a find, educate and assist program," she said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-science-ruralscho,0,6430818.story

Helping the Rural Homeless in Tennessee

Casey Francis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:35:30 +0000

The Atlantic | June 21, 2009 | By Christina Davidson

On a slightly-more-than-one-lane road, off a winding country drive, off TN-63 deep in the forested beauty of the eastern Cumberland Plateau, a new homeless shelter opened its doors five months ago. Partially shielded from the road by a dense thicket of trees, the former abandoned building now housing the Scott County Homeless Shelter would look still abandoned if it weren't for the cars parked outside.

Only after entering the door marked "office" do I realize I've just walked into someone's living space without invitation. Faux pas already committed, I sheepishly sit down at a kitchen table to wait for its resident to finish a phone call.

A big screen TV dominates one end of the windowless room, broadcasting closed-circuit video monitoring six different areas of the shelter. Cases of soda, bottled water, and iced tea are stacked against one cement block wall. In a small bedroom off to one side, crumpled and twisted blue sheets typical of one who does not enjoy the luxury of a good night's sleep lie on top of a mattress on the floor.

Jerry Voiles emerges from his office with a big smile on his face. He's gregarious and energetic with a bushy mustache and an easy southern twang. I like him immediately.

Voiles spent the better part of his professional life earning six figures in the telecommunications industry. Then in the early 1990s he started reading the Bible. The deeper he got into the Good Book, the more an unsettling realization began to gnaw at him. "I had my priorities totally out of whack," he admits.

Within a few years, his complete spiritual evolution launched him down the path of serving others before himself. Now well into his 50s, Jerry only earns a $15,000 annual salary in his position as executive director of the new homeless shelter, though every word he speaks evinces the non-monetary riches his work endows.

If he sees someone in need, Gerry does what he can to help. The plight of others makes the minor discomforts of his own life irrelevant, and the human connections he establishes nurture his soul. "I'm concerned about other people," he says. "I'm worried they won't have enough food to feed their families. I have to do what I can to help."

Homelessness is not an entirely new phenomenon in the rural wilderness of the upper Cumberland Plateau, but with local unemployment rates jumping from 7.5% in 2007 to 18.3% today, increasing numbers of Scott County's 22,000 residents have found themselves unable to manage ordinary household expenses. There are no hard statistics documenting the extent of homelessness in the county, but increasing appeals to the area's social service organizations represent a growing crisis of significant proportions.

When the locally-based aid agency that established the shelter--the Morgan-Scott Project for Cooperative Christian Concerns--went before the county commission last summer to appeal for assistance with the project, community leaders had to be convinced of the existence of a homeless problem. Like many people, they perceived homelessness as primarily a plight of the urban poor. Morgan-Scott had already been providing critical and costly assistance to a handful of individuals, and took the position that the economic downturn would only increase the number of local residents with nowhere to live.

The lobbying worked. County commissioners agreed to provide a building for the shelter and cover the cost of utilities. Under the terms of a $1 three-year lease, Morgan-Scott took possession of the old Capital Hill School Building, which had remained a empty shell of concrete since a tornado ripped off part of its roof eight years ago. With a $14,000 grant from the Housing Assistance Council, countless smaller donations from the local community, and a small army of dedicated volunteers, Morgan-Scott set to transforming the dilapidated structure into a safe refuge for those in need.

Since opening doors in February, Gerry has welcomed about fifty people--including seven children--into the embrace of his new ad hoc community. The numbers who have turned up seeking help haven't yet reached the level initially anticipated, but that has taught Jerry meaningful lessons about the nature of his local community and culture.

"The close-knit family relationships in this area contribute to the lack of homeless using this shelter. If they're nice to their families, their families take them in," he explains. "I know of people who now have two, three, even four families living under one roof."

Further, he says, "People here are very proud. They don't want to admit that they're homeless." During the temperate months, many of those who don't want to impose on their family would set up camp and live outdoors, rather than accept the stigma associated with shelter life. Jerry expects his beds will begin filling up in late Fall as people start to come in from the cold.

Lest I begin to doubt the significance of the local economic crisis, Jerry puts in a call to the brilliantly-named Cammie Music, Section 8 manager for the surrounding region. When I ask Cammie if she has recently witnessed an increased need for housing assistance, she responds with an emphatically drawn out, "Ohhhhh, yes." She estimates there has been a 40% increase in requests for Section 8 housing in the past year. "I never had to do a waiting list until this year," she says. With a limited number of subsidized units available, the wait for housing could be nine to twelve months for those at the end of the line.

To help flesh out my impression of the local economic landscape, Jerry lets me tag along to attend the monthly inter-agency meeting of aid organizations serving Scott County. A common refrain echoes from everyone I meet in the dining room of the Oneida senior center. In the words of Kathy Rose, the center's director: "We're struggling. We're really struggling."

Most of the meeting revolves around discussion of where to seek additional grants, sponsorships, or other forms of financial support. Current prospects appear dim, and the non-profit workers and public servants appear overworked, exhausted, and discouraged--but not defeated.

Kathy Reed of Appalachia Habitat for Humanity--a warm grandmotherly woman who insists I should stay at her house during my visit--tells me that in the 14 years she has worked for the organization they consistently averaged about 70 applications per year. Since February, however, she has already received 52. The elderly usually make up the bulk of requests for assistance, but this year's influx comes from younger families who have fallen victim to the recession.

Kathy knows Appalachia Habitat won't be able to help everyone, but she doesn't let that stem her determination to do everything she can. Preparing for the arrival of two dozen volunteers from Fordham Prep in New York City, she stays focused on all the teenage boys will be able to accomplish during their three-week service vacation.

Sheneka Burchfield, who works for the mayor's office in Huntsville, reports that demand for assistance at area food banks has tripled over the past year. At the Scott County Food Bank, for example, 300 people now receive critical supplies every month, up from 100 last year.

Housing Opportunities and People Enterprises (HOPE, Inc)--a non-profit that provides housing and employment assistance--has experienced a similar increase in demand. Twenty families received aid from HOPE last year. Since April 1 they have already served seven families, and have 32 more on their waiting list. Case manager Misty Blevins says she has seen "pure desperation" in the people who have appealed for help this year. "These are people who have worked their whole lives. They have never had to seek aid before and don't know what services are available to them."

The lack of awareness of available assistance programs, sometimes coupled with a proud reluctance to ask for help, can add financial and emotional strain on extended families as multiple branches of the tree crowd under one roof. Misty repeats the troubling news I heard earlier from Jerry: Some who don't have local relations, or who don't want to impose on kin, retreat into the woods to live. Others at the meeting agree that tents have been sprouting up in remote locales, offering me directions to a couple of spots where I might look for campsites.

Later that afternoon, concerned about my safety, Jerry offers to take me out looking for some of the newly homeless taking up residence in the wild. He first calls the local police dispatcher, who confirms that the department has become aware of people living in the woods, offering directions to a couple of likely encampments.

Jerry navigates his Chevy Cobalt down a narrow gravel road, bumping over deep scars riven by an atypically rainy Spring. For miles we descend the steep incline leading toward the banks of the New River, scraping the undercarriage so many times that Jerry vaguely worries we may lose his oil pan.

The deeper we get into the woods, Jerry expresses doubt that we will be able to find anyone. "They don't want to be found," he explains. "They go deep because they're afraid. They're living on land they don't own, and the police would roust them if they could. The cruisers can't make it way back in. If the police find them, DCS (Department of Children's Services) could take their kids. So they hide."

As the gravel road turns to dirt, and the dirt road downgrades to mud, we decide to turn around before we get stuck deep in the distant suburbs of nowhere. Jerry has to get back to the shelter anyway. He locked up before we left, and doesn't want a diabetic resident waiting outside in the heat if he returns before we do.

On the drive back to the shelter, Jerry summarizes his outlook for the future: "I think we've hit bottom. I can't imagine how it could get worse. If it does, I just don't know what we'll do."

A ring of his cell phone interrupts the conversation. A friend is calling to request prayers for a local woman who has suffered life-threatening complications from surgery earlier in the day. "Absolutely," he tells her. "You can count on me."

As he finishes up his conversation, I find myself wishing it possible to bellow that message from the highest peak in Scott County, with a voice loud enough to reach those elusive homeless hiding in the forest.

Jerry lives to help others--relishes the opportunity to do so, in fact. No matter how bad things get, you can count on him.

If you would like to offer assistance to one of the community service organizations mentioned in this piece, send me an email at recessionroadtrip@gmail.com and I will put you in contact.

http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/christina_davidson/2009/06/on_a_slightly-more-than-one-lane_road_off.html

Rural bankers: Economy is weak, worst is over

Casey Francis — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:45:18 +0000

Forbes.com | June 19, 2009 | By the Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. -- A new survey of rural bankers in 11 Midwest and Plains states suggests the region's economy remains weak, but the bankers believe the worst of the recession has passed.

The Rural Mainstreet survey's overall index remained in negative territory in June when it slipped to 34 from May's 36.2. The survey, which indicates the economic health of smaller towns and rural areas, has an index that ranges between 0 and 100. Any score below 50 on the index suggests a contracting economy over the next three to six months and any score above 50 indicates a growing economy over that time.

Creighton University economics professor Ernie Goss said weaker farm income, closures and cutbacks for rural manufacturers and a weak U.S. economy continue to drag on the region's economy. But the overall index has improved significantly since setting a record low of 16.9 in February.

Goss and Bill McQuillan, chief executive of City National ( CYN - news - people ) Bank in Greeley, Neb., created the survey, which covers Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

The survey's confidence index, which reflects what the bankers expect six months from now, offers some hope. It declined to 52.2 in June from May's 56, but that index remains in positive territory, which is above 50.

"Bankers in our survey clearly think that the worst of the economic downturn is behind us," Goss said.

The survey suggests the farm sector remains under pressure because of the recession. The farmland price index increased to 45.7 in June from May's 39.2. The farm equipment sales index improved to 33.3 in June from May's 28.3.

Rural hiring remained weak in June with the hiring index declined to 29 from May's 29.3.

"Over the past 12 months, rural areas of the region have lost more than 4.7 percent of their jobs while urban areas in the region have seen more than 3.1 percent of their jobs disappear over the past year," Goss said.

The June retail sales index decreased to 33.7 from May's 34.9.

The rural home sales index also declined in June to 45.9 from May's 48.7.

However, the bankers reported healthy numbers for their businesses. The loan-volume index climbed to 56.1 in June from May's 46.7.

"We certainly have plenty of dollars to lend to qualified buyers who are seeking financing," McQuillan said.

The indexes for checking deposits and certificates of deposits both fell but remained above 50. The checking index registered 54.2 in June, down from May's 68. The savings index dipped to 54.1 from 59.3.

Almost 200 communities are represented in the survey, with the average community's population at about 1,300.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/06/19/ap6565480.html

Rural Americans Adopt Broadband, But Gap Remains

Casey Francis — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:45:19 +0000

The latest survey of broadband use finds that rural residents are adopting this technology quickly, but the gap between rural and urban remains.

DailyYonder.com | June 17, 2009 | By Bill Bishop

Pew Internet & American Life Project The percentage of Americans relying on dial-up connection to the Internet has dropped steadily. However, a third of those with dial-up live in rural America.

Rural Americans increased their adoption of broadband Internet technology at a rapid rate over the last year, according to a report released today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, but rural communities still lag far behind urban regions in the spread of fast Internet connections.

The percentage of rural residents with broadband connections increased from 38 percent in 2008 to 46 percent this year, a 21 percent increase in just one year. In 2006, just 25 percent of those living in rural America had home broadband.

But rural America still lags behind the rest of the country in broadband adoption. The gap between rural and urban use of home broadband remains unchanged since last year. (The 20 percentage point gap between rural and urban adoption of broadband found in 2006 has been consistent in all the Pew surveys, even as increasing numbers of people adopt broadband.) Rural residence remains one of the strongest predictors that a household will lack broadband access. Pew Internet & American Life Project Who has broadband access and who doesn't? A new survey shows that rural location is one of the strongest predictors that a household will lack broadband.

(To find a copy of the report, go here.)

The Pew Internet project conducts regular polls of how — and how many — Americans are using the web. In this survey, Pew surveyed 2,253 Americans, including 561 people with cell phone numbers.

This year’s survey showed that most groups that have lagged in adopting broadband in the past made significant progress in the last year. For instance, last year only 42% of those households with $20,000 to $30,000 in annual income had broadband. In this survey, Pew found that 53 percent of this relatively low-income group now had broadband.

African-Americans, however, experienced a second consecutive year of slow growth in broadband adoption. This year, 46 percent of African Americans had broadband at home, up only slightly from 43 percent in 2008 and 40 percent in 2007. Pew Internet & American Life The percentage of rural Americans with broadband connections has risen steadily, but the gap between rural and urban adoption of broadband remains constant.

The Pew survey found that the current economic troubles are not greatly affecting Americans’ use of broadband. “Broadband adoption appears to have been largely immune to the effects of the current economic recession,” according to the report. Pew found that instead of giving up broadband, Americans were scaling back their use of cable television service or canceling cell phone plans.

And Pew found that more than half of all Americans believe that broadband connections are “very important” in at least one aspect of their lives, especially in connecting with civic and community life. Roughly a third of those with home broadband connections find the Internet “very important” for keeping up with their community, communicating with health care providers, or contributing to their area’s economic vitality.

The Pew survey was particularly attentive to determining how rural Americans used broadband. In this survey, “rural” is defined as those living in “non-metro” counties as designated by the Census Bureau.

Here are some of the findings about rural broadband:

• Rural residents are much more likely to have DSL connections than cable. About half of those in rural communities with broadband used DSL compared to 31 percent in urban areas. Only 28 percent of rural residents got their broadband through cable compared to 43 percent in urban communities.

• Rural residents are much more likely than those living in cities to use home dial-up to connect to the Internet. Only 12 percent of home broadband users live in rural America. However, 32 percent of home dial-up users live in rural communities. Pew Internet & American Life Rural residents are much more likely to have a DSL connection while cable is rare.

• People with high incomes (over $75,000 a year), those with a college degree, those with a minor child in the household and those employed full time were more likely to have home broadband. Having low levels of education, being of older age, being African American and living in rural America all were traits that significantly reduced the likelihood people would adopt broadband, according to the report.

• The pool of Americans using dial-up is shrinking....fast. In 2002, Pew found that 38 percent of all Americans had dial-up. By 2009, this rate had shrunk to 7 percent. The two groups most likely to say they would like to switch from dial-up to broadband were parents with minor children and people in rural communities.

•Some 17% of the adults who use dial-up or don’t have a home Internet connection at all say that broadband service is not available to them. This group is disproportionately rural and remains unchanged from a year ago.

Pew Internet & American Life The cost of broadband continues to rise.

http://www.dailyyonder.com/rural-americans-adopt-broadband-gap-remains/2009/06/17/2180

Speak Your Piece: It's Story Time at the White House

Casey Francis — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:47:00 +0000

DailyYonder.com | June 16, 2009 | By Francisco Guajardo

At a gathering of rural-school experts in Washington, the right issues were raised (mostly), but where were the electricity, the characters, and the relish sandwiches?

Courtesy of Francisco Guajardo Students from Edcouch Elsa (Texas) High School, Jessica Rodriguez and Orlando Castillo, interviewed 90-year-old Elsa resident Marciana Zavala. Community stories are a strong foundation for rural education, and can communicate educational policy, too.

The Obama Administration put together a gathering to talk about rural education on May 22, and I was there, traveling from rural south Texas to Washington, D.C., to participate. I went representing the Center for Rural Strategies (publisher of the Daily Yonder), as well as the Rural School and Community Trust, the Llano Grande Center, University of Texas Pan American, the Community Learning Exchange, and other organizations engaged with rural schools.

Twenty folks convened in a charming room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just next to the West Wing of the White House. Mostly, guests came representing rural-education interest groups, though some in the room were oriented more toward community and economic development. The group clearly had a K-Street quality to it, most of the reps having walked from their nearby offices to the White House complex.

My first impression was that people were happy to be there. One fellow said he had been to the White House dozens of times before “W” but had been essentially shut out between 2000 and 2008. Most everyone agreed they were grateful to have been invited and glad that someone at the highest level of government was now willing to listen to rural education concerns.

The tenor of the conversation, not surprisingly, was policy-wonky, but useful in that particular environment. That kind of speak moved the meeting along fairly well. Participants unanimously recommended that an Office of Rural Education be formalized and that an office of rural education research be created within the Institute of Education Sciences.

Some warned against the unintended consequences of the Obama Administration’s FY 2010 budget request. In particular, they said that the proposed change from formula grant-making to competitive grant-making would adversely impact rural communities. Participants also explained how Title I funding continues to disadvantage rural schools because the funding formula rewards schools with larger numbers of students (rural schools, of course, tend to have fewer students).

The group described fiscal needs: to build more school facilities in rural areas, to recruit and retain more qualified rural teachers, and to strengthen and support the government’s federal trust responsibility to Native American schools, most of which are rural. Participants also described the adverse impact of high stakes testing on rural schools.

Clearly, the people in the room were smart, passionate about rural communities, and well informed about the issues. To talk policy, it seemed that the right people were in the room. But the conversation also struck me as unimaginative, stuck in a deficit-driven and antiquated discourse on rural communities. The collective argument was emphatic about the struggle and plight of rural education but devoid of the spirit, vitality, and force of what I have experienced with children in rural schoolhouses across this country.

I can point to the virtues of south Texas students who have engaged their communities in documenting the narrative of their home towns: youth in Laguna Pueblo who are leading community change efforts through a digital storytelling enterprise; and students in western Montana who have challenged their school’s use of a stereotypical mascot, using the issue to build a youth leadership movement. Scores of students, teachers, and communities work in exciting, innovative, and transformational ways in rural schools and communities across the country, but this reality seldom informs the discourse on rural education. We tend to lead with the deficits, with the needs. To be fair, the group in the room that day did mention a need to disseminate best practices that come out of rural communities, but that was raised as a marginal issue.

Most disconcerting to me were two things: (1) the omission of English Language Learners from the day's discussion and (2) the lack of good stories told at this meeting. For someone who came from Mexico, who was an ELL student, and who grew up in rural Mexico and rural America listening to stories, being socialized and taught through stories, the meeting felt very un-rural.

Perhaps the most urgent emerging concern for rural schools is the rapidly growing number of ELL students and their families in rural communities. But people at this meeting weren’t thinking about ELL’s. They care about them, but it’s not an issue high on the priority list of those who talk about policy in Washington; at least, it wasn’t at this meeting. There were also storytellers in the room, I’m convinced of that, but stories were not really shared, as they would have been in a more authentic rural meeting.

Rebecca Droke for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Ashley Baia worked in Barack Obama's presidential campaign and was featured in one of his speeches. She also welcomed a group to Washington last month to discuss rural education. One irony on the storytelling front is that the main organizer of the meeting, a young White House staffer named Ashley Baia, worked the Obama campaign and gained renown because of her moving and compelling story. Obama invoked her name in his Philadelphia speech on race; toward the end of his talk, he spoke of a campaign worker named Ashley, who as a 9-year-old chose to eat relish and mustard sandwiches in order to save money for the family. Her mother had been diagnosed with cancer and medical bills challenged the family, so Ashley convinced her mother that what she wanted to eat were relish and mustard sandwiches.

Ashley welcomed everyone to the meeting, but nobody really knew she had been the subject of that terrific story in Obama’s speech. Just like we didn’t know Ashley’s story, we didn’t share stories about rural communities either; we mostly talked policy and technicalities about funding, and the like.

I'm convinced that through stories we can put faces on issues that tend to be framed in policy-speak, devoid of the spirit and vitality of what is genuinely rural. If I go to the White House again for a meeting on rural issues, I hope that people show up as storytellers.

http://www.dailyyonder.com/speak-your-piece-its-story-time-white-house/2009/06/16/2177

Rural teachers wanted

Casey Francis — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:47:27 +0000

STEM program recruits

WLFI.com | June 15, 209 | By Niccole Caan

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - A new program at Purdue will train math and science teachers for rural Indiana schools. The program will help ease the shortage of math and science teachers in rural high schools. Eighteen people arrived at Purdue for the first-ever program called STEM goes rural. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. The program is for people transitioning from a math and science related career to teaching. The future teachers are paid a 30-thousand dollar stipend to attend the new master's degree program at Purdue. In exchange, the they will teach math or science for three years in a rural community. Those selected for the program say they are looking forward to sharing their knowledge in high-need schools.

"Everything is changing quickly. So, it's important now more than ever to have teachers to teach these type of things," said future teacher Nathan Inman.

"Science is becoming apart of every field and it's important for people to be able to compete," said Nikki Wethingon.

"The money is not going to rural areas and they can get left behind. They don't have the same resources, the same money per child," said Lawrence DuBose who is also in the program.

"Get some more people expert in their field into smaller schools," explained Michelle Moreland, another soon-to-be STEM teacher.

The program is two years. STEM teachers are placed into a classroom after the first year.

http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local_wlfi_WestLafayette_RuralTeachers_20090615_rev1

Program fast-tracks teachers to rural Alaska

Casey Francis — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:15:25 +0000

KTUU.com | June 14, 2009 | By Leyla Santiago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The effort to enlist more teachers for Alaska is moving along quickly, thanks to a new program that is recruiting from around the nation for 2010.

Ten future teachers are already enrolled in summer school to start their training. But these aren't your average student teachers.

When it comes to crunching number for Alaska schools the math is simple. The Department of Education wants to add more school teachers to the payroll in order to subtract from the shortage of teachers.

Enter AKT2, or the Alaska Transition to Teaching program, an alternate route to teacher certification.

"We're trying to recruit folks from mid-career professionals, retired military personnel, paired professionals with bachelor's degrees," said Woody Woodgate, AKT2 program manager.

People like Ben Hicok, who is trading in his days in the courtroom for the classroom.

"I went through my career, my kids are grown up, I've got grandkids, I'm at the point in life where I can make my own choices or different choices about what I want to do and I came across this program and thought now would be a good time to do it," said Hicok.

The program gets real-life experts into the classroom faster.

"They have to do 80 hours of facilitated online course work, but that could be done on the Internet from where ever they are," said Woodgate.

"It's a lot of work, I think we've been getting some valuable information, learning a lot on the fly," said Hicok.

Candidates also have to shadow teachers in Anchorage for three and a half weeks and attend cultural workshops.

The newly certified teachers are then sent to rural Alaska for two years.

"We have folks that are going to Savoonga, Napaskiak, Elim, Golovin, Hooper Bay, Skammon Bay," said Woodgate.

But is this providing enough training to produce qualified teachers?

"Remember, I've already got a degree or two so it's not like they're taking people off the streets necessarily," said Hicok. "We all have to have bachelor's degree, so we've all been to college, we've done that."

Plus, he adds, the training and assistance continues once the new teachers are placed.

"So it's not just a short compressed three and a half or four week cycle, this is a couple of years over which this gets done," said Hicok.

A push that takes away traditional training, but could multiply the number of teachers prepared for rural Alaska.

The program hopes to train 100 teachers in the next five years

It's funded by a five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This year the Department of Education awarded more than $6.8 million in 14 grants for transition teaching training programs across the country.

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=105315

USDA: Obama plans to finance rural areas

Casey Francis — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:08:12 +0000

AgWeek | June 15, 2009 | By Jerry Hagstrom

WASHINGTON — Agriculture Undersecretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager said June 10 that the Obama administration plans to allocate more grants and loans in rural areas that are more distant from cities rather than the exurban areas that have received a lot of the housing, water and sewer, utilities and business development money that the rural development division administers.

In testimony before the House Agriculture Rural Development, Biotechnology, Specialty Crops and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee, Tonsager says, “I believe we can and should do a better job of reaching out to underserved constituencies and devoting more energy and resources to the poorest of the poor. I would hope, two or three years from now, that when one maps our investments, there will be less of a concentration in exurban areas and a greater presence in more rural jurisdictions.”

He emphasized that he wants to increase farmers’ use of the value-added producer grant program.

Tonsager also said the Obama administration will publish a rule governing USDA Rural Utilities Service and Commerce Department National Telecommunications and Information Administration broadband programs in the stimulus package by June 30. Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., the chairman of the rural development subcommittee, said the subcommittee will hold a hearing on broadband the week of July 6.

http://www.agweek.com/articles/?id=4455&article_id=14383&property_id=41

Speak Your Piece: Missing on the Supreme Court — Rural

Casey Francis — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:02:55 +0000

The Supreme Court is now overly Eastern and overly Ivy. It could use a touch of rural America.

DailyYonder.com | June 15, 2009 | By Douglas Burns

If Judge Sonia Sotomayor is elevated to the Supreme Court, four of nine justices will come from New York City. Sotomayor grew up in this housing project in the Bronx.

With the swirl of barbs and recriminations over Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s U.S. Supreme Court nomination centering on race, little attention is being paid to what is a glaring lack of representation on the high court: Rural America.

If Sotomayor is confirmed, she will break a barrier as the first Latino to be seated on the Supreme Court. But as she joins the court and Justice David Souter, who grew up in Weare, N.H., leaves, the Court’s collection of nine biographies will be decidedly urban, Eastern and heavy on Ivy League education.

Of the nine justices, only Clarence Thomas can lay claim to any real rural ties. He was born in Pin Point, Ga., a rural community founded by free slaves. But Thomas lived there for only six years (albeit without indoor plumbing) before his house burned and a grandfather took him to the nearby city of Savannah. Thomas’ wife is from Omaha, Neb., and as the Omaha World-Herald pointed out this weekend, he does know University of Nebraska Husker football.

Four of the justices, if one counts Sotomayor, hail from the New York City area. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is from Brooklyn, and Sotomayor was born in the Bronx. Trenton, N.J., just one American city, has more representation than all of rural America. Both Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito were born there.

“A couple weeks ago before Obama picked Sotomayor for this I said I hope we get someone who went to night law school,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who is expected to vote for the confirmation of Sotomayor.

Harkin noted that Souter brought strong rural credentials to the court. “You can’t get much more rural than Judge Souter living out in the small community up in rural New Hampshire but we’ve lost that,” Harkin said. “I hope the next time something comes up we get someone that maybe didn’t go to Harvard, didn’t go to Yale, maybe went to a small, Midwestern law school someplace.”

Obama owes his presidency in large part to rural America as his political fortunes turned dramatically when he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses.

Drake University law professor Mark Kende said his immediate reaction to the question about rural representation on the court is that it’s absence is not likely to have a big effect on the Midwest.

“But it’s never a bad thing to have a diverse court either,” Kende said. “I don’t know if rural America should be upset. I wish fewer people would get upset about such questions generally and focus on whether the nominee has good academic credentials and experience — judicial, practice, prosecutor. I think this nominee meets those criteria.”

Kende, who is the James Madison chair in constitutional law at Drake, said Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. grew up in Indiana. “Roberts is from Indiana so I’m sure he has lots of ‘rural’ contacts,” Kende said.

Roberts was born in Buffalo, N.Y., but grew up in Long Beach, Ind., just outside of Chicago along Lake Michigan. It is not a place most people from rural America would consider as such.

The only justice born in the Midwest is John Paul Stevens who is from Chicago. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer were born in California.

http://www.dailyyonder.com/speak-your-piece-missing-supreme-court-%E2%80%94-rural/2009/06/15/2172

Affordable Health Insurance Elusive In Rural U.S.

Casey Francis — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:26:04 +0000

Weekend Edition, NPR.org | June 13, 2009 | By Howard Berkes


Larry Harbour of Broken Bow, Neb., sprays chrome plating on plastic wheel caps in his detail shop. Like many rural small business owners, Harbour finds health insurance too expensive but worries that he's one injury or illness away from losing his business.

Larry Harbour is celebrated in Nebraska as a model entrepreneur. But the 33-year-old owner of LB Custom Chrome and Detail in rural Broken Bow, Neb., is an illness or injury away from losing his business.

"If anything were to happen to my wife and I, the business is sunk," Harbour said, standing in the shop he built from scratch. "It's like playing Russian roulette. Everyday, we wonder when it's going to happen — if something's going to happen, are we able to afford it?"

Harbour has a son and daughter who are covered by a state health insurance plan for children. He and his wife searched for their own coverage, but found premiums would cost from $24,000 to $40,000 a year, plus a $2,000 deductible. Both are healthy and young, and both work supplemental jobs as school bus drivers, but the jobs don't come with insurance.

He said the insurance he and his wife investigated was basic, to the point where the couple would have to pay more for the insurance than they would for the health care they'd receive.

"It's unaffordable for me, especially being a small business owner, because I don't have a certain amount of employees to be able to get a better rate," Harbour said.

The Harbours are not alone. Half of all jobs in rural places are tied to small businesses, a rate 13 percent higher than in cities and suburbs. And people who work for small businesses are twice as likely to be uninsured, according to Jon Bailey of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Neb.

"The two biggest determinants of un-insurance in this country are the owner of a small business or employee of a small business," reported Bailey, who co-authored an April 2009 study describing the rates of uninsured and underinsured rural Americans. "And that's more common in rural areas."

Ranchers, Farmers And Individual Insurance

Also common in rural areas are farmers and ranchers, who disproportionately depend on individual insurance plans. Bailey said one-third of farmers and ranchers depend on individual insurance. That's four times the rate for everyone else.

"Data show that 90 percent of farm and ranch families do have insurance," Bailey said. "But the places where they depend on getting their insurance are becoming rarer and rarer, which means they'll have to depend on the individual market, which costs more and provides less coverage."

Some farmers and ranchers have off-farm jobs that provide insurance. But those jobs are harder to come by in this economy. So, many are forced to buy coverage with high premiums or high deductibles or both. That's what Dan and Lorna Wilson found when they searched for insurance.

Insurance With A $5,700 Deductible

The Wilsons are both 57 years old, and they raise organic hogs, corn, soybeans and grain on 640 acres of rich, black earth in Paullina, Iowa. They are depending on their farm to fund their retirement, and they plan to pass it on to their kids. So their health insurance is more about their farm than their health.

"We probably have a net worth that we could weather one major incident," Dan Wilson said. "But it would severely deplete the farming assets. So, we're insuring the farm."

The Wilsons describe themselves as healthy, but the best individual insurance plan they could find costs $492 a month. That's for Dan and Lorna and one of their children. Their deductible is $5,700. They also have a tax-free health savings account, but they've only been able to save about $2,100 so far.

"[That's] not our full deductible," Lorna Wilson said.

She explained that it's hard to make deposits in that account, given the farm and family bills. "They seem to take precedence," she said, noting that the high deductible means the insurance plan has yet to actually pay any health care costs.

"It's just for major medical," she said quietly. "It's just that kind of security there that you have something in case you'd had a huge medical bill."

Why Individual Insurance Costs More

The costs are higher because of the nature of individual insurance. There isn't a large group to spread risk. And the rural population trends older and sicker, according to studies quoted by Bailey. There is also less access to health care in rural places, he added. On top of that, farming and ranching are considered risky professions.

Higher rates have additional costs. Bailey cited surveys showing that farmers and ranchers dip into savings accounts and even take out loans to pay for health care.

"That means that money that is being used for health care can't be reinvested in the business," Bailey said. "So, you end up with lower retirement savings, lower savings in general [and] higher debt loads than you would otherwise because of higher health costs."

There's another cost for both underinsured rural families like the Wilsons and uninsured rural families like the Harbours. Bailey said people with no or costly insurance are less likely to get the preventive care that could help them stay healthy.

"And then you're going to end up later on in life with the more expensive conditions that could have been discovered early on," Bailey added. "So, the kind of insurance people in rural areas have ends up having significant consequences later on in life."

Should The Government Get Involved?

Bailey's group, the Center for Rural Affairs, favors some kind of government-provided insurance alternative. Harbour isn't sure what to make of proposed changes in the health care system. He's no politician, he said. The Wilsons worry that government involvement means excessive government control.

An hour north and east of the Wilson farm, farmer Linus Solberg climbs down from his cultivator and climbs into a car to get out of the wind and to lay out his concern about health care reform. Solberg has hosted presidential candidates and inquiring reporters, so he's ready with a firm point of view.

"Health insurance is killing rural America," Solberg said. "Because people just can't keep up and pay their bills. And that shouldn't be in America."

Solberg, 69, is covered by Medicare, but he worries about his 60 million neighbors in rural America.

"We can put people on the moon," he said. "We can go up and fix this Hubble satellite that we have up there. And we can't have health care for all these people. It's ridiculous."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105299368

Chrysler's Closings Penalize Rural Dealers

Casey Francis — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:36:48 +0000

Of the 789 car dealerships forced to close in Chrysler's bankruptcy, a disproportionate number are rural businesses.

DailyYonder.com | June 11, 2009 | By Julie Ardrey

This map shows the Chrysler dealerships that lost their franchises June 9. Metro dealerships are in gray. Reds and blues are all rural. In red are the most rural locations, areas with populations under 10,000; in blue are micropolitan rural areas. Click on the map to see a larger version.

On Tuesday, Chrysler ended its contracts with nearly a quarter of its car and truck dealers across the country as part of the corporation’s bankruptcy and restructuring. In an analysis of those closings and 2008 U.S. Census estimates, the Daily Yonder has found that the number of rural car dealers who’ve lost their Chrysler franchises is disproportionately high.

According to U.S. Census estimates (2008), 16.5% of Americans live in non-metro communities. But 32.5% of the dealerships losing their Chrysler franchises are non-metro.

Further, the analysis showed that Chrysler’s closings were skewed even more dramatically against the most rural communities of all (those with 10,000 or fewer residents, which the Office of Management and Budget terms “non-core”). Only 6.6% of the U.S. population lives in these most-rural communities, but 19.5%, nearly a fifth, of all the dealers Chrysler chose to close were in these non-core locations (shown in red on the map above).

On June 9, 789 dealers were forced to close nationwide, having been given less than a month’s notice. Chrysler plans to dissolve its old company and reemerge in partnership with Italian car-manufacturer Fiat; company officials argued that shrinking the network of dealers quickly was a requirement for the Fiat deal to move forward.

In hearings June 3, members of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation challenged the closings, and several questioned Chrysler’s selection process as unfair to rural car dealers.

“What I don't understand is how the decisions have been made, especially with respect to rural areas,” stated Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND).

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) said that after speaking with constituents, his “number one” question to auto industry leaders about the dealerships was “are they disproportionately being closed in rural areas?”
Daily Yonder Though Chrysler closed more metro dealerships than rural ones, the rate of closures as a percent of population was significantly higher in micropolitan non-metro communities, and highest in the most rural areas.

The Daily Yonder’s analysis examined the location of closing Chrysler dealerships using RUCA-ZIP Codes, a more detailed unit of analysis than county codes. The RUCA codes take into account population density, urbanization, and commuters to nearby metro-areas. (For more information on the codes, see this link from the University of Washington.)

General Motors also plans to close over a thousand dealerships by October 2010 but has not made public a list of them. Both Chrysler's and GM's efforts are being financed in large measure with federal money.

Chrysler president Jim Press, speaking before the Senate Commerce Committee last week, did not specify how dealers were selected for closure. He did say that in the company’s restructuring it would be necessary to bring Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep products “under one roof” and that customer satisfaction and sales performance had been significant considerations.

Governor John Hoeven of North Dakota has called on President Barack Obama to stop the forced closing of Chrysler and GM dealerships, and two freshmen Congressmen Dan Maffei (D- NY 25) and Congressman Frank Kratovil (D- MD 1) have introduced legislation that would require both automakers to honor their contracts.

Yet as these efforts are underway, June 9th has come and gone for 789 Chrysler businesses -- rural, suburban, and city.

"Watching it all," Sen. Dorgan told the commerce committee, "I'm wondering, who's making the decisions in this country about who's too big to fail and who's too small to matter."

http://www.dailyyonder.com/chryslers-closings-penalize-rural-dealers/2009/06/11/2174

What Makes A Good Rural School?

Casey Francis — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:14:46 +0000

Why do some rural schools succeed? Three Alabamians look and find some answers.

DailyYonder.com | June 11, 2009 | By Bill Bishop

Richard Bryant is principal of the F.S. Ervin Elementary School in Pine Hill, Alabama, one of the ten best rural elementary schools in the state. Every child at the school qualifies for a free or reduced price lunch. Bryant began working for the schools as a bus driver in the early 1970s.

Three Alabamians went looking for the best of that state’s rural schools. They drove more than 10,000 miles, conducted more than 300 interviews and tested hundreds of teachers. “We did not expect to find Lake Wobegon where Garrison Keillor tells us ‘all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average,’” they wrote.

And they didn’t. But Gerald Carter, Larry Lee and Owen Sweatt did find ten outstanding rural schools that were thriving in small communities despite troubled economic times. The three were working with the Center for Rural Alabama and they recently put their findings in a report, “Lessons Learned From Rural Schools.”

“A perfect storm — fueled by the outmigration of young adults and rising poverty and strengthened by a declining economy and loss of jobs — swirls across rural Alabama,” the report begins. “In its wake lie communities struggling not only to maintain a certain standard of living, but just to exist.” Ten years ago, 54.2 percent of Alabama’s rural students qualified for a free school lunch. Today that has risen to 61.9 percent. The number of rural schools where 90 percent of the students are poor enough to qualify for a free lunch has jumped from 60 to 78.

Carter, Lee and Sweatt combed through this economically troubled landscape to find 10 elementary schools that were succeeding. Their test scores had to be well above the state average. They couldn’t be economic outliers, so the researchers looked for schools that had at least 65 percent of their students eligible for a free lunch. And they wanted schools that were dispersed around the state.

These schools have "something in the air," according to Larry Lee. At the Calcedeaver Elementary School, it's dancing. The school is 80% Native American and a small dance team started a few years ago now has more than 100 members and the school holds a Native American Culture Festival each November. The ten schools they found weren’t “bucolic little hamlets safe from the perils of today’s society,” the three wrote. “At every school the principal told us that at least 50 percent of all students come from single-parent homes.”

And in an already poor state, the average income in the communities where these ten schools were located, the median household income was only 78 percent of the Alabama average — or only 63 percent of the U.S. average. The report on what makes a good rural school — at least in Alabama.

The entire report is well worth reading. It can be found here. Those who would like a hard copy of the report can contact Larry Lee at larry.lee@agi.alabama.gov. (And the ten rural Alabama schools are listed at the end of this story.)

There were four points, however, that struck me in reading about these outstanding schools.

1. These are community schools. “In the opinion of many education leaders, what happens outside the classroom in the form of ‘community involvement’ may be as important as what goes on in the classroom,” writes Larry Lee. And he finds that in these good rural schools, it’s hard to find the line that divides community from school. “Education goes beyond the walls of instruction and much of our school success is determined by the community’s ownership.”

In these successful community schools, local newspaper editors visit and write about schools regularly. The community raises money for schools. Local institutions cooperate with the schools. For example, Calcedeaver Elementary uses the gym at the nearby Aldersgate United Methodist Church for plays, pageants and PTO meetings. In Pine Hill, Alabama, the mayor once served on the school board.

Parents trust the schools because the schools have earned that trust. “If the parent trusts the school and understands that you are truly doing all you can to help their child, then they are far more likely to support you when there is a discipline issue,” said John Kirby, principal at Dutton Elementary.

2. “There is something in the air” in these good schools. For one thing, these schools are clean. That doesn’t mean they are new, because most of these ten good schools are not. The oldest was built in 1924; the newest in 1994. They are all kept neat and tidy, Larry Lee found.

More than just cleanliness, however, these schools have a feel. There’s something special going on there — as Lee writes, “there is something in the air.” The Harlan Elementary School in Lockhart, Alabama, had the oldest building in the group. This school was built in 1924.

Principal Jacqui James has turned her Southern Choctaw Elementary into a living art museum. She’s transformed one hallway into a gallery, featuring prints donated from the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and museums in Birmingham and Mobile. Dutton Elementary convinced an artist to turn the inside of the school into its own community. The entrance to the boys' restroom is painted to resemble a barbershop, for example. The cafeteria is painted as the “Dutton Diner” and the teachers’ mailroom is made to look like the U.S. Post office.

These schools are creative. Every year F. S. Ervin Elementary in Pine Hill puts on a parade. Why? “We started six years ago,” said principal Richard Bryant, “because our kids rarely get to see a parade. It is 20 miles to go to see a parade at Wilcox Central High School in Camden and most of our students don’t get to go.”

Bryant rounded up high school bands, some cowboys, fire trucks and anybody else that wanted to be in the parade. The 2008 parade, according to Larry Lee, had six marching bands!

Calcedeaver Elementary started a dance team in 2001 with five students. The school is in a Choctaw community and 80 percent of the students are Native American. Today, the dance team has more than 100 members.

3. The best teachers “have a visceral understanding of what it’s like to live in a rural community.” The researchers interviewed teachers at each school and they found that at these successful schools, teachers understood the children because they understood the rural life. “It appears that a critical factor in the success of these 10 schools is that a majority of teachers grew up in the area in which they teach, or one very similar, and understand the local culture,” wrote Gerald Carter.

4. Teachers will resist change. The researchers gave ten teachers at each school a Myers Briggs personality indicator examination. They found that teachers are, by nature, introverts, even if they can become extroverted in leading a class. And they found that teachers’ personalities were of the type that resisted change.

Carter, Lee and Sweatt said there some clear conclusions to be drawn from their study. For one, rural Alabama is not producing enough teachers. Of the 1,595 senior education students in 14 of the state’s schools of education, 542 come from rural Alabama. That’s not enough to fill the need in the state’s rural schools.

The report ends with descriptions of each of the ten rural schools. This is heart-warming reading. At Fruithurst Elementary, the school principal noticed that one teacher’s students consistently did better in the state’s math test. So the rest of the school copied that teacher’s program and the entire school advanced.

At W.S. Harlan Elementary in Lockhart, 18 of the 26 faculty members graduated from the county’s high school. In Arley, the Women’s Club led a campaign to construct a library, the only building in town that has an elevator. The Civitan Club in Phil Campbell rewards outstanding students with a pizza lunch in the cafeteria.

And what makes Gilbertown’s Southern Choctaw Elementary special? “I believe in the power of love,” says principal Jacqui James.

***

Editor’s Note: Here are the ten Alabama schools: Mobile County, Dutton Elementary in Jackson County; F. S. Ervin in Wilcox County; Fruithurst Elementary in Cleburne County; W. S. Harlan in Covington County; Huxford Elementary in Escambia County; Meek Elementary in Winston County, Phil Campbell Elementary in Franklin County; Southern Choctaw Elementary in Choctaw County; and Albert Turner, Sr. Elementary in Perry County.

http://www.dailyyonder.com/what-makes-good-rural-school/2009/06/11/2170

$3.5 million grant will expand care to rural veterans

Casey Francis — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:08:26 +0000

TuscaloosaNews.com | June 11, 2009 | By Wayne Grayson, Staff Writer

For many veterans, the best medicine after the chaos of war has been living out the rest of their lives in the quiet of rural West Alabama.

But the quiet can only heal so much, and the distance between rural veterans and the city can be a barrier to receiving medical attention.

With the help of a recent $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Tuscaloosa Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s Alabama Rural Health Program is launching three initiatives to reach out to veterans in rural West Alabama.

From that grant, $2 million will go toward the development of a Rural Health Resource Center housed within the medical center. The program will employ six workers who will reach out to veterans in rural West and Central Alabama counties.

“Instead of building another clinic here at the veterans hospital, they’ll be going out to the veterans themselves and trying to get them registered,” said Damon Stevenson, VA medical center spokesman.

Three of the outreach workers will be assigned to the Birmingham VA Medical Center while the other three will serve Tuscaloosa.

“They’ll be searching for veterans that haven’t enrolled and for veterans who have enrolled but haven’t used services for some time,” said Kristin Pettey, of the Rural Health Program.

The program has formed a partnership with the University of Alabama’s Center for Rural Health to train the outreach workers in a five-week program tentatively starting July 28, Pettey said.

“We’re working with the staff at the University of Alabama to help outreach workers prepare for different scenarios that they might face while out in the community,” she said.

Pettey said the initiative will make veterans aware of the services they are entitled to while the outreach workers learn what prevents veterans from using VA hospitals and clinics.

“We’re hoping to enhance health-care utilization and delivery to veterans in rural communities, and we want to uncover barriers to treatment and to establish an enhanced enrollment method and assist veterans in getting connected with the VA,” she said.

Stevenson said that there are many veterans who believe they do not qualify for care because of a limited service record.

“Education will be a big part of this. A lot of veterans may think that since they didn’t serve in combat zone they may not be eligible,” Stevenson said.

Typically, veterans receive an enrollment package that they fill out and mail back in, Pettey said. The enhanced enrollment method would involve a VA outreach worker sitting with veterans and answering any questions they have and then returning the package for them.

Pettey said they will use both methods randomly and whichever is found to be more effective will be used in the future.

The rest of the grant will be split between two more outreach teams, $1.1 million of which will go toward establishing a home-based care team while $334,000 will go toward establishing a mental health outreach team.

Both teams will operate from the program’s new Selma Outreach Clinic, scheduled to open in mid-August. The clinic will be open Monday through Thursday and provide care to veterans too far away from the Montgomery and Tuscaloosa medical centers.

“Once it’s established, we hope that the number of veterans that we treat will allow us to open up five days a week and expand services there,” Stevenson said.

“We’re just excited about this opportunity to get them the health care that they need and that’s our goal, to expand access to health care to all Alabamians that have served our nation.”

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090611/NEWS/906119995/1007?Title=-3-5-million-grant-will-expand-care-to-rural-veterans

Vilsack: Revitalize rural America

Casey Francis — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:36:02 +0000

Delta Farm Press | June 11, 2009 | By Ray Nabors, Contributing Writer

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack visited the Delta Center in Portageville, Mo., recently for a rural community forum to discuss USDA plans to revitalize and rebuild rural America.

“President Obama and I are committed to investing in and revitalizing rural communities, in part because they play an important role in our national and international food delivery system,” Vilsack said.

Vilsack spoke of providing more off-farm job opportunities as one target program for agriculture. According to USDA, most farm families work 200 days a year off the farm.

Another concern for Vilsack is the aging farm population. The average age of the American farmer has gone from 55 to 57 in just five years, the largest increase in history.

Young persons are leaving the farm seeking other opportunities in urban environments. There has been a 20 percent decrease in farmers under 25 years of age.

USDA nutrition programs, which already use over 60 percent of USDA distribution funds, have been increased nationwide, according to Vilsack. A four-person household will receive an $80 increase monthly and there will be no limit for jobless adults.

USDA’s rural development programs will fund 12 water and wastewater projects with a cost of $42 million in loans and grants.

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is using recovery act funds for watershed rehabilitation programs.

USDA’s Forest Service in Missouri has been allocated over $2 million, the bulk of which will be used for the Mark Twain National Forest project. These funds are expected to create 25 jobs in 29 counties.

USDA’s Farm Service Agency has assisted 75 Missouri farmers with $4 million in loans. Of these, 34 were beginning farmers and 14 were socially disadvantaged.

Vilsack said USDA will attempt to entice higher paying jobs into rural communities. The advantages mentioned were time savings because commuting is reduced and traffic is negligible. Another big advantage are lower crime rates, making rural communities better places to raise children.

Another focus of USDA concerns the increased marketing of U.S. agriculture products for export. It is hoped increased demand for U.S. agricultural commodities in export markets will improve agriculture income in rural areas.

Vilsack said USDA will work on improving agriculture opportunities in Asia. The idea is to shift Asian farming away from opium poppies to food crops. USDA believes this will improve economic opportunity and diversify businesses in rural Asia. The programs are designed to provide more profitable enterprises to give more people a vested interest in their economies and thereby reduce terrorist activity.

Another major focus of the current administration is to increase biofuel use and improve the associated technology with improved funding for cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel, according to Vilsack. The most favored proposal is increasing the alcohol content of gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent.

Vilsack says cellulosic ethanol should be available in 2016. He said that the biofuel industry will remain volatile for the near future. Increasing biofuel production is seen as a way to increase rural economic opportunities and jobs as well as having environmental benefit.

The secretary said the reaction of China and other countries banning imports of American pork products is obviously misguided, noting that swine flu is not transmitted in pork products and no influenza infections have been found in any U.S. swine herds.

Vilsack said confidence in American agricultural products must be maintained around the world. Vilsack will work with importing countries to explain the safety of GMOs (genetically engineered organisms). The advantages of GMO products outweigh any risk, according to USDA policy and acceptance by other nations will potentially increase exports, he said.

Vilsack addressed a farmer’s question on the disparity between Corn Belt states and Southern states in regard to crop insurance. The farmer said that Southern farmers pay higher premiums but have fewer losses in both number of claims and the cost of those claims. Vilsack said he intends to investigate the fair distribution of federal crop insurance coverage.

Another concern is the antiquated USDA computer system. Vilsack the department intends to apply for additional tax dollars to upgrade the system.

Many farmers in attendance told Vilsack they were not in favor of cap and trade climate change regulation proposals. Vilsack pointed out that farms are estimated to produce 7 percent to 10 percent of greenhouse gases, yet mitigate 20 percent to 23 percent. He said it might be possible for farmers to sell their 15 percent credit to industries that have a negative green house gas deficit.

Ray Nabors spent 25 years at the Delta Center in Portageville, working in agricultural Extension and research. Today he reports on markets for the Heartland Ag Network.

http://deltafarmpress.com/legislative/rural-revitalization-0611/

CEO: Broadband Vital for Rural Areas

Casey Francis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:37:11 +0000

HDM Breaking News | June 10, 2009 | By Joseph Goedert

Home-based remote disease management technologies and telemedicine can improve the quality of life for rural patients while reducing the nation's health care burden, a telecommunications leader specializing in broadband communication in rural areas testified before a federal advisory committee on June 9.

"However, none of this is possible without access to a quality high-speed broadband Internet connection," said Jay Maxwell, CEO at Pixius Communications, Wichita, Kan. "While this access is common in urban and suburban areas, it is almost a luxury in rural America. Is it a coincidence that rural America is also an area that is unserved or underserved by medical facilities and practitioners? Rural America is an area with a population that is aging and placing increased demands on scarce healthcare resources."

Maxwell testified in Rapid City, S.D., at a public hearing of the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services, established to advise the Department of Health and Human Services. In Kansas, he noted, 29% of the population is rural but only 4% of the doctors.

"In South Dakota, the most remote areas of the state are the nine Sioux Indian reservations," Maxwell testified. "The health statistics on the reservations resemble those of a Third World country. The reservations must be a high priority for broadband."

The nation knows where the aging live and where health care resources exist, Maxwell noted. But what isn't accurately known is where quality high-speed broadband Internet service is provided. "Before we can connect the country, we need to know with greater accuracy who currently has coverage," he said. "I urge HHS and all federal departments to work together to determine in greater detail who has service and who needs service. By doing this, you will pave the way toward a more effective means of delivering health care to rural America."

Funds for the Department of Agriculture in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would significantly increase telemedicine and broadband programs in rural America, Maxwell said. Other ARRA funds administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will target additional rural broadband programs.

"We urge HHS to coordinate to the maximum extent possible with both USDA and NTIA to maximize the use of broadband funds with an eye to improving rural health care," he said.

For a copy of Maxwell's complete testimony, click here.

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/broadband-38458-1.html

Web site is watchdog for environmental change in rural Alaska

Casey Francis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:15:44 +0000

The Cordova Times | June 9, 2009 | By Newspaper Staff

Fish with strange spots. Sinkholes in the tundra. Crumbling river banks.

The scenes appear in a handful of photos posted at www.nunat.net, a fledgling Web site created to provide a record of changes linked to global warming, subsistence resources and village life.

The site’s database is a year old. It was designed to give rural Alaskans a way to share information and document the changes around them, especially those who spend a lot of time outdoors, said its creator, Brad Garness.

“People who live a subsistence hunting and fishing lifestyle generally have a unique view regarding climate change and why animals behave the way they do,” Garness said.

Garness is acting executive director of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, which owns the site.

It’s been said that Alaska is on the front lines of climate change, but there doesn’t appear to be another site where rural Alaskans can go to document the changes around them, he said.

AITC contracted with biologists and other experts to help develop reporting forms included on the site. With the forms, people can provide detailed accounts of what they’ve seen.

The Nunat Web site is named after a Yup’ik word that means “lands” in central Yup’ik.

Some of the items posted so far include a polar bear lying on the beach after swimming to shore in Barrow last fall -- something scientists say is becoming more common because of receding sea ice -- and a swarm of chum salmon with unusual spots and deformed spines caught last summer on the Yukon River.

http://www.thecordovatimes.com/news/story/6263

Rural Entrepreneurs v. Straw Men

Casey Francis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:55:27 +0000

An article in Economic Development Journal (Winter, 2009) poses a challenge for those of us working on rural sustainability. “Coming Full Circle: The End of the Small Business Era?” analyzes data from the Small Business Administration to show that the share of small business jobs in the economy has not changed since 1980.
Its conclusion? According to author Ed Bee, president of Taimerica Management Company in Mandeville, Louisiana, we’ve come full circle. He recommends going back to community promotion and industrial recruiting. And, most importantly, he writes we have to give up on “one-size-fits-all” approaches to economic development.

I don’t want to argue with the numbers about small businesses and job creation. But I will enter into a debate about the article’s policy implications. To the best of my knowledge, states never abandoned industrial recruitment policies after the 1980s, but they have deemphasized them to some extent.
There are good reasons why. The business attraction strategy wasn’t working all that well, especially in rural areas and inner cities. In fact, entrepreneurship-development was an effort to get away from one-size-fits-all policies, from practices that had accommodated big businesses seeking lower operating costs at the expense of local economies and their middle classes.

Now some straws in the wind -- such as Bee's article -- suggest that states indeed may need to look more at recruitment of branch operations to attract new capital and create jobs. But other straws, like recent governors' addresses, indicate that several states -- Mississippi, Missouri, and Michigan, to name three -- are looking more toward developing entrepreneurship.
State leaders are clutching at straws in these tough economic times, especially because over the past fifty years, states increasingly have had to assume the duties of job creation and retention. Competition among states to attract businesses intensfied during the 1960s and 1970s. With the economic shocks of energy markets in the 1970s and a new phase of globalization, the competition became even more complicated and riskier.
In the race to attact new businesses, the costs of incentives and tax breaks ballooned; meanwhile, companies were better equipped to shop around for the best site.
No matter where they are located, most companies are able to move their operations to take advantage of lower labor costs and other production considerations. Rural areas in the United States continue to suffer after three decades' widespread loss of manufacturing jobs to producers overseas. On the other hand, Kentucky, with its relatively low wages, benefitted when Toyota decided to build its first U.S. plant there in 1985 -- because of the both the car factory itself and the related parts plants that followed.
Bureau of Economic Analysis data show that the overall results of Kentucky's economic development policies have been mixed over the past five decades. The poverty rate declined markedly, and there is now more economic activity. But the state’s policy of business attraction built chiefly on low wages and incentives and tax breaks for businesses has not spread social and economic benefits evenly among individuals, communities, or regions. Rural and Appalachian counties still tend to lag behind their metropolitan counterparts.

Julie Ardery/Daily Yonder The Arnosky family's Texas Specialty Cut Flowers, in Blanco, Texas, grows and sells vegetables, herbs, and 60 varieties of flowers to groceries and florists across the state. The Arnoskys (from left, Hannah Rose, Dan, and Pamela shown here) also hold a popular produce sale near their farm each Saturday.

The push for entrepreneurial development emerged in the 1980s as both a reaction to protracted recession and an alternative to faulty business attraction strategies that were not meeting the needs of states and their inner cities, smaller towns, and citizens. The loss of manufacturing jobs and the rapid growth of low-end service jobs left many places poorer, with lower standards of living that made them unsuitable for attracting businesses.
For rural areas, building entrepreneurship has been a bootstrap approach because failing global and national markets have left their residents no alternatives for development other than their own grit and determination. Given the risks of rural business start ups, I would argue that anyone who sets up a business – whether it’s a barbershop, a welding or repair operation, or something more high tech – is an entrepreneur of sorts because the risk of failure is so high in an unstable local economy.
To promote entrepreneurship is to move toward a more balanced economy and stronger communities based on a business-owning middle class. This is particularly true in rural areas, where communities needed to look at their assets and the impacts of geographic discrimination that limit their economic opportunities.

Julie Ardery/Daily Yonder Sweeping up at Don's Barber Shop, Bremen, Indiana.

Maybe rural entrepreneurship cannot create the rate of economic growth that some communities and economists want. But what are the alternatives? Locally owned and oriented businesses can provide job security and a higher quality of life in marginalized rural communities. With a little bit of luck and a local culture that supports small businesses and community life, towns and cities can build a foundation for rural sustainability.
With such a foundation, they will decide whether they want to compete in the global economy. If they are going to be more globally oriented, they need a good local quality of life, quality goods and services, high-quality broadband, and an effective local and regional marketing strategy that can garner worldwide attention and dollars.
Rural communities can open the way for the development of local, innovative talent and the attraction of small and large businesses that fit the needs of the place and its region. In my view, towns need the amenities of limited-growth, local entrepreneurs before they can even dream of attracting new firms of any size.
Whatever the longer-run job count and growth rate, entrepreneurship is in the best tradition of small-scale, more-or-less independent American businesses. Rural entrepreneurship is more than grasping at straws. A business-owning middle class is essential to rural sustainability.
Timothy Collins is assistant director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University in Macomb. Opinions expressed here are his and his alone.
http://www.dailyyonder.com/rural-entrepreneurs-v-straw-men/2009/06/10/2164

Preservation, growth unite rural residents

Casey Francis — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:23:50 +0000

Longtime social club takes on activist role in Triune


Paul Jenkins cuts William Brindley's hair at Triune Barber Shop at Horton Highway and Neal Road. JEANNE REASONOVER / THE TENNESSEAN

The Tennessean | June 8, 2009 | By Suzanne Normand Blackwood

TRIUNE COMMUNITY — As Williamson County planners begin to focus more on the future of the area's unincorporated communities, Triune residents want to be ready when their time comes.

With discussions already under way about nearby College Grove, Triune residents know that issues such as residential growth, economic development, infrastructure and historic preservation will soon be surfacing where they live.

Anticipation and concern about these issues has even prompted members of the Triune Community Club to begin organizing in ways the club has never done before.

Club's mission grows

The Triune Community Club predates the Triune Community Center, which was built about 1950. Before the center was built, the club met at a nearby school.

Ginger Shirling, a lifetime member, said the club initially existed as a social group. About two years ago, however, the club's mission began to develop into something more.

"We became aware of the fact that growth issues were dominating the conversations," Shirling said.

That's when the club began organizing into various committees to focus on not just growth, but also historic preservation, publicity and outreach.

The club also has a book committee that has been reading Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character by Randall Arendt. Shirling said county planners recommended the book for a greater understanding of land-use planning in rural areas.

Shirling said the club, which has about 60 members, is very active in the community and invites anyone interested in the future of Triune to join.

"We hope the Triune Community Club will be able to connect members of the community and provide information," she said.

Although the club will continue its social tradition, a goal now is to also "allow the citizens to have a voice so they can discuss issues that concern them with appropriate agencies and officials," she added.

The changing landscape

"We know growth is coming," said Triune resident Mark Stewart, whose family has lived on Patton Road since 1810. "I guess it's somewhat inevitable."

Already, he said, he can hear traffic on state Route 840 when his window is open.

However, said Stewart, he doesn't feel that growth is always a good use of the land.

He is particularly concerned about developments such as the proposed Mystic Ridge and others that may follow. Mystic Ridge is a 482-home residential community and golf course that has been proposed for the property next to him. The project is really going to change the landscape, he said.

"Our ridge won't be the same any more."

Stewart said he wants to preserve the area's farmland, and growth worries him. He is afraid that if the area gets sewer service, that will attract more development.

Stewart said he's also concerned about water quality and flooding from Nelson Creek.

Some want a grocery, others want retail

Triune recently had a business mixer at the community center. The event provided a chance for local business owners to network and get involved with the Williamson County Chamber of Commerce.

Triune barber Paul Jenkins, who offers $8 haircuts at his shop at the corner of Horton Highway and Neal Road, said Triune has traditionally been supportive of small business. Many of Jenkins' customers come to him to avoid the traffic on the way to Franklin or Murfreesboro, he said.

Jenkins supports more residential and commercial development in Triune. More "rooftops" would help small-business owners, he said.

He would particularly like to see a grocery open in the area. Also, Jenkins added, although he would not want see a chain barber shop come to Triune, he would not be opposed to other chains stores coming to the area.

"I'm for anything that would improve the convenience of the people living here," he said.

Nell Johnson, president of the Triune Community Club, also would like to see a grocery and maybe a restaurant. This way, Triune residents wouldn't have to drive so far, she said.

"I would like to see the place grow," said Johnson. "I would like to see change."

Historic landmarks remain

In the 1800s, Triune was a thriving plantation community. Today, there are several historic homes, two Civil War-era churches and a former school.

The school was built as an all-girls school after the Civil War on land donated by Dr. Jonathan Bostick to "the people of the 18th Civil District." Many years later, the school was used by the county as a public school, and in 1949, it was returned to the people of the 18th District.

The building was sold to a private individual a few decades ago, said Triune resident Karen Emerson-McPeak.

The property on which the community center sits was acquired by the county several years ago for Triune Community Park. The park serves as the home for the Triune Riding Club.

Emerson-McPeak, who is on the club's historical preservation committee, said Triune has one of the most well-preserved fortifications left from the Civil War and she embraces the club's mission of preserving Triune's rich history.

"I happen to be one who loves history and feel it's important to know what came before us," she said. "It gives me a foundation so that I can be better prepared to go forward.

"I feel like we should embrace the past and combine with the future, creating a better Triune."

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090607/COUNTY090101/906070324/1327/Preservation++growth+unite+rural+residents

Rural Americans long to be linked

Casey Francis — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:29:28 +0000

USA Today | June 8, 2006 | By Leslie Cauley

PLAINS, Texas — The people who live here are still waiting for the digital revolution to arrive.

The local phone company, Windstream, offers high-speed DSL service in part of Plains (population: around 1,450). But those who live outside the city limits, including farmers such as Jeff Roper, don't have a lot of choice.

Roper currently uses ERF Wireless, which provides service in more remote areas. He says the service, which costs $40 a month for a 1.5-megabit connection, is pretty good, though it sometimes goes down for days at a time.

To help run his 2,400-acre farm, he spent $65,000 on equipment for a satellite-based GPS service for his tractors, useful for navigation in the field. Broadband, handy for a variety of diagnostic and operational purposes such as irrigation and real-time weather monitoring, isn't available — so Roper and other farmers in this West Texas community do without.

Rural folks aren't prone to complain, Roper says. They work hard, love their communities and wouldn't think of living anywhere else. But that doesn't mean they don't want, and need, to be connected to the outside world.

"Just because we live in rural America doesn't mean we shouldn't have broadband," says Roper, a third-generation peanut farmer. "We're all Americans. We shouldn't be treated less than anyone else."

Congress agrees, and has allocated $7.2 billion in economic stimulus funding to support broadband deployment across the USA. The goal: to help drive broadband penetration in places such as Plains, which have long lagged urban areas in terms of choice, quality and cost.

By pushing hard on broadband, lawmakers hope to close the "digital divide" that has long separated rural America. In doing so, they hope to give rural consumers access to the same sorts of high-speed services and opportunities — think telemedicine, distance-learning and Web-based commerce — that city dwellers have enjoyed for years.

There's also the social divide to consider. While websites such as Facebook and Twitter might seem like mere entertainment, they also turn the Internet into a town hall meeting that spans the globe. Broadband is essential to that cultural shift, and to making sure consumers can participate.

The biggest argument in favor of rural broadband, however, can be boiled down to two words: job creation.

The way President Obama sees it, broadband is the future of the USA. According to non-profit Connected Nation, in Washington, a 7% increase in broadband penetration in underserved parts of the country could stimulate the economy by more than $134 billion. Benefits would accrue from the creation of jobs, commerce and other intangibles — such as fuel savings of non-commuters working from home — that would follow.

To realize that dream, however, broadband needs to become a ubiquitous service, such as power or water.

The problem: High-speed Internet access is far from pervasive in rural America, home to more than 60 million consumers. The average cost of broadband in the USA is about $45 a month, but fees in rural areas can run much higher.

Currently, about 57% of urban households and 60% of suburban households subscribe to broadband. In rural areas, only 38% do, according to a report by the Communications Workers of America.

"As a country, we're basically punishing people for living where they want to live," says Vince Jordan, CEO of Ridgeview Telephone, a small Colorado-based carrier that caters to rural customers.

Jordan says it isn't unusual for rural phone companies to charge $300 to $600 for a broadband installation. The fees cover the cost of dispatching a crew to wire up a home for DSL, which works off existing copper phone lines. In urban markets, installation is often free.

Why so pricey? In the broadband world, the more subscribers you have, the more quickly you can recover costs. In rural areas, 20 phone lines or fewer per square mile isn't unusual, so that can take a long time.

Ridgeview charges $30 for a broadband installation. Because it charges so little, Jordan says, it can take his company eight months to recover its costs. "But we also get a lot more customers" as a result, he says.

Dean Cubley, CEO of ERF Wireless, says he's heartened by the national push to bring rural areas into the 21st century. But he worries that public-policymakers aren't equipped to come up with realistic solutions.

"A lot of people think rural America is where the road narrows from four lanes to two lanes," says Cubley, who grew up on a farm in East Texas. "Rural America is where you drive off the gravel road to get to the farm house; it's where you have to get in a car and drive to visit your neighbors," he says. "Millions of people live that way. And they need broadband just like everybody else."

Online at school, late nights

You'll get no argument from Fredda Schooler, the school superintendent in Morton (population: around 2,000). There are 459 students in the town, and many have never ventured very far. Schooler says some of her students have never even been to Lubbock (population: around 250,000), about 70 miles east of here.

For these kids, she says, the Internet provides an invaluable window to the rest of the world. "It opens up a new dimension that would otherwise not be available," Schooler says.

Pat McNabb, a local librarian, agrees. With the Internet, she says, kids can "reach out and explore beyond the boundaries of a small town. They can access anything they can dream about."

Using state and federal grants, Morton set up a wireless broadband network for the school a few years ago. Grants also enabled it to buy 200 laptop computers. The system connects to a tech center in Lubbock via a T1 data line; the cost of the connection is also covered by the state.

Students are allowed to take laptops home with them. But since most homes don't have broadband, Schooler says, there's nothing to connect to once they get there.

To get around that problem, the school stays open three nights a week, until 9 p.m. That way, she says, kids can do homework and work on other online projects. Then they pile into buses and go home, only to come back the next day, at 8:30.

Schooler says she wishes things could be easier.

"We shouldn't have to jump through as many hoops as we have to jump through" to get broadband, she says.

Beverly Mills, who lives in nearby Loop (population: about 300), says it isn't unusual for home Internet connections in her town to go down — for weeks. Mills says she used to enjoy reading books online, but gave up because her home connection was so unreliable.

What does she do now?

"We do without," she says. "That's just life here."

Rita Tyson, 66, the county clerk for Cochran County, where Morton is located, has a similar story.

Tyson, a lifelong resident of Morton, says her home broadband connection — provided by a local phone cooperative — was so unreliable that she discontinued it three years ago. "It just wasn't worth it to me," she says. There are no other broadband providers in her area.

Tyson still uses the Internet at work. Her favorite sites are those that offer health information — she is particularly fond of the ones where consumers can submit questions to doctors — and advice about animals. (She's owned horses, cows and dogs through the years.)

"If you get that information off the Internet," she says, "you don't have to travel miles and pay a lot" to doctors and vets.

Once she retires, however, her Internet connection will go away. Tyson says she's not looking forward to that.

The Internet "would be the first thing that I would miss," she says, adding: "You can only get so much information off the TV."

Brenda Shaw, Morton's city manager, buys home broadband from the same telephone cooperative that Tyson dumped three years ago. Shaw says she's also had reliability problems. But since there are no other providers in her area, she puts up with it.

"We don't have a lot of choice around here," she says.

Small towns, big need

Plains City Administrator Terry Howard says he'd love to see a big carrier come into town. Given all the pent-up demand in Plains, he thinks whoever showed up would get a lot of business. But so far, there have been no takers.

Howard says he doesn't blame big carriers for not wanting to come to small towns such as Plains, allowing that they're probably not the most lucrative. Still, he wishes somebody would.

"They have their reasons, but that isn't helping us," he says.

Plains, meantime, is struggling. According to Howard, businesses won't even look at relocating here because broadband options are so limited. People who have home-based businesses are also stuck. Because the reliability of local broadband is so spotty, he says, trying to do even the most basic tasks — such as taking an online college class — can be an exercise in misery.

With nothing to shore up the local economy, the town's population is dwindling rapidly — by 100 people every 10 years or so, Howard guesses. Plains has about 1,450 residents currently.

Unless something changes, Plains will eventually become a town of "90-year-olds," he predicts.

Schooler, echoing the comments of other locals, says she hopes lawmakers won't forget about towns such as Plains and Morton when it comes to broadband.

"Every time you put a bite of beef in your mouth or a cotton T-shirt on your back, it came from rural America," Schooler says, her voice welling with pride. "We are one country. We feed you; you take care of us."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-06-07-rural-broadband-digital_N.htm

Hillsboro’s renaissance

Casey Francis — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:10:24 +0000

Small town thrives so much that woman makes it subject of doctoral dissertation. Unlike many rural towns that have suffered from decreasing population, migrating young adults, fewer farms and decaying infrastructure, Hillsboro has maintained and gained.

Grand Forks Herald | June 6, 2009 | By Rick Bakken

HILLSBORO, N.D. — When Mike Bitz became the Hillsboro superintendent of schools 10 years ago, seven consecutive school bond issue votes had lost. The last of them was drubbed with only 25 percent support.

Yet, in 2002, a $2.5 million school bond issue passed with 85 percent approval. So, 60 percent of the voters changed their minds in just three years. It was an amazing reversal for any project, but especially so for the Hillsboro Sports Center, which is predominantly a gym.

Bitz credited a different package for the vote swing. Property taxes and a city sales tax would pay for it, easing some of the burden on rural landowners.

Another motive to vote for the HSC was that it included a 24/7 fitness center that would be available to everyone in the region. Worry about losing their school to consolidation was another factor.

Those factors helped swing the vote. But community members also credit Bitz’s salesmanship. He gave 16 presentations to local groups. He not only recruited supporters, but also critics. He landed the endorsement of an influential landowner who was the most vocal opponent in the previous vote.

That vote is a prime example of the turnaround of this town of 1,600 people. Unlike many rural towns that have suffered from decreasing population, migrating young adults, fewer farms and decaying infrastructure, Hillsboro has maintained and gained.

The key reasons for the rebound are:

- New, young leaders such as Bitz.

- A positive, forward-looking mindset.

- A reinvestment in the community.

- A shift in local emphasis from economic development to community development.

Subject of thesis

Margaret Tweten, district director of the NDSU Extension Service in Grand Forks, did her doctorate dissertation on Hillsboro’s rebound. Because of research protocol, she can’t publicly identify the town, but it’s clear that it’s Hillsboro.

“In my travels around North Dakota, I wondered why some communities thrived and others struggled,” Tweten said. “I looked for one that revived itself. This community was struggling in the 1990s but suddenly turned itself around.”

Her criteria for a thriving community were: sales tax revenue increases, maintained population, a strong school, quality health care and financial services.

Of the North Dakota towns she researched, Hillsboro best met the criteria. School enrollment has stabilized, and housing stock has blossomed. New construction to the school, medical/nursing home facility, homes, infrastructure, streets, airport and business totaled $44 million from 1997 to 2008.

“It has experienced an economic boom with the new construction,” Tweten said.

Hillsboro also had a record for taxable sales in 2008, surpassing larger neighbor Mayville for the first time.

Other keys, Tweten said, include strong civic groups, paved streets and a vibrant newspaper “that isn’t afraid to talk about the key issues. You also need a newspaper to communicate when the key events are being held.”

The Hillsboro Banner weekly newspaper annually is a top winner in the state newspaper contest. It has strong opinions on its editorial page, yet also promotes the town through its coverage.

The Kiwanis Club has brought money to town, most specifically for a nonprofit housing complex for senior citizens. Fundraisers and grants backed a $50,000 helicopter landing pad for medical patients. The city also has a program that provides bonus purchase power to shop locally for Christmas presents.

And every street has received a new surface in recent years.

“People are more willing to drive for work if they have that quality of life and all the services they need when they get home,” Tweten said.

From smokestacks to housing

Hillsboro residents used to regard Interstate 29 as the “artery drawing blood out of town,” one resident said. Before the interstate was built in the 1970s, the north-south route was U.S. Highway 81, which cut through the middle of Hillsboro and brought traffic to town. The interstate not only rerouted traffic, but also made it easier for residents to travel to Fargo and Grand Forks to shop.

Residents also saw the label as a bedroom community demeaning.

But their mindsets changed. Now, they see the interstate as a plus, making it easier for residents to commute to jobs in Fargo and Grand Forks. They’ve embraced the bedroom concept, marketing itself as just a “cup of coffee away” from the two cities.

“If they want to call us a bedroom community, it’s fine with me as long as we have kids in the school, people using the hospital and subscribers to our newspaper,” said Neil Nelson, Hillsboro Banner editor.

The focus of the promotions is on the benefits of small-town living such as smaller class sizes along with having bigger city luxuries such as the medical complex. The strategy change from economic development to community development in the late 1990s was pivotal.

Sharp contrast

This was in sharp contrast to before, when local tax dollars were poured into chasing manufacturers who would provide jobs and consequently residents.

“We chased lots of smokestacks without success,” said Mark Forseth, former city auditor. “But then we had an epiphany. Bigger cities had deeper pockets to attract them. We could beat our heads against the wall forever trying to land Marvin Windows, or we could refocus our efforts to what we could accomplish.”

The focus shifted to making Hillsboro a nicer place to live. That approach would draw people, which might in turn draw business, at least eventually.

“No job or business is going to keep a family happy,” said Dan Christianson, president of the hospital foundation. “If you’re not happy, you end up moving. So, we gave attention to the amenities, the school, the park, the golf course, summer recreation, adding high-speed internet and so on.”

In 1996, the city built 16 housing lots. They filled with homes over the years. Then in 2002, city approved a tax incremental financing program for a 25-lot private housing development. Under TIF, residents’ property taxes are used to pay off the special assessments, which were more than $30,000 per lot.

With that incentive, the 25 lots sold in less than three years. For a town accustomed to one new home being built a year, it was a dramatic boom. Now, a 30-lot development also is available with the TIF incentive.

Bitz supported the controversial TIF even though the tax dollars will be used for specials for about 10 years.

“The Hillsboro School District is property rich with the Taft Elevator, American Crystal Sugar and lots of good farmland,” Bitz said. “So, we need more students more than we need more property taxes. Plus, much of state funding is help based on census.

“With TIF, you not only get more students and more state funding, but you get more people in town who will shop, volunteer, contribute to churches and pay (city) utility bills.”

Stable enrollment

More housing has meant more students. From the 1999-2000 to the 2004-05 school years, school enrollment fell from 510 to 400. In each of the past four years, enrollment has been from 404 to 409.

Numbers in the preschool programs indicate that stability will continue. The school provides preschool to all students for a year before they enter kindergarten. It sends buses to 16 intown stops and offers morning breakfast and afterschool programming.

“If you expect people to live here who work in Grand Forks and Fargo, you have to help them with their kids,” Bitz said.

The help continues after preschool. Students can graduate with as many as 23 college credits. This year’s graduates shared $52,000 in scholarships from the school foundation, with each applicant receiving a minimum of $775.

“When you give scholarships, you send the message that Hillsboro wants you to succeed,” Banner columnist Michelle McLean said.

Hospital project booms

When the Hillsboro Medical Center spent $1.5 million remodeling its clinic in 1997, it was just warming up.

Now, it is near completion of a $12.5 million project that adds assisted living, replaces an outdated nursing home and remodels most of the hospital. Including the clinic, the four facilities share one roof, filling an entire block.

Close to 800 donors raised $1.4 million in a capital campaign, leaving it just $100,000 of its mandated total.

“With the assisted living complex, we have a continuum of care, a link between the home and the nursing home,” said Angie Kritzberger, director of the medical foundation. “Now, there’s no reason anyone has to move away from their hometown. And we have some who are moving back home.”

Curt Kaufman, president of Goose River State Bank, said the hospital project sends the same message as the school improvement and housing development.

“It says that we have a luxury a lot of small communities don’t have,” he said. “It’s been all about momentum. When you see one thing go in a direction, whether it’s good or bad, other things seem to go that same direction. Once we turned the corner, things have fed off other things and we really have momentum going now.”

Gail Mooney, active in economic development, the business association and historic preservation, agrees.

“With the improved hospital, it’s profound how the community now perceives itself,” she said. “The hospital is such a huge accomplishment, and it’s so beautiful, it makes people think: ‘If we can do this and that, everything is possible.’”

Reach Bakken at (701) 780-1125; (800) 477-6572, ext. 125; or send e-mail to rbakken@gfherald.com.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/121753/

Improvements for rural vets discussed

Casey Francis — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:37:07 +0000

The Tundra Drums | June 4, 2009 | By Staff

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki told U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski last week that he wants to try to ease the serious VA healthcare access problems facing veterans in rural Alaska, according to a news release.

At a meeting in the senator’s office, Murkowski invited Shinseki to visit Alaska and see those challenges first hand. Shinseki said he would like to visit the state.

Murkowski used the 45-minute meeting with Shinseki to reiterate a variety of concerns regarding VA health care in Alaska, the senator’s news release said.

Veterans in Fairbanks and Southeast are being asked to fly to Seattle and Anchorage for treatment that the VA can’t provide in their hometowns but community providers can. Veterans in rural Alaska receive no VA health care unless they can travel to a VA facility, often at their own expense.

The meeting followed a letter Murkowski sent to Shinseki earlier last month in which she underscored that many Alaska veterans are effectively disenfranchised from utilizing their earned VA health care benefit due to the distance between their homes and the nearest VA facility. A member of the Senate Appropriations Veterans Affairs Subcommittee, Murkowski emphasized the plight of rural veterans who have no direct access to VA facilities.

“I asked Secretary Shinseki to look into why the VA still does not purchase care from the Alaska Native Health System and Alaska’s Community Health Centers,” Murkowski said. “The secretary indicated that he intends to meet with the national leadership of the Indian Health Service to explore ways that the VA and the Indian Health Service might partner together. I hope the administration will follow through and help us solve this critical problem facing Alaska veterans.”

Murkowski told Shinseki that it was important for Alaska Native veterans to understand that the VA respects their service to the nation. In that regard, she asked Shinseki to speak at the 2009 Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, or if his schedule doesn’t permit a visit, to send a message to the convention.

The VA Alaska Health System was scheduled to brief the state’s congressional delegation staff on several new initiatives in the works to improve care in rural Alaska last week. The initiatives include:

• A pilot project to demonstrate the use of expanded fee-basis authority in providing primary care services to rural Alaska veterans. This project will impact approximately 600 enrolled veterans in the Bethel area, Bristol Bay Borough, Dillingham area and the City of Cordova. The pilot activation is scheduled for June 1.

• A National Care Coordination Home Telehealth project, which includes a planned expansion into Alaska.

• A Care Coordination Store and Forward project, which includes funding for teleretinal imaging equipment planned for the Kenai, Alaska, Community Based Outpatient Clinic.

• A Care Coordination General Telehealth project, which will benefit veterans across all of VISN 20 (Veterans Integrated Service Network 20), including Alaska.

http://www.thetundradrums.com/news/show/6191

Rural teen drivers face higher risk of being in a fatal crash

Casey Francis — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:27:20 +0000

The Boomerang! | June 4, 2009 | By Staff

A study released by Allstate Insurance Company finds that teen drivers in rural parts of the country are more than twice as likely to be in a fatal car crash as their peers in urban areas.

The study, which reviewed 2000-2006 federal crash statistics and Allstate claims data on teen driving fatalities, found that out of every 100,000 teen drivers on rural roadways, 51.47 will be in a fatal crash. In urban areas, that number drops to 25.4.

"Even one fatality is too high," said Michelle Lee, Allstate Northwest Region Field Vice President. "We remain committed to our efforts to educate parents and teens about safe driving."

Among states in Allstate's Northwest Region, rural teen drivers in Washington were 105 percent more likely to be in a fatal crash than those in urban areas, making it the 17th deadliest state in the country in this category.

"While some areas post better scores than others, it's time our entire nation acts against this public health crisis, which claims about 6,000 teen lives every year,' said Lee. "Parents should start talking to their teens - even before they get behind the wheel - about smart driving decisions, while setting a good example through their own good driving behavior."

The 100 days beginning with Memorial Day and ending with Labor Day are historically the most deadly for teens behind the wheel. To help teens stay safe through prom, graduation, the summer and beyond, parents should initiate a conversation about smart driving. This conversation can include completion of a Parent-Teen Driving Contract, which helps set guidelines for smart driving and consequences for not living up to those expectations.

Parents and teens can fill out the interactive contract - setting their own expectations and consequences - online at www.allstate.com\teen.

http://www.the-boomerang.com/full.php?sid=2408&current_edition=2009-06-04

Buying The Farm: A Good Bet For Rural Retirees

Casey Francis — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:32:27 +0000

All Things Considered, NPR.org | June 3, 2009 | By Howard Berkes

When the economy suffers, the nation's farmers also suffer — including those close to retirement. At least, that's been the pattern in the past. But in the current recession, those who invested in farmland — and not 401(k) retirement accounts — made good bets for retirement.

"The thing about farmland [is] it's still producing income," says Dan Wilson, 57, who raises corn, soybeans, grain and organic hogs on 640 acres in Paullina, Iowa. "As long as it can keep producing a crop and the crop's worth something, [farmland] is a good thing to own."

Crops have been worth plenty in the corn and soybean belt in the Midwest, even with a recent dip in some commodity prices.

"Corn prices, soybean prices, wheat prices — all those have been pretty strong until very recently," says Ernie Goss, an economist at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.

Goss credits high prices to the production of corn-based ethanol and high demand for other crops. On top of that, a growing number of farmers are hosting wind turbines on their land.

"All that pulled together has been very favorable" for the price of farmland, Goss adds.

Farmland Values On The Rise

Wilson and his wife, Lorna, are counting on their farmland to fund their retirement. They can sell or lease it at premium prices. They're also counting on their two sons to continue to farm crops and raise livestock on some of their land, generating income for everyone.

Sitting at their kitchen table, the Wilsons tick off the farmland statistics that show advantages over a 401(k) invested in stocks. First, Dan notes that "farmland today has doubled in value [over] what it was 10 years ago."

Then Lorna chimes in: "We bought our first 80 acres for like $998 [an acre]. And now, today, it'd probably be worth $4,000 an acre."

The Wilsons add that the recent high price for land in the area is $9,000 an acre. They also note that land prices have declined a bit lately, but it's nothing like the sharp declines in urban and suburban real estate and homes.

Economist Goss has the statistics to support the Wilsons' anecdotal evidence.

"The price appreciation since 1998 has been very good," Goss says. "We're talking about 15 percent a year [in some states]. And the rest of us, those who have invested in stock … we're seeing drops of 30 percent to 50 percent."

Good Bet, But Not Foolproof

In Cylinder, Iowa, 69-year-old Linus Solberg takes a break from cultivating an 80-acre field destined for soybeans to recount the advice he heard 40 years ago from a landlord.

"He said, 'Linus, there's only so much land in the world. And instead of putting a lot of money in stocks, you need to just invest it in land,' " Solberg says.

Solberg and his wife, Patty, did precisely that.

"That's our retirement," he says of the 700 acres he both leases to other farmers and continues to farm himself. "The value of the land has just skyrocketed."

The land boom has even attracted nonfarming investors from out of state who have helped push prices even higher, Solberg says.

None of this means farmland is a foolproof investment.

The Wilsons see some risk, especially if the recession persists and deepens.

"Anything that shrinks the organic food market would have an impact on us," Dan Wilson says. "If people have less disposable income, it's much more tempting to buy cheap food."

"That's our reality," adds Lorna Wilson. "If [shoppers] choose not to choose organic, we have no control over that."

Diminished demand for the crops and energy farmland produces will diminish the value of farmland. But, so far it seems that Midwestern farmers who are close to retirement, and who invested in their land, made the right choice.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104864768

Nebraska seeks federal money for rural transit

Casey Francis — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:12:19 +0000

World-Herald Bureau | June 3, 2009 | By Paul Hammel

LINCOLN -- Nebraska has applied for nearly $5.3 million in federal stimulus funds for transit programs in rural areas, including those that serve the elderly, Gov. Dave Heineman said Wednesday.

The federal stimulus law set aside more than $9.8 million for public transit projects in Nebraska’s rural areas, as part of $23 million in funding for projects that help local transit authorities acquire, construct and improve mass transportation options.

Heineman said the remaining $13 million in stimulus funds will be distributed among Lincoln, Omaha and South Sioux City.

The governor held news conferences in Kearney and North Platte on Wednesday to announce that transit programs in those cities are among the beneficiaries.

Several rural counties also will benefit, along with the cities of Sidney, McCook and Ogallala.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10645529

Rural entrepreneurs compete in global marketplace

Casey Francis — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:56:32 +0000

The Times-Republican | June 2, 2009 | By Jens Manuel Krogstad, The Associated Press

NEW HAMPTON - As large employers continue their exodus from rural America, a rising tide of small business owners has sprouted in its wake, with varying degrees of success.

The trend is not new, but the sheer numbers of people pushed to self-employment out of economic necessity is reaching a critical mass. According to several estimates, 20 to 30 percent of rural Americans will be self-employed by 2015.

"It's huge," said Maureen Collins-Williams, director of University of Northern Iowa Regional Business Center.

Even as global forces have pushed employers away, technology offers geographically and socially isolated entrepreneurs hope that they can compete in a global marketplace.

The regional center started the nationally recognized MyEntre.net several years ago as a traveling business incubator to train and network small business owners across Iowa.

In the past month, it re-launched its Web site to focus on social networking, a kind of Facebook for Iowa's small businesses. They can learn about each other, connect and collaborate.

In practice, it can mean reducing costs by partnering with other small businesses to share freight costs - something Janey Lynn's Designs in New Hampton recently pursued - or immediately sharing lessons learned through a new venture.

"All data and research I see keeps pointing to networking as an increasingly important part of entrepreneurial success. What is needed and what is important, is their ability to learn from one another," Collins-Williams said.

Rural entrepreneurs who have used MyEntre.net call the service invaluable. For Robert and Helen Lee, who own a stained glass production company in Traer, Dreamland Productions, they learned what precise bookkeeping actually means. They hired a bookkeeper and can now accurately price products to account for insurance and building maintenance costs.

The center helped Janey Lynn's Designs build a plan as it moved into wedding decorations and wholesale distribution of a home furnishings line.

Jane Sheckleton, who owns the design business with her husband, said the center's staff helped them crunch the numbers and determine how many wedding license applications come in each year within a 30 to 40 mile radius.

"Twenty years ago, you went out and got a natural feel for if the area could handle it, if there was a demand. Today you can find the stats to see if it will really work," she said.

The results have garnered national attention. In the past year, UNI Regional Business Center has worked to build versions of its program in Texas, Illinois, Michigan and Nevada.

Frank Beck, director of Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development at Illinois State University, said states see MyEntre.net has a possible solution to a century-long pattern of rural flight.

"The hottest thing in the market is MyEntre.net. As far as I can tell, it's cutting edge," he said. "It's certainly going to be more successful than communities out there chasing smokestacks, trying to attract a major employer."

http://www.timesrepublican.com/page/content.detail/id/517078.html?nav=5005