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Rural Virginia Cafe Relies on “Small-Town Perspective” to Serve Locals and Visitors
Woodstock Cafe, in the town of Woodstock, Virginia, offers a pretty bountiful menu considering that it sits in a town of 5,212 residents. For starters, it is open for breakfast and lunch seven days a week, and for dinner Thursday through Saturday. The menu has a lot of choose-your-own-adventure elements: breakfast sandwiches, lunch combinations, and dinner specials. Sunday means brunch, with omelets, biscuits and gravy, and a skillet meal with potatoes, sausage, and eggs, topped with cheese, spicy Mexican crema, and fresh scallions.
States Are about to Dole out Federal Broadband Funding. Not All Are Ready
This story was originally published by The Conversation. When the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed in late 2021, it included $42.5 billion for broadband internet access as part of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program. The program aims to ensure that broadband access is available throughout the country. This effort differs from previous federal broadband programs because it promised to allocate the funding to individual states and allow them to figure out the best way to distribute it.
Bipartisan Congressional Caucus Addresses Payments to Rural Hospitals
A newly formed Congressional caucus hopes to help rural hospitals stay open and increase the rural health workforce. Earlier this year, U.S. Representatives Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) and Diane Harshbarger (R-West Virginia) formed the Congressional Rural Health Caucus with 47 members from both sides of the aisle. The group’s goal, the representatives said, is to help inform members of Congress about rural health issues and allow them to hear directly from patients, healthcare providers and health advocates about rural healthcare challenges.
Outrage in Wyoming Erupts over Public Land Auction
This story was originally published by Writers on the Range. There’s a 640-acre parcel of magnificent, state-owned public land in Wyoming that’s. set for auction unless the state changes its mind. Simply put, this small inholding, known as the “Kelly Parcel,” should never be. privatized—never. It...
Wherever You Go, the Yonder Goes With You
Rural sojourners, take heart. No matter where you go, the Daily Yonder goes with you. A few months ago, my little family moved from our small town in East Tennessee to the urban wilderness of New Haven, Connecticut, where I’m pursuing my Master of Divinity degree. This move is...
The Smithsonian Is Coming to Town
Montana, 2003: Even though the small town of Cascade only has 712 full-time residents, more than 25,000 people participated in the activities surrounding the Museum on Main Street exhibition, “Barn Again!” The Cascade County Historical Society mounted a local exhibition, called “Horses, Hitches, and Haybales: Work in Barns,” while the neighboring town of Great Falls displayed farm implements, quilts, photographs of local barns and student artwork. They hosted barn tours, conducted barn surveys, and even sponsored a two-day barn preservation workshop.
A Half-Century of Rural Housing: Report Looks Central Role of Housing in Community Resiliency
There’s a reason to celebrate in Darlington, Wisconsin, a town of just under 2,500 that lies about a dozen miles from the Illinois border. The Meadows Apartments, a complex of 32 new affordable apartments, is open for business. Only farm workers and their families are eligible to rent the apartments, which typically go for between $200-900 a month, depending on renter income. There is also a community room onsite and outreach programs available.
Superintendent Laments Hiring Challenges, Grant Concerns in Rural Georgia
Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in Mile Markers, a twice monthly newsletter from Open Campus about the role of colleges in rural America. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox. “Time to stir...
Rural Jobs Grew a Percentage Point in September, but the Longer-Term Trend Is Still a Problem
Rural America added more than 200,000 jobs over the past year but is still below pre-pandemic employment levels, according to a Daily Yonder analysis. The failure to reach full recovery three and a half years after the start of the pandemic is related to larger trends, including an aging population, lack of childcare, and lower levels of formal education, according to an economist.
How Do You Vote Under a Failed Electoral System?
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Keep It Rural, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Like what you see? Join the mailing list for more rural news, thoughts, and analysis in your inbox each week. In just over one year, we will be entering a new...
Coastal Oregon County Tackles ‘Urban Scale’ Housing Issues
Cloudy skies loomed over the small coastal town of Seaside, Oregon, on a November morning earlier this year, but the rain stayed away as a group of residents, healthcare workers, and city officials gathered outside of what was, up until a few months ago, a Red Lion Inn. The group...
Study: Rural, Urban Communities Agree on More Issues Than Expected, but Differences Remain
Despite being portrayed as having vastly different ideologies, people in rural communities have a lot of opinions in common with their urban counterparts, a new study from the American Communities Project has found. The survey questioned more than 5,000 people across 15 different community types to show a more complex...
Commentary: VA’s Plan to Cut Ambulance Payments Will Hurt Rural Veterans and Communities
More than one quarter of all military veterans live in rural areas where health care has too often become a challenge to access. Sustaining necessary health infrastructure has grown increasingly difficult as declining rural populations have caused many hospitals and the medical practices associated with them to close down. Nearly 140 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, with 19 closing in 2020 alone. This increases the distance rural residents must travel for medical appointments and procedures.
Who’s Buying Nebraska? After Shopping Spree, Mormon Church Is Top Land Purchaser
Editor’s note: A version of this article originally appeared in Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s first nonprofit, independent newsroom. Early in the summer of 2018, a nonprofit few Nebraskans have heard of bought a 22,613-acre chunk of land in Garden County. The next year, the nonprofit, tied to a...
Remembering Our Earliest Supporters
When we realized we needed to ask for year-end Daily Yonder reader donations, among the first contributions was a gift from Joe and Helen Pickering, my mother- and father-in-law. It is tricky to ask your family for support, but it means the world when it shows up in the mail.
Movie Examines American Dream Through the Lens of Diminishing Rural Healthcare
An abandoned hospital that serves paranormal investigators instead of patients. A green bus that has lines of people waiting for medical treatment when it comes to town. A coal miner struggling to breathe fighting with the coal mine that made him sick. These are the realities of healthcare in rural...
45 Degrees North: The Flip Side of Gas Stoves
Like many rural people, last winter I heard that the federal government might consider a ban on gas stoves. And I completely missed the statement that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission was not, in fact, looking to ban gas stoves but is studying ways to reduce potential indoor air quality hazards from gas appliances. As a result of that oversight, I did something completely out of character for me:
Housing Prices Have Plateaued in Rural Moab Valley, but Only by a Little
This story was originally published by the Moab Times-Independent. For Kaitlin Myers, the developments were at opposite ends of the Moab Valley but signaled the same trend. One was a small subdivision just a mile from the San Juan County border in Spanish Valley. The other, ensconced in downtown Moab, was a block of condominiums next to the Center Street Ballpark.
Study: Rural Hospitals in Missouri Offer Services to Overcome Barriers to Care
For rural hospitals in Missouri providing social services like transportation, housing assistance and food is a part of improving patients’ health, a new study from the University of Missouri has found. Julie Kapp, lead researcher on the study, said providing these core services in rural communities may lead to...
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