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Initiative Aims for 25K Defibrillators for the Midwest and West Emergency Services
As a police officer in Sturgis, South Dakota, Walter Panzirer performed CPR many times, yet was unable to successfully save anyone. Meanwhile, while a police officer across the state in Mitchell, South Dakota, Panzirer and the other officers were equipped with automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, which are life-saving heart health resources.
How One University Is Creatively Tackling the Rural Teacher Shortage
This story was originally published by The Hechinger Report. Like many states with a large number of rural schools, Wyoming desperately needs more teachers. Take the case of the Teton County School District, in Jackson, Wyoming. Located near Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the area is well known as a vacation spot. Despite the alluring landscape, for full-time residents the extremely high housing costs are daunting.
45 Degrees North: Local Wool
Early spring is the time for shearing at the Wisconsin farm where I buy raw fleece to spin into yarn. In March, I went to Bear Creek Sheep Station to select my fleeces as they were shorn. Owners Bob and Penny Leder steward a farm-to-table grass-fed meat operation. They time breeding their flock so lambs arrive around the same time as lush spring grass. Their ewes convert grass into milk to feed those lambs. Shearing before babies arrive makes the ewes more comfortable while giving birth, and makes it easier for newborns to find their mothers’ teats.
Q&A: Death, Religion, and Mysterious Floating Lights, with Author Matthew Vollmer
Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week.
Commentary: Rural Voters Help Protect Reproductive Choice in Wisconsin
Wisconsin voters, including many in rural areas, on April 4 elected local jurist Janet Protasiewicz to the state’s Supreme Court. In one of the nation’s most closely-watched judicial elections, Judge Protasiewicz, a progressive, defeated conservative Dan Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice. This will return Wisconsin’s high court to a liberal majority for the first time in 15 years.
Is Rural America Struggling? It Depends on How you Define ‘Rural’
Later this year, some of the nation’s most economically successful “rural” counties will be reclassified as metropolitan, moving their populations and economic output from nonmetropolitan to metropolitan with the stroke of a pen. That’s because 2023 is the year the federal Office of Management and Budget will...
‘Rūrangi’ Sets the Curve for Rural Queer Storytelling
Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, a newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, retrospectives, recommendations, and more. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.
Rural Voters Shift Democratic in Wisconsin Supreme Court Election
Rural voters in Wisconsin were part of a broad swing toward the Democratic Party in Tuesday’s state Supreme Court race, in which Democrat Janet Protasiewicz defeated Republican Daniel Kelly by more than 10 points. Protasiewicz garnered 45% of the rural, or nonmetropolitan, vote in the election – not enough...
A Rural Calling: ‘He’s Served the Lord on Whatever Avenue’
Steve Peake grew up surrounded by family. His grandmother, Molly Branson, observed the boy as he tended to the needs of his Eastern Kentucky coal camp elders. “And she told my aunt, she said, ‘Out of all the children, this boy right here is going to be the one that stays here and takes care of you all,” Peake recalled. “My grandmother said that. It was prophecy fulfilled.”
Bringing Appalachia’s Songs of Solidarity to Soldiers in Ukraine
In 2019, folk musician Brother Hill and his bandmates found themselves in a seven-hour jam session with Belarusian musicians they’d met the night before in Athens, Ohio. The evening was spent feasting, drinking, singing, shouting, and learning of each other’s traditions for the first time, says Hill, real name Brett.
Analysis: Social Capital Key to Recruiting Healthcare Professionals
Personal and professional relationships, also known as social capital, were crucial to recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals in rural areas of nine states, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. “In the case of healthcare professionals, the relationships that they consider when making...
Analysis: Home Mortgage Demand Declines in Rural America, Mirroring National Market
Mortgage activity in rural America slowed dramatically last year, mirroring changes that occurred in the national housing market, according to an analysis of loan-guarantee data from the Department of Agriculture. National vs. Rural Trends?. Numerous reports have documented the slowdown in homebuying and mortgage activity nationally in recent months. This...
Want to Better Prepare Rural Black Communities for Tornadoes? Erode the Income Gap.
This story was originally published by Capital B. The severity of the recent network of tornadoes that practically erased a majority Black rural town in Mississippi off the map would’ve leveled any community in its path — but the region’s high amount of mobile homes, low access to information networks, and poor insurance rates created a perfect storm.
Accidental Rancher: Country Problems Come With Country Solutions
This week we’ve had another dose of good, old-fashioned awful weather. Lots of snow, lots of wind, and freezing temperatures are never anyone’s first choice, but unfortunately, we’ve now also started calving, which makes the stakes even higher. No one gets much sleep when babies can be born any time of day or night and nasty weather makes their chances of survival slim if for some reason their mama isn’t able to do her job.
Q&A: ‘Going, Going, Gone!’ One Man’s Path to Becoming an Auctioneer
Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week.
The College Challenge in a Rural Meatpacking Town
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. Six hours southwest...
Rural Population Grows Slightly; Remote Counties Lose Residents, New Census Data Shows
The nation’s rural population grew slightly last year, according to Census Bureau data released today (March 30, 2023). While the increase was small, it is one more indication that historic losses in nonmetropolitan population in the 2010s have been reversed for the time being. The number of people living...
How State Regulators Allowed a Fading West Texas Town to Go Over Four Years Without Safe Drinking Water
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News in collaboration with Mitch Borden, a reporter at Marfa Public Radio. It all began simply enough: A boil water notice was issued. A state inspection followed. A list of violations arrived. It’s a well-known pattern in small Texas towns that struggle to maintain their water systems.
Three Decades of Well Water Pollution in Rural Oregon Sees Almost No Government Action
A crowd of volunteers gathered at the public health office in Boardman, Oregon, early Saturday morning in mid-March, chatting with each other in English and Spanish as they snacked on cookies and coffee, gearing up for the day’s event. Laid out on tables were cardboard boxes filled with plastic vials for the group to take with them as they teamed up in twos and threes to knock on doors in the community, offering free tap water tests to those who answered.
Rural America Gets $315 Million for Cleaner, more Affordable Energy
This story was originally published by Grist. One-sixth of U.S. households are in rural communities, where people often pay a larger share of their income for electricity. Reliability can be spotty, and investment in decarbonization scant. Geographically scattered towns and aging infrastructure can make maintaining the grid expensive. Even simple steps to improve energy efficiency, like insulating an attic, can be out of reach for cash-poor residents, especially renters.
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