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Small Southern City Deals with the Pride – and Pain – of Its Civil Rights History
Downtown Clinton, Tennessee, looks like any one of thousands of American downtowns. In the summer, the streets are given over to antique festivals and classic cars. In the fall there’s a steady stream of customers at the lunch counter at Hoskins Drug Store, the town’s historic pharmacy. But...
Black Churches Play a Key Role in Connecting Rural Communities to Broadband Internet
This story was originally published by Religion News Service. In the riverfront city of New Bern, North Carolina, Peletah Ministries, like many houses of worship since Covid-19 struck, offers Sunday services to those who can’t get to church for health or other reasons. But in these days of Zoom and other internet-based communications, the stay-at-home congregants still dial in to the service via a conference call on the ministry’s toll-free 800 number — a landline.
USDA Report Analyzes Three of Its Rural Broadband Programs and Their Reach
A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture examines three broadband programs and if they were able to reach the target audiences. The report looked at three programs: The Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) was the largest of them in terms of funds obligated during the study period, with about $3.6 billion in grants and loans in Fiscal Year 2010. ReConnect obligated $1.5 billion in grants and loans from Fiscal Year 2019 to Fiscal Year 2021, and Community Connect obligated $253 million in grants from Fiscal Year 2009 to Fiscal Year 2021.
Everyone Deserves Quality Journalism, No Matter Where They Live
For years, journalism has been in decline as small and large newsrooms across the country close their doors. News deserts abound in rural America especially, where the shuttering of local newspapers has left small towns without access to essential information about their communities. This is where we come in. For...
Rural Health Care Figures Prominently in 2023’s Limited Political Races
Although 2023 is a relatively light election year, the attention rural health care is receiving in a handful of gubernatorial and legislative races could signal the issue’s importance in the much more consequential 2024 election season. In Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi, gubernatorial candidates are squaring off over whether to...
Lawmakers Tackled New Mexico’s Crisis of Rural Health Care Workers. It Wasn’t Enough
This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth. As the crow flies, the Pojoaque Primary Care Center is about 20 miles from New Mexico’s 400-plus-year-old capital, Santa Fe, with its art galleries, well-known opera and tourist destinations. But it’s 45 minutes by car from Dr. Mario Pacheco’s home on Santa Fe’s south side.
With ‘Only’ 2 Million Matchsticks Left, Artist Shifts Focus to His Hometown Legacy
It’s 10 a.m. in Gladbrook, Iowa, and down in the workshop in his basement, Pat Acton is doing what he does almost every morning: picking up matchsticks and gluing them together, one at a time. And he’s apologizing. Consistently. To me. Not the matchsticks. First about moving too...
Q&A: A Minnesota Housing Justice Group Puts a New Spin on ‘A Prairie Home Companion’
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.
Accidental Rancher: Going to the Farm
When I was a youngster, I had a black-and-white cat named Manny. He was an easy cat to love with a jovial disposition until we moved into a house that had once been home to an incontinent dog. My parents pulled up the carpet and laid down beautiful wood floors,...
Solar Eclipse Sheds Light on Labor Cultural Nuances in Rural Utah
Vance Nielson owns the only gas station in Bluff, Utah. His storage capacity maxes out around 10,000 gallons of fuel, enough to fill about 500 cars. Typically, this is more than enough to service the rural town, whose population is less than 300. But when Ann Leppanen, the mayor of...
Breaking Down Barriers Through Music
Emmanuel Black Bear hopes that he and other Indigenous musicians are breaking down negative stereotypes by performing with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. Black Bear, who is Lakota, has been performing with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra as part of the Lakota Music Project for nearly two decades – since it started.
In Puerto Rico, Rural Residents Wait for Accountability, Cleanup of Toxic Coal Ash
This story was originally published by Energy News Network. After Sol Piñeiro retired from bilingual special education in New Jersey public schools, she bought a dream house in Salinas on Puerto Rico’s south coast, near the town where she was born. She and her husband built a traditional...
Rural Voters in Swing States Present Untapped Potential, New Poll Suggests
Editor’s Note: The Center for Rural Strategies, which publishes the Daily Yonder, conducted this survey with Lake Research Partners. Largely untapped political messaging about the economy could sway a large swath of rural voters in battleground states, a new survey by the Center for Rural Strategies suggests. The findings...
Commentary: In New Poll, Rural Americans Point to Unheard Economic Urgency
For the last couple of years we have been working with groups around the country to get a sense of what rural communities were feeling about the economy. Are country people hurting? Are they optimistic? Is it the same old up one day and down the next? As part of our research, we have commissioned polling, conducted eight focus groups in four states, and shared what we have found with policy professionals and political analysts. As the fog begins to lift here is what I see.
To Do This Work, We Need Your Help
The old adage says familiarity breeds contempt. These days, we know the opposite is true. Lack of familiarity allows us to focus on our differences and treat people we don’t know with scorn. Or even hate them. The fruits of this division are all around us. The Daily Yonder’s...
Kentucky Wants Dark Tourism to Bring More Dollars for Rural Counties
It may be the first time a state tourism department has centered an advertising campaign around local legends of aliens invading a small town. Or ghosts at a seed mill in a 1,500-person community. Or mysterious figures in a graveyard – a parade of mourners going nowhere. Thought to...
Deer Season Is Here. “Zombie Deer Disease” Is too.
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. A friend once told me about a hunting trip she went...
Video: The Unlikely Home of Mullen Steel Guitars
It sounds like another vocal in the band. It can put you at ease after a hard day’s work or gently whisk you onto the dance floor. You could be spacing out and picking at the label on your beer not even realizing you’re being reeled in by it. It’s the steel guitar and they’re born out in the middle of nowhere (or middle of everywhere, depending on the song).
Rural Hospital Turns to Crowdfunding for Help
Bucktail Medical Center, an independent hospital in western Clinton County, Pennsylvania, is asking for nearly $1.5 million on the crowdfunding platform to help it stay open. Tim Reeves, the hospital’s administrator, said in an interview with the Daily Yonder that the 16-hospital bed and adjacent 43-bed nursing home are the only hospital with in-patient facilities for nearly 40 miles. While the hospital has struggled for years, he said, it had just come out of bankruptcy reorganization and plans were being made to attract more patients and increase revenue.
Millions of Rural Americans Rely on Private Wells. Few Regularly Test Their Water.
This story was originally published by KFF Health News. Allison Roderick has a warning and a pledge for rural residents of her county: The water from their wells could be contaminated, but the government can help make it safe. Roderick is the environmental health officer for Webster County in north-central...
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