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The Daily Yonder
Lack of Local News Can Intensify the Community’s Disengagement in Public Life
When rural areas lose their local newspapers, the news that takes its place centers around national politics, as the Daily Yonder reported back in 2018. This shift in focus can weaken community engagement with local government. Communities living in news deserts have few-to-no journalistic sources to rely on for local...
Commentary: The Free Market
“Bring what you no longer need, take what you can use,” reads a flier advertising the Free Market in Independence, Virginia. Kathy Cole met me at a country store near a crest of winding road in Grayson County. The Free Market is Kathy’s innovation; a store where people can donate or take home gently used things for free.
Novel Survey Elevates Rural Lived Experience
A survey of Oregon residents applied experimental methodology in order to ensure rural voices are heard. “Oregon Voices is a survey project that is designed to raise up the voices of Oregonians living in our rural towns, small towns, rural spaces,” said Kasi Allen, the director of Learning and Knowledge Management at the Ford Family Foundation in Roseburg, Oregon.
Data Centers Love North Dakota. Should North Dakota Love Them?
This story was originally published by the High Plains Reader. Governor Doug Burgum is welcoming crypto mining and data center companies into North Dakota, saying in a January 2022 news release that it will diversify the state’s economy and attract high-paying jobs. However, these companies have come under scrutiny for a variety of reasons, including their high energy use.
45 Degrees North: An Ode (With Subtitles) To Hearing Aids
The big news in my neck of the Northwoods is that Kiss is coming. On Labor Day weekend, the iconic rock band will perform in Forest County (population 9,381) at the Crandon International Off-Road Raceway. Many of the folks planning to Rock and Roll All Nite will travel there via the state highway that runs past my place. My husband and I will hear the bass line blaring from cars, trucks, and motorcycles going to and from Crandon.
Q&A: A New Documentary Charts the Changing Identity of Portsmouth, Ohio
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: Musician’s Notes From the Road
I am a rural school music teacher. A clog-wearing, top-knot rocking, staff meeting, dress code adhering, music directing, kid disciplining, rural school music teacher. Bandstands. Trumpets. The whole thing. I am also a songwriter, a record producer, a recording artist, and a self-managed, touring musician. I have written and released...
The Case for Career and Technical Education, and Longevity
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. While recently reporting...
Lack of Access to Cloud Computing May Hinder Rural Innovation, Study Shows
Rural America’s lower rate of broadband access is interfering with the adoption of cloud computing, a major factor in business innovation, according to a new study from Penn State and the National Science Foundation. “If you don’t have broadband, you can’t do cloud computing,” said Timothy Wojan, who co-authored...
Commentary: When We Listen to People Carefully, the False Dichotomy of Rural and Urban America Evaporates
America is again segregated. Spaces where opponents divided by supposed geographic and political differences interact are increasingly rare. Since the 2016 election, the media’s infatuation with rifts between rural and urban voters has been ensconced into our cultural design. These developments overlook the promise of places such as university campuses to blur and overcome fissures.
Remembrance: Sister Helen, a Quiet Leader Whose Actions Spoke Volumes
At the very beginning of the Center for Rural Strategies, before there was a Rural Assembly or the Daily Yonder, we had a single contract with the Local Initiative Support Corporation to document the efforts of rural development organizations across the United States. The first organization we filmed was Southern Mutual Help Association in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. Southern Mutual was run by two dynamic women, Lorna Bourg, the director and a MacArthur Genius, and Sister Helen Vinton, a nationally honored environmentalist who specialized in efforts to make farming and fishing in the Gulf more sustainable.
Experts: Mainstream Addiction Treatment Act Removes a Roadblock to Recovery
When it was announced in January that restrictions were being lifted on health care providers’ ability to prescribe buprenorphine – considered the gold standard of treatment for opioid use disorder – the nation’s drug czar, Dr. Rahul Gupta, said the consequences “will be felt for years to come.”
Forget Banning Books — A Rural Washington County May Close Its Only Library
This story was originally published by Crosscut. As libraries throughout the country face increasing calls to ban young adult books that cover race and LGBTQ+ issues, one in a rural district east of Walla Walla faces a challenge to its very existence. The Columbia County Rural Library District could be dissolved by voters after a community member filed a petition to close the library amid a censorship fight over LGBTQ+ books aimed at teens.
Rolling Fork Residents Forge Ahead With Rebuilding After Mississippi Tornadoes
This story is published in collaboration with Mississippi Free Press. Before a tornado destroyed her home in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, on March 24, 2023, Shawonder Harris drove about 10 miles roundtrip each weekday to her job at the high school in nearby Anguilla. Today, five months after the storm, the...
Maui Wildfires Highlight Rural Firefighting Dilemma
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. Devastating wildfires swept through Maui, Hawai’i, last week, flattening the small...
Like the Rest of Ohio, Rural Voters Were Less Impressed with Constitutional Amendment than with Trump
Rural voters in Ohio last week bucked the statewide trend when they voted by a large margin in favor of a constitutional amendment that would have made it harder to protect abortion rights. But rural voters behaved like the rest of the state in showing far less support for the...
New Market Tax Credits Provide ‘Patient Capital’ for Rural Business Growth
Grassland Dairy Products, headquartered in the small town of Greenwood, Wisconsin, is the largest family-owned butter creamery in the world. But when management decided recently to increase raw milk production by 30%, it had trouble securing the necessary capital. Barriers to traditional funding included the volatility of the dairy business and the high cost of construction.
Tennessee Tech Program Helps Economically Distressed Counties With Tourism And Economic Development
When Rafferty Cleary became the cultural administrator for Monterey, Tennessee, he was eager to learn about what the community stood for, who the people were, and what assets were available to promote to visitors. Cleary had earlier seen the work that Tennessee Tech’s Rural Reimagined program had done with Jackson...
A Taste of Justice: ‘First Meal’ Explores Initial Moments of Freedom for the Wrongfully Imprisoned
Artist Julie Green (1961-2021) is best known for the series “Last Supper,” in which she created 1,000 glazed ceramic plates documenting the last meals of people on death row. Her subsequent project was a companion to “Last Supper” called “First Meal.”. In “First Meal,” Green...
Analysis: A New Approach to Defining Persistent Poverty
One of the federal government’s key indicators of economic distress – one that shows that rural counties are disproportionately suffering economically – is disguising persistent, intergenerational poverty that occurs in urban areas, a new study says. In a detailed new report, the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) says...
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