My father, a lifelong cattle rancher, was born in Dakota Territory in 1887. Our ranch was not the end of the earth, but we could see it from there. We had no electricity or indoor plumbing. Grades 1-8 were in a one-room school; high school was 70+ miles away. The...

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. More than a week has passed since Hurricane Helene destroyed a...

A program aimed to support pregnant and parenting women at risk of substance misuse is expanding to a more rural part of Oklahoma. The Parent-Child Assistance Program (PCAP) was originally in Oklahoma City and Tulsa and is expanding to Enid, in a more rural part of the state. The University...

This story was originally published by Writers on the Range. The Colorado Trail, an iconic 567-mile high-elevation trail that crosses the Rockies, owes its existence largely to Gudy Gaskill, a charismatic, six-foot-tall woman who could make tough things seem easy. Gaskill not only carried out the vision of a state...

In November, Oregon voters will decide on a statewide ranked-choice voting measure that would change the way votes are tallied for federal and state offices. While the measure has strong support from advocates of voting reform, not everyone is happy about the possible change. Rural elections officials worry it will cost their counties more money than they can afford, cause confusion for voters, and provoke election fraud accusations.

This story was originally published by Wisconsin Watch. Sheldon Auto Wrecking is a local institution in southwestern Wisconsin’s Vernon County. It’s tucked in a lush valley just downstream of a 50-foot earthen dam, locally known as “Maple Dale.”. The salvage yard, which buys used vehicles and farm...

Fire Prevention Week is October 6-12 this year. The 4K teacher in my rural community will invite a volunteer firefighter into her classroom as she does each year so the kids get to see someone they probably know put on full PPE, including air tank, face shield and the breathing apparatus that makes them sound like Darth Vader. Kids who don’t know there’s a friend behind all that scary equipment sometimes hide from rescuers when there’s a fire, and that can be deadly.

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 elderberry’s small size stands in contrast to its potential effects on the Ozarks – and beyond. In 2021, the United States Department of Agriculture granted a more than $5 million Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) grant to Ozarks-based researchers to better study and understand the dark-hued berry, which has purported health and cosmetic benefits.

Picture the scene: It’s a ribbon cutting in a small town for a new business incubator that has opened in a formerly vacant storefront. There are speeches, balloons, lots of smiles, and a feeling of accomplishment and a job well-done. But it took a lot of steps and a...

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.

This time of year, Penland School of Craft in Western North Carolina is usually welcoming artists from all over the country to participate in a semester-long session with world-renowned instructors in sculpture, book-binding, print-making, and more. This week, instead, they’re feeding and sheltering people who have been uprooted by the...

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. Hear reporter Claire Carlson narrate her column on Keep It Rural,...

Despite significant efforts to support new and beginning farmers (NBFs), substantial challenges persist in the agricultural sector, the foremost being land access. “Without ownership or secure land tenure, farmers can’t invest, improve, or grow their business,” Rachel Brice with Land for Good (LFG) said. In New England, where her organization is based, the high cost of land is one of the biggest barriers.

This story was originally published by The Conversation. Milton Orr looked across the rolling hills in northeast Tennessee. “I remember when we had over 1,000 dairy farms in this county. Now we have less than 40,” Orr, an agriculture adviser for Greene County, Tennessee, told me with a tinge of sadness.

Last spring, at a Rural Democracy Institute convening in Omaha, a room of over one hundred rural policy experts and elected officials from the hollers of Appalachia to the expansive mountains of Big Sky Country were all big beaming smiles and enthusiastically raised hands when asked “who here knows their postal worker by name?” The relationships that people have with their postal workers are the most universal, direct, consistent, person-to-person contact that most people will ever have with government service providers. So it’s no surprise that the post office is our most treasured public institution, second only to the National Park Service.

This story was originally published by Investigate Midwest. Marenda Porter’s new home in Ledgeview, Wisconsin, seemed like the perfect fit for her family of four children. The growing suburb outside Green Bay was a tight-knit community with nearby land for her kids to explore and space for a large garden.

In the hospitality business it’s common knowledge that doctors and lawyers, judges and business executives like to cut loose where their professional colleagues, customers and constituents are unlikely to notice. And rural places, whether they’re across the country or across the county, are just the ticket. My theory,...

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.

In 2022, staff at the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians tribal historic preservation office identified over 200 sacred or funerary objects in the Museum of the Cherokee People that should not be publicly displayed. Taking them down left gaping holes in the museum’s main gallery. The staff soon filled the empty display cases with a companion exhibit, called “Disruption,” which responded to the removed artifacts.