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Weird and Wondrous American Byways
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition. Maybe nothing is as quintessentially American as a road trip. Whether an arrow-straight highway through a vast desert or a hairpin one-laner wrapped around a mountain pass, byways connect us to the variety of landscapes and cultures that compose the nation.
Q&A: Organizing a Music Festival, Underground
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.
‘Masks, Misinformation, and Making Do’ Chronicles Experience of Appalachian Healthcare Workers during the Pandemic
As the Covid-19 public health emergency comes to a close, a new book tells the story of its impact on rural healthcare providers in their voices. Masks, Misinformation, and Making Do: Appalachian Health-Care Workers and the COVID-19 Pandemic is a selection of essays written by the people who experienced it, said the book’s editor Wendy Welch.
Who Gets to Create New Bachelor’s Degrees?
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. Feather River College...
A Rural Calling: Bringing Together Different Worlds to Better a Community
“I had no intentions of ever coming back here to live,” Yona Wade says of the Qualla Boundary – though it’s hard to imagine, post-return, a more perfect union of a homegrown talent and a community. The Qualla Boundary, an hour’s drive west from Asheville through the...
A ‘Little Town Poets Society,’ and the Woman Behind It
Growing up in Scott County, Tennessee, Cheyanne Leonardo’s passion for poetry and the arts made her feel like a bit of an outsider. “It’s hard growing up and feeling different, feeling like no one is interested in the same things as you are … I definitely felt like a weirdo. But I kind of liked it, in a way, and I tried to make it my super power.”
Government Agencies Work to Document the Painful Past of Indian Boarding Schools
The Department of the Interior and the National Endowment for the Humanities are partnering to preserve oral and digital histories and records of federal Indian boarding schools across the U.S. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has earmarked $4 million to support the digitization of records from the United...
Rural-to-Rural Partnerships: Leveling the Playing Field to Secure Federal Funding
This story was originally published by Inside Philanthropy. Across the country, communities are competing to access the unprecedented funding approved through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other federal and state programs. Metro areas across the U.S. are engaged in all-hands-on-deck efforts that bring managers, officers, planners, administrators and pretty much every other layer of local bureaucracy into play to pull down every possible dollar their cities may qualify for — as they should.
The Future of Rock ‘n’ Roll – from the middle of rural farmlands
For nearly 30 years, a little radio station started in the cornfields of rural Ohio made a name for itself. Now, more than a decade after it played its last song, it’s doing that again. At the end of May, WOXY, known to legions of fans as 97X, will...
Retrospective: When Bulldogs Take on Big Pharma
This story was originally published by TheStoryIsTheThing. My alma mater newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail (nee The Charleston Gazette), refers to itself right on its masthead as “a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper.” There is a sole reason the paper can brand itself such, and that reason is Eric Eyre. My longtime former colleague at the paper won journalism’s apex prize, the Pulitzer, in 2017 for his indefatigable work uncovering the depradations and devastation caused by Big Pharma’s predatory capitalism. His work helped spotlight nationally how Fortune 500 drug companies drenched a small place like West Virginia, and other localities across America, in opioid pills, destroying lives, families, and communities.
45 Degrees North: Well, That’s A Deep Subject
The EPA estimates more than 23 million U.S. households rely on private wells for their water. That includes my home in rural northern Wisconsin. I live where glacial deposits that filter our groundwater and make it taste great also make well drilling a combination of science, skill, experience, and luck. One of our neighbors, for example, got good water at 70 feet. They were not so lucky when they put in a second well 300 feet away. That one had to be rotary drilled through bedrock almost 300 feet.
Q&A: Disrupting Stereotypes about Appalachian Food, with Erica Abrams Locklear
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.
First Person: My Local Public Library in Decorah, Iowa, Connects Me to People and Ideas
To some, the concept of brick-and-mortar public libraries is as dusty as an old book. If you need information, you use the search engine on your phone. Need a newspaper or magazine article? Same deal. Need a book? Buy it online. Right?. Wrong. Public libraries have prevailed against these perceived...
Small-Town Comedian Leanne Morgan Is Back, and This Time She’s on Netflix
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 Health Clinics with ‘Head-to-Toe and Womb-to-Tomb’ Care
At just 5 weeks old, Waylon Williams is a trailblazer. He’s the first baby born in Primary Care Centers of Eastern Kentucky’s new women’s residential center. The facility, called Beacons of Hope, offers temporary housing for women confronting substance use disorder. That recovery housing for women is...
Hyper-visitation, the Fate of the National Parks, and Tourism Toxification in a Small Town
This story was originally published by Corner Post. The trouble at Arches National Park starts at the entrance during the spring and summer, when visitation is at its highest. First, there’s a 40-minute queue of idling traffic to reach the fee booth, which is a quarter-mile off busy U.S. Route 191. When I visited in May 2021, I asked the boothkeeper, a middle-aged woman in Park Service green and flat hat, how she felt about the crowds.
New Network of Universities and Colleges Works Together On Behalf of Rural Students
A consortium of public and private colleges and universities have come together to better address how to attract and retain rural students. The STARS College Network is bringing together 16 higher education institutions to share best practices for rural and small-town students and offer opportunities for students to experience the colleges up close.
Killing Fish to Save Frogs
This story was originally published by Writers on the Range. Shortly after World War II, California fish managers had a brainstorm: They loaded juvenile trout into airplanes and saturation-bombed naturally fishless lakes in the High Sierra Mountains of California. Some of the fish hit rocks and ice, but most hit water.
Killing Fish to Save Frogs
This story was originally published by Writers on the Range. Shortly after World War II, California fish managers had a brainstorm: They loaded juvenile trout into airplanes and saturation-bombed naturally fishless lakes in the High Sierra Mountains of California. Some of the fish hit rocks and ice, but most hit water.
Behavioral Teletherapy for Students in Rural Maine Brings ‘Hope to the Hallways’
Students and staff in rural Maine are using teletherapy to help access much-needed behavioral health services. Baileyville, Maine (pop. 1,318), was experiencing a youth mental health crisis in their community and a severe shortage of mental health providers. The problem reached a precipice in 2021 and 2022, said Kate Perkins, deputy director for U.S. program development at MCD Global Health. Of the more than 4,500 fully or conditionally registered clinical social workers in Maine, fewer than 4,000 live in the state, and fewer than 50 in Washington County, the easternmost county in Maine where Baileyville is located.
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