AgWeek | June 15, 2009 | By Jerry Hagstrom

WASHINGTON — Agriculture Undersecretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager said June 10 that the Obama administration plans to allocate more grants and loans in rural areas that are more distant from cities rather than the exurban areas that have received a lot of the housing, water and sewer, utilities and business development money that the rural development division administers. Read more about USDA: Obama plans to finance rural areas

Weekend Edition, NPR.org | June 13, 2009 | By Howard Berkes

Larry Harbour of Broken Bow, Neb., sprays chrome plating on plastic wheel caps in his detail shop. Like many rural small business owners, Harbour finds health insurance too expensive but worries that he's one injury or illness away from losing his business.

Larry Harbour is celebrated in Nebraska as a model entrepreneur. But the 33-year-old owner of LB Custom Chrome and Detail in rural Broken Bow, Neb., is an illness or injury away from losing his business.

"If anything were to happen to my wife and I, the business is sunk," Harbour said, standing in the shop he built from scratch. "It's like playing Russian roulette. Everyday, we wonder when it's going to happen — if something's going to happen, are we able to afford it?"

Harbour has a son and daughter who are covered by a state health insurance plan for children. He and his wife searched for their own coverage, but found premiums would cost from $24,000 to $40,000 a year, plus a $2,000 deductible. Both are healthy and young, and both work supplemental jobs as school bus drivers, but the jobs don't come with insurance.

He said the insurance he and his wife investigated was basic, to the point where the couple would have to pay more for the insurance than they would for the health care they'd receive.

"It's unaffordable for me, especially being a small business owner, because I don't have a certain amount of employees to be able to get a better rate," Harbour said.

The Harbours are not alone. Half of all jobs in rural places are tied to small businesses, a rate 13 percent higher than in cities and suburbs. And people who work for small businesses are twice as likely to be uninsured, according to Jon Bailey of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Neb. Read more about Affordable Health Insurance Elusive In Rural U.S.

Richard Bryant is principal of the F.S. Ervin Elementary School in Pine Hill, Alabama, one of the ten best rural elementary schools in the state. Every child at the school qualifies for a free or reduced price lunch. Bryant began working for the schools as a bus driver in the early 1970s.

Three Alabamians went looking for the best of that state’s rural schools. They drove more than 10,000 miles, conducted more than 300 interviews and tested hundreds of teachers. “We did not expect to find Lake Wobegon where Garrison Keillor tells us ‘all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average,’” they wrote. 

And they didn’t. But Gerald Carter, Larry Lee and Owen Sweatt did find ten outstanding rural schools that were thriving in small communities despite troubled economic times. The three were working with the Center for Rural Alabama and they recently put their findings in a report, “Lessons Learned From Rural Schools.”  Read more about What Makes A Good Rural School?

Delta Farm Press | June 11, 2009 | By Ray Nabors, Contributing Writer

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack visited the Delta Center in Portageville, Mo., recently for a rural community forum to discuss USDA plans to revitalize and rebuild rural America.

“President Obama and I are committed to investing in and revitalizing rural communities, in part because they play an important role in our national and international food delivery system,” Vilsack said.

Vilsack spoke of providing more off-farm job opportunities as one target program for agriculture. According to USDA, most farm families work 200 days a year off the farm.

Another concern for Vilsack is the aging farm population. The average age of the American farmer has gone from 55 to 57 in just five years, the largest increase in history.

Young persons are leaving the farm seeking other opportunities in urban environments. There has been a 20 percent decrease in farmers under 25 years of age. Read more about Vilsack: Revitalize rural America

The Cordova Times | June 9, 2009 | By Newspaper Staff

Fish with strange spots. Sinkholes in the tundra. Crumbling river banks.

The scenes appear in a handful of photos posted at www.nunat.net, a fledgling Web site created to provide a record of changes linked to global warming, subsistence resources and village life.

The site’s database is a year old. It was designed to give rural Alaskans a way to share information and document the changes around them, especially those who spend a lot of time outdoors, said its creator, Brad Garness.

“People who live a subsistence hunting and fishing lifestyle generally have a unique view regarding climate change and why animals behave the way they do,” Garness said. Read more about Web site is watchdog for environmental change in rural Alaska

Longtime social club takes on activist role in Triune

Paul Jenkins cuts William Brindley's hair at Triune Barber Shop at Horton Highway and Neal Road. JEANNE REASONOVER / THE TENNESSEAN

With discussions already under way about nearby College Grove, Triune residents know that issues such as residential growth, economic development, infrastructure and historic preservation will soon be surfacing where they live.

Anticipation and concern about these issues has even prompted members of the Triune Community Club to begin organizing in ways the club has never done before.

Club's mission grows

The Triune Community Club predates the Triune Community Center, which was built about 1950. Before the center was built, the club met at a nearby school.

Ginger Shirling, a lifetime member, said the club initially existed as a social group. About two years ago, however, the club's mission began to develop into something more.

"We became aware of the fact that growth issues were dominating the conversations," Shirling said.

That's when the club began organizing into various committees to focus on not just growth, but also historic preservation, publicity and outreach. Read more about Preservation, growth unite rural residents

Small town thrives so much that woman makes it subject of doctoral dissertation. Unlike many rural towns that have suffered from decreasing population, migrating young adults, fewer farms and decaying infrastructure, Hillsboro has maintained and gained.

Grand Forks Herald | June 6, 2009 | By Rick Bakken

The Boomerang! | June 4, 2009 | By Staff

A study released by Allstate Insurance Company finds that teen drivers in rural parts of the country are more than twice as likely to be in a fatal car crash as their peers in urban areas.

The study, which reviewed 2000-2006 federal crash statistics and Allstate claims data on teen driving fatalities, found that out of every 100,000 teen drivers on rural roadways, 51.47 will be in a fatal crash. In urban areas, that number drops to 25.4.

"Even one fatality is too high," said Michelle Lee, Allstate Northwest Region Field Vice President. "We remain committed to our efforts to educate parents and teens about safe driving." Read more about Rural teen drivers face higher risk of being in a fatal crash

World-Herald Bureau | June 3, 2009 | By Paul Hammel

LINCOLN -- Nebraska has applied for nearly $5.3 million in federal stimulus funds for transit programs in rural areas, including those that serve the elderly, Gov. Dave Heineman said Wednesday.

The federal stimulus law set aside more than $9.8 million for public transit projects in Nebraska’s rural areas, as part of $23 million in funding for projects that help local transit authorities acquire, construct and improve mass transportation options.

Read more about Nebraska seeks federal money for rural transit

TMCnet.com | June 1, 2009 | By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor

What with everything else going on these days, the government has concluded that “all rural Americans must have the opportunity to reap the full benefits of broadband services,” according to Federal Communications Commission officials.

To that end, Acting FCC Chairman Michael J. Copps released a report providing what he characterized as a “starting point” for the development of policies to deliver broadband to rural areas.

Congress in the 2008 Farm Bill required the FCC Chairman, in coordination with the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, to submit a report to Congress describing a rural broadband strategy. Catchily titled “Bringing Broadband to Rural America: Report on a Rural Broadband Strategy,” the report by Copps identifies such common problems affecting rural broadband as “technological challenges, lack of data and high network costs.”

This is an agricultural concern? Mais oui, city slicker. According to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack: “Providing broadband access to rural communities will not only enhance farmers and ranchers’ ability to market goods and enhance production, it will help residents in rural communities obtain needed medical care, gain access to higher education, and benefit from resulting economic activity and job growth.” Read more about Rural Broadband To Be FCC Priority, Acting Chair Says

The New York Times | May 24, 2009 | By Kim Severson

Erin Axelrod, who graduated from Barnard College last week with an urban studies degree, will not be fighting over the bathroom with her five roommates on the Upper West Side this summer. Instead she will be living in a tent, using an outdoor composting toilet and harvesting vegetables on an organic farm near Petaluma, Calif.

As the sole intern at a boutique dairy in upstate New York, Gina Runfola, an English and creative writing student, has traded poetry books for sheep.

And Jamie Katz, an English major at Kenyon College in Ohio, is planting peach trees at Holly Tree Farm in Virginia.

These three are part of a new wave of liberal arts students who are heading to farms as interns this summer, in search of both work, even if it might pay next to nothing, and social change. Read more about Many Summer Internships Are Going Organic

PR Web Press Release Newswire | May 19, 2009

Saturn Systems Software Engineering has reported record results for 2008 with its Rural Outsourcing business model. Financial results for 2008 show a 25% increase in revenue which is consistent with Saturn’s growth pattern over the past three years. Equally strong first quarter results for 2009 indicate another record year is in the making. Saturn Systems, a provider of custom enterprise solutions and device control software, is seeing consistent growth in companies searching for lower cost, onshore resources to provide custom software solutions.

(Vocus/PRWEB ) May 19, 2009 -- Saturn Systems Software Engineering has reported record results for 2008 with its Rural Outsourcing business model. Financial results for 2008 show a 25% increase in revenue which is consistent with Saturn’s growth pattern over the past three years. Equally strong first quarter results for 2009 indicate another record year is in the making. Saturn Systems, a provider of custom enterprise solutions and device control software, is seeing consistent growth in companies searching for lower cost, onshore resources to provide custom software solutions.

CEO Jim Gustafson remarked, “Results like this during an economic downturn are proof positive that the rural outsourcing model works and may indicate that outsourcing patterns are changing.” Read more about Rural Outsourcing Delivers Record Results in Duluth, Minnesota

Online Recorder | May 15, 2009 | By Casandra Leff

By the late 1940s and into the 1950s, rural schools were facing a serious challenge in the form of a shortage of teachers. As life and career options for young men and women expanded, not as many people were turning to teaching as a profession.

That meant that schools had to relax some of the standards they had for teachers. As long as there had been rural schools, teachers could not be married. Simply put, a married teacher was not a teacher. As the years passed, though, that rule was slowly relaxed.

In 1951, Dorothy (Gay) Wallace embarked on the second chapter of her teaching career, over a decade after she first left the profession. Wallace, a former student at the Mossville school (Jenkins No. 2), had received her Normal Training and graduated from Riceville with her teaching certificate in 1939. Later that fall, she returned to Mossville to teach.

Patchwork Nation Blog: Christain Science Monitor | May 6, 2009 | By Dante Chinni

In some areas of the country they wonder when the recession will end or at least hit bottom. But in one small agricultural community, they wonder what the recession feels like.

Tucked in the northwest corner of the Iowa, Sioux Center seems a million miles away from Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s improving-but-still-troubled assessment of the US economy on Tuesday. Construction is still happening here, and new houses and lots around the new golf course are still selling – with no drop in prices. The owner of a local furniture store says last year was his best … ever.

America may still be months away from the national economic turnaround, but when economists and journalists hash out the story of what really happened, they may want to look at places like Sioux Center and ask, “Why not there?” Read more about Rural America asks: What recession?