The landscape of recovery in rural America is “a story of small victories and people who won’t give up on their neighbors.”
Posted inArts and Culture
Review: ‘Huckleberry Finn’ Retelling Wrestles With Writing, and Righting, Historical Wrongs
“If one knows hell as home,” Percival Everett’s Jim asks, “Is returning to hell a homecoming?” Everett’s novel James, a retelling of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, places Jim at the middle of the narrative, just as it tears the story apart from the center. In the original, Jim is a runaway slave and erstwhile companion […]
Posted inHousing
Q&A: Community Organizing in Rural South Texas
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. […]
Posted inEnergy
Center for Rural Affairs Receives $62 Million Federal Grant to Provide Solar Power to Lower-Income Nebraskans
A federal grant of $62 million to the nonprofit Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, will help build residential solar-power installations for Nebraska families who usually can’t afford the cost-saving systems, the center’s director said. The Center for Rural Affairs is one of 60 grantees across the country that will participate in the Solar […]
Posted inEducation
One Path to Easing the Rural Counselor Shortage
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. A senior at rural Anson High School in west-central Texas, Eddie Miller […]
Posted inHealth
Rural Jails Turn to Community Health Workers To Help the Newly Released Succeed
This story was originally published by KFF Health News. Garrett Clark estimates he has spent about six years in the Sanpete County Jail, a plain concrete building perched on a dusty hill just outside Manti, Utah, the small, rural town where he grew up. He blames his addiction. He started using in middle school, and […]
Posted inEducation
Republicans Double Down on School Vouchers by Taking Fight to Rural Members of Their Own Party
State Republican leaders are cracking down on rural members of their own party who oppose universal school vouchers, which allow families to take a portion of their state’s education funding away from public schools to pay for their child’s private education. Rural state legislators have been more likely to oppose school voucher laws because they […]
Posted inPolitics and Government
New Proposals Inch Farm Bill Toward Finish Line
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. Nothing exemplifies how slow bureaucracy can be better than the fraught task of passing a new farm bill, a proposed […]
Posted inRural Voters
Analysis: The Myth of Rural Voters’ Power in the House of Representatives
A Daily Yonder analysis of Census data shows that rural Americans don’t have outsized voting power in the U.S. House of Representatives, despite an oft-repeated assertion that congressional apportionment gives rural voters undue influence. If you have even a passing familiarity with political news this election year, you know that the rural voter has been […]
Posted inHealth
Maine’s Firefighters Rarely Fight Fires. Instead They’re Answering Medical Calls.
This story was originally published by the Maine Monitor. For years, fire departments around the state have struggled to hire enough staff and volunteers to handle an increasing number of calls. But in many places, those calls are no longer to fight fires — instead, departments are spending most of their time responding to medical emergencies. In […]
Posted inMedia
Out of Print but Not Out of News: Canadian Record’s Impact Lives Online and in New Public TV Documentary
For more than 30 years, Laurie Ezzell Brown has stepped into her office at the Canadian (Texas) Record to let her community know the news. Her story, and the story of the 130-year-old paper she took over after her father’s death, are the subject of a documentary set to appear on PBS today (May 6, […]