STILWELL, Okla. — When Matthew Brunk took a job as a school principal in Stilwell, Oklahoma, he commuted to work from a larger community almost an hour away. He and his wife faced a major hurdle in moving back to Brunk’s hometown — there was no day care facility for their two-year-old. Listen to this
Installing fiber-optic internet in sparsely populated places like western Kansas is extremely expensive, even with government subsidies. But some smaller, local broadband providers are finding ways to make it work where the big national companies have not. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s8/audio/2022/05/050222-dc-sk-ruralbroadband-webmix.mp3 HAYS, Kansas — With a family of five and a farming operation to run, Clay Scott’s home
HOUSTON, Mo. — A town of 1,000 people feels like a rural place to someone from Chicago. To a person living in a town of 200 people, that population of 1,000 feels almost urban. But what the government defines as rural determines tens of billions of dollars a year in spending aimed at propping up
Ranchers in Nebraska are rebelling against the “Big Four” meat companies by planning their own beef processing plant. They’re seeking a transformation for themselves, the industry and western Nebraska. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s60/audio/2021/11/beefplantwebfin.mp3 Plans to disrupt the Nebraska beef industry began in Hanoi, Vietnam. Rancher Rusty Kemp was on a 2019 trade trip with Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts.