There is not a theater, mall or fast food restaurant down the street and around the corner.

Instead, there are miles of country-side—whether it be rolling hills of sage-brush or mountains of timber.

Kids can be found riding horseback, helping to check on the family’s cattle herd, or stalking through the forest, look-ing to fill their hunting tag and the fam-ily’s stew pot with wild game.

Life in the country is different com-pared with that of the paved city, its bright lights and suburbs.

Instead of bumper-to-bumper traffic and busy intersections to get to school, country kids sometimes have to wait for a doe and her speckled twin fawns to cross the gravel road, or for a moose to get out of the road or their front yard.

“I know some older kids who have

gone out on some trips and stuff and have realized how much better it is here,” says Nathan MacMaster, 14, of Healy, Alaska. “There are no robberies, no traf-fic. Some people just don’t ever want to leave here.”

Healy is a rural community of about 800. It lies in the shadow of Mount McKinley—the well-known landmark of Denali National Park. The nearest city with a mall, theater and other such attrac-tions is Fairbanks, 113 miles to the north.

“We go there (Denali) all the time,” Nathan says. “We see things most people don’t ever see. We often get to see the Northern Lights.”

The Country Life’s for MeWhether to the far north in the moun-tains of Alaska or to the south in the more arid lands of Arizona or New

Growing Up Country

Living in the country sometimes means being isolated from neighbors, such as this farm near Plummer, Idaho.

Photo by Curtis Condon.

Raising a family in a rural area has its challenges and rewards

By Craig Reed

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Mexico, kids raised in the country seem to have no regrets and don’t feel like they’re missing out on much.

Silas Skinner was raised on his family’s cattle ranch 15 miles from Jordan Valley in southeastern Oregon. After leaving for

two years of college to study agricultural business, he came back to work the ranch with his father and brother.

Silas, 31, is the sixth Skinner genera-tion on the ranch. He and wife Tracy’s three children are the seventh generation.

“It’s a great way to be raised,” Silas says of country life. “It’s the way I want to raise my kids. They help out on the ranch. They do all the things I used to do.

“I think most of the kids I grew up with wanted to ranch with their parents. Some of the (ranches) were too small, so they went off to work 10 to 15 years and did other things, but a lot of them eventually did go back to the family operation.”

Silas says his kids, ages 10, 8 and 7, would be upset with him if he didn’t wake them at 4 a.m. to saddle up for a day of moving cattle.

“They spend all day outside,” he said. “They’re just like another hired man.”

Mud Springs Ranch, 18 miles from Duncan, Arizona, is home to four gen-erations. That ranch is owned by Hollis and Dorothy Vaughn.

“There’s no regrets,” says Hollis, 52.

It’s branding time at Mud Springs Ranch near Duncan, Arizona. One of the crew prepares to cut another cow out of the small group of cattle cornered in the holding area.Photo courtesy of Dorothy Vaughn.

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He and Dorothy raised their four kids on another southwestern U.S. ranch that was 65 miles from the nearest town.

“The kids all feel real for-tunate to have been raised the way they were,” he says. “I think it’s the best way to raise kids. That’s not to say you can’t raise good kids in the city, but I think it’s a lot harder. The peer pressure is lots worse.”

“You’re able to instill your beliefs and work ethic in your kids when you have them close here,” adds Dorothy.

Ranchers Charles and Janice Dunten of Drewsey in Eastern Oregon raised five children 45 miles from the nearest high school, Crane. Three of their grown kids are still involved in ranching.

“They learned how to work,” Janice says of her kids. “They were constantly busy. They learned how to run machinery. They learned how to manage the ranch. They learned what money is about because they had to pay for their 4-H animals.”

The kids also learned to ride horses—not for recreation, but for moving cattle. They also became good fishermen and hunters, helping to put food on the fam-ily’s dinner table.

“They never complained about not having movie theaters or malls out here,” says Janice. “They liked the lifestyle out here. I don’t think they were deprived of anything.”

Living On the Last FrontierKris Capps, a single mother, is raising her 13-year-old daughter, Marin, in a home 20 miles south of Healy, Alaska.

“How cool is it for my daughter to grow up right outside Denali National Park?“ asks Kris. “She’s been an outdoors girl since she was born. Being outdoors is

just normal for her.”At school in Healy, Marin is in a class

of 10 students. There are no tryouts at the school. Everybody who wants to gets to participate.

If the school isn’t able to provide a requested program through its resources, Kris says a strong volunteer effort in the community will provide opportunities and instruction.

She notes that people know each other and look out for one another.

“In Alaska, friends become your fam-ily,” says Kris. “If you don’t know where your kids are, somebody does.”

In rural areas, school events become social gatherings. So do church events, such as potlucks or movie nights.

Kids learn early to become travelers. Trips of more than 100 miles to attend or participate in academic and athletic events are common.

They also learn early from their par-ents to be efficient and to conserve.

Without a grocery or hard-ware store down the street, those in the country must make do or adjust if they run out of something—whether in the kitchen, shop or barn.

Chip and Linda Saylor and their two children have to be conservative with the water supply at their central Alaska home because they have to haul it in.

“They learn conservation at an early age,” Chip says. “They learn to become more self-sufficient, more secure in figuring out how to overcome obstacles because there’s not the convenience of a nearby town. You learn early that sometimes you just have to make do.”

Chip says it is hard to find negatives in raising kids in the country when so many free-doms are associated with it.

The country parents believe they can give their kids more freedoms because problems such as drugs and alcohol are less prevalent there than in bigger towns and cities. However, they admit chewing tobacco continues to be a problem, with young men getting hooked on it.

Peter MacMaster, the father of Nathan and the pastor of the Baptist church in Healy, says most of the kids in the area have known each other since kindergar-ten so they become like brother and sis-ter, easing problems sometimes brought on by romantic relationships.

Peter took a group of 22 kids to Southern California this summer. They experienced the big city lights of Los Angeles and visited Disneyland.

“Los Angeles and Anaheim were busy and fast paced,” he says. “The kids were ready to come home when it was time.

“We just enjoy a slower pace of life here. It was good to get home, and the kids felt the same way.” n

Marin Durrenberger heads out for four days of backpacking in Denali National Park. Each summer, the park hosts Denali Backcountry Adventures, an introduc-tory week of backpacking for high schoolers.Photo by Kris Capps.

14 s e P t e m b e r 2009

Pat Sharp has the experience of working in education in both city and country settings.

She was a longtime principal in the Tigard-Tualatin School District near Portland, Oregon, until three years ago, when she and her husband, Tom, moved to a ranch in Eastern Oregon.

While her husband ranches, Pat drives 30 miles a day to her job as superinten-dent of the Crane School District.

Crane Union High School is the only public boarding school in Oregon. Ninety students attend the school, with half boarding in dorms from Sunday night to Thursday afternoon for the four-day school week. Kids then go home for a long weekend, unless they have sport-ing events or other weekend activities.

Eight kindergarten through eighth-grade schools in surrounding rural com-munities feed kids into the high school.

“The biggest difference is that rural kids have actual responsibilities at home that they have to take care of because everybody in the family contributes to making a living,” says Pat. “The work ethic is stronger here because these kids have the opportunity to do the work. I don’t think city kids have the same opportunities.”

At the Crane school, classes consist of 10 to 15 students. Students get more

individual attention.“In the small school environment here,

you’re able to intervene more quickly than in a classroom of 30 in a school of 1,000,” Pat says.

She admits one drawback of a small rural school is the lack of diversity in curriculum and extracurricular pro-grams. The school doesn’t have band and is limited in creative arts offerings.

Occasionally, high school students—usually the newcomers—get homesick, but it’s rare because students are intro-duced to the boarding school idea while in their grade schools, traveling to Crane Union for sporting events so the school is familiar to them when they enter their freshmen year, Pat notes.

“We think the other kids and the teachers fill that void,” Pat says of kids missing their parents and families.

“Some kids do get homesick,” admits Janice Dunten, who has been the school’s girls dorm matron for eight years. “But usually once they get involved in school activities and sports, they’re so busy, it’s not a problem.”

Pat says about 95 percent of the school’s students participate in some sport during each season. In addition to

the regular lineup of sports, there also is rodeo in the spring.

Grade requirements must be met to maintain eligibility for sports, and “that’s a motivator for kids,” says Pat. During the course of a school year, Pat says only two or three kids miss a game because of grade problems.

The matron and patron in the dorms keep watch on the students and their aca-demics, and are able to intervene quickly if a grade problem arises.

Pat says alcohol and drugs are not as accessible in the country compared with the city.

“If you looked hard enough, you could probably find those things,” Pat says. “But the kids here don’t have a lot of leisure time. Their time is pretty booked up, so they don’t have time to participate in those activities.”

When the school week is over, stu-dents return home to help feed cattle and horses, move and ship cattle, work hay fields, or hunt and fish for fun and food.

“Some kids do complain about living here, but after they go away, they usually appreciate the lifestyle here,” Janice says.

“It’s a great way to educate kids,” Pat says of the boarding school. n

Reading, Writing, and Room and BoardBoarding Option Makes Crane Union High School A Unique Learning EnvironmentBy Craig Reed

Crane School District Superintendent Pat Sharp understands the benefits and challenges of rural education. She believes the district’s boarding high school is a “great way to educate kids.”Photo by barbara maher.

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