proceedings of the 2015 rural futures conference

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2015 RURAL FUTURES CONFERENCE

Held October 21-23 in Lincoln & Curtis, Nebraska, USAHosted by the University of Nebraska

II | PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2015 RURAL FUTURES CONFERENCE

Proceedings of the 2015 Rural Futures Conference, October 21-23, Lincoln and Curtis, Nebraska.

© 2015, The Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved.

Citation: University of Nebraska Rural Futures Institute (2015). Proceedings of the 2015 Rural Futures Conference. Lincoln, Nebraska.

Additional comments and information requests may be directed to:

Rural Futures Institute

University of Nebraska

103 Miller Hall, P.O. Box 830710

Lincoln, NE 68583-0710

402-472-9287

[email protected]

ruralfutures.nebraska.edu

facebook.com/ruralfutures

twitter.com/rural_futures

CREDITS

EXECUTIVE EDITORSKim Peterson

Kayla Schnuelle

PRODUCTION EDITORSKim Peterson

Kayla Schnuelle

WRITERSGillian Klucas

Mary Kay Quinlan

DESIGNLauren Simonsen

CONFERENCE PHOTOGRAPHYBrett Hampton

Craig Chandler

The University of Nebraska is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity institution.

CREDITS | III

RFI TEAMChuck Schroeder, Executive Director

Connie Reimers-Hild, Associate Director

Kim Peterson, Outreach Program Specialist

Kayla Schnuelle, Integrated Marketing Specialist

Rachael Herpel, Research and Outreach Coordinator

Lauren Simonsen, Graphic Design Specialist

Jessica Shoemaker, Assistant Professor of Law

Randolph Cantrell, Rural Sociologist

Jeanne Surface, Education Star Point Leader

Jordyn Bader, Graduate Assistant

Preston Peterson, Student Worker

Amber Burenheide, Student Worker

Toni Rasmussen, Student Worker

ADVISORY PANELKim McFarland, Associate Professor, UNMC College of Dentistry

Greg Ptacek, Director of Economic Development, City of Neligh

Mary Kay Quinlan, Associate Professor, University of Nebraska–

Lincoln

Roni Reiter-Palmon, Professor of Psychology, University of Nebraska

at Omaha

Ron Rosati, Dean, Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture

Dennis Potthoff, Professor, University of Nebraska at Kearney

CONFERENCE STAFF AND VOLUNTEERSMichelle Bassford

Jessie Brophy

Jill Brown

Tom Field

Murd Holland

Jesse Starita

CONFERENCE SUPPORT

NCTA LOCATION COORDINATORSMary Crawford, External Relations Coordinator

Dottie Evans, Lecturer of Psychology

Kevin Martin, Student Services Advisor

Scott Mickelsen, Associate Dean

Jennifer McConville, Assistant Dean

Catherine Hauptman, Administration Associate, Dean’s Office

Mary Rittenhouse, Chair, Agribusiness Management Systems

Justin Baugher, IT Services Manager

CONFERENCE SPONSORSA special thanks for the generous conference support provided by:

The Peter Kiewit Foundation

DuPont Pioneer

Pinnacle Bank

Cornerstone Bank

Nebraska Farm Bureau

NebraskaLand National Bank

Bruning State Bank

Nebraska Public Power District

Farm Credit Services of America

Nebraska Trucking Association

KAWL and KTMX-FM

Western Nebraska Bank

McCook National Bank

Nebraska Bankers Association

The Tri-County Bank

I have to say that this conference, and

conferences like it, are probably the most important thing happening in America today. We built this country from rural America up.”

HOWARD G. BUFFETTChairman & CEO, The Howard G. Buffett Foundation

CONTENTS | V

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VI FOREWORD

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

7 MAINSTAGE PRESENTATIONS8 Finding Hope: Pioneering Your Own 40 Chances

12 Dream Big with Me

13 Imagine the Possibilities

15 The Importance of Hope

17 Envisioning the Future Through a Lens of Hope

19 Rural Arts & Culture: A Modern Perspective

21 Breaking the Mold to Create Rural Opportunities

24 Imagining the Future: What’s Next?

25 Hope and Happiness: Igniting Action

26 New Hope: Profound Rural Engagement Experiences

29 Creating a Better Future for the Next Generation

31 Collective Hope: A Ripple Effect

33 CONCURRENT SESSIONS34 Shift Your Thinking: Win Where You Stand—Breaking the Entrepreneurial Code

37 The Science of Hope

39 Getting Wired: Connecting Your Community to Broadband

42 Entrepreneurs Energizing the Rural Landscape

45 Building Brighter Futures: The Importance of Giving Back

48 Discovering the Future: Charting a Rural Research Path

51 Education to Action: Climate and Ecotourism Programs

55 ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES56 Rural Opportunities Fair

58 Side Events

60 Envision Rural Talks

66 Poster Session

71 Coffeeshop Discussions

75 PHOTO GALLERY

VI | PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2015 RURAL FUTURES CONFERENCE

FOREWORD

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

I am delighted to introduce these proceedings documenting the third National Rural Futures Conference. Themed “Hope Inspires Vision,” this conference provided both information and inspiration to potential difference makers focused on the rural sector.

We were honored to engage over 650 attendees from 18 states and three countries at two locations—Nebraska Innovation Campus in Lincoln and the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture campus in Curtis, as well as reaching a significant online audience. Diverse participants included faculty, graduate and undergraduate students from many educational institutions; business, community and nonprofit organization leaders; and even a number of rural high school students. There was profound interest in exploring innovative pathways toward strong rural communities en route to a more livable, sustainable world.

The science of realistic hope was woven throughout the conference. This underlies one of the basic ambitions of the Rural Futures Institute: “. . . increasing the capacity as well as the confidence of rural people to address their challenges and opportunities . . .” Conference attendees were able to hear some big, bold ideas, but also see their real world achievement in progressive rural communities.

Fueled by the enthusiastic response to this conference, the Rural Futures Institute is moving forward on several fronts, fulfilling its mission “ . . . to create knowledge and action that supports rural people and places to achieve unique paths to their desired futures.” We invite you to join us on the journey!

CHARLES P. “CHUCK” SCHROEDERFounding Executive DirectorRural Futures Institute at the University of Nebraska

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XubyGRCZjgU&index=3&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2 | PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2015 RURAL FUTURES CONFERENCE

2015 RURAL FUTURES CONFERENCE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Hope has the power to change lives and invigorate rural communities. That powerful message carried throughout the 2015 Rural Futures Conference — “Hope Inspires Vision” — hosted by the Rural Futures Institute at the University of Nebraska.

The conference engaged 650 rural leaders, researchers, philanthropists, business leaders and other experts from 18 states and three countries. Participants convened at both Innovation Campus in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis, uniquely sharing speakers and discussions via live-streaming.

The conference was an opportunity to examine issues, share research and ideas, and develop solutions to improving the lives of rural residents, both in the U.S. and globally. It offered a forum to inspire an invigorated vision for rural places through new partnerships, an energetic exchange of views and a renewed spirit of hope for the future of rural communities.

This positive energy directly relates to the Rural Futures Institute’s vision of becoming a world-class organization that makes a difference community by community, said RFI Founding Executive Director Chuck Schroeder. The institute’s activities are based on building hopeful

people through three key activities: creating partnerships, strengthening intergenerational leadership and engagement, and supporting targeted rural research. The conference highlighted numerous programs in which RFI-supported programs have already led to tangible community improvement and foundational experiences for students.

Great things are already happening, Schroeder said. “This is not your Aunt Effie’s rural development program.”

University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds added NU’s strong commitment to RFI’s work and the need to support rural places in Nebraska and beyond. “We’ve made great progress,” he said. “But, wow, do we have a lot of work to do.”

To help inspire action, the institute also seeks to make the case that rural areas matter and are worth supporting. In opening the conference, philanthropist and farmer Howard G. Buffett and his son, University of Nebraska–Lincoln lecturer, Howard W. Buffett, addressed the importance of rural places by describing the enormous, urgent problem of global hunger. They discussed their lifelong philanthropic efforts to improve rural agriculture worldwide and to help educate a new

CAPACITY CROWD ATTENDS THE RURAL FUTURES CONFERENCE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PvBxWDDWd4&feature=youtu.be

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | 3

generation of leaders. And they praised RFI’s efforts to bolster rural communities.

Closer to home, rural areas matter to the state of Nebraska because agriculture is the state’s largest industry, said Governor Pete Ricketts. As the world population grows and food demand increases, Nebraska is well positioned to take advantage of additional growth opportunities. Ricketts described ways in which his administration is supporting Nebraska’s rural economy.

RFI Associate Director Connie Reimers-Hild put the question of rural areas’ importance directly to the audience during a group discussion. People shared that, in addition to agriculture as an economic driver, rural places impart vital ecosystem services, provide supportive environments for families and entrepreneurs, and are important to the people who live there.

The power of hope should not be underestimated in helping rural areas thrive, said keynote speaker and Gallup Institute researcher Shane Lopez. He described research demonstrating that hopeful people do better in life and, during a later concurrent session, laid out concrete steps community leaders can take to generate hope and achieve goals. Hope inspires people to invest today in creating a better future, an effect that ripples out to benefit the community, he said. Hope is contagious, and he urged his audiences to send hope rippling out beyond themselves. Under the theme of hope, the conference explored several topics:

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Successful entrepreneurship in rural areas helps revive rural communities. Businessman and author Clifton Taulbert explicitly linked hope with an entrepreneurial spirit and the importance of rural innovation in the past.

During a keynote presentation and a later concurrent session, Taulbert encouraged audience members to consider the legacy they want to leave behind. Imagine the possibilities, he said, and embark on creating that new reality. He described several criteria and seven steps necessary for entrepreneurial success, including overcoming limitations, embracing a growth mindset and, most importantly, a willingness to do the hard work required.

Several panels featured rural entrepreneurs, from a freelance telecommuter to the owner of a small manufacturing company. A key benefit to rural entrepreneurship is being able to try an idea and fail before achieving success. Rural communities offer a support system often unavailable elsewhere because they

CLIFTON TAULBERT

SHANE LOPEZ

HOWARD G. BUFFETT

CONNIE REIMERS-HILD

L-R: CHUCK SCHROEDER, HANK BOUNDS


want businesses to succeed. Panelists advised individuals to build relationships, identify niche markets, create a solid plan, and be creative about financing, including applying for grants and asking friends and family.

Much of the discussion, however, was directed at communities. Principally, they encouraged communities to takes steps to allow entrepreneurship to flourish. Today’s thriving communities can often point to earlier visionaries that encouraged growth.

In that vein, panelists encouraged communities to welcome newcomers, who bring fresh perspectives and new ideas. But they also urged supporting those already there. Residents often have creative ideas, and it’s a mistake to focus solely on attracting newcomers, said Ben Blecha, owner of Ace Ortho Solutions.

As supportive as communities can be, overcoming skepticism was frequently raised. Don’t listen to the naysayers and eventually their voices will diminish, advised Matt Wolters, co-founder of SureFire Ag Systems. Economic director Greg Ptacek described the consequences that ensued after the town of Neligh, Nebraska, initiated a $13 million economic development plan, including a failed recall attempt of city leaders. Leaders persevered, however, and the project is progressing.

The “Building Brighter Futures” panel also explored social entrepreneurship, which applies business practices toward social goals. The conversation described

several efforts to improve communities through social endeavors, including a non-profit’s efforts to promote and bring Nebraska music to rural towns and establishing endowments to provide an ongoing funding source and leadership skills.

Other entrepreneurship ideas raised during the conference included developing ecotourism, branding agrarian landscapes through UNESCO World Heritage Site status, and creating makerspaces, work spaces where people gather to make things.

INTERNET ACCESS

Entrepreneurs also described the critical need for high-speed Internet access to conduct business and expand clienteles. Other societal sectors also increasingly rely on fast, reliable Internet. The “Getting Wired” panel, in particular, highlighted the role of the Internet in providing health care and equitable education. Those critical needs helped drive fiber network installations across Nebraska.

High-speed Internet access is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity, panelists agreed. Nevertheless, reaching the “last mile” into communities and homes is challenging, particularly for those who live outside of town. Addressing this digital divide requires overcoming lack of both availability and adoption.

“NEW HOPE” PANEL DISCUSSES

THEIR DREAMS FOR A

BRIGHTER RURAL FUTURE.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | 5

Panelists and audience members suggested reprioritizing how the state spends its money and treating the Internet as a utility. Nebraska State Senator Lydia Brasch of Blair, speaking from the audience, said Internet is an infrastructure priority and that things are “on the horizon.” Providers and others are waiting for the Federal Communications Commission to enact changes, others said.

ATTRACTING YOUNG PEOPLE

Encouraging young professionals to move to rural communities was a prominent theme. Building relationships early is key, but difficult, many acknowledged.

The “New Hope” panel allowed conference goers to hear directly from students and young professionals about their rural experiences. Panelists stressed the importance of building relationships with young people outside the community through internships, service learning opportunities and other interactions. Finding job applicants is best achieved by using traditional college career service programs, not social media, they said.

High school programs that reinforce opportunities and instill pride are also important. But several panels also raised the importance of letting children go—at least for a time. Young people gain experience and bring those skills back home when they’re ready, several panelists said. Several entrepreneurs reinforced that view, describing the valuable perspectives and appreciation for their home state gained while living elsewhere.

ENVIRONMENT

Participants noted the importance of rural areas for providing ecosystem services. Urban and rural communities alike rely on natural resources, such as for drinking water and recreation.

The “Education to Action” panel described several efforts throughout the state to enhance Nebraskans relationships with the environment, from the Lower Platte River Corridor Alliance to NU workshops and classes for residents and students designed to explore ecotourism opportunities and climate change.

Other speakers described projects that encourage rural land use conversations; incorporate communities into helping solve “super wicked problems,” such as climate change; and find market solutions to improve ecosystem health.

CONCLUSION

Other topics raised included engaging rural communities globally, high school and college programs designed to boost rural communities, and creating a comprehensive national vision for rural communities.

Reimers-Hild and Ptacek concluded the conference with a call for participants to promote action in their home communities by sparking collective hope and creating a movement. During a group discussion with the audience, many agreed that building leadership from within communities is key to stimulating growth and vitality. Several joined the call to take the energy generated at the conference to inspire hope and lead their communities to a brighter future.

“COLLECTIVE HOPE: A RIPPLE EFFECT”

“BUILDING BRIGHTERFUTURES”

POSTER SESSION

MAINSTAGE PRESENTATIONS


I have to say that this conference, and

conferences like it, are probably the most important thing happening in America today. We built this country from rural America up.”

FINDING HOPE: PIONEERING YOUR OWN 40 CHANCES

PRESENTERS: Howard G. Buffett, Chairman & CEO, The Howard G. Buffett FoundationHoward W. Buffett, Lecturer, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

MODERATOR: Ronnie Green, Vice President of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska, and Senior Vice Chancellor for

Academic Affairs and IANR Harlan Vice Chancellor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Forty chances. A farmer has only 40 growing seasons in an average career. By extension, everyone has just 40 opportunities to put their mark on the world. Although not literal, the realization that we have so few years to realize our dreams inspired philanthropist and farmer Howard G. Buffett with a profound sense of urgency.

In opening the Rural Futures Conference, Buffett said he sees too little urgency in solving the world’s problems. Forty chances, then, is a mindset intended to inspire making a difference.

University of Nebraska’s Ronnie Green moderated a dialogue between Buffett and his son, Howard W. Buffett, based on their book: “40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World.” The book asks the question: If you had the resources to do something great in the world, what would you do? The dialogue explored the Buffetts’ experiences and observations during a lifetime of philanthropy.

HOWARD G. BUFFETT

The elder Buffett, son of famed investor Warren Buffett, said his parents instilled the importance of becoming productive citizens and giving back. After the family’s foundation was created, their children had significant financial resources to do that.

In turn, Buffett took his then teenaged son to some of the most impoverished places in the world. “The journeys encouraged a closeness between father and son that continues today,” the younger Buffett said. It also exposed him to many different cultures and caused him to question why poverty and suffering exist.

Howard G. Buffett’s philanthropic focus began with environmental conservation. In the 1990s, he began shifting toward global hunger, water scarcity and more recently, conf lict resolution. Visiting rural villages on his conservation trips gradually convinced him of the depth and complexity of conservation issues. “The truth is that focusing on conservation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQz9sRGhS9Y&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH&index=2

MAINSTAGE | 9

means you’re ignoring the largest single element—which is the human being—that’s going to have the biggest negative impact on our environment, and you can’t get away with that forever,” Buffett said.

His father Warren’s advice also helped convince him to concentrate on agriculture and food. “Dad always said to stay in your circle of competence, and your circle of competence is very small,” Buffett said with a laugh. His farming expertise, coupled with the enormity of world hunger, provided the impetus to focus on hunger issues.

“If I look at one of the biggest problems in the world, it’s people who can’t feed themselves,” he said. “When you meet farmers who have literally had children die because they could not provide food to them … that gets your attention as a farmer.”

A more recent focus on conflict resolution evolved after meeting people living through horrendous events.

GLOBAL AGRICULTURE

What works in a U.S. setting won’t necessarily work elsewhere, Howard G. Buffett said. Farmers everywhere face similar problems, from insects to drought. But poor countries lack resources, including financial credit, infrastructure and transportation. “How do you solve those problems without thinking like a western, U.S. farmer?” he asked. “It’s most important to understand that a lot of it doesn’t just transfer.”

He advocated a “brown revolution,” focusing attention beyond the soil-rich temperate climate zones, where most staple crops are grown. In Africa, 70 percent of the soils are degraded, and Buffett encouraged finding solutions in traditionally low-resource settings.

He also emphasized the need to look for solutions within every agricultural system. Organic agriculture, for example, is an opportunity to develop Africa in a direction different from the U.S. or India. Buffett admitted he originally dismissed organic agriculture’s ability to feed a growing global population, but became convinced of its potential. Synthetic inputs also have long-term consequences, despite its short-term productivity gains.

Buffett also advocated changes in U.S. policies. To combat severe soil erosion, for example, farmers must adopt no-till farming practices. The government could help drive farmers to change by funding conservation programs.

CROWDS GATHERED TO HEAR

THE BUFFETTS SPEAK AS

THEY KICKED OFF THE RURAL

FUTURES CONFERENCE.

If I look at one of the biggest problems in

the world, it’s people who can’t feed themselves.”


Immigration policies and the difficulty of hiring foreign farm labor are also significant risks to U.S. agriculture, hurting farmers and contributing to food waste as produce goes unharvested. Policy changes are unlikely, however, until the public is affected by skyrocketing produce prices or contaminated, unregulated imports.

Both Buffetts mentioned the consequences of international food aid that sells U.S. commodities in places where farmers already struggle. U.S. non-governmental organizations also pay American workers’ salaries far beyond local salaries, driving up local prices. The cultural impact of international aid can be devastating, they said. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation works with the UN’s World Food Program to minimize that effect, Howard W. Buffett said.

His father also expressed frustration with organizations, such as the World Bank, that manipulate statistics to positively redefine poverty when the reality remains unchanged. “Despite a recent drive to tell only upbeat stories, four billion people still live without water and die of malnutrition,” he said. “The truth is it’s a very tough world. I think we need to be very careful about how we view statistics and the stories that people want to tell and how to present that.”

“That grim reality doesn’t negate the opportunities for change that exist,” his son added. Focusing on women’s advancement and rural agricultural development are the most promising avenues to lift people from poverty.

“By focusing on agricultural development, we know that we are directing our resources in an area that’s going to make the biggest difference for the biggest number of people,” Howard W. Buffett said.

PHILANTHROPY’S ROLE

Howard G. Buffett described both the personal risks he takes going to dangerous places and the financial risks required to find solutions that work. He said he often travels to world hot spots because it’s impossible to learn what he needs secondhand.

Private family foundations, accountable only to the IRS, also must take risks, he said. When organizations look for safe bets, they miss opportunities. “Why wouldn’t we take our money to go to the toughest places in the world and be willing to fail?” he asked. “You have to fail to be able to learn how to succeed.”

His son agreed, adding that risks escalate when operating in conflict areas. During civil conflicts, programs become much less efficient, and the likelihood of severe hunger increases 200 percent. In turn, ongoing hunger increases conflict, resulting in a spiraling cycle that becomes more challenging to resolve over time, Howard W. Buffett said.

His father admitted that, after investing several hundred million dollars, they have seen little success working in some of the most difficult places in the world. They

RONNIE GREEN PRESENTS

COMMEMORATIVE

HEUERMANN MEDALS TO BOTH

BUFFETTS FOLLOWING THE

HEUERMANN LECTURE.

MAINSTAGE | 11

figure out how you solve the biggest problems we’ve ever faced,” he said. “We have to help people be leaders.”

Both Buffetts applauded the Rural Futures Conference and other efforts to bolster rural communities, in the U.S. and around the world. Howard W. Buffett said rural communities’ emphases on families and neighborly support play important roles and represent U.S. values that make the country stand out. His father agreed, but added, “... we have allowed rural America to slip … Rural America has to survive and stay strong.”

recently switched focus in two fundamental ways. First, they began working in Rwanda because they consider it the most reliable and dependable country in Africa, providing necessary governmental stability.

“It’s the one country I feel we have a shot of having success in,” Howard G. Buffett said, adding that he hopes Rwanda will become a model to replicate elsewhere. One component of that success must include agriculture, so the foundation is investing in smallholder farming. He praised Rwandan president Paul Kagame as a strong leader, willing to take risks for his country.

Betting on individuals doesn’t always pay off, Buffett admitted. The key is to find ways to help people who want to be leaders. Therefore, another recent focus is to invest in students, including sponsoring Rwandan students to study at UNL. “It’s the next generation that’s going to

It’s the next generation that’s going to figure

out how you solve the biggest problems we’ve ever faced. We have to help people be leaders.”

PARTICIPANTS STOOD IN LINE TO

PURCHASE THE BUFFETT’S BOOK, “40

CHANCES.” THE HOWARD G. BUFFETT

FOUNDATION DONATED BOOKS AND

THE PROCEEDS WENT TO UNL’S ENGLER

AGRIBUSINESS ENTREPRENEURSHIP CLUB.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Howard G. Buffett’s focus on global hunger evolved from his farming expertise coupled with the recognition that food scarcity is one of the world’s biggest problems.

What works in a U.S. setting won’t necessarily work elsewhere. Opportunities for Africa include greater research focus, soil improvements, organic agriculture, women’s advancement and improving international food aid and other policies.

The Howard G. Buffett Foundation is investing in Rwanda, a stable country with a strong president. It’s also investing in student education to help develop the next generation of leaders.


We’ve made great progress, but wow, do we

have a lot of work to do.”

DREAM BIG WITH ME

HANK BOUNDS

PRESENTER: Hank Bounds, President, University of Nebraska

When University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds talks about all things rural, he knows firsthand what he’s talking about. The Mississippi native grew up on a farm in the rural, southern part of his state and since becoming NU’s president in April 2015, he’s noticed similarities between Mississippi and his adopted home—other than football, he quipped to the Rural Futures Conference audience.

While Nebraskans may talk with a funny accent, he joked, the two states face the same challenges rural places face across America—things like a brain drain, access to important services like health care, technology and capital and an uneven playing field in education.

Economic growth has been concentrated in urban areas and growth has been stagnant in rural areas, he said, adding that a competitive economy requires vibrant, growing, attractive places for young people to live, work and raise families. “This is really a personal matter to me,” Bounds said. “It’s important that we figure it out for our citizens.”

The former high school teacher, who was the first in his family to graduate from college, said he tends to judge the vibrancy of a community by how many boarded-

up buildings you see as you travel through town. “It’s important that we stop plywood from going up,” he said.

Bounds praised RFI Founding Executive Director Chuck Schroeder and University of Nebraska–Lincoln Vice Chancellor Ronnie Green for their passionate support of the RFI’s mission and said the University’s Board of Regents likewise understands the importance of its work. “They understand it, they support it,” Bounds said.

The NU president, who has emphasized the University’s statewide presence and statewide mission, said he wants it “to be a giant in higher education.” Moreover, he added, “This University needs to be a giant in the rural space,” which can affect people not only in Nebraska, but in rural places around the world.

While the University does many important things, nothing it does is more important than focusing on rural Nebraska and rural America, Bounds said. “It’s important that we deploy our resources in a way that will help rural communities thrive and be successful ... We’ve made great progress,” he said, “but wow, do we have a lot of work to do.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-7NhXFp8lo&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH&index=4

MAINSTAGE | 13

IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES

CLIFTON TAULBERT

PRESENTER: Clifton Taulbert, Entrepreneur. Businessman. Author.

Here’s what Clifton Taulbert wants you to know about hope: Hope inspires vision. Hope is believing in tomorrow. Hope is habitual. Hope is optimism. Hope is plentiful. Hope is enduring.

This son of the rural Mississippi Delta, who grew up picking cotton and passing two white high schools on his 100-mile daily round trip to a colored high school, drew on the realities of his own life to challenge Rural Futures Conference attendees to make a difference in their communities by imagining possibilities they’ve never imagined before.

“To imagine the possibility is to live outside the restrictions that may hold you fast to what you’ve always known,” said Taulbert, an entrepreneur, businessman and author of “Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored.” Imagination, Taulbert said, is what drove President Thomas Jefferson to launch the Lewis and Clark Expedition because he wanted to know what was west of the Mississippi River. “What’s west of our Mississippi?” Taulbert asked.

Picking cotton in the Mississippi Delta was the only thing Taulbert’s family had ever known, but he imagined

something different—places with three-story brick buildings and paved streets. And he credited his great-grandmother, who all but dragged the 6-year-old Clifton to his first day of school, and his first teacher, who greeted him by saying, “Well, little professor, come on in,” with making him believe that his tomorrows could be different from his todays.

That’s what fires imagination and a change in thinking about things that might be—and ignites a spark of hope.

“Hope comes from the people that surround our lives,” Taulbert said, noting that you can’t buy hope from big-box stores or download it from the Internet. Yet hope, he said, “is the driving force of humanity.”

It is hope, he said, that allows you to face disruptive change in life by asking what you can do for yourself, but also what you can do with others. It keeps you from giving up. “It is the doing of something that makes hope real,” Taulbert said.

He cautioned the audience not to think of imagining new futures as projects with predetermined completion dates. Instead, he said, “The power is in the process … and we are the process.”

It is the doing of something that makes hope real.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxZZ2cCfeE0&index=5&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH


its work with rural people in rural places, not only in Nebraska but around the world.

“What is the legacy you want to leave for having spent time on this planet?” Taulbert asked. Look at what is, and imagine what might be. And then embark on creating that new reality. After all, Taulbert asked, “What is the end game of innovation if not to make the world a better place in which to live?”

Taulbert praised University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds, a fellow Mississippian, and Rural Futures Institute leaders for articulating a vision of greatness in all things rural. “That vision”, Taulbert said, “invites you to discover how big you can become.”

“Rural America was literally the start of America,” he said. It’s the place where innovation in agriculture, for example, has been transformative. “You have made incredible contributions to innovation, so why stop now?” he asked.

The RFI, he suggested, rightly celebrates rural America. “We’re not an appendage to the country,” the rural Mississippi native said. “We are the country.”

Taulbert noted that Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian Renaissance artist, scientist and inventor, once said that when he wanted to get new ideas, he would walk in the countryside. So it’s natural, he suggested, that new ideas and new ways of thinking can emerge from the RFI and

What is the end game of innovation if not

to make the world a better place in which to live?”

CLIFTON TAULBERT SPEAKS WITH NU PRESIDENT HANK

BOUNDS FOLLOWING HIS PRESENTATION.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Imagining possibilities requires an ability to break away from the limits you’ve always known.

A sense of hope drives humanity.

Imagining new futures is a process, not a project.

New ideas and new ways of thinking can emerge from the RFI and its work with rural people and rural places, not only in Nebraska but around the world.

MAINSTAGE | 15

Hope is the belief that the future will be better

than the present combined with the belief that you have the power to make it so.”

SHANE LOPEZ

PRESENTER: Shane Lopez, Gallup Sr. Scientist in Residence and Research Director, Clifton Strengths Institute

THE IMPORTANCE OF HOPE

When Shane Lopez says hope matters, he’s not just talking about some warm, fuzzy, amorphous idea.

The psychologist, college professor and Gallup senior scientist in residence has the data from years of research with tens of thousands of people to show that hopeful people do better in school, in their workplace and in their communities.

“Hope is more than a fuzzy feeling,” Lopez said. “Hope is the belief that the future will be better than the present combined with the belief that you have the power to make it so.”

Study after study, he said, has shown that hope defines success in college performance and is a better predictor of rank in law school than scores on the Law School Admission Test. It has no relationship to a person’s IQ and is evenly distributed across zip codes, reflecting almost no difference by income.

If you ask people around the world to identify their hopes and dreams, Lopez said, their answers boil down to these three things:

1. A good job, something that engages them and feeds their passions,

2. A happy family that lives close to them and is part of their everyday lives,

3. A great life, which includes a sense of purpose in meaningful work; social connectedness with others; financial security but not necessarily wealth; physical well-being, including access to health care; and community well-being in a place that gives them love and support but that also enables them to give back.

In all those spheres, Lopez said, “The power of hope is real.”

Communities can translate hope into action only if people buy into common goals. It’s why no one washes a rental car, Lopez said. “People don’t work for goals they don’t own.”

“But people also need the wherewithal to buy into the future”, he said, illustrating his point with the experience of organizations like Heifer International, a charity that fights world hunger and poverty by providing livestock and training to poor families around the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLblCKKA2h4&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH&index=7


If poor families are just given a cow or chicken or goat, Lopez said, they do the logical thing and eat it. But if they are given the animal plus the training to learn how to care for it, breed it and sell its offspring, they can create a more secure future. Economists, he said, call it “hope training.”

Hope, Lopez said, requires people to invest in the future, which, in turn affects how people behave today. He cited studies that he said show if a leader makes people excited about the future, workers will be more engaged today. Regardless of workplace—whether a burger chain, factory or other job site—hopeful workers will do more in less time and will do it better, he said.

Lopez cited a Gallup poll of more than 10,000 people who were asked: Who was the most influential leader in your life and how have they made your life better? Boiling down the tens of thousands of answers enabled Gallup to identify four leadership characteristics that followers need: hope, stability, trust and compassion.

“You’re a leader in your community whether you like it or not,” Lopez told the conference attendees, challenging them to reflect those four basic leadership traits as they work to craft their community’s future.

He urged them to identify the most hopeful people in their town, their school district, their Main Street and commit to doing the three things hopeful leaders need to do:

1. “Create and sustain excitement about the future.”

2. “Knock down existing obstacles to goals and don’t put up new ones.”

3. “Re-establish goals—re-goal—when circumstances demand it.”

Lopez said positive emotions—like hopefulness—can spread from a leader to three more people before they fizzle out. But hopelessness can be transmitted the same way, he cautioned. Hope, in other words, has a ripple effect, he said. “Making hope ripples is what I want you to do.”

SHANE LOPEZ PRESENTING THE IMPORTANCE OF HOPE.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Hope is believing the future will be better than the present and that you can make it so.

Hopefulness affects how people behave today because it makes them willing to invest in the future.

Gallup researchers have identified hope, stability, trust and compassion as leadership characteristics that followers need.

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CHUCK SCHROEDER

PRESENTER: Chuck Schroeder, Founding Executive Director, Rural Futures Institute at the University of Nebraska

ENVISIONING THE FUTURE THROUGH A LENS OF HOPE

The Rural Futures Institute’s Founding Executive Director Chuck Schroeder has the last laugh when he remembers the 2013 Rural Futures Conference attendee who came up to him and said: “This stuff will never work. You must be nuts. There’s no way to save these rural communities.”

“Well ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Look at all of you,” he told the packed auditorium at the 2015 Rural Futures Conference. “There are great things happening.”

Schroeder recounted the origins of the RFI and described its vision as a world-class institute with “a genuine, on-the-ground impact, community by community by community.” To do that, he said, the institute never was intended to be a source of esoteric ideas that would “rain down from on high.”

Rather, he said, it has to be based on building hopeful people through three key principles: creating partnerships of all sorts to address specific issues, strengthening intergenerational leadership and engagement in rural areas and supporting targeted rural research that makes a difference.

Citing the first principle, Schroeder said the RFI has supported 32 collaborative projects in 116

communities in the past three years, all originated by people in rural communities. The projects have involved economic development, leadership and civic engagement, health care, marketing and the justice system. The collaborations have involved 17 colleges and universities, 23 organizations, a dozen government agencies and two companies. “This is not your Aunt Effie’s rural development program,” Schroeder quipped.

As for strengthening international leadership and engagement in rural areas, “this may be the most important thing we do in the next 50 years,” he said.

He cited the RFI’s Connecting Young Nebraskans and Rural Community Serviceship programs as illustrations of how wrong people can be when they complain: “We just don’t have any young adults who want to get involved.” More than 550 young professionals from across the state are building networks through Connecting Young Nebraskans, a loosely affiliated group of young

They are making hope happen where they live.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaofK0LYtYU&index=8&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH


entrepreneurs and other young community members, without officers or dues, who connect to share ideas and learn from each other’s experiences. “They are making hope happen where they live,” Schroeder said.

So also are the 21 University of Nebraska–Lincoln students who have participated in the rural community serviceship program in 11 communities, where, after an intensive training, they engaged in problem-solving projects in towns that invited them.

After the first summer, Schroeder said, the first call he got was from a student’s mentor in Red Cloud, Nebraska, who told him the UNL students had accomplished more in eight weeks than community leaders had in five years, and the town wanted them to come back.

One student who served in Cambridge, Nebraska last summer came away with two job offers for which he was not remotely qualified, Schroeder said, adding: “The community just loved him because he was driving so much that was happening there.”

Schroeder said that to achieve the third RFI principle of supporting targeted rural research that makes a difference, the institute is launching the Rural Futures Institute Fellows Program. It aims to identify an initial group of 30 to 40 people who can build a diverse network of global significance, drawing from faculty and graduate students, the typical source of academic fellows.

In addition, RFI Fellows also will be drawn from emeriti faculty, undergraduate students and community leaders who have a proven track record of driving change in their communities. The RFI will continue to develop relationships with nonprofit organizations, philanthropists, academic institutions, private companies and others with a commitment to the future of rural places.

Schroeder emphasized the important lessons of RFC speaker Shane Lopez’s research on hope: Hope matters. Hope is a choice. Hope is contagious. Hope can be learned.

While there will be some naysayers who insist it will never work, Schroeder said the RFI is committed to “building a new generation of hopeful leaders in rural communities who will make them a better place to live, who will make the states and countries in which they’re located stronger and who will make this world a better place in which to live and in the end, indeed, will make hope happen.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

RFI serviceship opportunities are showing what young people with energy and ideas can accomplish.

A new RFI Fellows Program aims to build a network of rural scholars and leaders to initiate a global impact.

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PRESENTERS: Andrew Dickinson, Founder, Fly Over Me

Jacob Zlomke, Writer, Fly Over Me

L-R: ANDREW DICKINSON, JACOB ZLOMKE

RURAL ARTS & CULTURE: A MODERN PERSPECTIVE

To many people, the vast Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West are fly-over country. The place you look down on as your passenger jet takes you from one big city to another big city on the other side of the country.

If it’s a clear day, you will be able to see highways threading their way across wide open spaces that, from the air, may appear featureless.

But if you’re a young multimedia journalist like Andrew Dickinson or Jacob Zlomke, you know better. You know there are people to talk to and stories to tell down there.

So you go out, find them and share them online. Stories about cattle branding and demolition derbies and an annual gathering at Merritt Reservoir of people who seek out one of the darkest places in the nation to explore the night skies. You hear their voices and get a glimpse of their lives in those wide open spaces.

Dickinson and Zlomke, founders of Fly Over Me, shared with the Rural Futures Conference luncheon audience multimedia examples of the stories they found that illustrate modern life in rural America.

Dickinson, Zlomke and several other young multimedia journalists spent two summers in Valentine, Nebraska, which they described as being at the confluence of several economic and cultural systems.

Cattle ranching drives the economy of Cherry County, but ranching and related activities are not merely occupations, Dickinson said. “Ranching is more a way of life than a job.”

The stories, interviews, photos and videos the Fly Over Me creators published online portray the lives of people who make a living and a life amid the rolling Sandhills with its green pastures and skies that go on forever.

Their work also, however, illustrates the economic diversity that tourism brings to the region, with seasonal rodeos, recreational opportunities on the Niobrara National Scenic River and an annual stargazing party

Ranching is more a way of life than a job.”


at the Merritt Reservoir south of Valentine that attracts hundreds of amateur and professional astronomers.

They also explored the cultural contrasts evident on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, just north of Valentine across the Nebraska border in South Dakota, where they documented a Fourth of July celebration and a summer camp for Lakota youth.

In part, they sought to dispel stereotypes of rural Nebraska places as flat and boring. People who think that, Dickinson said, have never been to the Sandhills. As for boring? One man they interviewed said people who say there’s nothing to do there “have no imagination.”

But one stereotype proved true for the Fly Over Me team: the people they met became their friends, willing to share the details of their lives.

MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF 1953 TAKE THEIR SEATS FOR A

GROUP PHOTO AT THE VALENTINE HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI

REUNION. PHOTO CREDIT: FLY OVER MEDIA

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Rural places are anything but boring.

Young multimedia journalists found memorable people and places in their quest to document rural lives tied to the land.

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L-R: DONELLE WOLTERS, MATT WOLTERS, TOM FIELD

PANELISTS: Matt Wolters, Co-founder & Sales Manager, SureFire Ag Systems

Donelle Wolters, Independent Consultant/Curriculum Writer

Anne Burkholder, Manager, Will Feed, Inc.

Ben Blecha, Entrepreneur and Owner, Ace Ortho Solutions

MODERATOR: Tom Field, Director, Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program

BREAKING THE MOLD TO CREATE RURAL OPPORTUNITIES

Rural Futures Conference panelists at Innovation Campus in Lincoln and the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis were billed as mold-breaking entrepreneurs. But don’t tell them that.

Matt and Donelle Wolters of Atwood, Kansas, Ben Blecha of Benkelman, Nebraska, and Anne Burkholder of Cozad, Nebraska, are matter-of-fact community activists who believe in themselves, their communities and the future of the rural places they call home.

Making a go of it in rural communities is sometimes an uphill climb, they said. But it’s worth it.

Responding to questions from moderator Tom Field, director of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program, the panelists described their journeys to rural community engagement.

Matt Wolters, a fourth generation family farm son from northwest Kansas, in 2007 founded with his brother and a friend SureFire Ag Systems, which develops fertilizer application and control systems. Their hometown is a long way from a Walmart, but the surest measure of community vitality is an increase in public school enrollment, following 60 years of decline, he said.

Wolters credited visionary leaders in Atwood from the 1980s who laid a forward-looking foundation based on welcoming newcomers and identifying niches for new businesses.

Blecha, who pursued a career in several cities developing a specialty in creating prosthetic devices and orthotics for those in need, came back to Benkelman intending to stay just six months, but he now owns and operates Sky Prosthetics and became engaged in community development as an outgrowth of efforts to establish a manufacturing plant in his hometown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCKMa44gQE&index=16&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH


Speaking from the NCTA campus in Curtis, Blecha recalled that many of his fellow high school graduates were in a hurry to leave. But now, he said, interviews with local high school students indicate that as many as 80 percent of them want to come back.

As important as that may be, he suggested, it’s a mistake just to focus on attracting newcomers. Creative people “are already here,” Blecha said. “We don’t need to look outwards.” Rather, he said, the challenge is to create support systems to prop up the entrepreneurs who are already in rural communities.

Wolters also suggested that communities, like Atwood, which once followed a “chasing smokestacks model of economic development,” need to rethink that approach. “It just doesn’t work,” he said. What’s more effective is encouraging homegrown efforts, particularly those that can develop niche markets that will mean jobs and outside revenue coming into a community.

While Blecha and Wolters are examples of 30-somethings who came home, Burkholder has the advantage of being an outsider turned insider in Cozad. If you just read Burkholder’s biography, you’d think she was an unlikely feed yard manager. The daughter of a West Palm Beach, Florida attorney, Burkholder grew up in an urban environment that never seemed like home. She went to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she met—and married—a Nebraska farm boy.

Burkholder said it’s critical for communities to be open to new people who bring new perspectives and to allow them to use their talents to make a difference.

It’s a characteristic Donelle Wolters found in Atwood after marrying Matt two years ago. The Lyons, Nebraska, native was an ag education teacher and executive director of the Nebraska FFA Association before moving to Kansas, where she now is an independent consultant and freelance curriculum writer.

In Atwood, she said, she found a flourishing spirit of entrepreneurship. “There’s a growth mindset in place,” she said, not a fixed mindset. And that allows people to thrive. Moreover, if you’re new to the community, you’d better plan to do something constructive. “It’s almost expected that everyone in the community is involved in something,” she said.

Donelle Wolters said Atwood has a network of people who telecommute to jobs in other cities. It’s not a perfect arrangement for everyone, she noted, but the ability to work online creates opportunities for rural communities to attract newcomers or bring former residents back home.

The panelists placed value on young people leaving their rural towns, at least for a time. “Go out and get those experiences first,” Donelle Wolters said. “There’s such value in young people going out and then coming home.” They bring new ideas, new experiences and new perspectives that can enrich their hometown.

Go out and get those experiences first.

There’s such value in young people going out and then coming home.”

DONELLE WOLTERS

ANNE BURKHOLDER AND

BEN BLECHA VIA SKYPE

MATT WOLTERS

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Burkholder recalled her dad telling her that no matter what she did, she should do it well and do it with passion. And so she has. “I came to rural America because I wanted something different, and I stayed because it’s home,” she said. But it hasn’t always been easy.

Referring to the conference theme “hope inspires vision,” Burkholder said she also believes that “hope inspires perseverance.” She said she sometimes worries about whether kids are learning to be tough enough in working to achieve their goals. “You just have to keep going,” she said.

Sometimes you have to keep going despite skepticism by community naysayers, the panelists said. “You just don’t listen to them,” Matt Wolters said, recalling that a former history teacher used the word “misfits” to describe him and his brother and their partners when they started their business. Wolters embraced the term when he learned it refers to people who stand out among the crowd.

I came to rural America because I wanted

something different, and I stayed because it’s home.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Rural communities need to embrace newcomers who bring new perspectives and ideas.

Rural communities need to support and encourage the entrepreneurial people who already live there rather than focusing entirely on attracting newcomers.

It’s OK for young people to leave their rural hometowns; just be ready to welcome them back when they’re ready to return with new energy and experiences to build a stronger community.

If you stick together with other like-minded people and collectively ignore the naysayers—even the loud ones—pretty soon their voices will diminish, he said. At first, Blecha added, you’ll have to do a lot of ignoring when people say you’re going to fail.

In Cozad, Burkholder said, community development leaders decided to engage the naysayers by hosting a coffee hour, with mixed success. It’s OK for people to have different opinions, she said. But what matters is finding a way to achieve common goals.


B.J. REED

IMAGINING THE FUTURE: WHAT’S NEXT?

University of Nebraska at Omaha Senior Vice Chancellor B. J. Reed had a tall order: summarize the first day of the Rural Futures Conference, a day filled with energetic presentations and exchanges with entrepreneurs, scientists, educators and other creative people of all stripes.

It was, Reed said, a day of recurring key words and phrases reflecting the conference theme: Hope Inspires Vision. Words and phrases like: Champions, Ripples, Imagination, Shared vision, Diversity, Engaged citizenry, Breaking the mold, Tweaking the mold, Empowerment, Sustainability, Small wins, Long-term horizons, Misfits, Persistence.

But mostly, Reed said, it was a day that highlighted the importance of being oriented toward the future at an individual, organizational and community level. “If you’re not looking toward the future, if you don’t have some sense of something yet to do, then you’re in deep trouble,” he said.

The day’s messages from disparate presenters reinforced what Reed called his “iron law.” “It’s irrefutable and always true,” the UNO official said. “Insecurity drives the world.” Those who are most insecure are the ones who strike out the most, the ones who are most angry and the ones who fear change the most. And that’s true of individuals, organizations or entire communities, he said.

If you can overcome that insecurity, that fear of the future, Reed said, “you can overcome most anything.” If you’re not looking

toward the future, if you don’t have some sense of something yet to do, then you’re in deep trouble.”

PRESENTER: B.J. Reed, Sr. Vice Chancellor Academic and Student Affairs, University of Nebraska at Omaha

KEY TAKEAWAY

Despite fears and insecurity, individuals, organizations and entire communities owe it to themselves to remain oriented toward the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boOPV16T6HQ&index=17&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH

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HOPE AND HAPPINESS: IGNITING ACTION

RFI’s goal, and the goal of the conference, is to make enhancing rural areas a movement by working together and creating collective hope and progress, said RFI’s Connie Reimers-Hild. Happiness is a vital component. Together, hope and happiness ignite action.

She referenced Project Have Hope, an Ugandan project in which women make beads from recycled paper to sell worldwide. The women are lifting their lives from war and famine, providing for their families and creating an economy around hope.

Similarly, RFI seeks to change the conversation surrounding rural issues from one of challenge to that of opportunity. Positivity creates a “happiness advantage” that leads to better outcomes, Reimers-Hild said, citing happiness researcher Shawn Achor. Though rural areas face challenges, remaining positive increases the likelihood of finding and pursuing opportunities.

“Happiness ignites innovation,” she said. “I’m talking about the incremental innovation that we can all work together to achieve to make rural people and places more confident and to increase capacity and to really show the world how important rural is to the livelihoods and lives of everybody.”

Happiness ignitesinnovation.”

CONNIE REIMERS-HILD

Positivity can be hard to maintain if individual contributions seem to make little difference in the face of large challenges. “But every time we move something forward, every time we have a more positive conversation, every time we make a new partner and a new friend in the movement to move rural people and places forward, we’re making an impact,” she said, adding that the impact may take years to realize.

RFI is building a research agenda around the idea that rural regions matter. The conference set out to promote partnerships, spur innovative ideas and foster a culture of entrepreneurship that builds hope and invigorates the rural landscape. RFI, a catalyst for change, encourages rural towns and the university community to engage with the institute. RFI wouldn’t exist without partnerships, and Reimers-Hild encouraged conference participants to connect with the institute.

PRESENTER: Connie Reimers-Hild, Associate Director, Rural Futures Institute at the University of Nebraska

KEY TAKEAWAY

RFI’s goal is to make enhancing rural regions a movement by encouraging partnerships, promoting a message of hope and igniting action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7AQecbXAes&index=18&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH


Encouraging young professionals to move to rural communities and engage with the community was a prominent theme throughout the conference. This popular panel allowed conference goers to hear directly from students and young professionals about their rural experiences as well as their thoughts on choosing a small town career.

Katie Samples Dean, a recent law school graduate, moderated the panel of four. She lives on a pig farm with her husband an hour’s drive from her law firm in Sidney, Nebraska. She described some of the practicalities that hinder her ability to work from home—particularly costly and limited Internet. She also discussed the less tangible challenge of integrating into the community and the effect that had on securing a job.

The importance—and difficulty—of building relationships was a common refrain throughout the discussion. Amber Ross, a senior at Callaway High

PANELISTS: Dana Marsh, University of Nebraska Medical Center Student

Amber Ross, Callaway High School Student

Jeff Story, University of Nebraska Law Student

Heather Tomasek, former University of Nebraska–Lincoln Student

MODERATOR: Katie Samples Dean, Access to Justice Law Clerk

NEW HOPE: PROFOUND RURAL ENGAGEMENT EXPERIENCES

School in central Nebraska, said encouraging young people to stay should start with the community’s kids. She belongs to the Youth Leadership Custer County program and the CAPABLE program, or Custer Alliance for Preparing and Advocating Business, Labor and Education. The Youth Leadership program helps young people recognize what makes their community “awesome” and how they can make a difference, Ross said. CAPABLE focuses on demonstrating economic opportunities available to young people in their communities through business plan development and other activities.

“I think to get our students to realize what they have in the rural community, we need to give them that chance to really think about what we have to offer them,” Ross said. She cited Callaway’s compassion and ability to pull together, such as helping families in need, as values that appeal to her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygW46uCR8xA&index=22&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH

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Jeff Story, a first-year law student from Omaha, spent a summer in Red Cloud, Nebraska, through the RFI-sponsored rural serviceship program as a UNL undergraduate. He said he was surprised to find a welcoming community. “There is a need, and I think these communities are ready for young professionals, even from Omaha like myself, to come in and bring a new voice.”

When an audience member who had moved to a law office in western Nebraska described his struggle for acceptance, Story admitted that’s a common impression of small towns. To move to a rural community, he said he would need to find a well-respected professional role model in town who could teach him how to run a law practice and help him integrate into town. “I would probably never join a community blind, so you need to create those relationships right away.”

Story also benefitted from the serviceship program that sent him to Red Cloud, and said he wouldn’t have recognized what a small community has to offer without that exposure. He can also take advantage of a Nebraska State Bar Association program that sends law students and recent graduates on a road trip to visit small town law practices. “More programs like these are needed,” Story said.

Medical student Dana Marsh said she’s attracted to small towns because healthcare professionals in rural areas have a much broader scope of practice and flexibility than their urban counterparts. And, given the shortage of healthcare professionals in rural areas, successful practices or jobs are widely available. Still, she said she would need to know the community is willing to help new graduates get established and that she’s compatible.

For Heather Tomasek, a recent UNL landscape architecture and design graduate, a community open to and investing in change provided her with an interesting

JEFF STORY

KATIE SAMPLES DEAN

AMBER ROSS

DANA MARSH

HEATHER TOMASEK

There is a need, and I think these

communities are ready for young professionals, even from Omaha like myself, to come in and bring a new voice.”


L-R: HEATHER TOMASEK, AMBER ROSS, DANA MARSH,

JEFF STORY, KATIE SAMPLES DEAN

class project. A UNL service-learning studio course in which students worked on projects in Crete, Nebraska, was invaluable to establishing relationships, Tomasek said. It showed her that her skills are valuable to small towns and gave her real-world experience, which led to an internship with the town of Crete. Later, she also worked with Council Bluffs, Iowa, on a riverfront development project, which led to a job offer before she’d graduated.

For medical students, the University of Nebraska Medical Center requires a rural rotation to expose students to rural healthcare, Marsh said. Medical school graduates who work in rural healthcare settings also benefit significantly from student loan repayment programs.

Such programs are unavailable to Nebraska law graduates, Samples Dean added. Small town lawyers earn less than urban lawyers, yet have the same student loan debt. “We are coming out really, really strapped down,” she said. That reality discourages lawyers from practicing in rural areas.

Given the incredible shortage of attorneys in rural Nebraska, Samples Dean said she was surprised at how difficult it was to find a job, even though she and her husband are clearly there to stay. She eventually got a job through a series of connections, but she encouraged communities to seek out young professionals through college career offices.

“We need to start making the communities and the professionals in the communities use the official channels,” Samples Dean said. School career services know students and can better match students to jobs. “So you’re not just hiring someone, you’re hiring the right one.”

The panelists agreed. In Tomasek’s experience, communities reached out directly to professors and school programs to find students for specific projects through service-learning and internships, she said. In turn, students gained experience and built relationships, which can lead to joining those communities with jobs.

When asked about social media, none of the panelists said they look for jobs through social media. They emphasized their use of their school’s career services program as the best avenue for finding young applicants.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Building relationships with young people is critical to encouraging them to move to a rural community.

College students develop relationships through internships and service-learning opportunities, medical school rotations and tours to visit rural legal practices.

Panelists emphasized the importance of using college career service programs, not social media, to find jobs.

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GOVERNOR PETE RICKETTS

CREATING A BETTER FUTURE FOR THE NEXT GENERATIONPRESENTER: Pete Ricketts, Governor of Nebraska

“Rural matters to Nebraska because agriculture is the state’s largest industry,” said Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts. About a quarter of the state’s economy is related directly to production agriculture and because agriculture continued to do well during the 2008 recession, Nebraska weathered that period better than most states. “Agriculture drives our economy, the number of people we employ and is the heart and soul of what we do here in our state,” he said.

By 2050, as the world population increases by 2 billion people and living standards rise, food production must double. Seventy percent of that increase will come from productivity and innovation gains. “Well folks,

our farmers and ranchers are the most productive, innovative people in the world,” Ricketts said. “We are ideally situated right here in Nebraska to be able to take advantage of that trend.”

Manufacturing, Nebraska’s second largest industry segment, is also important to rural areas. Ricketts cited several successful examples, including Becton Dickinson in Broken Bow, Reinke Manufacturing in Deshler and Orthman Manufacturing in Lexington.

To continue growing, however, Nebraska must solve problems in rural agricultural communities, including workforce development in both agriculture and manufacturing. The average age of Nebraska’s farmer is about 55, so keeping young people involved in agriculture is a priority. Ricketts cited successful programs, such as the 100 Beef Cow Ownership Advantage and 100 Acre Farm Ownership Advantage programs, as well as increasing enrollment at Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis.

Manufacturers also lack skilled labor, and Ricketts stressed the importance of getting the private sector involved in school curriculums. His administration established a grant program to encourage public-

Agriculture drives our economy, the number

of people we employ, and is the heart and soul of what we do here in our state.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSc-T0HgH_M&index=23&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH


private partnerships that promote manufacturing and technology careers in schools. Initial recipients are information technology company Hollman Media of Kearney and Hastings manufacturer Flowserve Corp.

Elsewhere in Nebraska, the private sector is working with communities to raise the profile of manufacturer training. For example, a collaboration of York Public Schools, Reinke Manufacturing, Central Valley Ag Coop and the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture resulted in an agricultural work certification program for York High students. They can begin as an accredited employee post-graduation or use the certification as credit toward a two-year or four-year degree. “Those are the kinds of opportunities we want to see created all across the state,” Ricketts said. “To make sure young people have that leg up when it comes to getting into agriculture or manufacturing.” As important as jobs are for rural population growth, so too is quality of life. Manufacturing jobs support access to healthcare, shopping and restaurants.

Lack of housing, however, remains a challenge. The government is working with communities to leverage the state’s resources to create a local solution, Ricketts said. In Sidney, the company Cabela’s is developing its own subdivision. In Broken Bow, five banks joined forces to create a fund for low-interest loans to developers—one of whom recently finished a 24-unit apartment complex. Nevertheless, state regulations are roadblocks, Ricketts said, and he’s working to reduce the regulatory burden for companies.

Supporting rural hospitals is also critical to quality of life, and he’s working with state and federal governments to ensure reimbursement rates are sufficient for critical access hospitals to remain open.

International trade offers additional growth opportunities for Nebraska, Ricketts said. He described trade missions to Europe, China and Japan. In Europe, he sought relief from regulations regarding biotechnology and other innovations as well as improving quotas on beef imports to the European Union.

He said he’s also working to encourage additional foreign investment, similar to the Japanese Kawasaki plant in Lincoln that employs 2,000 people. A Japanese trading firm recently invested $50 million in a biodiesel plant in Beatrice.

As successive generations lose a direct connection to farms and ranches, Nebraska must do more to educate

urban consumers about their food’s origins, Ricketts said. “We’ve got to figure out creative ways to make sure that right here in Nebraska, people understand the importance of agriculture to our overall economy.”

He complimented the Rural Futures Institute at the University of Nebraska for helping Nebraska prosper in more ways than in agriculture alone. “The opportunities for Nebraska are limitless, particularly as growing populations demand higher quality food and more meat,” Ricketts concluded. “That is our wheelhouse. That is where we have a strength to take advantage of that and grow our state to create even better futures for the people of Nebraska.”

We’ve got to figure out creative ways to

make sure that right here in Nebraska, people understand the importance of agriculture to our overall economy.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Workforce development is critical for economic growth. Governor Pete Ricketts stressed the value of public-private partnerships to train students for agriculture and manufacturing jobs.

Lack of housing and access to healthcare also challenge rural areas. Ricketts is working to leverage state resources to create local solutions.

World population growth and increasing food demand offer additional growth opportunities for Nebraska. Ricketts is working to increase international trade and foreign investment in the state.

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L-R: CONNIE REIMERS-HILD, GREG PTACEK

PRESENTERS: Connie Reimers-Hild, Associate Director, Rural Futures Institute at the University of NebraskaGreg Ptacek, Director of Economic Development, City of Neligh

COLLECTIVE HOPE: A RIPPLE EFFECT

RFI’s Connie Reimers-Hild and economic developer Greg Ptacek concluded the conference with a call for participants to create action in their home communities or their organizations. Although the conference focused on hope and opportunities, Reimers-Hild admitted that not everything is “rainbows and unicorns.”

To illustrate, Ptacek described his recent challenges working in the town of Neligh, Nebraska, where he has been economic development director for nearly three years. “I usually tell people that I have the coolest job in the entire world,” Ptacek said. “I get to grow a community for a living. But another word for growth is change, and sometimes people can be very resistant to change.”

Ptacek likened an early step in the town’s commitment to growth as ripping off a Band-Aid. It included annexing established businesses outside of town. Business owners resisted and, after much vitriol and a failed attempt to recall the city council, the project is now moving forward.

“When you start talking about casting that stone into that pond and creating a ripple of hope, it’s tough to do that when you know that your ripple might have to hit a

barrier,” Ptacek said. “As rural leaders, you’re really going to have to be resilient, when you take up and actually answer the call for hope inspired vision.”

To spark collective hope and create a movement, Reimers-Hild engaged the audience in a discussion about why rural areas are important and what participants can do.

One audience member said rural areas are the “fabric of the country,” from where the nation’s future leaders will come. Others described the importance of rural areas in providing ecosystem services to public health; a thriving

As rural leaders, you’re really going to have to

be resilient, when you take up and actually answer the call for hope inspired vision.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1wpRLjr-8s&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH&index=24


economy to Nebraska; and food, water and other natural resources to the nation and the world.

Some discussed the attachment people have to their rural communities, while others are troubled by the loss of young people. “We know our biggest export may be ag or crop related, but we feel our most important and saddest export is our youth,” a participant said.

Building community leadership and capacity is critical, several agreed. Outsiders can help support and provide resources, but building leadership and enacting positive change must come from within. “I think that’s the key: find the leadership within the community, get excited about what you want to do to invigorate your community and to make it grow. And it’s up to us to make that happen,” a participant said.

In Neligh, that change began with five people who looked at the downtown and decided to do something to make change, Ptacek said. That small group began a movement that snowballed into 150 volunteers working on economic development and a $13 million plan for the future. “You can be the change,” Ptacek concluded. “But it all does start with you.”

You can be the change.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The conference concluded with a call to action by creating collective hope and a movement to revitalize rural areas.

Rural regions are important because they provide ecological services, a thriving Nebraska economy, and food and water for the nation and the world.

Building leadership from within communities is key to stimulating growth and vitality.

GREG PTACEK FACILITATES

A GROUP DISCUSSION.

L-R: GERRI STIRTZ, CONNIE REIMERS-HILD, CHARLES BICAK

CONCURRENT SESSIONS


CLIFTON TAULBERT

SHIFT YOUR THINKING: WIN WHERE YOU STAND—BREAKING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL CODE

Many people believe that successful entrepreneurs, such as Warren Buffett or Steve Jobs, have something special not available to the rest of us, said businessman and author Clifton Taulbert. “But I can assure you, for the most part, there is no special sauce. How do we as individuals win once you’ve made the decision to do something?” Taulbert described the mindset and process to achieving entrepreneurial success, based on his book: “Shift Your Thinking: Win Where You Stand.”

I CAN DO THIS! I WILL DO THIS!

While many believe they are capable of achieving a goal, actually doing it is to cross a chasm that ultimately dictates success, Taulbert said. How do entrepreneurs build a bridge across the chasm to achieve success?

Success comes down to two words, he said: hard work. “That’s the real secret sauce to success.” Every successful person has a background of determination, hard work and failures. Taulbert relayed his own rise from a boyhood picking cotton in segregated rural Mississippi to owning a successful consulting company and other business enterprises.

PRESENTER: Clifton Taulbert, Entrepreneur. Businessman. Author.

Entrepreneurial thinking is as equally valuable in a corporate setting as it is in a startup. Disruptions, both good and bad, occur. Because workplace dynamics change rapidly, employees with entrepreneurial thinking are critical to corporations.

“You need to have a staff that is nimble,” Taulbert said. Employees must be able to work cohesively, understand what’s required and know they are a part of the vision. By thinking differently, employees add value.

An entrepreneurial mindset shaped Taulbert’s life, he said, and its qualities are available to everyone. First, become one’s own cheerleader and celebrate successes, instead of dwelling on losses. Second, become focused on the future because it keeps one on track and anticipating possibilities. And, third, expend the effort, which is where many fail.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

In today’s environment, staying abreast of the market and dealing with disruption requires a new way of working, Taulbert said. But thinking outside the box requires

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CONCURRENT SESSIONS | 35

Hard work will get you further than you ever

thought you could go.”

he said. “Once you get outside of that box, that is where great things happen in the marketplace of life.”

THE PROCESS

Taulbert described seven steps to entrepreneurial success. First, choose your mindset. The fixed mindset keeps people in the box, he said, citing Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck’s research. It states: I believe that my intelligence, personality and character are inherent and static. Fixed mindset characteristics include avoidance of failure and challenges, staying with what it knows, taking criticism personally and believing it can’t change or improve.

The growth mindset, on the other hand, states: I believe that my intelligence, personality and character can be continuously developed. It desires continuous learning, confronts uncertainty, embraces challenges and isn’t afraid to fail. The growth mindset expends effort as the pathway to mastery, while the fixed mindset believes effort accomplishes nothing.

knowing what’s inside the box. He described several concepts that prevent people from moving forward:

• Afraid to think differently.• This is not my job. In a dynamic marketplace,

employees must deal with new ideas and systems. • It may require too much effort. • This is the way. Because this is the way it’s

always been done, this is the way it will continue to be done.

• “Play-it-safe attitude,” which hinders moving beyond a comfort level.

• Let somebody else do it. • Don’t like new ideas. • It’s already been done.

“Even if you’re scared to death, this is my suggestion: Put your hands on the box and slowly rise out of it, and leave that stuff behind so that you can accomplish the things that you need,” Taulbert advised. Learn what holds you back from making progress, and embrace the things you need.

He advocated teaching entrepreneurial thinking in colleges and high schools, especially to underserved kids because it helps students know a different future exists.

Taulbert’s own shift in thinking came as a boy in the segregated south, imagining other peoples’ lives. One day, he realized he didn’t have to watch, that he could live beyond his circumstances. “So shift your thinking,”

Once you get outside of that box, that is

where great things happen in the marketplace of life.”


“The key thing is: Never park your car at failure,” Taulbert said. “It’s not a good feeling to fail, but you learn the lesson from that and you move on.” Seeking feedback is also critical. “The growth mindset is not afraid of criticism. You take that constructive criticism, and you make it work for you.”

The second step in the process is to be determined. “Hard work will get you further than you ever thought you could go,” Taulbert said. He described examples of successful athletes and entrepreneurs who started with little, and through hard work, gumption and a mindset focused on possibilities, created successful careers.

Third, build solid relationships. It takes effort, but the marketplace is a people place. Entrepreneurs need people to not only value what they’re offering, but also support them, including employees. Respect, affirmation and inclusion are the three things everyone needs to maximize their potential, Taulbert said. Leaving the corner office to get to know your employees is essential for sustained success.

Fourth, slow down to lead. Leaders and followers move in tandem and, in the drive to succeed, one can lose sight of team members. It’s important to ensure they understand their responsibilities and to give them opportunities to maximize their leadership skills. Actions send signals, Taulbert said. So be aware of the impact words and action have on others.

CLIFTON TAULBERT SIGNS A COPY OF HIS BOOK,

“EIGHT HABITS OF THE HEART: EMBRACING THE

VALUES THAT BUILD STRONG COMMUNITIES” FOR ONE

OF THE CONFERENCE ATTENDEES.

Fifth, know your business health metrics. Without measurement, there’s no accountability, which can lead to poor decisions.

Sixth, easy is not guaranteed. Taulbert described Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher, who created a different type of airline to compete in the industry. “Sometimes swimming upstream gives you the opportunity to have a new focus to pivot and make decisions that you would not have made otherwise,” he said.

Seventh, resolve to succeed. Taulbert concluded by quoting Abraham Lincoln: “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Hard work is the “secret sauce” of success.

Pull yourself out of the box of conventional thinking, learn what holds you back, and embrace new ideas.

Adopt a growth mindset, which expends effort as the pathway to mastery. A fixed mindset believes effort accomplishes nothing.


THE SCIENCE OF HOPE

Hope matters. Hope is a choice. Hope is learned. Hope is contagious. Remember those four key points, research psychologist Shane Lopez suggested to a Rural Futures Conference breakout audience, and you’ll go a long way toward building a hopeful community.

And remember, he said, that hope is more than optimism. The latter is a belief that the future will be better than today. Hope is optimism plus the pathways to follow to achieve that better future.

Lopez, the Gallup organization’s senior scientist in residence, followed up his morning main-stage presentation by answering dozens of questions from a breakout session audience eager to understand more about how to create and capitalize on hope in their communities.

“Only half the people you work with are hopeful,” Lopez said, referring to extensive research on the subject. But you can build a hopeful community by

empowering the most hopeful people to be the chief problem-solvers, he said.

The two simplest ways to spread hope, he said, are to spend time with the most hopeful person you know and to get excited about one thing in the future. That becomes the focus of your energy.

Lopez described a process he called “hope mapping” that can enable groups to achieve their goals.

“Mapping out hope is at the core of everything you do,” he said, likening the process to creating lists of pros and cons.

First, he said, agree on a goal, something specific and measurable. Then, identify various pathways to achieving that goal and obstacles that may stand in the way of each path. The key, he said, is not to stop when one strategy or pathway is blocked, but to think of different pathways to work around the obstacles. That’s what hopeful people can do.

“Hopeful people are the most realistic people in the world,” Lopez said. That’s because they anticipate obstacles and figure out ways around them.

Only half the people you work with are hopeful.”

PRESENTER: Shane Lopez, Gallup Sr. Scientist in Residence and Research Director, Clifton Strengths Institute

SHANE LOPEZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0yq6D-Eqg0&index=11&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH


Lopez suggested that as a rule of thumb, a community needs at least one hopeful leader for every 500 people to create real change in a community. School superintendents, mayors or city managers, entrepreneurs and community organizers all tend to be high-hope community members who can identify goals, pathways and ways around obstacles. But communities also have high-hope “wild cards” without titles after their names who also can be engaged in the process.

Such high-hope people, he said, are more likely to volunteer in a community than low-hope people and tend to be more open and more willing to engage with people and with new ideas.

Lopez said that scholars who study personality variables have determined that hope is linked more closely to openness than other personality traits and leads to other positive emotions.

People with positive emotions see the world in an expansive way, he said, whereas people with negative emotions experience the world in ever-narrowing ways. They are less open, less creative, less willing to compromise, less willing to collaborate and less willing to do just about anything except fight, flee or freeze, the three key behaviors that negative emotions evoke.

Lopez, a leading advocate for psychological reforms in America’s schools, stressed the contagious nature of hope, but noted that the older people get, the less often they systematically encounter hopeful people.

Learning hopefulness starts even before children get to school, he said, noting that moms are better at instilling hope in their kids than dads are. That’s because they use more hopeful words when they talk than dads do.

Encountering high hope people usually continues when children start school, but it usually doesn’t last. “You’d never hire a low-hope kindergarten teacher,” Lopez said. But when it comes to hiring a high school teacher, the main consideration is whether they know science or English or whatever subject they’re expected to teach. “We get lazy about putting hopeful people in the lives of kids,” he said.

Instead, schools and communities need to create more ways for youngsters to encounter high-hope people like teachers and mentors. He praised the TeamMates mentoring program, created by former University of Nebraska football coach, Tom Osborne, for linking kids with adults who can bring hope to their lives.

Lopez was particularly critical, however, of schools’ career days, a well-meaning practice that he suggested may be counterproductive. “Career days suck,” he said. Only 13 percent of American workers love their jobs; 87 percent do not, Lopez said. But career days, by their very nature, generally attract only those people who can show up in the middle of a school day, not necessarily the people who are passionate about what they do and can inspire that passion in others.

Responding to an audience member’s question, Lopez said the cross-cultural studies of hope have found no consistent difference across ethnic or cultural groups relating to the characteristics of hope.

You’d never hire a low-hope

kindergarten teacher.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Hopeful people can identify multiple pathways to reach a goal.

Hopeful people can anticipate obstacles they might encounter and figure out alternative pathways to overcome those obstacles.

Hopeful people see the world expansively and are open to new ideas.


PANELISTS: Nate Wyatt, Chief Financial Officer, Gothenburg State BankDan Hoesing, Superintendent, Schuyler Community SchoolsBoni Carrell, Executive Director, Rural Nebraska Healthcare Network

MODERATOR: Roberto Gallardo, Associate Extension Professor, Mississippi State University

GETTING WIRED: CONNECTING YOUR COMMUNITY TO BROADBAND

Broadband internet supports a prosperous future in rural communities. “Getting Wired,” a panel moderated by Mississippi State University’s Roberto Gallardo, showcased three examples of deploying broadband in rural Nebraska. Participants discussed ongoing challenges, particularly reaching the most rural areas and why doing so should be a state priority.

Rural Nebraska Healthcare Network’s Boni Carrell described the network’s experience bringing an 800-mile broadband network to the Nebraska panhandle. In 2006, recognizing that rural patient’s healthcare suffered from limited Internet capacity, the network partnered with Hemingford Telephone Company. Together, they received federal funding to install a fiber network dedicated to healthcare that today connects 23 hospitals and clinics throughout western Nebraska.

To pay a 15 percent cost share, they lease fibers to a regional communication provider for consumer use. “It’s enabled healthcare to get better access and have the broadband connectivity, and then it’s providing access to businesses and homes throughout the panhandle as well,” Carrell said.

Education and concern for rural students also spurs technological advances, said school superintendent Dan Hoesing. That concern led to Network Nebraska, a statewide telecommunications infrastructure developed through a K-12 and higher education collaboration.

“We have one of the most robust networks in the state or in the country right now, helping us educate our kids,” Hoesing said. Working with communication providers has brought costs down from an initial $55 per MB to just 70 cents today.

L-R: DAN HOESING, NATE WYATT, ROBERTO GALLARDO, BONI CARRELL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHRB8WugHEQ&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH&index=12


Selling the need to urban decision-makers proved more challenging than achieving access, he said. But as online educational resources became prevalent, preparing rural students for college helped drive rural Internet availability.

While healthcare and education helped drive extensive fiber networks in Nebraska, achieving the “last mile” that connects communities is challenging.

DAN HOESING

NATE WYATT

BONI CARRELL

ROBERTO GALLARDO

“Fiber providers trenched in fiber to go all the way across the state of Nebraska—went less than 100 feet from my house and kept on going,” said Gothenburg businessman Nate Wyatt. “They went right past our community.”

Bringing high-speed Internet to the Nebraska town required convincing enough of its 4,000 residents, most of whom were unaware of the benefits, to pay for the service. At the time, businesses were paying high service costs, and the community suffered from spotty, slow speeds.

Wyatt helped lead an initiative to bring fiber optics. Volunteers conducted a door-to-door education campaign, later signing up 500 households the provider required before investing. “It doesn’t just happen. You don’t just make a phone call and say, ‘Hey, we’d like service in town,’” Wyatt said, adding that it took thousands of volunteer hours.

The town’s experience demonstrates that Internet availability is just one aspect of the digital divide, Gallardo said. Lack of adoption because potential users don’t understand the benefits contributes to the digital divide.

Hoesing advocated reprioritizing how the state spends money. Broadband is a need, not a want, he emphasized. Every child has a right to an equitable education. While nearly every Nebraska school has high-speed Internet, many kids lack it at home. With textbooks primarily online and homework critical to sustain learning, children without Internet access are severely disadvantaged.

“Access to broadband is a shared commitment from the state,” Hoesing said. “So the commitment from us is this: How do we create that model for the last mile that makes it an affordable product for us, where we accept that we’re going to pay a fee to educate those kids?”

Several panelists and audience members equated broadband to a utility, as necessary as electricity, and suggested that a utility model could help connect communities to broadband. While local providers need a profitable business model, governments also must provide basic services, Wyatt said. Broadband is critical for economic development, healthcare, safety and education.

The audience included a Nebraska legislator, Nebraska Communication Commission (NCC) member and a local provider representative. All three acknowledged that towns are relatively easy to serve. It’s the truly rural areas that are most difficult and expensive to reach.


Nebraska State Senator Lydia Brasch of Blair, vice chair of the transportation and telecommunications committee, said providing Internet is an infrastructure priority. Things are “on the horizon,” she said, referring to the Nebraska Information Telecommunications Commission, established by the legislature to advise on information technology investments. “This conversation should have happened 10 years ago,” Brasch said. “We are not on the cusp of Internet; that train left the station long ago.”

An NCC member said it will require $150 million a year over six years to build up rural broadband. The environment must remain competitive for local providers, but that’s difficult or impractical in rural markets. The commission has made progress, but he admitted it’s a “slow boat. Federal policies remain an obstacle, but are moving in the right direction, he added. “If we get that federal policy changed, I think you’ll see quite a bit.”

A local provider representative agreed. The Federal Communications Commission has build-out requirements and much is in flux, he said. “As a provider of those services, I’m waiting to invest dollars in certain areas because of what’s going to happen with the FCC.” But he also reminded the audience of what the state has accomplished. “Nebraska is really one of the best states in the whole United States for connectivity, by far and away,” he said.

Heather Morgan, executive director of a 17-county economic development project in southeast Kansas also described her experience bringing providers, rural telephone companies and elected officials together. Positive dialogue and aggregating demand have resulted in significant investments, she said.

“When you talk about the next step and how to move forward, it’s not always about money,” she said. “Sometimes it’s about bringing the right people around the table and talking about it and finding a solution that’s a win for everybody.”

Successful models exist, and resources are available, Gallardo agreed. But bringing everyone together—the politics of achieving public policy—is still required. “I do believe that Internet is the 21st century infrastructure,” he said. “The digital age moves so quickly. If you play defense, you’re not going to catch up.”

The digital age moves so quickly. If you play

defense, you’re not going to catch up.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Education and healthcare needs helped drive extensive fiber networks in Nebraska, but connecting communities remains challenging.

Broadband Internet is no longer a want, but a necessity. Treating it as a utility may be a successful model.

Building partnerships and collaborative momentum are common themes running through the successful examples presented during the panel.

This conversation should have happened

10 years ago. We are not on the cusp of the Internet; that train left the station long ago.”

STATE SENATOR LYDIA BRASCH


PANELISTS: Ken Rahjes, Editor, AgViewSarah Pinet, Co-owner, Victory Hill FarmBarry Fox, Co-owner, Kinkaider Brewing Co.

MODERATOR: Scott Mickelsen, Associate Dean, Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture

ENTREPRENEURS ENERGIZING THE RURAL LANDSCAPE

If you’re willing to fail, you likely have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. That was the message from a panel of three small-town Nebraska entrepreneurs interviewed for Rural Futures Conference attendees at the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture campus in Curtis, Nebraska, by NCTA Associate Dean Scott Mickelsen.

A Custer County rancher and brewery owner, a Scottsbluff dairy goat herd owner and cheesemaker and an Elwood online journalist challenged conferees to follow their dreams. They assured the audiences in Curtis and Lincoln that while small rural communities might not be a good fit for everyone, they can become places where you can try an idea, fail, succeed and build a rich life, particularly if you’re a young person who brings experiences from somewhere else back to your hometown.

Ken Rahjes of Elwood, a Kansas native, worked in radio and for Nebraska Rep. Adrian Smith before setting

up shop as managing editor for AgView.net, which aims to tell the story of food, fuel and fiber production throughout the rural Midwest.

Sarah Pinet, owner and operator of Victory Hill Farm in Scottsbluff, was a zookeeper and stay-at-home mom who started hand-milking a few goats before friends suggested she start a dairy herd. She realized she needed a value-added product, not just goat milk, to make a go of it and found a cheesemaker who helped her learn the ropes of developing a business.

Barry Fox owns a ranch, a car wash and part of Kinkaider Brewing Co. in Broken Bow. After graduating from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, he spent five years working in Dallas, which, he said, solidified his dream of moving back to rural Nebraska where he could take on his own projects, be his own boss and make a bigger difference in the community than he could as one of hundreds of look-alike workers in a Dallas high-rise office building.

LINCOLN ATTENDEES HEARD FROM THE ENTREPRENEUR

PANEL AT THE NCTA LOCATION.

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store in Elwood closed, a community group created a co-op grocery to fill the hole.

“To keep small communities viable, we need to have these services,” Rahjes said.

Pinet noted that one advantage of running a business in a small town is that most people want to see you succeed. “You have a support system you wouldn’t have otherwise,” she said.

But the downside of creating a product to sell in a smaller community is the smaller community. “I can only sell so much cheese to 15,000 people,” Pinet said. She’s planning to expand her marketing with online sales. “In today’s world, the world is your marketplace,” she said.High-speed Internet access also is the key to success for Rahjes’ business, which relies on traditional media and social media channels to tell agricultural stories.

The panelists suggested that while social media are critical for entrepreneurs to get their messages out and create links with other like-minded people, it’s equally

Pinet told the audiences that it’s important to recognize not everyone is suited to rural life. Her brothers, for example, aren’t small-town dwellers. And that’s OK, she said.

What’s important, she said, is to recognize everyone’s strengths and tap into them. Younger people, for example, are more technologically savvy and will be able to help her expand her marketing online. “That’s not my strength,” she said. “Give me a pitchfork any day over a computer.”

The entrepreneurs emphasized the importance of making solid plans, reaching out to create support networks and being willing to fail.

Rahjes said that an advantage of being a start-up company is that, “We can mess up. We don’t have walls. We’re all learning together.” Most start-ups fail within the first 18 months, he said, proudly noting that his ag communications business was heading into its 20th month and had already created paid internships for students.

People interested in starting a small-town business need to analyze community needs, the panel suggested.

Rahjes noted that he had to drive 15 miles from Elwood to find a mechanic who could fix his daughter’s car. Health care needs likewise create opportunities to work in rural communities, he said. And when the grocery

In today’s world, the world is your

marketplace.”

L-R: SCOTT MICKELSEN, KEN RAHJES, SARAH PINET, BARRY FOX


important to build real connections, not just those mediated by technology.

Pinet, for example, said she has come to love working with teenagers and teaching them to make real connections. Some of her teenaged employees ask if they can bring friends to learn how to milk the goats or play with the babies. That’s fine with Pinet.

In fact, it illustrates one of the lessons Pinet considers important: Take advantage of all kinds of experiences; you never know where they might lead.

Panelists and moderator Mickelsen referred frequently to the conference theme “Hope Inspires Vision.”

“The opposite of hope is fear,” Fox said. Often, it’s fear that keeps people from making a leap of faith, ignoring naysayers and striking out with their entrepreneurial idea. “You can’t be afraid to fail,” he said.

When you start a business, Fox said, you have to be willing to tackle obstacles as they come, not try to solve them before you encounter them. “You learn from failure,” he said. “You don’t learn from success.”

While it’s politically popular to advocate for efforts to keep young people from leaving the state, the three panelists emphasized the importance of leaving.

“Young people learn the value of their rural roots by going away,” Pinet said. And often, it’s the kids who asserted mostly loudly in high school that they couldn’t wait to leave who are the first to return. “It’s OK to change your mind,” she said. And it’s also OK to realize that remaining in or returning to a small town is not for everybody.

Fox said experiences associated with leaving your hometown are an important part of growing up. When he moved to Dallas after college, Fox said, he realized there was no one in the community with any preconceived notions about who he was. They didn’t know his parents, didn’t know what he did in high school, didn’t know anything about his family. “It really allows you to find yourself,” he said.

The opposite of hope is fear. You can’t be

afraid to fail.”

And young people who move away and then come back to a rural community enrich that community, the panelists said. “Go work somewhere else,” Rahjes said. Young people who do that will bring back new experiences to their rural hometowns.

“All of that contributes to the community,” Fox said.

Audience members asked for advice about how to get started with an entrepreneurial enterprise and how to find financing.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” Fox said.

Be willing to make connections with all kinds of people, and put together a solid business plan, Rahjes said.

Pinet said she got state grants for value-added ag producers to buy her cheesemaking equipment. And Fox and his business colleagues created a membership club to raise funds to start their brewery.

Local bankers may not understand a novel business idea, but they aren’t all bad, Fox said, adding that venture capitalists, friends and family also can be sources of start-up funds for an entrepreneur.

His advice for financing a start-up? “Find out which wolf has the smallest teeth.” And Pinet added: “Don’t borrow more than you can pay back.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be willing to fail.

There’s a lot to be said for leaving your hometown after high school or college; you can come back with new ideas that will enrich the community.

Rural communities aren’t for everyone, but they can offer a great support system for entrepreneurs because your friends and neighbors want to see you succeed.


L-R: BRENT NOLLETTE, ANDREW NORMAN, BRIAN THOMPSON, NICK BROZOVIC

PANELISTS: Andrew Norman, Executive Director, Hear NebraskaBrian Thompson, Vice President of External Relations, Consolidated CompaniesBrent Nollette, Vocational Agriculture Teacher, Valentine Rural High School

MODERATOR: Nick Brozovic, Director of Policy, Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska

BUILDING BRIGHTER FUTURES: THE IMPORTANCE OF GIVING BACK

Rural communities thrive when its members actively support its enrichment. The Building Brighter Futures panel highlighted three examples of social entrepreneurship, the concept of applying business ideas and practices toward social goals.

The panelists’ experiences illustrate both the need to involve young people and the importance of partnerships to scale programs, said moderator Nick Brozovic, of the Daugherty Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska.

Consolidated Companies, a family-owned telecommunication business, has been committed to investing in rural Nebraska since its founding in 1947, said the company’s Brian Thompson. Currently, it serves 24 communities within a 9,000-square-mile area. Broadband Internet needs continue to expand, and the company plans to invest nearly $15 million in its network over the next five years.

In the early 2000s, with central Nebraska several years into a drought, businesses were closing and young people leaving. “I felt like we really needed to find a win for our communities, something that would give them hope,” Thompson said.

Partnering with the Nebraska Community Foundation, Consolidated Companies sought to develop community

I felt like we really needed to find a

win for our communities, something that would give them hope.”

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BRENT NOLLETTE

ANDREW NORMAN

BRIAN THOMPSON

NICK BROZOVIC

endowments, a tool that provides an ongoing funding source. They offered six communities $15,000 each, if residents raised $30,000 over five years, money that would be used to establish an endowment.

“Once they figured out that they could make grants every year for the rest of time out of that money, they thought, ‘That’s a pretty neat little asset we could have in five years,’” Thompson said. Each community met the challenge, some raising far more.

It’s pretty empowering when you have 15,

16, 17-year-old students prioritizing what’s important about their community.”

Today, Arthur’s population of 118 has more than $300,000 in its endowment and, in total, the six communities have $1.4 million. Their endowments also make them eligible to apply for Sherwood Foundation grants, a significant benefit.

Many communities involved youth in the endowment process, Thompson said. In Eustis, for example, a youth board was charged with raising money to renovate the high school football field. The students managed a budget and made grants. “It’s pretty empowering when you have 15, 16, 17-year-old students prioritizing what’s important about their community,” he said.

The Nebraska Community Foundation is an invaluable community partner because, as an endowment affiliate, the foundation extends nonprofit status and provides vital services, such as accounting expertise.

Nearly 100 additional communities throughout Nebraska are now creating endowments with foundation support, and other businesses are providing initial challenge funds. The village of Shickley is a poster child for success, Thompson said. Its endowment has reached about $6 million with a goal of $15 million. “Think about what they can do.”

At Valentine Rural High School, Brent Nollette demonstrates entrepreneurial opportunities to his agriculture classes and FFA students. “When you think of entrepreneurship and production agriculture, it’s cows, sows and plows,” he said. “That’s not the case anymore. There’s so much agribusiness.”

As production agriculture expands, more support businesses and research are needed. Nollette’s extended family, ranchers who also own catering and winery businesses, model additional opportunities as well.

It can be a challenge convincing ranching kids interested only in cows, Nollette admitted. But opportunities include raising bees to sell honey, studying artificial


We created Hear Nebraska to ... evolve

Nebraska’s image into something much more cool and representative of what actually exists.”

insemination as a side business and working in tourism, such as Niobrara River tubing and guiding hunters.

Another challenge is convincing students of the value of giving back and investing in the community. To counter the what’s-in-it-for-me attitude, Nollette offers competitions and incentives to encourage volunteerism. Community support for his programs is strong, he added.

For Andrew Norman, it took time in Washington, D.C., to recognize the value and opportunities in his home state of Nebraska. The journalist and music lover said he came to appreciate the great music happening in Nebraska and decided to establish Hear Nebraska. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to cultivating Nebraska’s music community and, by extension, to help keep young people in rural communities.

“Nebraska doesn’t enjoy a wonderful pop cultural image,” Norman said. “We created Hear Nebraska to change that narrative and evolve Nebraska’s image into something much more cool and representative of what actually exists.”

The organization focuses on multimedia journalism, including Hear Nebraska Radio featuring Nebraska bands, and on producing events. In 2014, it inaugurated the Good Living Tour, which featured three musically diverse bands in nine communities. In conjunction, a team of journalists produced music related articles and

created short community marketing videos featuring interviews with young people.

Sponsorships were vital to the tour’s success, Norman said. Each community also invested $4,500, and the organization found champions in each town to help fundraise locally. Young people also played important roles in promoting the concerts.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Social entrepreneurship applies business ideas and practices toward social goals.

Consolidated Companies partnered with the Nebraska Community Foundation to help six rural communities establish endowments. Today, their endowments total $1.6 million, providing a perpetual source of funding.

Valentine Rural High School’s Brent Nollette teaches students about the numerous entrepreneurial opportunities available to them. He helps to instill the importance of investing in the community.

Andrew Norman founded the nonprofit Hear Nebraska to support and promote the state’s music community and rural cultural opportunities through multimedia journalism and producing rural music events.


I don’t just want to see a focus on international

(research) for the sake of international. But I think ... there’s great potential there.”

JESSICA SHOEMAKER

PANELISTS: Tom Farrell, Senior Advisor to the Chancellor, International Affairs at the University of Nebraska–LincolnChristopher Gustafson, Assistant Professor, Behavioral Economics and Health Disparities at the University of Nebraska–LincolnJessica Shoemaker, Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska College of Law

FACILITATOR: Connie Reimers-Hild, Associate Director, Rural Futures Institute at the University of Nebraska

DISCOVERING THE FUTURE: CHARTING A RURAL RESEARCH PATH

The Rural Futures Institute (RFI) seeks to become a world-class institution for rural interests. To achieve global stature, the institute has identified targeting rural research that makes a difference as one of three key principles, alongside strengthening intergenerational leadership and positively affecting rural communities and regions.

Discovering the Future explored possibilities for RFI’s research approach, in particular whether and how to engage internationally. Moderated by RFI’s Connie Reimers-Hild, the panel offered examples of research institutions or projects that benefit from an international presence.

The panel is part of a larger discussion and research by RFI commitment, Reimers-Hild said. For example, more than 250 people from 50 communities in three states have participated in RFI sponsored regional forums. The

institute is also systematically measuring the impact of its awards program and supporting graduate assistantships. It will soon launch a fellows program to connect NU faculty with community partners to develop rural research projects.

Tom Farrell, UNL senior advisor, described NU’s Daugherty Water for Food Institute (WFI), established in 2010. Unlike the Rural Futures Institute, WFI was conceived as an international organization and immediately sought international collaborations to legitimize its existence, Farrell said.

Although WFI is intended to benefit Nebraska, water and food scarcity is a global challenge and many important international institutions already exist. “Nebraska didn’t have a lock on all that was good and important about water research and science,” he said. It made sense to work with global entities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Gt84eViPQ&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH&index=20


CHRISTOPHER GUSTAFSON

To engage internationally, faculty and staff presented at international conferences, lending credibility. NU’s leadership remained committed and focused, ensuring the university’s and WFI’s research agendas were united. And WFI pursued joint research projects with international institutions and gave relevant seed grants to faculty. The success of one grant in particular, supporting the Global Yield Gap and Water Productivity Atlas, helped WFI achieve international recognition and demonstrated that the institute’s research agenda makes a difference.

“So I would suggest that as we look at the Rural Futures Institute, and look at a more assertive global engagement approach, that we not only identify key countries where rural issues are critical … but that we also look at framing a kind of strategic alliance with some of these countries,” Farrell said. In particular, he advocated working with Canada and Mexico, countries with similar rural issues.

Counterintuitively, WFI has had more success engaging internationally than within the U.S. Farrell agreed with a commenter’s suggestion that funding competition may be a cause. But the institute is now more deliberately seeking U.S. collaborations using its international credentials. The effort is aided by NU’s unique collaborative approach, a successful practice it continues to develop, he said.

UNL economist Christopher Gustafson described two research projects he suggested argue in favor of RFI seeking an international presence. Gustafson spent three years in a rural Tanzanian region, studying pastoralists under pressure to live less nomadically, which has increased livestock and human diseases. He and colleagues developed educational materials on livestock health and human nutrition after extensive study in collaboration with the community.

In another RFI-supported research project, Gustafson and colleagues are studying the food environment on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. The project includes food perception and behavior surveys and analyses into nutritional quality of available food and the effect of nutrition labels. In collaboration with community members, the team is developing a community garden, farmers market and other programs.

For both projects, building relationship with communities and understanding cultural factors were critical before research could occur. In Tanzania, for example, the researchers found half the women were anemic. However, locally available fish are culturally unacceptable. Gustafson said projects also resulted in U.S. collaborations as the team sought expertise.

TOM FARRELL

JESSICASHOEMAKER

RANDOLPHCANTRELL


UNL law professor Jessica Shoemaker also described how NU and the Great Plains region benefited from an international research collaboration. With RFI support, she and colleagues created a participatory game designed to promote discussions around community land-use issues, based on a tool developed in the United Kingdom. Researchers in Australia and Sweden developed similar games.

The international group held workshops to investigate shared experiences and findings and to create a game that could be adapted worldwide. They found game users valued having conversations about property use and learning about the issues. Participants also learned how to cooperate and think innovatively about property spaces. The collaboration resulted in a tool available at rufkit.org.

“I don’t just want to see a focus on international for the sake of international,” Shoemaker said, regarding RFI’s research agenda. “But I think where we can get something that’s really beneficial for our constituencies or we can provide something, then, we’re really strategic about it, there’s great potential there.”

Communities are unique so translating research between different contexts can be challenging, she added. Nevertheless, her experience with the land-use game demonstrates the potential value of working internationally. “There’s something about the comparative process of these different contexts that really

helped us distill what was universal and what we could translate in that way,” she said.

All three panelists emphasized the importance of building trust, whether with communities or at the institutional level working with other countries and entities. Building trust takes time, Shoemaker said. “Hopefully something RFI can get behind, that it does take a longer-term commitment to these communities and this place in order to be effective.”

CONNIE REIMERS-HILD,

CHRISTOPHER GUSTAFSON,

AND TOM FARRELL CONTINUED

DISCUSSIONS AFTER THE

SESSION CONCLUDED.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The panel explored ways RFI can engage internationally through a targeted research agenda.

Using NU’s Daugherty Water for Food Institute as an example, UNL’s Tom Farrell suggested RFI identify and create alliances with countries with similar rural issues, such as Canada and Mexico.

UNL’s Christopher Gustafson highlighted research projects in Tanzania and South Dakota in which building trust and understanding cultural factors were critical.

An international collaboration led UNL law professor Jessica Shoemaker and colleagues to create a game to improve land-use discussions in the Great Plains region. A universal version is available at rufkit.org.


PANELISTS: Meghan Sittler, Coordinator, Lower Platte River Corridor AllianceClaire Phillips, Madeline Howell, and Jodi Delozier, all University of Nebraska students

FACILITATORS: Nicole Wall, Outreach and Research Specialist, National Drought Mitigation CenterTonya Bernadt, Project Coordinator, Climate Masters of Nebraska

EDUCATION TO ACTION: CLIMATE AND ECOTOURISM PROGRAMS TO INCREASE LOCAL RESILIENCY

Communities rely on natural resources, whether supplying residents with drinking water or providing recreation and tourism opportunities. The Education to Action panel, facilitated by UNL’s Nicole Wall and Tonya Bernadt, showcased several projects and programs addressing natural resources in rural communities.

The Lower Platte River Corridor Alliance works to meet the water needs for both residents and wildlife, said the alliance’s Meghan Sittler. Formed 20 years ago, the alliance is a collaboration among the lower Platte River’s stakeholders, including Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the area’s three natural resources districts, which were created in 1972 to manage resources at the watershed level.

The 100-mile corridor of the lower Platte River is an important natural and economic resource, providing

drinking water to half the state’s population and supporting threatened and endangered species. The corridor encompasses 24 communities in eight counties, ranging from populous Sarpy County to rural Butler County.

Alliance projects have varied as needs changed, Sittler said. Recently, the group developed a recreation plan in response to increasing demand to better link communities to the Platte River. As population growth and climate change further stress the region’s resources, the alliance also continues to seek ways to better understand and manage the river system through collaborations and community engagement.

Bernadt described another program, UNL’s Climate Masters of Nebraska, that helps educate community members about climate change. The free adult course, based on a program developed by the Resource

L-R: CLAIRE PHILLIPS, MADELINE HOWELL,

MEGHAN SITTLER, TONYA BERNADT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwr1FKefDM8&list=PLSUFztKPROg8KIl7jKWJo7kgitDlDwFfH&index=21


Innovation Group, teaches participants how to reduce their carbon footprint and protect the environment while saving money, said Bernadt, the program’s coordinator. Topics include litter and waste reduction, recycling, water conservation, energy reduction and transportation.

Participants are expected to volunteer 30 hours, and projects have included drip irrigation education, litter pickups, energy audits and community gardens.

Madeline Howell, who took the course as a college senior in 2013, described her experience, saying it inspired her to make a pallet garden on her apartment patio and to share a car with her husband. “It made me feel better to reduce my carbon footprint,” Howell said.

To date, 71 people have finished three courses and contributed 1,500 volunteer hours, Bernadt said. The program is grant funded, and she is currently seeking funding to expand the program to Omaha and central Nebraska.

A UNL natural resources course, supported by RFI, enlisted students to assist Ashland, Nebraska, with tourism development. The town of 2,200, located between Lincoln and Omaha, is expecting its population to more than quadruple within 10 years. It seeks to capitalize on and preserve the area’s natural resources along the Platte River, while maintaining its rural character, said Wall, the class co-instructor.

Students focused on seven “community capitals,” assets that support its well-being and goals, and analyzed Ashland’s strengths, weaknesses and potential, said Jodi Delozier, a student in the class. They found, for example, that Ashland has much natural capital, such as hiking trails, state parks and the Platte River, but no outfitters or guide shops for visitors. The town also has many cultural amenities, including art galleries and an historic district, that could be promoted through art walks, food co-ops and other programs. But the town lacks restaurants and lodging for visitors, and the students encouraged local businesses to work together to fill gaps, Delozier said.

Community feedback has been positive, Wall added. A community capitals analysis helps decision-makers see that forces are aligned to assets, which can then be leveraged.

NICOLE WALL

MADELINEHOWELL

CLAIRE PHILLIPS

MEGHAN SITTLER

JODI DELOZIER

It made me feel better to reduce my

carbon footprint.”


An audience member suggested communities consider the value of existing buildings. “The greenest building is the building that’s already built and not the ones that are constructed new,” she said. “So if we could get communities to reutilize what they already have that also helps in the whole bigger picture.”

Lisa Pennisi, the class co-instructor, agreed. Buildings also give communities their flavor, she said. “When communities tend to build all of these new buildings and have a strip and look exactly like any other community anywhere else, then they’re not as attractive to tourism or anyone else for the matter.”

Audience members shared additional natural resources related projects. One described his efforts to create a public recreation area from a former gravel pit near Westpoint, Nebraska. Though the land was donated, state agencies have thus far been uninterested, and he requested advice on pursuing the project.

Sittler said former gravel pits have become state-owned lakes or private businesses, such as golf courses, but state agencies are often reluctant to get involved because of maintenance costs. It requires developing strong partnerships with important groups, such as the local natural resources districts and private entities that can help fund long-term maintenance. She also suggested looking to the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which helps local groups acquire and maintain public open space.

Sittler and Bernadt also suggested developing a strong case for any natural resources benefits, such as flood control, and economic benefits, such as increased tourism.

The audience also described projects geared toward young people, including a Nature Explore Classroom, an

outdoor space designed to connect children with nature; Central Community College’s participation in the Living Building Challenge, a sustainable building certification program; and promoting agroponics systems in Kearney classrooms and homes to encourage growing food.

Sittler also mentioned the Great Plains Ecotourism Coalition, a group of non-profit and for-profit members coordinated by UNL’s Center for Great Plains Studies that is committed to promoting environmental conservation and to building thriving communities through nature-based tourism.

The greenest building is the building that’s

already built ... So if we could get communities to reutilize what they already have that also helps in the whole bigger picture.”

LISAPENNISI

ANITA LORENTZEN

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Lower Platte River Corridor Alliance is a collaboration among the region’s natural resources stakeholders to better meet the water needs of residents and wildlife.

Climate Masters of Nebraska, a free adult education course, instructs community members about climate change and ways to reduce their carbon footprint. Students also volunteer 30 hours. The program is seeking additional funding to expand.

The audience discussed projects, including turning a former gravel pit into recreation space, developing a Nature Explore Classroom and promoting agroponics.

ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES


RURAL OPPORTUNITIES FAIR

When Tanner Nelson left his tiny hometown of Bertrand in south central Nebraska for Lincoln and a college degree, he didn’t believe anyone raised in a city would embrace rural life as he did.

Now a senior at the University of Nebraska−Lincoln, he’s convinced rural communities are on the verge of a comeback as young people discover the numerous opportunities available in rural America and a lifestyle that allows room to grow.

After decades of decline as farms consolidated and people moved away, rural communities throughout the Midwest are making their communities more attractive to young people like Nelson, who are eager to make an outsized difference.

“I love rural Nebraska,” Nelson said. “I believe rural communities are the future of Nebraska, and I think you’ll start to see a reverse trend. I’ve found a lot of people in Lincoln who would love to live in the country. People are moving back.”

Tom Field, director of UNL’s Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program, said the change is evident. “When you talk to rural leaders, there are communities doing things that you just wouldn’t predict could happen,” he said.

He cites Ord, Nebraska, as one town with strong leadership development, high levels of civic engagement and blooming entrepreneurship. “Their advantage is the fact that they, as a community, decided they were going to be something special,” he said.

Nelson said he plans to return to a small town and start his own business. He’ll find a place that actively supports local businesses and where he can get enthusiastic about becoming involved as a community member.

For Brianna Meyer, a nursing student at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Kearney, working in a small town will give her a greater opportunity to shine and grow. At a larger corporation, young employees start at the bottom and work their way up, she said. Working in a smaller organization or business, provides more opportunities to take on and explore a variety of responsibilities.

“In a small community, if you can show that you can be professional and you’re serious about your job, they’re going to throw more things your way,” she said. “If you really want to make a difference, you’re more likely to be able to do it in a small community.”

The ability to one day raise a family in a safe, friendly environment like the one she grew up in in Wolbach, Nebraska, is also on her mind, she added.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4r0z-8pjhg

ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES | 57

Alyssa Dye, a recent UNL graduate, didn’t plan to go back to small-town life after leaving Alliance, Nebraska. Her dreams were global, seeking to make a difference through international development. But after spending a summer in Neligh, Nebraska, for an internship through the Rural Futures Institute at the University of Nebraska, she’s completely sold on pursuing a career that includes rural development. A small town would expand her options, not limit them, she said.

Technology is opening new possibilities. Communities with a reliable digital infrastructure can support an office doing business anywhere in the world.

“I totally believe that rural communities are incubators of innovation and entrepreneurship,” Dye said. “Now I understand the leadership role that I can play in a rural community and being invested in that community. You can have a business in a rural town, but still have a global impact no matter where the physical office is.”

But finding just the right town can be difficult.

University of Nebraska’s Rural Futures Institute recognized the need to connect students with rural communities and businesses. Taking a cue from traditional career fairs, the institute hosted the first-ever Rural Opportunities Fair October 21st, at UNL’s East Campus Union. Towns actively seeking young talent and organizations with jobs in rural communities were there to talk with students and showcase what they have to offer.

Greg Ptacek, Neligh’s director of economic development, attended the event. “The fair is a chance to get in front of students and say, ‘There is opportunity for you in rural Nebraska and here’s why we have a great quality of life.’”

“We’re saying, ‘We have the jobs available, and we need you.’”

Students engaged with more than 30 progressive communities and organizations actively recruiting young professionals at the Rural Opportunities Fair, held October 21 at UNL’s East Campus Union. More than 60 young people—from undergraduates to law and medical students—attended the high-energy fair. They identified potential jobs and internships and discovered the numerous opportunities for personal and career growth available in small-town America.

The Rural Opportunities Fair appeared to fill an unmet need for individuals looking to live and work in rural America. Discussions are underway to replicate and expand this model that connects students to opportunities in rural areas.


PRE-CONFERENCE SIDE EVENTS

SHONNA DORSEY

BROADBAND AND YOUR COMMUNITY—IMPROVING NEBRASKA’S ECONOMIC FUTURE AND QUALITY OF LIFERoberto Gallardo, associate extension professor at Mississippi State University, shared the Intelligent Community Institute approach to helping rural communities transition to, plan for and prosper in the digital age.

INCLUSION FOR STRONGER COMMUNITIES—ECONOMICALLY AND SOCIALLY … HOW DO WE DO IT?Communities continue to become more demographically diverse as immigrants settle in rural towns. Kathie Starkweather, farm and community program director at the Center for Rural Affairs, led a discussion about the economic and social advantages of embracing diversity and creating a richer, more vibrant community.

CELEBRATING SUCCESSFUL BROADBAND PROJECTS IN NEBRASKAThe Nebraska Broadband Initiative announced winners of the first Community Broadband Project Awards. Categories included: Outstanding Infrastructure Development Project, Outstanding Digital Literacy Project and Outstanding Youth Project. The winners discussed their projects and how they may be replicated elsewhere.

EXPLORING TWENTY YEARS OF THE RURAL POLLThe Nebraska Rural Poll, conducted annually for nearly 20 years, has yielded a rich collection of data on topics important to rural communities. Former poll leader Sam Cordes, now of Purdue University, and current UNL poll researchers Rebecca Vogt and Randy Cantrell explored trends and opportunities the data provides.

RFI provided individuals and organizations an opportunity to host small informational gatherings prior to the conference. These side events engaged a wide range of participants in discussions on specific topics of interest to rural communities.


ROBERTOGALLARDO

KATHIE STARKWEATHER

REBECCA VOGT

HEATHER MORGAN

CELEBRATING THE RURAL POLL—VISIONING FOR THE FUTUREThe 20-year Nebraska Rural Poll has yielded much data about rural living. Former poll leader Sam Cordes, now of Purdue University, and UNL poll researchers Rebecca Vogt and Randy Cantrell discussed the poll’s development, ways to strengthen it and opportunities for future research.

COMMUNITY CAPITALS FRAMEWORKNicole Wall, research and outreach specialist at UNL’s National Drought Mitigation Center, described the benefits of analyzing community strengths and opportunities through a community capitals framework and outlined steps for future community planning and resiliency.

NEBRASKA’S MAIN STREETS: AN INFORMATION & DISCUSSION FORUM ON DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION ISSUESRevitalizing downtown business districts is a challenging task no matter how well financed the effort. Elizabeth Chase, executive director of Nebraska Main Street Network, described the resources and technical assistance the network provides communities statewide. Participants had an opportunity to engage with other community leaders about the challenges and opportunities facing rural downtown districts.

PROJECT 17—HOW 17 RURAL COUNTIES IN SOUTHEAST KANSAS CAME TOGETHER TO CHANGE THE REGION’S FUTUREHeather Morgan, executive director of Project 17, described how civic leadership development propelled Kansas’s poorest region forward, creating a sense of hope for the future. In particular, elevating the focus of high-speed Internet availability spurred private investment toward solving this particularly challenging problem.

BEST PRACTICES IN NEW RESIDENT ATTRACTION FOR RURAL COMMUNITIESAttracting new residents to small towns is possible. Kenneth Sherin, of South Dakota State University Extension, and NU extension specialist Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel highlighted Marketing Hometown America, an RFI-supported program designed to initiate new marketing efforts within rural communities. They described strategies communities are using to recruit new residents.

CARLOS BARCENAS


Environmental issues have become what are called “super wicked problems,” said Alan Kolok. Super wicked problems are national to global in scale, originate from thousands of different points simultaneously, and require complex and nuanced solutions that may work today, but not tomorrow. Global climate change is the poster child of super wicked problems, he said.

Combating such problems requires an engaged citizenry, both urban and rural. He cited examples in which amassing people to work simultaneously in different places is influencing change. Chilean high school students are collecting data on the Pacific Gyre microplastics that appear along the country’s entire shoreline. The data has been published in scientific literature and helps inform Chilean marine environment regulation. A similar effort engaged citizen scientists to determine levels of the crop herbicide atrazine along the entire Mississippi River basin. Kolok encouraged anyone interested in getting involved in similar efforts to contact him.

ENVISION RURAL TALKS

Speakers showcased their big ideas for rural communities during five-minute TED-style presentations. Eleven speakers were chosen through a competitive process. Topics varied, but each was intended to provoke audience members to consider how they can create a more hopeful rural future.

MODERATORS: Jordyn Bader, Rural Futures Institute and Nebraska Extension Graduate StudentDeWayne Taylor, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Student

TAMING SUPER WICKED ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS WITH AN ENGAGED COMMUNITY

PRESENTER: Alan Kolok, Nebraska Watershed Network at UNO

L-R: DEWAYNE TAYLOR,

JORDYN BADER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aiIwZtIH1c


Taking a cue from biomimicry, Matt Rezac looked to nature to define several principles for the future of rural communities. First, nature runs on sunlight, a free and ubiquitous energy source that supports life. For rural communities, a free energy source is love of and commitment to home. “All across our state, people are doing uncommon things,” he said, citing examples. “The actions of these people are like photosynthesis that transforms their love into remarkable forms of community life, and this is an asset that we have available to tap.”

Second, while nature wastes nothing, much human potential goes untapped when people are marginalized. In addition, locals know their community and have the expertise required to accomplish something, he said.

Finally, like nature, innovation feeds on diversity. The greater the diversity, the more innovative potential exists as ideas become linked. The Midwest region has tremendous unlinked potential across class, race and ideology, but people tend to stay in homogeneous circles. “The simple solution is to take the time that it takes to build a real relationship with someone who’s different than us,” Rezac said. He advocated practicing biomimicry by understanding that everything is interdependent and by embracing change.

KNOW THYSELF: HOW ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS CAN FACILITATE CHANGE IN THE LOCAL ENVIRONMENT

NATURE AS MUSE: LOCAL EXPERTISE IN COMMUNITY ABUNDANCE

Academic institutions can act as catalysts to promote change in rural communities, particularly to retain youth and entice young families, said Kyle Ryan. For example, Peru State College is providing tuition remission through three programs in collaboration with the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which also guarantees UNMC admission. The programs are Rural Health Opportunities, or RHOP; Kearney Health Opportunities, or KHOP; and the Public Health Early Admissions Student Track, or PHEAST.

“I’m OK with providing free education to these kids,” Ryan said. “I’m okay with the fact that after four years they can say, ‘Thanks for the free education, but I’ve changed my mind.’”

Ryan said he would like to expand the concept to provide undergraduate tuition remission in other fields of study, including business, social work and fine arts, in the hopes that students will return to rural areas and give back to their communities. “Let’s be bold. Let’s be innovative. Let’s provide some hope for future generations of Nebraskans,” he said.

PRESENTER: Matt Rezac, Sherwood Foundation

PRESENTER: Kyle Ryan, Peru State College

The simple solution is to take the time

that it takes to build a real relationship with someone who’s different than us.”

Let’s be bold. Let’s be innovative. Let’s

provide some hope for future generations of Nebraskans.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goHqUkUsdGg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YzIXpSX-kM


Private property rights, often considered absolute, are relational because one person’s use can affect another’s rights, said Jessica Shoemaker. The aggregation of individual properties affects rural community design. Today, achieving the best uses of landscapes largely rely on government regulation, often a blunt instrument, and on the market, which has inherent inequities for hard to price items, such as ecosystem services.

Instead, Shoemaker advocated encouraging conversation and collaboration regarding the public parts of private property. Theories predicting that property use will misallocate resources assume inadequate communication. “If we facilitated that communication, just think about what the potential might be,” she said.

In association with RFI and international colleagues, Shoemaker and NU faculty developed Plainsopoly, a popular game using a hypothetical land-use space to engage people in dialogue about private property. While not solving all land-use challenges, the game encourages thinking about rural landscapes in new ways, such as for new energy development, ecotourism and rural-urban infringement spaces. The game is available online at www.participology.com.

Quantified Ag, located on Nebraska Innovation Campus, is a precision livestock data analytics company that developed a system to help detect sick feedlot animals and minimize losses. Even small cattle feedlots of 10,000 head lose $1 million annually to sick animals when workers miss finding them during daily pen walks, said Vishal Singh. Nationally, the cattle feedlot industry loses $3.5 billion to death losses.

The company created a fully integrated platform of wearables for animals that relies on computer data rather than visual inspection. An electronic ear tag collects biometric and behavioral data on individual animals, which is transmitted wirelessly to company servers. Meaningful information is sent to feedlot workers’ smart phones or computers. The system is scalable and simple to use, Singh said. Farmers pay a $2.50 per-head subscription rate for the service. “We offer this service to feedlots so they can know which animals are sick within hours rather than days,” he said. “We’re bringing innovative technology to feedlots.”

THE PUBLIC PARTS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & RURAL DESIGN

PRESENTER: Jessica Shoemaker, UNL College of Law

If we facilitated that communication,

just think about what the potential might be.”

CHANGING AN INDUSTRY

PRESENTER: Vishal Singh, Quantified Ag

We’re bringing innovative

technology to feedlots.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J8bRmyPCkk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgQffocPgZY


“America needs a rural makeover,” said Hung Vo, speaking via the Internet from his dorm room at Cornell University. Most development projects are tackled à la carte rather than comprehensively, which challenges achieving goals. Vo advocated a nationwide effort to create a new agenda for rural regions that outlines priorities, goals and strategies.

Rural America can learn from goals developed through international frameworks, he said. He cited the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, created to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger worldwide, and the Sustainable Development Goals that replaced them in 2015. The MDG goals mobilized actors worldwide to work toward a common purpose.

America must create a national vision for a rural future that maps the current rural landscape, identifies key rural towns in which to direct growth, outlines priorities and goals, develops metrics to measure impact, identifies potential markets for investments in innovation, and creates cross-sectional partnerships. Engaging important rural stakeholders in articulating a rural development framework is key, Vo said. Creating a national agenda for rural U.S. development would act as a roadmap and tool for progress and would mobilize stakeholders to achieve common goals.

REVITALIZING RURAL AMERICA: MOBILIZING TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT

PRESENTER: Hung Vo, Cornell University

America needs a rural makeover.”

Following the South Australia state government’s push to develop housing in prime agricultural land, Randy Stringer began a worldwide search for methods to protect farms against sprawl. He found that no matter how well protected or exemplary the agricultural practices, profitable farms weren’t guaranteed. So he and colleagues looked to Europe’s example in promoting their landscapes’ history, tourism and local products.

The top agrarian branding experiences are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Stringer said, speaking via the Internet from Australia. Only about 15 sites out of 1,000 worldwide are agricultural, primarily in Europe. None exist in Australia or the U.S. The beautiful, agriculturally diverse region surrounding Adelaide meets one of the World Heritage Site landscape criteria, and the team is pursuing site status.

Stringer advocated this approach for other agrarian landscapes. “It’s a pro-growth strategy. You can attract more high-yielding tourism,” he said. He recommends first engaging farmers, in particular to reassure them that World Heritage status is not new regulation. Then, seek support from restaurateurs, retailers and other actors in the chain. With those endorsements seek local government support, followed by state government. “We really think this could be an opportunity that we’re missing in North America and Australia,” Stringer said. More information is available at: www.mountloftyranges.org.

AGRARIAN LANDSCAPES, BRAND IDENTITY AND RURAL PROSPERITY

PRESENTER: Randy Stringer, University of Adelaide, Australia

We really think this could be an opportunity

that we’re missing.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3SE4F3eDtc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX5NEbVerFg


Melissa Garcia sought to inspire champions in rural communities and to advocate thoughtfulness in how they influence others. Champions gather people together and inspire hope in a better future. They seek a common vision and to be part of something bigger than themselves. And they’re able to channel frustration in the status quo and to navigate a healthy conflict of ideas, which leads to great solutions, she said.

For champions, Garcia suggested: first, listen to what’s not being said because unspoken words are at the heart of understanding. Second, know that one person doesn’t have all the answers and seek help. “There is no better way to ensure that our movements today become legacy-scale work than sharing that ownership and passion,” she said. Third, celebrate but don’t stop because a vision is a moving target.

Garcia appealed to the audience to do their part and to bring their own particular passion to the task. “We all have the potential to be and do amazing things,” she said. “We just have to commit to a vision and then decide what role we must play to move it forward. So eat your Wheaties because our rural future depends on all of our willingness to set the world on fire.”

In Nebraska, thousands of jobs go unfilled, illustrating that economic development isn’t only about job creation, said Jeff Yost. It’s also about building communities where people want to live and raise their kids. Nebraska has tremendous abundance, including a projected $600 billion transfer of wealth between generations in the next 50 years. Attracting people requires vision, distributed leadership, discretionary capital and, ultimately, citizen engagement.

Leadership development is also key. While more government aid is available than 50 years ago, it comes with rules. Leadership development, however, requires having choices and learning from decisions. One method of achieving choice is through an unrestricted endowment, which provides a perpetual income stream. How would you use $45,000 created annually from a million-dollar endowment to benefit the community? Yost asked. The Nebraska Community Foundation is working with about 250 Nebraska communities to create endowments.

“We’re really optimistic that unrestricted endowments are another tool in the community development toolkit,” Yost said. “They can help us build not only flexible money, but an opportunity to really practice leadership … and ultimately create the hometowns that we want to be part of.”

We all have the potential to be and do

amazing things.”How would you use $45,000 ... to benefit

the community?”

PRESENTER: Melissa Garcia, Custer Public Power District

EAT YOUR WHEATIES: THEY ARE GOING TO NEED A CHAMPION

THE ROLE OF DISCRETION IN LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

PRESENTER: Jeff Yost, Nebraska Community Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ79561BpHc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUz5OzLf92Y


As a wildlife biologist, Larkin Powell said he sees troublesome trends in Nebraska landscapes. Market forces give priority to growing cash crops over ecosystem health, dramatically changing landscapes. Today, they’re much less suitable for wildlife and nitrates in drinking water have increased. “These trends and others suggest that in the future, as production rises to feed the world, we’re going to have to be more proactive in how we manage our landscapes in Nebraska,” he said.

Today, altering market forces occurs primarily through regulation, traditionally difficult in agricultural areas; through costly incentive programs; or by purchasing unique landscapes using public funds, which is less feasible today. Namibia in Southern Africa offers an alternative. There, farmers brought animals back after the country allowed them to be sold like cattle, thereby giving value to wildlife. Namibians created economic zones where ecotourism flourishes.

Can using markets in similarly interesting ways restore U.S. landscapes? Powell asked. He cited several examples, including ecotourism markets; markets for wetland easements that restore habitat and filter nitrates; and carbon markets to save soil and water, preserve grasslands, and slow climate change.

We’re going to have to be more proactive

in how we manage our landscapes ...”

PRESENTER: Larkin Powell, UNL

PROACTIVE LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT CAN BENEFIT COMMUNITIES

Nebraska Innovation Campus is creating a makerspace, a studio or workspace where people gather to make things. Similarly, makerspaces represent an opportunity to use rural residents’ largely ignored abilities as creative makers, said Shane Farritor. Given the opportunity, Nebraskans could quickly become world leaders in making things.

Like joining a gym, makerspaces provide shared equipment for a small monthly fee. These community spaces provide camaraderie and a place to learn new skills. For example, Nebraska Innovation Studio will have laser cutters, 3-D printers and computer-controlled equipment for digital fabrication as well as woodworking, metalworking, art and electronic tools.

Farritor advocated encouraging entrepreneurship by supporting makerspaces in rural communities. He cited several examples of rural inventiveness, including vice grips and center pivot irrigation. “When you bring people together like this, magic can happen,” he said, adding that using a shared space increases the diversity of ideas and innovation. “We need to connect makerspaces together in different communities to make an artificial density of these ideas. I think they can make a very, very big impact.”

PRESENTER: Shane Farritor, UNL

When you bring people together like

this, magic can happen.”

MAKERSPACES IN RURAL COMMUNITIES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlmis8Dm8Ak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6MZ1uXvf28


POSTER SESSION

The Link at Innovation Campus buzzed with conversation, laughter and earnest discussions at a Thursday evening poster and partnering session featuring more than 40 undergraduate, graduate and faculty/partner posters.

The juried poster competition, in which young scholars competed for a share of $3,400 in prizes, reflected a passion for exploring widely disparate issues of rural life. Participants answered questions from judges assigned to review their work as well as conference attendees who mingled with the researchers. And the researchers mingled with each other, comparing notes and sparking new ideas.

Research summarized in the undergraduate poster presentations included:

• Organic vegetable growing• Successful leadership transfer in rural communities• Restroom renovations in Tecumseh, Nebraska• Community strengths in Hartington, Nebraska.

Graduate student posters summarized a variety of research projects, including:

• Rural and urban 4-H volunteers• Using telemedicine for concussion evaluations• Obesity treatment for families• Retention of rural health care providers. TOP PRIZE GRADUATE STUDENT WINNER FELIX FERNANDO

WITH CHUCK SCHROEDER, RFI EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.

TOP PRIZE GRADUATE STUDENT WINNER JOSHUA FERGEN WITH CHUCK SCHROEDER, RFI EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.


HONORABLE MENTION – $100 EACH

Rural Civic Action Program: Nebraska CitySarah Schalm, Kelsey Arends, L.J. McElravy, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Dept of Agricultural Education, Leadership and Communications

Hartington: Revealing a Community’s StrengthsNathan Kathol, Dana Fritz, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

TOP PRIZE – $300 EACH

Themes of Successful Leadership Transfer Within Rural Nebraska CommunitiesHannah Brenden, Melissa Laughlin, Morgan Netz, Lindsay Hastings, University of Nebraska–Lincoln UCARE

Comparing Urban and Rural Institutional Trust DevelopmentAddison E. Fairchild, Alexandria Pytlik Zillig, Lisa M. Pytlik Zillig, University of Nebraska Public Policy Center

Finding a Beefy Niche in Rural NebraskaLaura Gorecki, Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Physical Fitness and Academic PerformanceCallen Maupin, Matthew Bice, Kate Heelan, Todd Bartee, Undergraduate Research Fellows, UNK

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT DIVISION WINNERS

GRADUATE STUDENT DIVISION WINNERS

TOP PRIZE – $625 EACH

Across the 100th Meridian: Comparing Quality of Life in the Rural Cultures of the American West & Midwest Joshua Fergen, Anne Junod, Mary Emery, South Dakota State University

A Tale of Two Rural Cities: Interaction of Community Capitals During a North Dakota Oil BoomFelix Fernando, Gary Goreham, North Dakota State University

HONORABLE MENTION – $250 EACH

Outcomes of a Family-Based Obesity Treatment Program: Consumption of a Low-Fat Diet and Weight Loss Marissa Bongers, Kate Heelan, Todd Bartee, Bryce Abbey, University of Nebraska at Kearney

Savanna Seeds on Prairie Plains: Applying South African Ecotourism Guide Training Techniques to the Great Plains Nancy Qwynne Lackey, Lisa Pennisi, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Teachers and Parents as Partners in Rural Communities: Effects on Student Engagement and Attention Tyler Smith, Susan M. Sheridan, Amanda Witte, Sonya Bhatia, Samantha Angell, Amanda Moen, University of Nebraska–Lincoln


Rural Civic Action Program: Tecumseh Restroom RenovationsJessica Bartak, Clara Durham, L.J. McElravy, UNL

Themes of Successful Leadership Transfer Within Rural Nebraska CommunitiesHannah Brenden, Melissa Laughlin, Morgan Netz, Lindsay Hastings,UNL UCARE

MobileWashThomas Kayton, MobileWash

Hartington: Revealing a Community’s StrengthsNathan Kathol, Dana Fritz, UNL

Finding a Beefy Niche in Rural NebraskaLaura Gorecki, Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Johnson-Brock: Uniting Two CommunitiesKatie Brock, Taylor Hart, Kelsey Arends, L.J. McElravy, UNL

Comparing Urban and Rural Institutional Trust DevelopmentAddison E. Fairchild, Alexandria Pytlik Zillig, Lisa M. Pytlik Zillig, University of Nebraska Public Policy Center

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT POSTERS

Physical Fitness and Academic PerformanceCallen Maupin, Matthew Bice, Kate Heelan, Todd Bartee, Undergraduate Research Fellows, UNK

Evaluating Perceptions of Climate Change Impacts in the Greater Horn of Africa Using the Community Capitals FrameworkJake Petr, Deborah Bathke, UNL

Four Seasons Organic Vegetable GREENhouseChris Ruiz, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Rural Civic Action Program: Nebraska CitySarah Schalm, Kelsey Arends, L.J. McElravy, UNL

Rural Civic Action Program: Johnson-BrockKatie Wilkins, Kelsey Arends, L.J. McElravy, UNL

University of Nebraska at Kearney - Enactus TeamJonathon Vasquez, Abbey Rhodes, UNK Enactus

L-R: JEANNE SURFACE, MELISSA LAUGHLIN, HANNAH BRENDEN


Outcomes of a Family-Based Obesity Treatment Program: Consumption of a Low-Fat Diet and Weight LossMarissa Bongers, Kate Heelan, Todd Bartee, Bryce Abbey, UNK

Using Crowdlearning for Leadership Development in Rural CommunitiesEric Scheller, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Stephanie Sands, David Kocsis, Abdulrahman Alothaim, Gina Scott-Ligon, Lynn Harland, Doug Derrick, Gert-Jan de Vreede, Susan Jensen, UNO

Across the 100th Meridian: Comparing Quality of Life in the Rural Cultures of the American West & MidwestJoshua Fergen, Anne Junod, Mary Emery, South Dakota State University

Extending Concussion Evaluations with Telemedicine for Certified Athletic TrainersScott McGrath, Melanie McGrath, Dhundy Bastola, UNO

Determinants of Retention for Non-metropolitan Healthcare Providers Jordyn Bader, UNL

We Need New StoriesAmanda Breitbach, UNL

Minnesota Rising “Our Minnesota” Cascading ConversationsBrooke McManigal, Diane Tran, Eriks Dunens, Heidi Smith, Nick Stuber, Jenny Hegland, Minnesota Rising

A Tale of Two Rural Cities: Interaction of Community Capitals During a North Dakota Oil BoomFelix Fernando, Gary Goreham, North Dakota State University

Head, Heart, Hands, and Health: A Study of Rural and Urban 4-H Volunteers in NebraskaSheridan Trent, Lisa Scherer, Volunteer Program Assessment, UNO

Investigating Barriers Facing Rural Versus Urban Volunteer Programs: A Partnership Between UNO’s Volunteer Program Assessment Team and the Nebraska CASA AssociationStephanie Weddington, Lisa Scherer, UNO

Steering Civically Minded Students to Rural Nebraska through Co-Curricular Service Victoria M. Graeve-Cunningham, Lisa L. Scherer, UNO

Open-Data Mapping InnovationsPaul Hunt, University of Nebraska

Savanna Seeds on Prairie Plains: Applying South African Ecotourism Guide Training Techniques to the Great PlainsNancy Qwynne Lackey, Lisa Pennisi, UNL

KidQuest: A Nutrition and Physical Activity Program Designed for Preadolescent StudentsAshley Cleveland, Kathryn Painter, Shinya Takahashi, Jean Ann Fischer, Johnna Hall, Becky Jensen, Linda Boeckner, Mindy Anderson-Knott, Melissa Wallinga, Deepa Srivastava, UNL

Improving Rural Teacher Practices: An Investigation of the Teachers and Parents as Partners InterventionAmanda L. Moen, Susan M. Sheridan, Samantha R. Angell, Tyler E. Smith, Amanda L. Witte, Sonya A. Bhatia, UNL

Teachers and Parents as Partners in Rural Communities: Effects on Student Engagement and AttentionTyler Smith, Susan M. Sheridan, Amanda Witte, Sonya Bhatia, Samantha Angell, Amanda Moen, UNL

Social-Ecological Resilience in the Platte River Basin Hannah E. Birge, Craig R. Allen, Robin Kundis Craig, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Joseph A. Hamm, UNL

GRADUATE STUDENT POSTERS


More than Winning: Exploring Community Value Innovation of a Minor-league Sport Team in Rural CommunityYoung Do Kim, Hyun-Woo Lee, Nita Unruh, UNK

Sustainable Food for Health: A Comprehensive Study Assessing Food Security and Benefits for WellbeingNate Bickford, M. Adkins, M. Bice, S. Bickford, A. Shafer, S. Adams, M. Albrecht, J. Ball, J. Vaux, C. Schoenebeck, T. Hill, S. Obasi, K. Siedschlaw, J. Shaffer, BJ. Becker, M. Messerole, J. Reed, E. Davis, A. Ramsey, A. Hollman, UNK

Voices for Food: Utilizing Food Policy Councils to Bridge the Gap Between Food Security and Healthy Food ChoicesLisa Franzen-Castle, Jean Ann Fischer, Vanessa Wielenga, Brenda Sale, Michelle Kroupa, Joyce Reich, Nebraska Extension

Ecotourism and Agritourism Development in Nebraska: A Pilot Service Learning Course at the University of Nebraska–LincolnLisa Pennisi, Nicole Wall, Nancy Q. Lackey, UNL

Civic Health In Nebraska: Strengths and Action StepsKelsey Arends, Adam Morfeld, Kent Day, Robert McEntarffer, Randal M. Ernst, Karl Shaddock, Jeff Yost, Lisa Pytlik Zillig, Mitchel N. Herian, Linda Major, Julie Dierberger, Doris J. Huffman, Harris C. Payne, Nebraskans for Civic Reform

Harvesting the Past: The Nebraska Natural Resources Districts Oral History ProjectJesse Starita, Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska

Creating Hope and Inspiring Vision in Communities through the Entrepreneurial Communities Activation Process (ECAP)Carroll Welte, Jessica Jones, Randy Cantrell, Charlotte Narjes, Nebraska Extension

Marketing Hometown America: As Social Capital Explosion and Measuring Impacts Using Ripple Effect Mapping and Community Capitals FrameworkKenneth Sherin, David Olson, Mary Emery, SDSU Extension

Greater Minnesota Rising–Researching the Landscape for Emerging Leaders in North and West Central MinnesotaDavid Milavetz, Raising The Bar, LLC

Youth Redefining Rural Through the ArtsCathy Johnston, Connie Hancock, Linda Dannehl, Sue Pearman, Angela Abts, Jill Walahoski, Nebraska Extension

Rural Futures Training in Academic Service-Learning: Building Partnerships Between Higher Education Institutions and Communities to Enrich Student Education and Strengthen Rural Area CommunitiesGerry Stirtz, Jean C. Karlen, Wendy McCarty, Anita Lorentzen, UNK

FACULTY AND PARTNER POSTERS

L-R: JAKE PETR, SHAWN KASKIE


Every town has one. A barbershop. A fire hall. A coffee shop. A place where people come together and let their coffee get cold as they talk, argue, laugh and commiserate over the challenge of the day—and while they think about solving the problems of the world.

Replicating those community conversations was the intent of the Rural Futures Conference’s coffee shop discussions. Participants could choose from more than two dozen table topics which were pre-submitted by conference goers, some of which attracted just a handful of people, while at other tables, participants wedged in extra chairs to make room. Just like conversations at real coffee shops. Here are some snapshots from several of those conversations.

* * *

Tribal communities face numerous challenges in building economic success, but anybody who works with tribal planners needs to recognize that plans have to reflect tribal values. “People are so tired of the white boys from Washington coming in and telling them what to do,” said Mary Emery of South Dakota State University.

COFFEESHOP DISCUSSIONS

FACILITATORS: Kayla Schnuelle, Integrated Marketing Specialist and Young Leader Coordinator, Rural Futures Institute

Greta Leach, Director of Community Development Philanthropy, Nebraska Community Foundation

Maureece Heinert, who teaches business classes at Sinte Gleska University, a tribal college on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota, said young people have good ideas, but tribal governance is one of the biggest barriers to putting new ideas into effect.

High schools that American Indian students attend also aren’t getting students ready to work at a college level. The students may be graduating from high school, but it’s because the bar has been lowered. “We’re kind of shooting ourselves in the foot,” Heinert said.

* * *

The University of Nebraska’s Online Worldwide program offers options to students from high school to doctoral programs and all manner of degrees, certifications and endorsements in between.

But schools aren’t always aware that Online Worldwide options could be a way to offer advanced, low-enrollment classes to high schools, Online Worldwide representatives said. Internet access also can be a limiting factor.

L-R: ANDREA McCLINTIC, TIFFANY CROUSE, BILLENE NEMEC


But educational service units may be able to provide access, and school leaders can be creative in figuring out how to pay for the online courses, they said.

Carl Horne of Farm Credit Services of America, which finances some 13,000 farms and ranches, said many of those proprietors need help understanding business planning. He wondered if Online Worldwide might be able to offer no-credit training for people who need specific, practical information.

* * *

Why do rural places matter? In trying to answer that question, one group mulled over a number of themes that often are heard in rural coffee shops.

For one thing, some said, urban people often don’t think rural places do matter. They don’t understand where their food comes from. They think it comes from a factory.

But it’s more than just the food supply, Preston Peterson of Loup City, Nebraska, said. “If we lose rural places, we lose a value system.”

Rural communities can serve as watchdogs to the agriculture industry, one participant suggested, keeping large corporate agriculture more accountable. Another participant wasn’t so sure. “Fifteen years ago we used to say what’s good for agriculture is good for small towns … I don’t think that’s true anymore.”

Rural community leaders sometimes aren’t open to newcomers. “When you’re not born and raised in a

community, you’re an outsider,” one said, noting the challenges of integrating the older population in a community with the newcomers.

* * *

Participants squeezed around a table where the topic was about farmers and other rural dwellers who are developing locally raised specialty products as a way to reach niche markets, but who don’t always enjoy support in their local communities.

“A lot of people associate local with organic,” one said. And “organic” can have political overtones to some people.

In some places, the atmosphere is “us versus them”—big farmers versus little farmers.

People sometimes don’t realize that local businesses aren’t just hobbies, one participant said. Those small businesses can offer real jobs and hire real people contributing to the local economy. One woman suggested it might be useful to have research that would show the economic impact of local food production. How much of that money stays in local communities?

Part of the problem, one man said, is that people may have a fantastic product but not know how to market it. Local community members should be willing to help out in supporting local products and companies, others said. But outsiders need to be careful, too, in trying to establish businesses in local communities, some said. If they come across as know-it-alls they understandably won’t get local support.

GRETA LEACH


Toni Rasmussen, a University of Nebraska student from Albion, Nebraska, who raises meat goats on a diversified farm, said the goats are an example of identifying and filling a market niche: ethnic communities in Lincoln and Omaha in which eating goat is customary.

But market niches aren’t always easy to pursue, others said. One said it could take 10 years to develop business relationships in an operation raising heritage breeds of hogs.

* * *

When Byron Brogan of Madison, Nebraska, drives into a small town and sees a vacant K-Mart or Dollar General or other large retail space, he sees opportunity for a community to support a business incubator or a start-up of some sort or maybe a recycling center—anything that could use some preexisting space.

But too often, Brogan said, local officials aren’t particularly interested in the risks associated with community development, don’t want to offend existing business owners and don’t really mind having the vacant property as long as the absentee owners continue to pay property taxes.

He proposed a change in state law that would repurpose old buildings by allowing owners to stop paying taxes on the property and turn it over to the local government or some other qualified group that would use it to create jobs.

* * *

One coffee shop table talked about how energy development can change the economic and environmental landscape. Rural people believe in their role as stewards of the land, one participant observed.

But there are also social implications associated with energy development in rural places. Wind energy installations, for example, can create challenges associated with the transitory impact on schools and other community resources as families of construction workers move in while a wind farm is installed but then leave when the work is done.

* * *

Another coffee shop group wondered about how to maintain and develop a spirit of hope as a way to create brighter futures for small towns. People sometimes forget why they like to live in a small town, one participant said. “We need to make sure we tell that story over and over again.”

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proceedings of the 2015 rural futures conference

Documents