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In 2004, corporate owners of Mereen-Johnson Machine Company announced plans to sell the Foundry Division in Webster. Josh Bartos soon discovered the company was more likely to close than sell, meaning laying off all of the company employees. Read More »

By Heidi Marttila-Losure Read the obituaries in your local newspaper, and you’ll find stories of lives well-lived (and, perhaps more interestingly, sometimes not-so-well-lived). Most of the obits also have a clue as to whether that personal life story fits into a larger story that will significantly affect rural Dakota communities in coming decades. Here’s how to tell: In the list of ... Read More »

A few years ago, when I was editing a women’s magazine published by The Tribune in Ames, Iowa, I covered a women’s philanthropy event at Iowa State University. The speaker that day was a woman named Kay Ballard, and she wasn’t afraid to get the audience a little riled. Read More »

What happens when the major employer in a community—an employer that represents a community’s identity, and that is a significant supporter of community causes—closes its doors? That’s the situation that Clark, S.D., faced in 2002, when McCain’s, a French fry processing facility, shut down. Read More »

What if you could visit each of the nation’s most prestigious libraries and museums within seconds? It’s now possible—at least, virtually. Read More »

I am a transplant to South Dakota. I grew up in New Jersey, in outer suburbia, and then spent more than 20 years in the U.S. Navy, traveling the country and the world. Then, in 2004, my wife and I bought a turn-of- the-century farmhouse in the James River Valley area. Read More »

When the Bunkhouse Motel and Get Away along Highway 12 in Webster was set to close, a group of people came together to save it. Nine shareholders went together in 2007 and reopened the business as The Galley Steakhouse, Lounge and Hotel. Read More »

Club Eden began in May 2005. In a town with a population of 89, the new owners knew they needed to do something different to succeed. So Club Eden opened as an investor-owned bar and cafe. The business gives their financiers the opportunity to work off their investments. Read More »

Willow Lake Area Advancement didn’t intend to go into the grocery business. Read More »

Sometimes being rural means coloring outside the lines to paint your own picture of success. Read More »