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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 »

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 »

When Esther Lindgren saw that some of her friends needed to leave town for doctor care, she didn’t just offer a ride. She bought a van. Read More »

Another 8-year-old might have spent his birthday money on toys or games for his iPod. Not Trey Jensen. Instead, the Langford boy invested his $100 in his community. Read More »

Transfer of wealth data show that more resources are available in our communities than we might have realized. And we know many of our communities are strapped for resources. How can we connect the two? 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 »