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NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
December 16, 1999
Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University
©1999 Plains Folk
Not old as dirt, maybe, but old as a really old tree. I know I'm old, because I've lived through one whole historic era in the Great Plains and seen the beginning of another. The stuff that's happening now I expected to see dimly in my dotage, when I would be shaking my cane at whippersnappers and making the streets unsafe by insisting I still can drive myself around.
Things are not going according to plan. Way ahead of schedule, people in communities up and down the plains are laying aside old assumptions that they live in a land of disadvantage, that their kids are supposed to leave the country and their towns fade away. They are taking matters into their own hands.
Don't take my word for it--check out the recent issue (Spring 1999) of Great Plains Research, published by the University of Nebraska. It reports a multiyear study of towns from Texas to North Dakota that are, as I like to put it, prospering for no good reason--against the odds, in other words. Towns like Eustis, Neb.; Cheney, Kan.; Wray, Colo.; Larimore, N.D.; and Hartley, Texas.
From this study the authors have abstracted "20 Clues to Rural Community Survival," a list of characteristics for towns that are succeeding. Most of these are matters of common sense--community pride, willingness to invest, support for education and so on. Others are standards that will show most of us wanting: No.10 is "Deliberate transition of power to a younger generation of leaders," and No. 11 is "Acceptance of women in leadership roles."
I am particularly struck, though, by No. 20: "Conviction that, in the long run, you have to do it yourself." No program can deliver prosperity in a package to your door.
"Taken as a whole," the Nebraska authors conclude, "these results suggest that leadership constitutes a highly critical factor in community success and survival. Thus, this study does not support the common expectation or perception that factors outside the community's control determine whether or not a community survives."
Now, in the first place I never thought I'd see an academic journal writing up results like this while I could still read them without a large-print version. It's even more surprising when a major metropolitan newspaper from the eastern fringe of the plains--I'm talking about the Grand Forks Herald--should notice such trends.
Give credit to Tom Dennis, editor of the editorial page for the Herald. He persuaded his bosses and colleagues to make front-page space available for a series of editorials and features under the heading, "Buffalo Uncommons: What Works on the Great Plains."
This is a remarkable piece of work (which can be viewed at www.northscape.com). Dennis revisits some of the same places as did the Nebraska authors, and some others, too: Howard, S.D.; Ainsworth, Aurora, and Farnam, Neb.; Perham, Minn.; Winner, S.D.; and Winkler, Manitoba.
By golly, maybe I will shake my cane a little bit. You editors up and down the plains, see what the Herald gang has done. They have studied the situation of these towns, noted that leadership makes the difference and resolved themselves to be leaders.
Me, I'm going to have to look for something else to rail about in my cranky old age, since the country seems to be waking up. Video games, maybe, or steel shot, or those darned blue hymnals (Lutheran reference, everyone else just ignore it).
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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136
Click here to download a photo of Tom Isern
suitable for printing.
(isern.tif - 512KB b&w photo)
Click here to download a photo of Tom Isern suitable for printing.
(isern-h.tif - 426KB b&w photo)