Hay rustling in the news, again--this time the national news

From the Newton County Times to the New York Times, hay rustling has made the headlines recently. A few days ago I published this post about what is happening in Arkansas and Missouri.  Today, the New York Times published a story under the headline, "Cash for Hay Driving Thieves to Move Bundles."  Here's an excerpt from Jack Healy's story in the NYT:

Months of punishing drought and grass fires have pushed the price of hay, grain and other animal feed to near records, making the golden bales an increasingly irresistible target for thieves. Some steal them for profit. Others are fellow farmers acting out of desperation, their fields too brown to graze animals and their finances too wrecked to afford enough feed for their cattle.

Healy goes on to note that the rise in hay thefts in states like Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas is part of a "broader rise in agricultural crime," including "thefts of grapes, beehives and avocados" in California, where farmers have also had to deal with theft of agricultural machinery as scrap metal prices have risen.  "On the range," Healy writes, "wire fences are being clipped to allow interloping herds to poach grazing land."  I wrote this 2011 post about the rise in pecan thefts in Georgia.

As for the hay thefts, most make off with less than $200-$300 worth at a time--less than a ton.  But some thefts have been larger, like the one over Labor Day at Conrad Swanson's ranch near Wellington, Colorado, where thieves made off with a flatbed trailer full.  The remoteness of rural locales presents an added challenge for law enforcement officials trying to catch the culprits--as does the fungibility of the product stolen.  As Healy notes, reclaiming a stolen bale of hay is "harder than finding a needle in a -- well, never mind."

Country music a "national darling"?

That's what this New York Times story about Nashville (Tennessee) as "Nowville" (per GQ Magazine) asserts.   Journalist Kim Severson suggests that country music has become a "national darling," and she does so amidst laudatory comments regarding Nashville's many amenities. Severson associates the phenomenon with the past few decades.

Certainly I am aware that country music is not treated with quite the obloquy it was--especially on the coasts--several decades ago, but a "national darling"?  I'm not so sure.

Minot booms ... and diversifies

John Eligon reports for the New York Times today under the headline, "Down-Home American, Korean Style."  The story is of that a Korean-American woman, 48-year-old Geewon Anderson, who last year bought a quintessentially American restaurant, Charlie's Main Street Cafe, in downtown Minot, North Dakota.  Anderson has installed various members of her family there to run the place, along with some other local enterprises in which she has invested.  Although the family members who are operating these businesses have come from South Korea to do so, Eligon focuses on how Anderson and her husband (a Minnesotan by birth) have sought to keep Charlie's quintessentially American, from decor to menu.  Here's an excerpt that evokes a certain nostalgia about establishments like Charlie's:

Charlie’s Main Street Cafe in the heart of downtown here is a monument to small-town Americana.

* * *

It is a gathering place for local leaders, and for residents to catch up on gossip. 

This could well be a haunt on any idyllic American street corner. But Charlie’s is a bit different. 

The purveyor at this landmark of deeply American culture in a town that is more than 97 percent American-born happens to be a South Korean immigrant who traces her earliest awareness of the United States to a story her mom told her when she was in elementary school in Seoul, about a place that boasted of 31 flavors of ice cream.

Eligon also notes that Anderson was attracted to Minot as a destination for her investment because, like its western North Dakota environs, it is enjoying an economic boom from oil and gas drilling in the region.

Drop in wildlife census impacts rural economies

Two stories from different parts of the country this past week discussed the diminishing wildlife populations--pheasants in Iowa and mule deer in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.   Both also explain how wildlife populations and hunting interests are increasingly pitted against economic interests--as in agricultural production and oil and gas exploration. Finally, both also wax nostalgic--at least a bit--about our nation's hunting tradition, which they suggest is being lost.

NPR reported yesterday from northwest Colorado, at the Hilandras Ranch, where journalist Luke Runyon of Aspen Public Radio is interviewing John Hilandras, who runs an "outfitting business out of his family ranch."  When Hilandras was a child, he says, hunting was hardly a challenge.

We had literally thousands of deer.  There were just deer everywhere.  It seemed like they were like rabbits.

Now, however, deer are scarce enough that Hilandras is reluctant to market his services as those for a trophy hunt because weeks can go by without seeing a "prize-winning animal" like a 12-point buck.

In good conscience, a good ethical outfitter offering a trophy deer hunt should be careful 'cause it's not like it was.

The story goes on to discuss the possible causes in the decline of the mule deer population.  Runyon's story suggests that oil and gas exploration on western slope of the Rockies, including the Piceance Basin, is having a deleterious impact on deer habitat.  Other suggest that the burgeoning coyote population is to blame.  Studies are currently probing the impact of both phenomena.

The story closes with Hilandras expressing regret that his young children won't know the hunting he enjoyed.

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported from Iowa under the headline, "As Pheasants Disappear, Hunters in Iowa Follow."  John Eligon's story pits hunting squarely against the state's economic engine--farming--noting that Iowa has in the last 20 years lost more than 1.6 million acres of habitat that pheasants and small game use; that is "the equivalent of a nine-mile strip of land stretching practically the width of the state." The pheasant habitat is being put to use in farming, as commodity prices rise, creating incentives for farmers to maximize agricultural outputs.    

And pheasants, "once king of Iowa's nearly half-a-billion-dollar hunting industry," are vanishing as a result of this decline in habitat.  The pheasant "population in 2012 was the second lowest on record, 81 percent below the average over the past four decades." And the number of pheasant hunters is dropping, too, down about 800,000 over two decades, to just 1.4 million now.

The loss, pheasant hunters say, is both economic and cultural.  

* * * 

 “We’re at a tipping point, and we have to decide how important it is to keep traditions for upland bird hunting alive and into the future,” said David E. Nomsen, the vice president of government affairs for Pheasants Forever.

As for the economic slice, federal officials report that hunters spent about $33.7 billion on hunting in 2011.  That includes $2.5 billion on small game like pheasants.   The story also includes figures regarding the economic value of hunting in the state of Iowa.  

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part CXI): "No hay rustling reported"

That is the headline for a story in the Dec. 12, 2012 issue of the Newton County Times, dateline Paris, Arkansas, in neighboring Logan County.  The story is apparently from a press release (perhaps by U of A extension), and it reports:

Scarce supplies are prompting reports of hay hijacking in Missouri, but south of the border, bales seem to be staying place, extension agents with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture said Wednesday.   

The president of Missouri's Farm Bureau said thieves are targeting hay left in the field and selling it. 

While drought has made hay expensive in northern and western Arkansas and the Midwest, "I've not heard about people coming around and stealing hay," said Lance Kirkpatrick, Logan County extension staff chair for the Division of Agriculture.  When it comes to a dishonest return on investment, "It's easier to load up 10 cows in a trailer and get $10,000.  It's harder loading up 10 bales and getting maybe $1,000."   

* * *  

Kirkpatrick said that this fall, "we're worse off now than this summer.  Logan County has been dry for two years" and [he]calculated the county would need about 45 inches of rain through May 2013 to make up for the moisture deficit.

In other news, a 30-year-old Kingston man was arrested Dec. 3, following discovery of a clandestine meth lab at his remote Newton County residence.  The man is being held in the Madison County jail on charges of manufacturing meth, possessing drug paraphernalia, and intent to possess and manufacture meth.  In executing the warrant, the Newton County Sheriff was assisted by officers from the 14th Judicial Drug Task Force.  The news report suggests that the man was arrested on Dec. 2 on charges of a residential burglary and theft of property in Fayetteville, and that this arrest led to the search of the man's home.    

A front-page story reports that a man survived a fall from Whitaker Point (also known as Hawksbill Crag), a remote beauty spot in Newton County.  The story indicates that he is first known survivor of such a fall, though a subsequent issue of the paper reported his death from the fall.  The man, a 19-year-old college student, fell 100 feet, but survived in part because the fall was cushioned by tree branches.  The man was rescued by BUFFSAR, the Buffalo National River Search and Rescue team.

Slinging mud at Appalachia

The New York Times reported yesterday on a new reality show on MTV, "Buckwild," which has gotten under the skin of West Virginians, even though it has yet to debut.  The series will fill the slot being vacated by "Jersey Shore," which ran its last episode in late December 2012.  Like "Jersey Shore," the series is eliciting protest because of its "exploitation of broad cultural stereotypes," including "young people prone to fighting, swearing, careening in all-terrain vehicles and wallowing, scantily clad, in the mud."  Trip Gabriel's story, dateline Charleston, West Virginia, quotes several folks from that corner of America, including U.S. Senator and former governor, Joe Manchin:

“It doesn’t help the lousy reputation we already have,” said Greg Samms, 31, a dishwasher on a break at the Charleston Town Center mall. “You go west of Ohio, west of Kentucky — people think we’re hillbillies. 

Kent Carper, the president of the Kanawha County Commission here, said dryly, “Some folks in West Virginia wear shoes, believe it or not.” 

Based on a two-minute trailer that MTV has released online, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, labeled the show a “travesty” and called on MTV to cancel it. “This show plays to ugly, inaccurate stereotypes about the people of West Virginia,” Mr. Manchin wrote in a letter last month to Stephen K. Friedman, MTV’s president. 

He accused the show’s producers of egging on a cast between ages 19 and 24 to misbehave for the sake of ratings. “You preyed on young people, coaxed them into displaying shameful behavior — and now you are profiting from it,” Mr. Manchin wrote. “That is just wrong.”

* * * 

The tone of “Buckwild” is set by the saucy drawl of a cast member that is heard in the trailer. “West Virginia is a place founded on freedom. For me and my friends, that means the freedom to do whatever” we want, she says, adding an expletive. 

The trailer cuts to shots of a young woman throwing a drink can at another’s face, a young man running nude, and a fiery explosion. There are stunts involving earthmoving equipment, body licking and necking. 

“I have this rule,” says one young woman in the nine-member cast. “If a guy can’t rotate my tires and change my oil at least, we’re just not going to work.”

Earlier posts about depictions of rurality in television are here, here and here.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part XI): Hitting enrollment threshold but experiencing "fiscal distress"

I've written a lot about the Deer-Mt. Judea School District in Newton County, Arkansas, over the past few years--in particular about the school's falling enrollment and effort to avoid consolidation.  You can read more here, here, here, and here.

This fall and winter have brought both good news and bad news for the school district.  First, the good news:  the district hit an enrollment in excess of 375.  Because the enrollment threshold that mandates consolidation is 350, the school district appears to be in the clear for now.  I find it frustrating that stories reporting on the matter do not what factors have led to the enrollment increasing, well, so precipitously, especially following several years of decline.  The U.S. Census Bureau does indicate that the county's population fell, though less than 1%, between 2010 and 2011.

The bad news was reported in the Dec. 26, 2012 issue of the Newton County Times under the headline, "Fiscal distress indicated at Deer/Mt. Judea."  The troubled school district was notified by the Arkansas Department of Education that the district "has experienced two or more indicators of fiscal distress in one school year."  The indicators are reportedly at a "'nonmaterial level' but without intervention could place the district in fiscal distress."  The two indicators are:

• a declining balance determined to jeopardize the fiscal integrity of your school district.  
• any other fiscal condition of a school district deemed to have a detrimental negative impact on the continuation of educational services by that school district.

According to Deer/Mt. Judea Board President Sharon Pierce, the biggest challenge facing the district is declining enrollment, and the fiscal distress indicators are linked to it.  The District is already under Arkansas Department of Education supervision because of its recent enrollment travails, and the Deer-Mt. Judea District will now also be under its supervision as the District works to develop a plan to correct these fiscal indicators.  

In other news, the District has hired an instructional facilitator to help Mt. Judea teachers equip their students to earn higher achievement scores.  The consultant, Dan Raines, will work part time be paid $35,000 in funds secured through an Arkansas Dept. of Education grant.  Raines has 40 years of teaching experience, mostly in Russellville, in neighboring Pope County. Raines retired more than six years ago and lives principally in Russellville, but has a vacation residence in the Low Gap area of Newton County.

Mt. Judea has for three years been on the Arkansas Dept. of Education's list of schools needing improvement based on criteria set for Title 1 participating schools by the USDE.  These "focus schools" were identified "by achievement gaps between the highest-achieving subgroup or subgroups and the lowest-achieving subgroup or subgroups or, at the high school level, the largest within-school gaps in the graduation rate; a subgroup or subgroups with low achievement or, at the high school level, a low graduation rate, or a graduation rate less than 60% over a number of years that were not identified as priority schools."

The Mt. Judea school will undergo a required scholastic audit Jan. 13-18.  The audit team will analyze all areas of underperformance and make recommendations for an improvement plan to be submitted to the Ark. Dept of Education.

Linking rural development to immigration opportunities

That link is highlighted in this story from today's New York  Times, "Lure of Green Cards Brings Big Investments for Remote Resort in Vermont."  The dateline is Jay Peak, Vermont, (population 426), and the lede for Katharine Q Seelye's story follows:

At this remote outpost by the Canadian border, Bill Stenger is overseeing what he says is the biggest economic development project that Vermont has ever seen. 

* * *  

But even more unusual than the size of the undertaking is the method by which Mr. Stenger and his business partner, Ariel Quiros, are financing it. They have tapped into a federal program that gives green cards, or permanent residency, to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in an American business — the reward for the investment is a chance at United States citizenship.

This huge $865 million development includes an expansion of the Jay Peak ski resort, a runway extension at the local airport, rehabilitation of nearby Newport, including rebuilding an entire block of downtown, a waterfront development, the city's first hotel and conference center, a massive indoor mountain-biking park, and a state-of-the art tennis facility.  Other Stenger enterprises in this corner of Vermont include building a biomedical research firm and a window manufacturing plant.  Stenger says that, together, these will directly or indirectly create 10,000 jobs.  

Beyond the use of the word "remote" in the headline and opening sentence, the early part of Seelye's story does not mention the rural location of this undertaking.  Rather, Seelye focuses on the types of folks who are investing in the mammoth development:  the 550 foreign investors who have put up a total of $275 million for the project's first phase.  As the excerpt above suggests, Stenger and Quiro have tapped into a immigration program that dates to 1990, but which was little used until a few years ago.  The U.S. government issued only 802 of the visas, called EB-5s, in 2006, but in 2012 it granted 7,818.  Seelye suggests that the the program is likely to reach its annual limit of 10,000 within the next few years.  One significant reason for this relatively recent revival of the program is the struggle for financing that developers face in the current economic climate.  

Halfway through the story, Seelye comes back to the "remote" mention in her headline, tying it to the immigration program:  

Investors must put up $1 million for a visa, but if they invest in a rural area or one with high unemployment, that is reduced to $500,000.

Jay and neighboring Newport, the seat of Orleans County, seem clearly to qualify as rural, though Seelye does not specify the statutory definition of "rural" for purposes of the immigration law.  Newport's population is 5,005, and that of Orleans County is about 27,000.  The poverty rate is 16%.  The county issued 105 building permits in 2011, no doubt reflecting the Stenger/Quiros enterprise.

Seelye explains that in this part of Vermont, often called the Northeast Kingdom, many long-time residents are concerned about the growth Stenger and Quiros are bringing--and the likelihood of rural gentrification.  The $500,000 from a single investor is more than the annual budget for the town of Newport, and some long-time, local businesses are being displaced by the development.  But, the publisher of a local newspaper notes that Stenger has been in the area many years and has a long-term commitment to the community.  Still many remain skeptical that even gezillions of dollars of (foreign) investment can overcome the drawback of the remote location and make the development sustainable.

The comments on Seelye's article take up many of the pros and cons of this program, in relation to other immigration law issues, socioeconomic status, and so forth.  As for me, I'm struck by the reminder that--at least back in 1990--the federal government cared enough about rural development to create (enhanced) incentives like this program to foster it.  I also agree with many of those who commented on the NYTimes article, though, that $500,000 is too little "skin in the game" to earn a green card.

NB  This article was the most emailed on nytimes.com for much of Dec. 31, the day on which it was published.  I suspect the wide-spread interest in the article has little to do with rural America and a lot to do with interest in immigration policy.

Charlotte Albright reported on this story for National Public Radio on January 2, 2013. 

The latest travail of a small Southern town: No one wants to be mayor

Read Robbie Brown's NY Times story about Little Mountain, South Carolina, population 255, where no one wants to be mayor.  No one ran for election in November, and even the top write-in candidates have turned down the job.  The job pays just $100/month but carries responsibility for various state and federal grants and a $90K budget.  

Here's an excerpt from the story:

It is not unheard-of for offices to go unfilled in small electorates. In Mount Sterling, Iowa, after none of the 44 residents ran for City Council or mayor last year, the 105-year-old city disbanded. In Lynchburg, S.C., in 2010, a write-in candidate for mayor was reluctantly sworn in. 

But leaders of the Municipal Association of South Carolina could not recall when even write-in candidates had turned down the job.

The association's deputy executive director attributed the problem partly to rural brain drain:

It's the first time we've ever seen this.  A generation of politicians is retiring in many of these small towns.  Young people are going off to college and not coming back to take their place. 

(Rural) Moderation of Washington state's political scene

Kirk Johnson reports in the New York Times today on a new coalition of lawmakers in Washington state--a centrist coalition that includes both Democrats and Republicans.  Johnson writes:

From the governor-elect on down, through both chambers of the Legislature, a tincture of blue political monoculture drifts through Washington State politics like mist through the pines. 

Or is the Democrat-led consensus an illusion, a distortion of liberal Seattle, Washington’s urban center and the heartland of the Pacific Northwest left? Two Democrats in the State Senate, in bolting from the party’s ranks this month to join with Republicans in creating a new majority coalition, say yes. 

True representation of state residents — republican government with a small “r” — demanded a broader discussion and a larger voice, they said, for marginalized segments of the electorate.

Without expressly saying so, Johnson implies that those marginalized segments are in rural Washington.    He notes that Jay Inslee, a former Democratic congressman who will become governor next month, won majorities in just eight liberal counties, while losing the other 31.  The new coalition, which controls the legislature with 25 seats--including two who abandoned the previously 26-strong Democratic majority--aims to do a better job of representing them and moving away from what one of the coalition Democrats calls "Seattle-centric" lawmaking.  That Democrat is veteran lawmaker, Senator Tim Sheldon, from a district west of Olympia, who will be President pro-tem of the state Senate come January.   The other Democrat who has joined the coalition will become majority leader.  

Johnson otherwise sums up the forces that alienated the likes of Sheldon, and which presumably marginalize rural forces in Washington state politics:

[S]afe seats in Seattle, campaign money raised in safe seats but spread around, and a caucus that rewards and reinforces the safe-seat equation with powerful leadership posts.

That the Republicans have held onto power in this way reminds me of this post from about 18 months ago, about the persistent strength of rural lawmakers in state houses.

Oil fields attract young laborers in eastern Montana

Jack Healy's story in today's New York Times suggests that a generation of young men in eastern Montana may be choosing work in the oil fields over college as the extraction/resource boom continues in the northern plains.  The dateline for the story is Sidney, Montana, population 5,191. Sidney is county seat of tiny Richland County, which has a population of just over 10,000, but up nearly 4% between April 2010 and April 2011.  The county's poverty rate is just 12.6%.

Healy writes:

It is a lucrative but risky decision for any 18-year-old to make, one that could foreclose on his future if the frenzied pace of oil and gas drilling from here to North Dakota to Texas falters and work dries up. But with unemployment at more than 12 percent nationwide for young adults and college tuition soaring, students here on the snow-glazed plains of eastern Montana said they were ready to take their chances.

Healy quotes several of the young men--and women--who are taking advantage of the resource boom while they can.  One is 19-year-old Tegan Sivertson, who works long days monitoring pipelines for a gas company.  He drives up to three hours each way to the remote rigs: 

I just figured, the oil field is here and I’d make the money while I could.  I didn’t want to waste the money and go to school when I could make just as much.

Healy also quotes a young woman, Katorina Pippenger, still in high school in Bainville, Montana, population 208.  Bainville is in Roosevelt County, just north of Richland County, and Pippenger drives across the state line to nearby Williston, North Dakota, where she earns $24/hour as a cashier.  (Read more about the boom in Williston and environs here, here, and here).  Pippenger's goal is to save enough money over the next few years to move to Denver.  "I just want to make money and get out," she said.  Though contiguous to booming Richland County, Roosevelt County has apparently not shared much of the wealth.  Its poverty rate is currently 24.4%, but the county's economic metrics are skewed by the fact that it has a majority American Indian population.  (An earlier post about Roosevelt County is here).

Indeed, Healy notes that this "trend" toward work over college is quite localized, not having spread to other regions of Montana.  However, employment opportunities in places like eastern Montana and North Dakota are attracting the labor of not only local, young Montanans, but also people from across the country.  Healy writes that" schools in places like Sidney are buckling, as enrollment rose about 20% (that is 140 students) in just three years.  As across the state line in North Dakota, Sidney's school district is struggling to hire teachers who can get by on an annual salary of just over $30K, even as apartments can rent for as much as $1500/month.  

Indeed, what Healy reports regarding young people eschewing education may not really qualify as a trend--even in booming Sidney and Richland County.  The percentage of those over the age of 25 with a bachelor's degree or higher was less than 16% for the period 2007-2011, well below the national average of about 30%.  This suggests that high school graduates from Sidney and Richland County have never been much focused on higher education.  Healy himself acknowledges that, even in Sidney, "a majority of graduates are still choosing universities and community colleges."  I would be surprised if, literally, more than half of Sydney's high school graduates pursue college of any sort.  Few places in rural America have ever had a culture that valued higher education, nor a local economy that really valued it. What we see in Sidney, then, is part of a boom and bust cycle in which--at least for a time--the local, blue-collar work on offer pays a living wage.  And that, of course, is increasingly rare anywhere in the United States. 

Here is another post about "good" blue collar jobs back in the rural northwest.  Here is a post about neighboring Dawson County, which the NYT labeled a "place of low consequence."  Here is a post about mining jobs elsewhere in Montana.