Coronavirus in rural America (Part XIX): connecting (and correcting) a community amidst a pandemic

Lack of anonymity is the characteristic associated with rural communities that jumped out at me when I saw this report today from the Los Angeles Times about a community radio station in rural Ely, Nevada, population 4,255.  Here's an except illustration that rural phenomenon: 

This town is stubbornly slow-paced, an outpost where keeping a secret is like trying to hide the sun, where the desert wind is more howl than whisper, and where the unsettling news of a deadly virus arrived like everything else: on the radio voices of Karen Livingston and Jodi McShane. 

Calming as the two women may be, people got a little worried. So the mayor wandered down to KDSS-FM and took to the airwaves. 

“I received an email last night that I need to clear up,” Nathan Robertson said, leaning toward the black microphone. “Someone heard a rumor that I was planning on imposing martial law. That is not true.” 

“Thanks for clearing that up,” Livingston said.

* * *

Surrounded by 250 miles of desert, the rural northern Nevada town of Ely, often cited as the most remote place in the lower 48 states, turns to KDSS when things are going good, bad or any other way.

Eventually, Robertson was going on the air each day to provide coronavirus updates--sorta like Andrew Cuomo in New York and Gavin Newsom in California.

I appreciate Melissa Etehad of the Times staff for this story.  I have never been to Ely, but I suspect based on what I know of other rural places that she captured the essence quite nicely.  That said, I'd say Ely is more central Nevada than northern Nevada, but maybe I'm splitting hairs.