Entrepreneurs and their local businesses spark economy in rural Kansas county

Entrepreneurs and the businesses they lead are essential to successful rural communities. Kansas' rural Harvey County offers multiple examples of how local businesses can help their towns thrive, reports Amy Bickel of The Hutchinson News. Burrton, a town of 932 about an hour north of Wichita, is home to Lang Architectural Millwork Products (in an uncredited photo from the News), which after four years of expansions now boasts 160,000 square feet in two buildings and 100 employees. "It would be a lot easier for us to move to Wichita, but I wanted to stay here," owner Steve Lang told Bickel. "Our town needs jobs." He is also working to restore some buildings in the Burrton's decaying downtown, and he hopes his business can help increase enrollment in the town's small high school.

Bickel says Lang's entrepreneurial spirit is not unique in Harvey County, where five towns are seeing homegrown businesses provide an economic spark. "Eleven companies in these cities, all with populations of fewer than 4,000 people, have added $39.4 million in new manufacturing investment in the past 18 months, as well as 255,650 additional square feet of manufacturing space and 267 new jobs, said Mickey Fornaro-Dean, executive director of the Harvey County Economic Development Council," Bickel writes. (Encarta map)

These success stories — some of which owe much to the Department of Agriculture's Rural Development program — are just another lesson in the value of local entrepreneurs and any efforts to encourage them. (Read more)