Quick hits: Farm dog of year; convenience stores say they want charging stations for EVs; rural-urban divide nuances

Fit with her owner Cindy Deak (AFBF photo)

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

A 5-year-old Border Collie named Fit has been chosen as the American Farm Bureau Federation's 2022 Farm Dog of the Year. She has been helping her owners move sheep on their Florida farm since she was a puppy. Click here to read more about Fit, as well as the four runners-up and the People's Choice Pup, all of whom are Very Good Dogs.

A recent webinar had information about the Rural Emergency Hospital, a new hospital type established in 2021 to help restore emergency services to rural areas amid hospital closures. Click here for a recording of the webinar.

The Agriculture Department's Rural Development Rural Utilities Service will host a 90-minute webinar on Feb. 2 for Native American tribes and tribal entities interested in applying for the ReConnect broadband program. Read more here.

Convenience store representatives told Congress they want to make electric vehicles more feasible in rural America by putting more charging stations alongside their gas pumps. Read more here.

Retiring Texas Tribune co-founder Evan Smith deserves credit for helping pave the way for other digital nonprofit newsrooms, writes The Washington Post's Margaret Sullivan. Read more here.

Neighborhoods with more opioid overdoses may be hotspots for child maltreatment, a new study shows. Read more here.

The SAT is going all-digital soon. Previous plans to do so were scrapped, partly because of spotty rural broadband access. But the College Board has addressed this by ensuring the new SAT autosaves so that students won't lose work or time if their internet connection falters. Read more here.

An opinion piece argues that more nuance is needed when talking about the rural-urban divide. Read more here.