Friday's quick hits: All's quiet with rural reticence; celebrating Nina Simone; want your own Tiny Desk concert?

Nina Simone statue in Tryon, N.C. (Photo by Annie Chester)

Born in 1933, Eunice Kathleen Waymon was born in the quaint Appalachian town of Tryon, North Carolina. A rare musical talent, Eunice's first stage was the church before she became the Black nationalist known professionally as Nina Simone, Expatalachians recalls. Simone's sultry, distinct voice made her famous, and she used her music to fight against injustice, penning songs like “Mississippi Goddamn," which was her response to a 1963 white-supremacist terror attack in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four young Black girls. She died in 2003.

Rural America has a magic that spills into its music. From Bluegrass to folk to Appalachian roots to harmonica duos, you name it, there's a unique spirit to it. Consider sharing that spirit and enter to have your own "Tiny Desk" performance. Rural has a lot to share.

On Friday, it's good to take a breath. Maybe take a moment to read Maddy Butcher's piece on
rural reticence. . . In the rural West, quiet reserve is an essential skill and a fading art form, lost on people, like me, who rush to react and to be heard. Inevitably, it is rapidly losing ground to a louder, vainer way of being. 

A bachelor’s degree in automotive restoration has put a tiny Kansas school on the map. At a time when college enrollments are diving, McPherson College’s enrollment has been steadily increasing. Because its program is unique, it can cast a wider net than other colleges its size; it has 851 students — up 18 percent over the last five years. Check out that 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300S Cabriolet and status symbols by the likes of Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant and Gary Cooper.

The sign said, "Flowers are the Answer." What’s not to love? Floral foam, also known as "green fine-celled thermoset phenolic plastic foam" is particularly not lovable, writes Adrienne Mason for Hakai magazine. Flowers are beautiful, they’re natural, they lift our spirits and fill interior spaces. They let us say things without having to say too much. Mason says florists need to forget foam, embrace new—or re-embrace old—techniques, and educate their customers.

The English village of Lostwithiel is looking for a new general practitioner amid a national shortage of primary-care doctors. Residents hope a music video will do the trick. See what we did there: rural people know how to use music to create some magic. And maybe, just maybe, land a new doctor.

Do you have a friend who can do six degrees of Secretariat instead of six degrees of separation? Some people do not know a person like that, or anything about horse racing. Well, giddy up! Horse racing is set to join Netflix's stable of sports documentaries. Filming on what is understood to be a four-part series on the "Race to the Kentucky Derby" is set to start next month and the casting process has begun, with the series looking to tell the stories behind the owners, trainers, breeders, and jockeys involved.