'Traditional Marriage Parade' divides rural Iowa town

Photo by Sandy Millar, Unsplash

A Baptist pastor of small-town Ottumwa in Iowa challenged the fairness of a city council proclamation to celebrate Pride month while other groups like veterans went unnoticed, Joe Barrett of The Wall Street Journal reported.

When the council members explained they only passed resolutions of this nature that were brought to their attention, Pastor Travis Decker decided to create his own “Traditional Marriage Parade” – and he wanted to get a proclamation from the city for it.

This request led to “weeks of emotional public meetings, social-media battles and questions about whether the council should have proclamations at all,” Barrett wrote. 

Pastor Chris Childs from Grace Methodist Church noted that the conflict highlights the fraught political environment that has divided America everywhere.

And the result? The city council decided that no one gets anything. A new policy was created to prevent controversial proclamations from being passed in the future.

“Pride or traditional marriage proclamations probably won’t make the cut,” council member Cara Galloway told the Wall Street Journal.

Disaster-experienced rural towns offer a guide for successful recovery

The Greensburg, Kan., memorial quilt represents how 
residents pieced the town back together. (Yonder photo) 

While no rural community wants to become a blueprint for successful natural disaster recovery, smaller regions that have survived and rebuilt after a catastrophic event have developed adaptable plans and key insights that can help towns in similar situations.

When Greensburg, Kansas, was devastated by an EF5 tornado in May 2007, it inadvertently became a leader in recovery systems. "Greensburg has been rebuilt for a future that is energy efficient and disaster prepared. Its population of 750 souls is smaller than it was in 2007, but also younger on average than it was before the storm," reports Anne Vilen of The Daily Yonder.

Greensburg Mayor Matt Christenson has developed a clear outline of disaster recovery stages that span from the initial aftermath to decades later. He told Vilen, "The first stage is rescue and recovery, trying to minimize loss of life. Then, after that, it’s assessing the damage. . . . A couple of years in. . . you get onto permanent construction. . . . Never stay where you’re at. Always aim for better.”

Swannanoa, N.C., was battered by Hurricane Helene in 2024, but the town has rallied to rebuild, and its residents echo much of Greensburg's advice. Local leaders from Greensburg and Sawnnanoa agree that the "most important ingredient in disaster recovery is trusting, listening to, and helping neighbors connect with one another," Vilen writes.

Another insight both regions share is ensuring that residents know their vital needs, such as food, lodging, and medical care, will be addressed. Vilen reports, "It’s essential to provide the things that residents will need in order to stay and continue to be part of the recovery effort."

Residents working through disaster recovery deal with a host of unfamiliar noises and messes that can be likened to living in a construction zone. Town leaders from Swannanoa say that keeping some town traditions alive during long periods of recovery offer the community time to celebrate successes together, as well as comfort in the familiar.

Both regions emphasize that for sustained recovery to occur, towns must hire and pay people to design and execute rebuilding plans. Vilen reports, "Volunteers burn out. Long-term systems and positions that sustain effective work over time are essential for long-term recovery."

Rural Assembly Everywhere 2025 is all about rural people and regions flourishing even when resources are limited

Rural Assembly Everywhere is less than two weeks away. 

It's time to rev your rural engines and sign up for the virtual Rural Assembly Everywhere event happening on Wednesday, Sept. 17, from 1 to 2:30 p.m., E.T.

Rural leaders, community members, advocates and allies are invited to join this free, virtual gathering. Register here.

Virtual participants will have access to all programming, speaker panels and real-time chat with rural leaders across the country. The event is broadcast live via Crowdcast, which allows participants to ask questions and engage in discussions with one another before and during the event. Find more details here.

Everywhere 2025 highlights this year's theme: "A Bigger Pie: Cultivating Abundance in a Time of Scarcity." Event conversations and resources will delve into actionable ways to shift scarcity mindsets, enabling more rural communities to continue growing with renewed and resilient spirits.

The Rural Assembly and Everywhere 2025 are part of the Center for Rural Strategies.

To avoid closures, mergers or reduced services, some rural hospitals are banding together

A mobile MRI machine services and costs can be
shared by a network of hospitals. (KFF Health photo)

A growing number of independent rural hospitals are joining networks that allow them to meet their community's health care needs without operating in the red or being pushed into a merger, reports Arielle Zionts of KFF Health News. While such medical networks have existed for decades, their popularity as a lifeline for rural hospitals is relatively new.

In North Dakota, 22 hospitals banded together to form the Rough Rider Network, which "used its members' combined patient rolls to negotiate better prices," Zionts writes. "The networks are an alternative to shutting down or reducing services, or to giving up local autonomy and joining a large hospital system."

The Rough Rider Network was formed with the help of an independent company, Cibolo, which worked on hospital partnerships. Zionts writes, "Cibolo Health has helped start networks in Minnesota, Nebraska, Montana, and Ohio."

Hospitals that team up with other hospitals can opt to share specialist providers, expensive diagnostic equipment, mobile clinic opportunities, and even "pool staffers for a network-wide employee health insurance plan," Zionts adds.

Rural health care providers are "increasingly interested in forming such networks, said Marnell Bradfield, executive director of the Community Care Alliance, a network of hospitals and independent primary care offices in rural western Colorado," Zionts reports. "About once a month, she said, she gets a call from health care leaders exploring similar networks and asking about her experience."

Banding together to keep small town hospitals open does more than provide nearby medical care for a community. It's also "beneficial for the economy of rural areas, where hospitals are often major employers," Zionts writes. "Some networks also invest in broadband, housing, and other community development projects that can help people stay healthy and access care."

A housing program for working Americans is in 'political limbo'; more than 40% of its builds were in rural places

A new home built in Owsley County, Ky. with HOME
funding. (Partnership Housing, Ky., photo)

Since the 1990s, grants from the HOME Investment Partnership have helped fill financial gaps, so more affordable housing is available for working Americans. But the program's funding isn't included in the new federal budget, and its future remains uncertain.

The loss of HOME's investment in communities would be particularly painful for "Appalachian towns and rural counties where government aid is sparse and investors are few," report Charlotte Kramon, Jesse Bedayn, Michaela Herbst and Aaron Kessler of The Associated Press. Over the past 30 years, the program has "helped build or repair more than 1.3 million affordable homes of which at least 540,000 were in congressional districts that are rural or significantly rural."

Even though the program has spent more than $35 billion helping to address the country's affordable housing crisis, "a spokesperson for HUD, which administers the program, said HOME isn’t as effective as other programs where the money would be better spent," AP reports. Some Senate Republicans are working to save the program by including it in their draft budgets.

Despite the program's effectiveness in some regions, it is often criticized for its cumbersome red tape. Kramon adds, "A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is working to reduce HOME’s notorious red tape that even proponents say slows construction."

Meanwhile, its future remains in political crosshairs, where it is needed by working Americans, but is easier for lawmakers to eliminate without drawing public ire. Kramon explains, "HOME is an easier target than programs such as vouchers because most people would not immediately lose their housing."

If HOME funding is axed or even drastically cut, places like rural Owsley County, Kentucky, will feel it. "Affordable homes are needed there, but tough to build in a region that doesn’t attract larger-scale rental developments that federal dollars typically go toward," AP reports. "Partnership Housing in Owsley has relied on the program to build the majority of its affordable homes for at least a dozen years."

Flora & Fauna: Stealthy Eastern hellbenders; eavesdropping on forests; off-bottom oysters; what do wasps do?

Spotting an Eastern hellbender takes time, luck and 
snorkeling. (Adobe Stock photo) 

Taking a swim in an Appalachian river is the only way to get a glimpse of this stealthy animal that looks like it's part salamander and part alligator: the Eastern hellbender. "These rare salamanders, which can grow to over two feet long, lurk in the wild rivers of Appalachia. To spot one, you’ll need a snorkel, and some luck," reports Mihir Zaveri of The New York Times. "Hellbenders, which can live for 30 years or more, vaguely resemble large underwater lizards. . . . I heard a muffled yell from [my guide] who was floating upstream. I popped out of the water. 'Hellbender!' he shouted. 'Hellbender!'" Zavari's adventure with hellbender-in-action photos is here.

Researchers who want to know more about what's happening in Wisconsin forests have launched an eavesdropping system designed to record the sounds of birds, animals, people, weather and leaves 24/7. "Once a month, researchers hike through the woods in the Baraboo Hills to check on small boxes strapped to tree trunks. The boxes hold microphones that are running 24 hours a day, capturing the soundscape of the forest," reports Bridgit Bowden of Wisconsin Public Radio. "Bioacoustics enable researchers to get a fuller picture of the forest, the species that inhabit it and how they change over time."

Scientists seek ways for bees to spread pesticides that 
are safe for pollinators. (Offrange graphic)

To help crops stay safe from pests and molds, scientists suggest letting pollen-gathering bees do what they do best: The work. "A bumblebee prepares to leave its hive. But first, it passes through a dispenser and picks up a dusting of biofungicide, a pesticide made of mycelium, that it will soon pass on to every strawberry flower it visits," reports Leah Borts-Kuperman for Offrange. "The pest-control formula will then be transmitted from flower to flower by pollinators who will hopefully prevent the farm’s strawberries from developing the gray mold no one wants." Read more about "bee vectoring" here.

An off-bottom oyster harvesters pulls his crop from floating cages. (Photo by E. Plunk, Louisiana Illuminator)

Beset by changes in climate and natural disasters, some of Louisiana's oyster industry is delving into the off-bottom oyster business. "On-bottom culture, where oysters attach to reefs or substrate on the water’s bottom, is and has been the most popular method of oyster harvesting in Louisiana’s waters," reports Elise Plunk for New Orleans Public Radio. "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lists the state’s strong interest in off-bottom oyster cultivation as a way to help build resiliency into an industry under threat from sediment diversions. . . . Whether this technique can beat back worsening hurricanes, climate change and the impact of sediment diversions is still undetermined."

When I grow up, I want to be a garlic nerd. A stinky, vampire-busting garlic nerd who grows garlic from garlic seeds, which isn't common. Most garlic doesn't grow from seeds. "Ever since people began cultivating garlic — six millennia ago by some estimates. . . scarcely a single plant was coaxed to produce one solitary seed. And so it forgot how," writes Katherine Cusumano for Offrange. "About 15 years ago, a Missouri farmer named Mark Brown began trying to coax true seeds from his garlic — an attempt, essentially, to undo thousands of years of domestication." Brown's example has been followed by many garlic-obsessed planters working on their own seeds and ideas for improving the spice plant. 

The common wasp is an insect hunter.
(Adobe Stock photo)

Besides building nearly indestructible mud or paper nests and terrifying adults and children alike with the threat of their searingly painful stings, do wasps have a purpose? Ecology researcher and wasp expert Seirian Sumner wants people to know that in the world of insects, wasps are an apex predator. She told CNN News, "Wasps are nature’s pest controllers. Without wasps. . .we would be inclined to use more chemicals to control the populations of the other insects and creepy crawlies that we don’t like: caterpillars, aphids, spiders, beetles – you name it – there is a wasp that hunts it. So wasps are really important top predators in regulating all of those insect populations within the ecosystem.”