Journalists at rural Alaska newspapers quit over abrupt corporate edits to Kirk story that upset a state politician

Photo by Mark Sabbatini, Juneau Independent

Four journalists resigned from newspapers in rural Alaska after the publications’ corporate owner made "significant edits to an article about Charlie Kirk’s death, appearing to yield to pressure from a Republican state lawmaker who had criticized the coverage," reports Neil Vigdor of The New York Times.

The journalists who worked for The Homer News, The Peninsula Clarion and The Juneau Empire, were all employed by Alabama-based Carpenter Media. The news staff issued a joint resignation letter, noting that they had not been consulted about the edits, and that without editorial independence, the company's integrity as a news source was compromised.

The story at issue "chronicled a Sept. 17 vigil in Homer, Alaska, for Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder and a right-wing ally of President Trump’s who was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University," Vigdor writes. In its second paragraph, the story "described Kirk as a a 'Christian-Nationalist icon' and defender of 'often racist and controversial views.'"

One of the vigil's organizers, Sarah Vance, a Republican state representative, took issue with the description of Kirk and wrote to the paper's corporate owners and "suggested that advertisers were planning to boycott the publications," Vigdor adds. The story then disappeared from online, only to reappear with numerous edits a few hours later.

In a statement, Carpenter Media Group said it altered the story because it did not meet company standards. Gregory Knight, an aide to Vance, "provided a statement from Vance saying that she did not expect her complaint to contribute to the resignations," Vigdor reports.

Flora & Fauna: Chunk, the Fat Bear Week winner; learning bird songs; deterring wolves; nabbing feral pigs

Chunk's broken jaw didn't stop him from feasting on sockeye salmon and gaining hundreds of pounds this summer. 
(Photo by Christine Loberg, NPS)

During this year's Fat Bear Week, many Alaskan brown bears made the salmon run at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park the place where they packed on the pounds eating as much sockeye salmon as possible. But there was one bear that was more dedicated to getting his unfair share of salmon: Chunk. "A bear weighing in at over 1,200 pounds — with a broken (but healing) jaw — is the 2025 Fat Bear Week champion," reports Ava White of NPR. "It’s the first time number 32, or as he’s aptly nicknamed Chunk, has been dubbed the fattest bear in Katmai National Park and Preserve."

An unlikely union between two plants created the potato, affectionately known as the spud. "The origin of the potato has long puzzled scientists. Genetically, it is a close relative of the tomato. But in appearance, it resembles three potato-like species found in South America known as Etuberosum," reports Aylin Woodward of The Wall Street Journal. "The problem is, Etuberosum don’t have tubers — the parts of the potato plant that grow underground, and that we eat baked, mashed or fried. . . . An examination of these DNA sequences revealed that between eight million and nine million years ago, Etuberosum and an ancient tomato exchanged genes." And today's spud was born.

Watching and listening to birds is a delightful hobby that can be enhanced by learning to identify birds by their songs. "Learning bird songs is the difference between 'hearing' and 'listening,'" writes ornithologist Chris Lituma for The Conversation. "Listening requires full attention and limiting distractions. It means using your ears to pick up different patterns in the sounds that birds make. Every person has the capacity to listen and learn patterns in sound." Read all of Lituma's tips for learning bird songs and sounds here.

In this remote arctic town, it's too cold for trees, but strawberries grow by the dozens. "A high-tech greenhouse brings fresh produce to Gjoa Haven, an Inuit hamlet in Canada’s Arctic whose residents have little experience growing plants," reports Norimitsu Onishi of The New York Times. "The greenhouse, researchers hope, will eventually provide an alternative to perishable goods flown in at great cost from southern Canadian cities — and a healthier diet for the Inuit, the only people who have lived in Canada’s Arctic for centuries."

The wolves have learned to associate the drones
with people. (Illustration by A. Dixon, Offrange)

In most states, gray wolves are protected, which means livestock owners have had to find creative ways to keep wolves from preying on their cattle. While human presence and voices remain the most effective wolf deterrent, it's often not feasible, so some ranchers are experimenting with drones combined with human voices from speakers to deter wolves from grazing cattle, reports Rose Garrett for Offrange. Dustin Ranglack, predator project leader for the National Wildlife Research Center, told Garrett, "The wolves in this area have had exposure to the drone, and they will often already be moving away when we approach them. They’ve already come to associate the drone with people, and we’re not necessarily having to use the human voice."

When feral pigs invade the countryside, they go hog wild, eating farm crops, tearing up the ground, prolifically reproducing and spreading diseases. States have been under pressure to find ways to oust unwanted swine, but few have been as successful as Missouri. "Alan Leary, the feral hog coordinator with the Missouri Department of Conservation, says since 2016 the state’s population of feral hogs has dropped 80%," reports Chris Six of Farm Progress. The state formed a multi-agency partnership that "uses traps, drones, helicopters and more to find and eliminate the feral hogs."

Fat Bear Week has arrived: Fans can vote daily, and the website provides materials for classrooms

What's big, brown, hungry and loves salmon? Alaskan brown bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska. The bears and their voting minions are gearing up for Fat Bear Week, beginning Tuesday, Sept. 23 and chowing down through Sept. 30.

Wait, what? "With the help of this playful competition, Fat Bear Week aims to bring Katmai National Park and Alaska’s brown bears closer to the people who may not be able to visit the park in person," reports Emese Maczko for Forbes. "Anyone can vote daily for which bear advances in the bracket to determine the eventual champion, Katmai's bulkiest brown bear."

Bulk is the aim, and salmon is their game. "To make it into the bracket, bears must first be visibly fat and appear at Brooks River in both early summer and fall, criteria that not all of the park’s bears meet," Maczko explains. "Bears in the brackets often have a compelling storyline that showcases the challenges of survival in Katmai."

No need to vote to join the fat bear fandom. "Voters can follow eight bear cams that provide live video feeds from different locations around the Brooks Camp area of Katmai National Park, Maczko adds. "Anyone can join the live chat, where Mike Fitz, resident naturalist at Explore.org, Christine Kliesrath, ranger at Katmai National Park and Naomi Boak from Katmai Conservancy will answer all questions."

The bears are here to eat and teach. "Classrooms can bring Katmai directly to their students. Teachers may request a virtual program with a park ranger to discuss the bears, the park and Fat Bear Week," Maczko writes. "The park also offers numerous free printable materials for classroom use, available online."

Without federal funding, humanities programs have an uncertain future. Rural places will feel the loss first.

A revitalized high school library funded by Humanities
Montana. (Humanities Montana photo via the Yonder)

Many rural states that depend on money from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund humanities programs have had those dollars cut by the Department of Government Efficiency, reports Nhatt Nichols for The Daily Yonder. The immediate loss of federal money has left communities in some of the most sparely populated parts of the country seeking private donor support, which adds another layer to their challenges.

Humanities Montana is one example of a statewide arts initiative facing the complete loss of NEH support. The program "is one of 56 regional humanities organizations that bring humanities programs to underresourced communities including in rural areas," Nichols writes. "In 2024, over 17,000 people attended a Humanities Montana program, with more than half residing in a rural county."

Montana isn't the only one. "In Alaska, a note on their program’s website states, 'Late on the night of April 2, the Alaska Humanities Forum received a letter from DOGE officials informing them that their NEH operating grant approved by Congress had been illegally terminated effective immediately,'" Nichols reports. "Wisconsin Humanities also has an announcement on its website, noting that 'the loss of NEH funding will likely result in Wisconsin Humanities closing its doors soon.'"

Finding donors within smaller communities will be an ongoing challenge for Humanities Montana. Nichols adds, "The NEH funding provided most of their operating budget; in 2023, the NEH made up 80.9% of their $1,011,229 budget."

Money isn't the only concern. The director of Humanities Montana, Jill Baker, told Nichols, "Our mission is to bring untold stories that can help bring people together and find the humanity in one another. At this moment, that’s a real challenge in and of itself. My worry is that without the public humanities, our divides will grow, we’ll have less opportunities to gather together and have simple civic conversations, to learn from one another.”

Alaska's rural schools funding requests are often ignored, leaving children in crumbling schools

Some Alaskan schools are only accessible by air, boat
or dog sled. (Photo by Drew Dempsey, Unsplash)

Alaska is the largest state in America, more than twice the size of Texas. Most of Alaska’s school districts are located in hard-to-access places. 

Getting to these schools means travel by air, boat, dog sled or all-terrain vehicles, according to the University of Alaska. Some of these schools have fewer than 25 students.

“Just under half of Alaska’s rural schools are owned by the state, which is required by law to pay for construction and maintenance projects,” wrote Emily Schwing from Alaska’s KYUK in partnership with NPR and ProPublica. She said that every year Alaska’s rural schools put in more than 100 maintenance requests which are largely ignored.

Most of the students in the rural school districts are Alaska Native children. Schwing wrote that these Indigenous children suffer the greatest and are a population that has been “long forced to attend separate and unequal schools.”

Schwing reported that some Alaska Native parents sued the state in 1997. They argued that “the funding system violated Alaska’s constitution and the federal Civil Rights Act. State Superior Court Judge John Reese agreed.”

The judge wrote an order in 1999 saying, “Because of the funding system, rural schools are not getting the money they need to maintain their schools.

“Deficiencies include roofs falling in, no drinkable water, sewage backing up, and enrollment up to 187% of capacity. Some rural schools have been at the top of the priority list for a number of years, yet have received no funding.”

Even though it seemed like changes might be made in 1999, the article's investigation found, “Alaska’s education department has received 1,789 funding proposals from rural school districts since 1998. But only 14% of them have received funding. This year, requests from rural school districts to the state’s construction and maintenance program stand at $478 million.”

A historic first in Alaska may mean drilling in an untouched national refuge; Native Alaskans want a 'seat at the table.'

Map by Sarah Melotte, The Daily Yonder, from Bureau of Land
Management data. Click on map to enlarge.

Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is big, beautiful, and rich in natural resources and biodiversity. It has also been the "focal point of more than six decades of drilling controversy," which will come to a tentative resolution when tracts within the region's 19-million-acre expanse open for oil and gas leases this month, reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. Native Alaskan communities want to be among the decision-makers for the coastal land that "is estimated to contain 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil."

Drilling in ANWR has never been done before. The region is home to "charismatic species like polar bears, wolves, and the caribou that are sacred to the Gwich’in, a Northwestern Alaska tribe," Melotte writes. "Oil and gas operations elicit mixed responses from Alaskan Natives. . . Some worry that drilling activity will hurt vulnerable wildlife and subsistence living, others say the oil and gas industry funds important infrastructure for their communities."

The coastal region, also known as the North Slope Borough, receives 95% of its total budget from oil and gas development taxation. Reservation members also depend on shareholder income regional corporations generate and pay out to Alaskan Natives. The Artic Slope Regional Corporation serves as an example. The company "has over 13,000 shareholders who receive dividends," Melotte notes. "Since its establishment in 1972, the ASRC has distributed more than $1 billion in dividends."

"Many leaders of the Iñupiat, an indigenous people native to Alaska’s North Slope Borough, say that oil and gas operations can be good for native communities if conducted responsibly," Melotte reports. Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a nonprofit organization that advocates for Alaska’s Iñupiat people, told Melotte, "Before oil and gas, you couldn't graduate high school and stay in the North Slope. Now there are K-12 schools in every North Slope village."

Harcharek used a past North Slope drilling project to help explain how Native Alaskans want to be included in drilling activity and practices. Melotte writes, "He said they were consulted 'early and often' in the decision-making process. . . . He said they want to be included before decisions are announced publicly."

Despite Alaska's rich natural resources, many Alaskan Natives live in poverty and still hunt for food, and drilling activities could interfere with their reliance on wild game. "Hunting is more than just a hobby in many native villages with high poverty rates," Melotte writes. "Hunting is a method of survival, said Dr. A.L. Lovecraft, professor of Political Science and director of the Center for Arctic Policy Studies at the University of Alaska. '[Drilling] also comes with all of this other baggage... Problems related to health, indoor health, indoor air quality, outdoor air quality.'"

Cherokee Indians get local support for giving Tennessee's highest peak, Clingmans Dome, its original name: Kuwohi

Map from ResearchGate by Thomas Lavery, adapted by The Rural Blog

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians wants the federal government to give Tennessee's highest mountain the name their ancestors gave it thousands of years ago: Kuwohi, or “the mulberry place.” And they're getting local support.

The government named the peak Clingmans Dome in 1859 for U.S. Sen. Thomas Lanier Clingman of North Carolina, who helped explore and survey the Great Smoky Mountains. (The peak, on the state line, is near the center of the national park named for the mountains.) In 1861, the Senate expelled Clingman, who later served as a Confederate general, for absence, reports Ben Benton of the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Tribal employee Lavita Hill told Benton that the mountain is spiritually important to the Cherokee, but its most important role may have been as a hideout for tribal members during the Trail of Tears in 1837-38. The Eastern Band “would not even be here today if not for Kuwohi,” Hill said. The Great Indian Removal does not define the Eastern Band, Benjamin Hedin writes for The Oxford American.

Principal Chief Richard Sneed told Benton, “For our tribe and tribes in general, having the recognition that this was ancestors’ land, our land, this is our home, is what this is about. It’s about restoring the dignity for tribal nations. . . . We’re not trying to make this an attack on Clingman, but rather an acknowledgment that there were names for this place already when these places were surveyed.”

Benton reports, "Hill said Clingman family members have reached out to the Cherokee to show their support for restoring the mountain’s original name." Commissioners of Swain County, which has 42 percent of the park, unanimously supported the idea Sept. 8, the Smoky Mountain Times reports.

"Other neighboring North Carolina governments have also joined in support," Benton reports, "and so far there has been no political-party divide" as there has been in some similar cases.

The decision is up to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, or to the secretary of the Interior Department if the board doesn't act in a reasonable time. In 2015, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell restored the historic name of Denali to North America's highest peak, which had been named Mount McKinley for the Republican president who died in 1923. Congress had renamed the surrounding national park in Alaska for Denali in 1980 but Republicans fought renaming the mountain.

Pandemic roundup: It's deadlier in red states; does their growing health gap with blue states stem from state policy?

Here's a roundup of recent news stories about the pandemic and vaccination efforts:

A new coronavirus variant called XE has been identified and is spreading in the United Kingdom. Early estimates suggest it's the most easily transmissible variant yet. Read more here.

As the United States nears 1 million Covid deaths, Kaiser Health News takes a deep dive into a rural Pennsylvania county that has suffered staggering losses. Read more here.

The pandemic has been deadlier in red states, according to a recently published analysis. That tracks with growing overall health disparities between red and blue states over the past 50 years. Though the divergence might reflect changing demographics and socioeconomic characteristics, public policy of state governments is more likely to blame, writes Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University. Read more here.

The White House has launched a new website, Covid.gov, that's meant to be a one-stop shop for everything from high-quality masks, vaccines, and testing to antiviral medication. Read more here.

The costs of going unvaccinated in the U.S. are mounting for workers and companies. Read more here.

"The world's first 'human challenge' trial in which volunteers were deliberately exposed to the coronavirus has found that symptoms had no effect on how likely an infected person is to pass the disease on to others," Reuters reports. Read more here.

Native Americans and Alaska Natives admitted to the hospital with Covid-19 have had higher death rates than Black and white patients, according to a newly published analysis. Read more here.

Dr. Robert Malone, a coronavirus vaccine critic often cited by others, says he helped invent mRNA vaccines and hasn't been given proper credit for it. He's spreading unfounded claims about the vaccines and the virus. Read more here.

Rural America can learn something from Puerto Rico about boosting vaccination rates. Read more here.

The pandemic is exacerbating the "paramedic paradox" in rural America. Read more here.

Skagway News is thriving online after being sold at start of pandemic; mayor says 'the professionalism is back'

Skagway, Alaska (Wikipedia map)

A year ago, Columbia Journalism Review recounted how the new owners of the Skagway News were struggling to keep the rural Alaskan news outlet afloat during the pandemic. According to a new update? They're doing great.

The odds were stacked against former teachers Melinda Munson and Gretchen Wehmhoff when they took over the twice-monthly publication. They were new in town and didn't know the community, and the pandemic shutdowns were about to begin (killing advertising revenue from local businesses that relied on cruise ship tourists). But the newspaper is thriving these days, Fiona Skaggs reports for Northwestern University's Medill Local News Initiative.

"Since taking over in March 2020, the pair have fully digitized the paper, introduced subscription renewals by email instead of postcard and provided PDFs for readers online. Plans to install a paywall are on hold during the pandemic, but still on the agenda," Skaggs reports. "Other changes include live-streaming Assembly meetings for those uncomfortable attending in person, increasing coverage of the Skagway Traditional Council and other native Alaskans in the community and adding an alternating editors’ column. In a town where internet access is not a given, the pair decided to display a home-printed copy of the paper in the windows of a bookstore on the first floor of the newspaper office for passersby. Munson personally delivered printed copies to seniors who had no other way to obtain it."

Community support for the paper and its owners is high. "The professionalism of the paper is back," Mayor Andrew Cremata said. "It’s focused locally, which is what it should be. If there’s a basketball game that’s important, that’s covered. If there’s an Assembly item that’s important, that gets covered."

The paper's transformation fascinated filmmaker and former Skagway resident Stan Bush, who was a reporter for the paper while in high school. "His documentary, 'The Last Front Page,' aims to show Skagway as it navigates the depths of the pandemic through to recovery. Filming began in September 2020, and production is set to wrap in July 2022."

New owners of newspaper in tourist town on Alaska's Inside Passage struggle to survive and thrive during pandemic

Melinda Munson and Gretchen Wehmhoff
(Photo provided to Columbia Journalism Review)

Columbia Journalism Review recounts a rural Alaska newspaper owner's quest to find the right kind of successor for his paper, and how the new owners dealt with not only learning the newspaper business, but doing so just as the pandemic began.

Larry Persily, owner of the twice-monthly Skagway News, announced in 2019 that he wanted to give the paper away to one or two people with the gumption and grit to handle reporting in an Alaskan port town of nearly 1,200, Lauren Harris reports. He had taken over the paper in 2019, working from Anchorage nearly 800 miles away, but quickly realized the town needed someone local to properly cover the town. He only considered applicants willing to move to Skagway long-term.

"You gotta be part of the town," Persily told Harris. "You gotta go to the basketball games. You gotta be a trusted part of the community. . . . Small-town papers need small-town editors. I wanted an owner who was going to live there happily ever after." After months of intense phone interviews and an in-person visit, in January 2020 the paper went to Melinda Munson and Gretchen Wehmhoff, teachers in Anchorage who co-wrote a blog for Alaskan families.

Munson, Wehmhoff and their families were able to move to Skagway just before pandemic shutdowns would have made that all but impossible, Harris reports. With the local economy largely dependent on tourism—ships cruising the Inside Passage bring more than a million visitors each year—times quickly became tough during the pandemic, and local businesses didn't have much money for advertising in the Skagway News or its summer-only tourist publication, The Alaskan.

Skagway, Alaska (Wikipedia map)

The new owners worked hard to adapt to the new reality. "When the pandemic began, Munson and Wehmhoff had quickly suspended subscription fees so struggling local residents could still get news. They also stopped paying themselves," Harris reports. "Revenue from The Alaskan vanished completely, and the paper had to return some funds to advertisers. The paper’s printing press, located in Canada, was cut off from Skagway when the border closed, so the women had to rapidly transform a print publication into a digital product. They revived a website redesign that Persily had begun. Because the paper had always been delivered in print copy, Munson and Wehmhoff didn’t have a list of subscriber email addresses. Using mailing addresses, Facebook messages, and a local phone book in its final year of publication, they began building electronic contact information for their subscriber base."

Some older residents said they wished the paper still had a print edition. "Late last year, the Skagway Assembly awarded the paper $10,000 in small-business grants from the municipality. Munson and Wehmhoff are using it to reestablish a print edition of the paper," Harris reports.

Harrris notes that, though Munson and Wehmhoff should be celebrated for their resilience and optimism, it's important to acknowledge the size of their task. "Their response to the curveball of the pandemic is at once inspiring and harrowing. They’ve worked overtime monitoring social media platforms popular among Skagway residents, countering rumors by corroborating information and steering readers back to their coverage. Both continue to teach remotely to supplement the modest income they’ve taken for their journalism work. They spend significant amounts of time crafting the paper; Munson’s children often accompany her to the newsroom," Harris reports. "Nearly a year into their time at the paper, Munson and Wehmhoff are still learning how they can best serve Skagway, even as they wonder whether they can survive long enough to figure that out."

"Quitting isn’t something that just happens easily for either of us," Wehmhoff told Harris. "I think that has been good for the community."

Racial, ethnic disparities persist in rural education levels

Educational attainment rates for racial and ethnic minorities have improved over the past two decades, but large gaps persist for rural nonwhites. Rural Hispanics, Blacks, Native Americans and Alaska Natives were only half as likely as their white counterparts to have a bachelor's degree or higher in 2018, the most recent year of data available. That's according to a newly published study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.

Among all rural residents 25 and older, "the percentage who had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher rose from 15% in 2000 to 20% in 2018. Conversely, the share of that population without a high school degree or equivalent dropped from 24% in 2000 to 13% in 2018," Tracey Farrigan reports. "Among racial and ethnic groups in rural America, Hispanics continued to have the highest percentage (35 percent) without a high school degree, despite significant gains in high school and higher educational attainment rates between 2000 and 2018.

Meanwhile, African Americans "had the largest decrease (20 percentage points) of rural individuals without a high school degree," Farrigan writes. "This change eliminated the gap between the shares of Blacks/African Americans and Whites who had graduated from high school but had not completed a bachelor’s degree. Nevertheless, the share of Blacks without a high school degree remained nearly double that of whites in 2018."

Aug. 26 webinar to discuss rural maternal and childbirth care disparities, policy recommendations for improving it

A free Aug. 26 webinar will discuss the challenges women face in obtaining maternal and obstetric care in rural America and discuss policy recommendations for improving it. The webinar will begin at 3 p.m. ET and will go for about an hour.

The National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services will present the webinar through the Rural Health Information Hub.

From the webinar website: "More than 700 women a year die of complications related to pregnancy in the U.S., and two-thirds of these deaths are preventable. Maternal mortality is disproportionally affecting black and American Indian/Alaska Native women in the U.S. Additionally, there are disparities between rural and urban populations. According to publicly available data from the U.S Center for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by Scientific American, rural areas had a pregnancy-related mortality ratio of 29.4 per 100,000 live births versus 18.2 in urban areas in 2015."

Click here for more information on the webinar, including speakers, or to register.

Rural residents have harder time acquiring 'Real IDs'

American residents must have an enhanced form of identification called a Real ID by Oct. 1, or they will need a passport to board domestic flights or enter military bases or federal buildings. But some rural residents are having a hard time getting access to the motor-vehicle agencies that issue such IDs.

That's because not every office issues Real IDs, obliging many rural and suburban residents to make long treks to the nearest one that does. And compounding the transportation and time issue, Real IDs require more documents to verify one's identity, and many say they've had to make several trips to get it right, Chris Davis reports for News Channel 5 in Nashville.

In addition, some states have been dealing with glitch-ridden delays in implementing the new system, Elaine Povich reports for Stateline. A late start means a smaller window for rural residents to get a Real ID.

The problem is especially acute in Alaska, where many rural residents must rely on small planes to get to the nearest motor-vehicle agency. One resident said it cost her about $200 one way, Becky Bohrer reports for The Associated Press.

Quick hits: Lyme disease vaccine could be near; owner of small Alaskan newspaper offers to sell it for nothing

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 us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Take over the Skagway News in Alaska for free. Read more here.

It's called a "coyote vest."

Want to protect your dog from coyotes or feral hogs? This hilarious-looking body armor claims to do the job. Read more here.

Brain gain: returning to rural roots with education and experience. Read more here.

Economist says today's agricultural economy is more like the 1990s than the 1980s. Read more here.

Report says some rural Missourians are hesitant to participate in the 2020 Census. Could rural residents from other states feel likewise? Read more here.

Researchers say they're close to human testing of a Lyme diseases vaccine. Read more here.

A wealthy donor has promised to pay for college tuition for every kid in his home town in rural Kansas to spur economic development. Read more here.

Three 'Culture of Health' prize winners are rural; in at least one, the local newspaper did its job and helped out

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently awarded five U.S. communities the Culture of Health Prize for making big strides in improving local health; three of them are rural: Gonzales, California; Sitka, Alaska; and Lake County, Colorado. Winning communities get a $25,000 prize.

About 94 percent of Gonzales, a Salinas Valley town of about 8,400, is Latinx (most of them farm workers), and over a third of the residents are under 18. "Young residents are seen as an asset and empowered to act on their ideas. Voters supported this focus on youth when they approved a half-cent sales tax in 2014 to pay for activities like after-school programs and summer camp; improvements in parks and recreational places; and summertime career training," the RWJF website says. "The money also funds mini-grants of up to $5,000 that allow residents to suggest ideas and lead projects that will improve the town’s quality of life—small but important steps, such as upgrading a food pantry or adding new hydration stations for filling water bottles at schools."

Google map, labeled

Sitka, a town of 8,647, is spread among 4,811 square miles on a chain of islands in Alaska's Panhandle. "Isolated and bound together by geography, the community has recognized that the only way to ensure better health for all is to move forward collectively, across cultures and sectors," RWJF says. "To that end, a dozen years ago, partners formed the Sitka Health Summit. They came from local nonprofits and the community’s two health care providers—Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, the region’s tribal health organization, and city-owned Sitka Community Hospital—which merged this year." The Sitka Health Summit has proved effective in addressing the community's health needs and empowering local citizens to be part of the process, RWJF reports.

Lake County, Colorado (Wikipedia map)

Lake County and Leadville, its only incorporated town, make up a former mining community where residents have been working hard to turn the economy around over the past decade. In 2010, the county got a wake-up call when an annual statewide survey noted that children and teens in the county were likely to have poor health outcomes. "For two years, county government, local nonprofits, and youth worked to create a plan of action for improving young people’s well-being and futures," RWJF reports. "Released in 2013, it set goals for boosting academic achievement and post-secondary training, reducing substance abuse and teen pregnancy, improving access to parks and volunteer opportunities, and strengthening economic opportunity. Today, the efforts set in motion by that plan are paying off. Teen birth rates have dropped. The percentage of teens who report being physically active and eating breakfast every day have increased. More high schoolers are taking classes for college credit."

In 2016, the city and county won a grant from Great Outdoors Colorado, a state agency. "We received $3 million, the most awarded to one community," Marcia Martinek, editor of the weekly Leadville Herald Democrat, told The Rural Blog in an email. "Agencies in the community, with the help of kids and parents, started Get Outdoors Leadville!, which focused on getting youngsters out to recreate in Lake County. This was the start of many initiatives focused on health. As a newspaper we cover all the GOL activities to the utmost. Nothing cuter than a three-year-old in itty bitty skis on the ski slope. We aren't the richest community, but people are hard at work breaking down barriers to outdoor recreation. For example, I was just reading about the gear library which started last year and provides items such as skis, ski boots, snowboards, mountain bikes and fat-tire bikes for the use of kids who can't afford this kind of equipment. In the summer, older kids act as counselors for a GOL day camp for younger kids where they climb 14ers [peaks of 14,000 feet or more], fish, build trails -- all the outdoor stuff. And, no cell phones allowed. We will soon be doing a three-year update on Get Outdoors Leadville! So we've really supported these initiatives, but basically that's just doing our job."

Farming booms in Alaska, Census of Agriculture shows

The Matanuska Valley, where most Alaska
farms are found, is known for big cabbages.

The number of American farms is declining, largely from consolidation, but a state not known for farming saw a 30 percent increase between 2012-17, Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's "Morning Agriculture" newsletter, citing a story by Liz Crampton on subscriber-only ProAg , based on the latest Census of Agriculture.

"The growth can partly be attributed to the relative youth of the state's agriculture industry. It's experiencing the same trajectory that regions like the Midwest and the South did decades ago," McCrimmon writes. Amy Pettit, executive director of the Alaska Farmland Trust, told Crampton: "It's the wild, wild West up here, and if you have access to land, you can grow whatever you want."

"Alaska has the nation's highest percentage of beginning farmers, with 46 percent of its producers having fewer than 10 years experience," McCrimmon writes. "Many are selling at farmers' markets, which have surged since 2006. At that time, there were 13 in the state, while today there are more than 50."

While Alaska has a shorter growing season, it's enough for many fruits and vegetables, and they have a higher sugar content because of the longer daylight at high latitudes in spring and summer. "This makes the produce sweeter when harvested," McCrimmon notes.

Supreme Court says moose hunter can use hovercraft on rivers flowing through federal preserves, but only in Alaska

Map by University of Alaska-Fairbanks

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the National Park Service can't prevent someone from using a hovercraft on a river that flows through federal land in Alaska.

The ruling stemmed from a 2007 incident in which Park Service rangers told moose hunter John Sturgeon that he could not operate his hovercraft on the Nation River, which flows through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Laura Maggi reports for Route Fifty. The Park Service bans hovercraft, saying they can make it easier for people to access remote locations that could be spoiled by motorized equipment. However, the state of Alaska does not ban hovercraft.

Sturgeon sued the Park Service in 2011, arguing that Alaskans get special access to federal lands as part of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980.  "The state of Alaska supported the lawsuit, saying in a brief this summer that it doesn’t make sense to ban hovercraft in a place where people need access to wilderness areas, often using rivers to get to distant communities," Maggi reports. For its part, the Park Service said it had the power to regulate what happens on navigable waters in national parks, even if the land is owned by the state.

The Supreme Court unanimously sided with Sturgeon. "Justice Elena Kagan agreed with Sturgeon that the federal law that set aside 104 million acres of land in Alaska for preservation constrained the authority of the Park Service on land or waters not owned by the federal government," Maggi reports. "In part, that's because when national preserves were set up, they included millions of acres of state, native and private land that aren't completely regulated by the federal agency. The Nation River is included in that exemption."

Kagan noted that the case was Alaska-specific, and Sturgeon could not have won in any other state. The narrow scope of the case could raise questions about the Park Service's authority to protect federal park lands and rivers in Alaska, but in a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor recommended that Congress amend ANILCA to clarify it if there were any concerns, Maggi reports.

Escaped rodeo cow evades capture in and around Anchorage

A jogger spotted Betsy on the Tour of Anchorage Trail on Dec. 26. (Photo by Meg Kurtagh)

Anchorage, Alaska, is no stranger to wandering ruminants; after all, moose wander throughout town frequently. But an escaped rodeo cow is another matter altogether.

A wily 3-year-old cow has been roaming free in Anchorage and in the wilderness beyond for more than six months, and nobody has been able to catch her since, despite concerted efforts, Madeline McGee reports for the Anchorage Daily News.

Anchorage police have been searching for the elusive cow using drones with infrared cameras; Sgt. Mark Huelskoetter, who leads the Technical Support Unit for the department's SWAT team, figured it was good practice.

"It’s a good training opportunity for our guys, since we’re going to be training anyway, to maybe get something good out of this — find this dude’s cow," Huelskoetter told McGee.

Interior Dept. official who spoke out on Alaskan climate change, and was reassigned, quits

"An Interior Department executive turned whistleblower who claimed the Trump administration retaliated against him for publicly disclosing how climate change affects Alaska Native communities resigned Wednesday," reports Darryl Fears of The Washington Post.

Scientist and policy expert Joel Clement had been removed from his job by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke shortly after the Alaska climate disclosure "and reassigned to an accounting position for which he has no experience," Fears reports. "Clement was among dozens of senior executive service personnel who were quickly, and perhaps unlawfully, reassigned in June, but he was the only person who spoke out."

The department's inspector general is investigating to determine whether the transfer process was legal. "By law, executives are to be given ample notice of a job switch," Fears notes. "Many of those reassigned say they were given no notice, according to attorneys who are representing some of the employees."

Clement told Fears that Interior employees are outraged by Zinke’s comment in a recent speech that they are disloyal: “I got 30 percent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag.” Meanwhile, Fears reports, "Former top Interior executives under Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama ripped Zinke for his comments about loyalty at Interior."

Living in a remote, rural, politically divided town

NPR photo

Haines, Alaska, is a small town with a big political divide. And we have to wonder if there aren't a lot more like it.

Just 2,500 people live in the town that's surrounded by water and snowy, forested mountains, Melissa Block reports for National Public Radio: "The city center is just a few blocks, with several bars, a few restaurants and a beautiful, award-winning library. But lately, this idyllic place has been roiled by a bitter political battle. A group of residents wants to recall more than half the members of the local government, the borough assembly. . . . Some people are upset over local issues, like a harbor expansion or who should be the new borough manager. But it's about more than that. It breaks down as old-timers versus newcomers, to some extent. But also, people who want resource development, like mining or logging, against 'greenies' — environmentalists who stand in the way."

Block suggests that the divide was reflected in the presidential election, which split Haines down the middle, with Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump 374-370.

Motel owner Shane Horton is circulating the recall petition. "I came here and was doing construction and dirty work involved with the timber industry," he told Block. "And that went away. So I went into doing something else, and then that gets blown out of the water. How many times can I get told to completely start over because what I am doing is now not acceptable?"

Heather Lende, a writer elected to the assembly last fall, is one of the recall targets. "When Lende heard that some in her community were trying to oust her, she said, 'It was heartbreaking.' And social media only makes it worse, Lende says. Like just about anywhere, people in Haines say things online they wouldn't dare say in public in such a small place."

Lende's a liberal, but has close friends who are Trump supporters. "I'm not gonna lose a friend over whoever votes for someone in the national election, and maybe that's the lesson that can come from Haines for the rest of the world," she told Block. "We've lived with divisiveness for a long time, but is it worth losing a friend over? I don't think so."

Dave McCandless, another Haines resident, is confident that this, too, shall pass. "What you're seeing, this tension and this turmoil and all that, it's all happened before," he says. "This country has been full of that, just like the town is full of it. Three years from now we'll be arguing about something else just as feverishly. And we won't be able to remember what this was."