Rye is the little grain that could, and it's helping to protect land and increase cash for farmers

While San Luis Valley makes up only a tiny percentage of Colorado's population, the region
contributes roughly 39% of the state's total agricultural economy. (Rye Resurgence Project image)

For farmers grappling with water scarcity in southwestern Colorado, growing rye offers multiple benefits, reports Ilana Newman of The Daily Yonder. "Rye is having something of a renaissance in the San Luis Valley, thanks to its remarkable drought-tolerance, and two women behind the Rye Resurgence Project."

Growing and promoting rye as an aquifer-saving initiative for the San Luis Valley began with Sarah Jones, Heather Dutton and a major dust storm that hit the Valley in 2023, Newman explains. Both women had already started using rye as a cover crop to protect the soil over the winter months, but traditionally, many farms left their soil bare.

After the 2023 duststorm ripped precious topsoil from farmland across the Valley, farmers began looking for ways to save their topsoil. Jones and Dutton offered growing rye as a viable solution, and the Rye Resurgence Project began to take shape.

While rye is a hearty cereal grain similar to wheat and barley, it requires "significantly less water than other common rotational winter crops," Newman explains. For instance, barley requires 18-20 inches of water per acre, while rye requires a mere 10-12 inches. "That’s a huge water savings when multiplied across a standard 120-acre field."

But to get more farmers to plant rye as a cash and cover crop, Dutton and Jones needed businesses to purchase it, which meant overcoming rye's reputation as a strong-flavored grain. "To that end, Jones said they had to do some 'rye reputation rehabilitation,'" Newman reports. 

In fact, rye's flavor is fairly mild, and it "works well in most baked goods, from brownies to pizza to bread," Newman reports. "It also has lower gluten and higher fiber content than wheat."

To date, the project has realized tangible successes. "Heather Dutton said that farmers are now growing 3,000-5,000 acres of rye a year," Newman writes. "And the project has helped them sell 771,409 pounds of rye at an average rate of $0.62 per pound, more than they were aiming for initially." 

Dutton and Jones are working to develop partnerships with bakeries, distilleries, and millers who will purchase rye or use rye flour, Newman reports. They are also sharing the story of how planting or purchasing rye can help the entire state support water conservation and its farming communities. To see a snip of their in-production documentary, click here. 

Snow drought in Western states adds to regional water supply worries and takes a toll on winter tourism

Western states rely on winter snowpack for community
and farming water supplies. (Photo by Lamar, Unsplash)

Unlike most of the country, Western states are experiencing warmer-than-normal winter temperatures and haven't had enough snow to replenish water needed for drier months or sustain winter tourism, which helps to fuel their economy.

"An extreme snow drought and unusually warm weather are keeping skiers off the mountains, snowmobilers off the trails and water out of the rivers across much of the West," reports Jim Robbins for The New York Times.

Much of the West relies on thawing winter snowpack to provide water for residents, irrigation, trout streams and reservoirs throughout the year.

The lack of snowpack in the Colorado Rockies and the Colorado River Basin "adds to the 26-year-long megadrought in the region, which has led to extremely low levels in the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado River," Robbins explains. "Colorado is having its warmest winter since 1895."

The reason for the drastic change in snowfall and temperature between the last few years and this year "isn’t easily explained," Robbins adds. "Scientists have found that it is difficult to attribute the snow drought entirely to climate change."

Skiing tourism in Oregon has been particularly hard hit because there's been so little snow. Presley Quon, a spokesperson for Mt. Bachelor, a ski resort near Bend, Ore., told the Times, "It’s been a really rough season for ski resorts." Robbins adds, "Last year at this time, Mt. Bachelor had 109 inches of snow at its base; this year it has 27 inches."

At higher elevations, snowpack inches are at a more normal level; however, the runoff most communities rely on for water "comes from the middle and lower elevations, which cover a far greater area than the land at higher altitudes," Robbins explains. 

Despite the abysmal snowfall thus far, there's still time for snowpack levels to rebound. Robbins adds, "February, March and often April are the months when most of the snow usually falls in the mountains."

Bound by a passion to protect a 'pristine corner of Colorado,' this 'ragtag organization' helped change government policy

A hiker enjoys the White River National Forest, which overlaps
with the Thompson Divide. (Adobe Stock photo)

A shared passion for protecting Colorado's Thompson Divide brought together a group of people with few other interests in common. "The drilling leases in a pristine corner of Colorado seemed like a done deal. But then an unlikely alliance of cowboys and environmentalists emerged. And things changed," reports Zoë Rom for The New York Times. "Their campaign could serve as a model for future environmental efforts."

Located in west-central Colorado, the Thompson Divide "overlaps with part of the White River National Forest, one of the most visited national forests in the U.S.," Rom explains. The area is also "home to endangered lynxes and one of the expansive organisms in the world: the state’s largest Aspen stand, a colony of trees connected by a lateral root system."

The region is beloved by hikers, conservationists, ranchers, cyclists and snowmobilers, some of whom formed "the self-described ragtag organization" now known as the Thompson Divide Coalition, Rom writes. The coalition added legal assistance from Peter Hart, legal director for Wilderness Workshop, a nonprofit environmental group in Carbondale, Colorado. Together the movement developed "a novel legal strategy that helped win a 20-year pause on new oil and gas development across the area."

Originally, the group tried and failed to buy back the 80-some oil and gas leases the Bush Administration had issued on the Thompson Divide. When leaseholders turned down the the coalition's offers, Hart's legal team scrutinized the sales. There they found "that the federal government’s haste to issue leases had left them with vulnerabilities," Rom reports. "For one thing, opportunities for public comment during the leasing process appeared to be inadequate, an apparent violation of the National Environmental Policy Act."

More legal digging led to "administrative challenges, which eventually sent one leaseholder to federal court against the Bureau of Land Management," Rom explains. With the lease's legal and administrative problems exposed, "leaseholders who had declined to sell were now eyeing the exits in light of potential legal complications and public discontent around drilling."

The rural journalism business model hasn’t failed, but it needs updating; a nonprofit cooperative option beckons

By Al Cross
Director Emeritus, Institute for Rural Journalism

It’s become conventional wisdom that the advertising-based business model of newspapers has failed. But that is not true in many small communities, which could become the nuclei of a national enterprise of nonprofit newsrooms that will provide better journalism with sound business practices, including economies of scale.

So says Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of the National Trust For Local News, who recently announced the creation of a third state-based nonprofit journalism company, in Georgia, adding to those it has in Colorado (24 newspapers) and Maine (22), and says “wild success” would be a total of 15 such companies in the next five years.

Shapiro was interviewed on the Nov. 1 edition of the “Local News Matters” podcast of Tim Regan-Porter, executive director of the Colorado Press Association. When he asked her a question that many journalism funders and advocates ask, “Why save a failing business model?” she said the question is based on “high-profile failings of metro newspapers,” which aren’t reflected in the smaller papers the Trust owns or is considering buying.

Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro

“We have profitable papers in our portfolio and we come across profitable papers every day!” she exclaimed. “This idea that the business model is forever and always broken just reflects a real lack of curiosity, and I would say empirics, on the part of its adherents.”

That sort of language reflects Shapiro’s background as an academic researcher of journalism, with a Harvard Ph.D. in business studies, but she has developed a deep appreciation of small community newspapers, and she has become one of their most knowledgeable and articulate advocates.

“Because I was not trained as a journalist and didn’t come through that system, I didn’t come to this work with, you know, sort of hierarchy in my mind of metro news above all,” she said. “Plenty of funders also share that orientation, of like, metro news is sort of the highest level of news and the rest of it is sort of service journalism or amateur hour, basically. . . .

“I see it as actually the highest form of local news, because I think it actually reflects what truly local means, and the way that I think everyday people experience what ‘local’ means . . . local as in, ‘I live in this neighborhood’ or ‘I live in this town.’”

Shapiro is trying to make a distinction that badly needs making, at a time when local news is in trouble and a lot of people who want to help it don’t fully understand that “local” depends on how the audience of a news outlet defines its community.

She told Regan-Porter that the fracturing and diversification of business models “based on place and economic inequalities between geographies” – primarily rural and urban – means that “there really is no one-size-fits all,” and “There’s gonna have to be different solution sets for different scales.”

There are many differences among localities, she said, and many rural communities still have many independent retailers who advertise in local papers; but overall, the rural-paper business model must also include subscriptions, events, donations and “anything you can get.”

On a company scale, the Trust’s state-based approach is not fundamentally different from newspaper chains that use economies of scale and shared services, but Shapiro said it wants to preserve newspapers’ local identities, which she said is essential for long-term success.

“These are deeply local institutions, and their value and their long-term success depends on that: the quality of local participation and local engagement,” she said.

That requires a quality product, and the Trust’s chief portfolio officer, Ross McDuffie, said recently that it has “quality local news as the North Star of decision-making,” not “profits or shareholder value.”

Of course, the Trust’s companies must stay in the black, but they have “longer time horizons,” Shapiro said, with the top goal being community impact, not profit.

“The path to impact has to be through disciplined management of the business, because without money you have no mission,” she told Regan-Porter, who then cited the maxim that nonprofit is not a business model, it’s a tax status.

For-profit chains do short-term things that reduce the quality of reader experience, Shapiro said: “We are long-term investors in the quality of the product, and a quality product and an engaged audience are the drivers of long-term success.”

One cornerstone of quality is accountability journalism, but that’s not the main reason people like their local paper, Shapiro said: “Our model focuses on strong communities and social cohesion.”

The Trust says its mission is to conserve, transform and sustain community news organizations, and ultimately build stronger communities by keeping small, traditional sources of local news in local hands.

Shapiro said the Trust is willing to buy papers that would have difficulty surviving on their own but “wouldn’t be replaceable by something else” and can thrive in a nonprofit group. She said the Trust’s goal is “sustainability across a network so that we can serve larger communities and smaller communities.”

Shapiro said the Trust is still figuring out how to integrate the operations of its Maine papers, which it bought in August, and in other states wants to find publishers who can make strong anchors in a scaling-up strategy. “The good news is, we hear from those kind of folks every day,” she said.

The bad news, she said, is that time is short.

“Rural news publishers, in particular independent rural news publishers, are at risk of extinction, either getting bought by political forces or just closing because of really difficult economics in small places,” she said. “I think we are really in a race against time.”

Al Cross edited and managed rural newspapers before covering politics for the Louisville Courier Journal and serving as president of the Society of Professional Journalists. This is his latest column for Publishers' Auxiliary, the monthly newspaper of the National Newspaper Association.

States that share water from the Colorado River are working to balance the needs of farmers and cities

Upper Division: Colo., N.M., Utah and Wyo.
Lower Div.: Nev., Ariz. and Calif. (Wikipedia map)

Contention over how to share water from the Colorado River has rankled seven Western states and the federal government for more than 100 years. The stakes have only increased in recent years. "The future of the American West is quietly being hashed out in the conference rooms of a Las Vegas casino this week," reports Annie Snider of Politico. "Just across the strip from the Bellagio's fountains, in the shadow of an enormous Eiffel Tower-knock-off, negotiators from the seven states that share the Colorado River are racing to reach a deal on how to share the West's most important — and shrinking — waterway."

Over the past 20 years, climate change and drought have shrunk the river's flow by more than 20 percent, and "the only question now is how much worse things will get," Snider writes. "The negotiations over how to share the pain of bringing water use in line with the shrunken waterway will have huge implications for the 40 million people who rely on it at their taps in metro areas. . . as well as for the powerhouse farming operations that use roughly three-quarters of the river's water to irrigate some of the country's most productive agricultural land. Also on the line are the interests of 30 federally-recognized tribes along the river and the 11 national parks and monuments it courses through, including the Grand Canyon."

Colorado River Basin (Wikipedia map)

Politically, the conflict is a "landmine for the Biden administration, which has taken a much more aggressive approach with the affected states than its predecessors," Snider reports. "The sharpest pain will be centered on the three lower river states: Arizona and Nevada — two crucial political swing states – and California, home of the Democratic Party's most deep-pocketed donors and whose governor is widely believed to harbor presidential ambitions."

The roil doesn't stop there. "Especially contentious is the fault line between farmers, who typically hold the most protected rights to the river," Snider explains, "and the urban areas that are states' economic engines and are home to their voting bases, but are first in line for water delivery cuts under the century-old legal regime that governs the river."

This past year's record snowpack melt, paired with a three-state agreement to "conserve water over the next three years in exchange for $1.2 billion in federal funding, have headed off the disaster for now," Snider reports. "But crafting new rules to govern the river through a much drier future beginning in 2026 will be exponentially harder." 

The West's trees being decimated by pine beetle fungus; some say they're telling us something

North America is witnessing the largest pine-beetle epidemic in recorded history, reports Sophie Quinton of the National Journal. From Canada’s Yukon Territory to New Mexico, pine trees by the hundreds of millions are succumbing to a fungus that the beetles carry. Jeff Mitton, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado (Boulder), has been studying the mountain pine beetle for more than 30 years. “The question is, why has this gotten so much worse?” Mitton said. Among the scientific community, a consensus is growing that changes in climate have propelled the outbreak. (AP photo of Colorado state park)

It's natural that beetles kill, die off, and regenerate, but human activity has helped to set the stage for the current epidemic. Writes Quinton: "Decades of fire suppression have left the West with dense stands of vulnerable, elderly trees. Frigid winters that usually kill the beetles have become, over the past 20 years, the exception rather than the rule. Earlier snow-melt and longer summers have altered the beetles’ range and life cycle; they now attack pines at higher altitudes and latitudes, and they reproduce twice a year instead of once. Earlier springs and a series of dry years have also weakened trees, turning them into ideal beetle food."
The devastation of the forest has been vast. The infected trees first turn a violent red, then they fall, and, finally, the tree falls. "Year by year, communities have watched a scourge advance across mountainsides and through neighborhoods, trees turning from green to red to gray. The beetles now attack 12 pine species, from the high-elevation whitebark pine to the lower-elevation ponderosa and piñon." The blight has overtaken 3.3 million acres in Colorado alone since the 1990s. “To a large degree, our nation’s parks are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to on-the-ground effects of a warming climate,” U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said at a 2009 hearing on climate change at held at Rocky Mountain National Park with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. At the same park, John Mack, the chief of resource stewardship told Quinton: “These trees are dead; they just don’t know it.”

USDA closes 125 of 131 Farm Service Agency offices as planned

The United States Department of Agriculture announced its decision on consolidation of its Farm Service Agency county offices, moving to combine 125 of the 131 offices with other USDA service centers, as required by the 2008 Farm Bill. Public meetings were held within 30 days of the original announcement in every county affected by the proposal. In the USDA announcement, the department states that FSA will provide farmers and ranchers affected by consolidations an opportunity to choose the most convenient neighboring county office to conduct their future business. In addition, all employees in a closing office will be provided an opportunity to continue their work with FSA. Under the USDA's Blueprint for Stronger Service, the agency will also close or consolidate 259 other domestic and seven foreign offices.

The six proposed county offices that will continue operating are: Lafayette County, Ark.; Boulder County, Colo.; St. Mary Parish, La.; Pamlico County, N.C.; Mayes County, Okla.; and York County, S.C. A complete list of FSA county offices affected by this decision can be obtained by clicking here.

Newspaper series focuses on water crisis looming for 30 million dependent on the Colorado River

The West is fast running out of water. Its lifeblood, the Colorado River, reports Utah's Deseret News, "is being hemorrhaged by cities, by farms and ranches, by power plants and by the more than 30 million people who depend on its water in the United States and another 6 million people in Mexico." (Photo of the Colorado River in Southern Utah by Tom Smart)

In a three-part series aimed at explaining the extent of the crisis, reporter Amy Joi Donoghue writes that this year's flows "are near historic lows with runoff about a third of average, pushing the seven states that share the river toward another year of drought." And, continues Donoghue, "Those stresses are further trumped by the dire predictions provided by the agency managing the Colorado River system, forecasting demand far outstripping supply during the next 50 years, reaching crisis levels within two decades. It reveals a coming tug-of-war over water resources that may pit state against state in the fight for new development, jobs, housing and force an answer to one of the West's most enduring questions: Who is entitled to the water?" (Read more)

More problems facing the region is offered by Jodi Peterson, writing in The Goat Blog on the High Country News website:
1) A U.S. Geological Survey study predicts that within 15 years, the population in the region served by the river will increase to 45 million.
2) By 2050, climate change will warm the basin and dry out its soil to an extent not seen since the 1930s Dust Bowl.
3) By the end of this century, the basin will see a 20 percent decrease in runoff, thanks to warming temperatures and earlier spring runoff.
4) Snowpack across the basin was well below average this year, less than half of normal.
Severe, even record-setting drought is foreseen for Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. (Read more)

Uranium mill may be built in rural Colorado

The first new uranium mill in the U.S. in 25 years may be built in Colorado. Stephanie Simon reports for The Wall Street Journal that Energy Fuels Resources Corp. of Canada is looking for investors after Colorado regulators approved a radioactive-materials license for the proposed mill.

The firm is seeking about $140 million to build the Piñon Ridge Mill to be located in Paradox Valley, a remote rural area of southwest Colorado that has struggled economically. "The mill is expected to employ 75 people — and to spur the creation of scores of additional mining, trucking and support jobs in the Paradox Valley. That promise of jobs has many local residents cheering," writes Simon.

Environmentalists are not as happy. After a uranium mining boom went bust, toxic uranium ore was found at a shuttered mine in the area of Paradox Valley; another closed mill in the area has been designated a federal Superfund site. Cleanup of the property was launched in the 1980s but is far from complete. (Read more) The Associated Press reported on an effort in 2008 to open uranium mines in Paradox Valley.

Feds offer tuition reimbursement for veterinary students working in underserved areas

We have been following the shortage of veterinarians, most recently here. Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is distributing up to $25,000 annually for four years in tuition-loan reimbursements for veterinarians who commit to work in under served rural areas, reports Steve Raabe of the Denver Post. Nationwide, more than 60 veterinarians received the grants and are serving in areas that do not have enough large animal vets. The program is modeled after a similar program that pays medical doctors to work in under served areas. (Veterinarian Britt Stubblefield, right, and M Lazy C Ranch manager Jamie Gibbons keep a grip on a longhorn as Stubblefield checks the animal's teeth. He is one of two Colorado vets selected in 2010 for a USDA tuition-loan reimbursement. Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

On average, veterinary students amass $130,000 in tuition and other school-related debt, writes Raabe. "It's very difficult for graduates with high debt levels," said Dean Hendrickson, director of the veterinary teaching hospital at Colorado State University. "Rural veterinarians are putting in 80-hour workweeks to earn 20 percent less. You can see why there's a movement toward small-animal practices in urban areas." The national average salary for first-year livestock veterinarians is about $62,000, compared with $71,000 for entry-level pet doctors, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. (Read more)

Ski country reporter's firing ignites debate about advertising's role in editorial decisions

The relationship between news, commentary and advertising, usually closer at smaller news outlets, is the focus of a controversy over the firing of a Colorado reporter who criticized a local ski resort that then pulled its ads from the Summit Daily News. Susan Green, a columnist for The Denver Post, writes that the reporter, Bob Berwyn, was fired because his Nov. 19 column led Vail Resorts to stop advertising in the paper. Jim Morgan, publisher of the Daily News, responded in a column that "circumstances symptomatic of a pattern of behavior documented in reviews over the course of time" were responsible for the decision. (Vail Resorts photo by Jack Affleck)

Berwyn's column alleged that ski resorts intentionally misconstrue weather reports as marketing gimmicks. The column didn't mention Vail Resorts by name, but referred to a Twitter post by an unnamed top resort executive displaying snow on his front porch. Rob Katz, the company's chief executive officer, has since explained that the tweet was his, but argued that none of the resorts were open at the time, so he wasn't suggesting snow was on the slopes. Berwyn told the Post that Katz called immediately to complain, and publisher Morgan told him he "had a lot of groveling to do." After standing by his column, Berwyn says he was fired two weeks later. Katz says the company only pulled its advertising after news of his discussions with Berwyn and Morgan, about not being contacted for the column, were made public.

"It's unfortunate but, especially in this economy, some advertisers feel like they can flex their muscles when there's commentary that they don't like," Ed Otte of the Colorado Press Association told the Post. "Newspapers need to withstand these kinds of threats." In his response column, Morgan wrote that the newspaper doesn't discuss personnel matters, but said he should have spoken to the Post off the record to provide more insight.

Colorado weekly's owner donates it to the local historical society, in an effort to save it

When the Silverton Standard & the Miner, a 1,000-circulation weekly in Colorado, found itself dangerously close to going out of business, owner Randy Miller decided that, instead of shutting it down, he would donate it. Now the local historical society has found itself in the newspaper business, determined not to let the paper die.

"It's very much a part of our history. That's the reason we're doing it," San Juan County Historical Society chair Bev Rich told Nancy Lofholm of The Denver Post. The paper will now be run as a non-profit business, and the historical society is seeking $10,000 in grants to cover start-up costs. Lofholm writes that this approach is "just beginning to get widespread discussion as one way to save the country's ailing newspapers." (Encarta map)

Editor Mark Esper says that the paper, founded in 1875, is necessary in a town which is frequently isolated in the winter, when avalanches close the passes that provide access to the town. "We have no other media out here -- no radio or TV station covering the town. So the newspaper serves a function that is irreplaceable," he says. (Read more)

Colo. bank's failure leaves farmers without credit

Many Colorado farmers are scrambling for loans after the largest bank in the northern part of the state was recently taken over by federal officials. New Frontier Bank's failure comes just as many farmers need loans for seeds, fertilizer and other upfront costs. “This is the time of year when farmers need to rely on a line of credit,” said Tony Miller, president of First FarmBank. And as banks fail across the nation, it's a story that's bound to be repeated in a number of agricultural communities.

"Miller said First FarmBank has had 20 to 25 applications from former New Frontier borrowers, seeking loans of about $16 million," writes Bill Jackson of the Greeley Tribune. Miller said that is too much for his bank, and many others in the area. (Read more)

Interior Dept. withdraws Bush-era oil-shale leases

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has withdrawn oil shale leases in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, saying his department "would first study the water, power and land-use issues that complicate one of the nation's most abundant but controversial untapped sources of energy," report Jim Tankersley and Nicholas Riccardi of the Los Angeles Times.

Salazar, a former Colorado senator, is seeking comments for 90 days, beginning tomorrow, when a notice in the Federal Register will ask "industry, local communities, states and stakeholders for their advice on the terms and conditions that should be included in the second round of leases," reports the Denver Business Journal. Salazar maintains that the previous leases drawn up during the final days of the Bush administration were riddled with flaws, including "locking in low royalty rates that would shortchange taxpayers," the Business Journal reports.

"Those who have fantasized that oil shale is a panacea for America's energy needs have been living in a fantasy land," Salazar said. The Times noted, "The move marked the third time in a month that the Obama administration has frozen late-term Bush decisions that sought to spur domestic energy development over objections from environmentalists." (Read more)

Colo. utility helps customers generate solar power

High energy costs have put a dent in household budgets, but one energy company is working to make renewable energy more affordable. The Delta Montrose Electrical Association in Montrose, Colo., population 12,500, is helping area residents install solar energy systems in their homes. Kati O’Hare writes in the Montrose Daily Press that, through a $25,000 matching grant from the Governor's Energy Office, DMEA is offering a $2/watt rebate on solar photovoltaic systems. So far, 12 systems have been installed. (Read more)

Jim and Sharen Branscome, right, have one of those systems. They write for the Daily Yonder: "After 48 days of operation, we have generated 2.470 megawatt-hours of power and saved ourselves $246 in power we didn't have to buy from DMEA at 10 cents per kwh." (That's a kilowatt-hour, 1,000 of which make a mwh.)

The Branscomes still owe DMEA $108, thanks to a recent cold snap and the fact their system was finished during fall, leaving them unable to "bank" energy for later. However, they write, "Come spring and summer, we'll be in the 'banking' business. That is, we'll be selling excess power back to DMEA at the same ten cents per kwh they charge us." They write that they will have to live to 120 to recoup their capital costs, but the project was "the right thing to do." Maybe it's like planting a tree. (Read more)

Slaughter no longer a U.S option, surplus horses force tough decisions for owners; pet or meat?

Since the last American horse slaughterhouse closed late last year, the fallout from that decision has received plenty of attention. Michael Booth of The Denver Post gets to the heart of matter as well anyone when he begins his story this way: "A dying dog is 40 pounds of family sadness. A dying horse is a physics problem, and 1,000 pounds of emotional debate over what we should do with the iconic Western companion at the end of its useful life." (In a Post photo by Joe Amon, a quarter horse goes up for auction.)

Booth explains how overbreeding and rising feed prices, coupled with the end of horse slaughter for meat, have created a glut of horses. "More are being abandoned on public lands," he writes from the Western viewpoint. "Neglected horses crowd rescue shelters. The pool of farms willing to put Old Paint out to pasture is shrinking. Strains in the horse world prompt ranchers to accuse city folk of a patronizing ignorance for opposing slaughter, animal-rights groups to accuse horse sellers of intolerable cruelty, and all 'horse people" to argue about how an animal's life should conclude."

The options are shrinking, but the debate continues, as we have reported here. Congress is considering the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act to prevent the trucking of American horses to Mexico (where conditions can be awful) and Canada for slaughter for meat, while in South Dakota, a lawmaker wants to reopen a horse slaughterhouse. Booth says the debate hinges on these key questions: "Is a horse a friend or a responsibility? A retired servant or a liability on the hoof? When it comes right down to it, pet or meat?"

Since the issue is an emotional one, some support other measures to control the horse population such as more neutering and more controlled breeding. Those are preventative measures, and they do not solve the issue of what to do with the 100,000 American horses that would have been slaughtered each year in the past. (Read more)

W. Va. lawmakers, reacting to decline in hunting, want optional gun classes in high schools

For more than a decade, two West Virginia lawmakers have tried to make a gun safety course part of the high school curriculum. Unsuccessful so far, they are making progress with their latest attempt, in which "gun safety" becomes "hunter safety," veteran statehouse reporter Mannix Porterfield writes for The Register- Herald in Beckley.

Sens. Billy Wayne Bailey, D-Wyoming County, and Shirley Love, D-Fayette County, introduced the bill that would compel the states' schools to "offer the optional instruction period" for a "two-week, 10-hour course that dovetails with graduation requirements for physical education classes," Porterfield writes. Bailey said the bill could help address a decline in hunting because young people would be able to gain hunting certification from the state's Department of Natural Resources. Currently, new hunters have to take a three-hour evening class to get that license. No live ammunition would be on school campuses and only teachers will handle disabled guns.

The idea has drawn attention from national and international media, and other states such as Colorado, Montana, Texas and Vermont are considering similar bills. (Read more)

National parks may hunt elk to trim growing herds

In three national parks in Colorado and the Dakotas, the elk population is straining the food supply for other foragers and browsers, so officials are considering shooting elk to restore balance, reports Peter Slevin of The Washington Post. Simply put, the elk (in an Associated Press photo by Sara Gettys) are out-eating other animals such as bison, feral horses and deer.

National Park Service "Spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said proposals to curb the elk population at Rocky Mountain have inspired 'strong feelings across the board,'" Slevin writes. "Recommendations ranged from shooting and fencing to contraception and the introduction of wolves, one of elk's few natural predators."

Wildlife conservation groups favor introducing wolves, as was done to lower the elk population in Yellowstone National Park during the 1990s. Park officials, however, "settled on 'lethal reduction,' as shooting is called, as the preferred way to control the herd," Slevin writes. "Sharpshooters with night-vision goggles and silencers would target elk after dark. A formal decision is expected to be released soon, Patterson said, with the program likely to begin next winter and continue for two decades." (Read more)

Small weekly in Colorado tells the story of a farm family's loss and resolve

We like to highlight great work from small newspapers, and here's some from The Johnstown Breeze. An independent, 1,800-circulation weekly in northern Colorado, The Breeze covers the farming community of Johnstown (pop. 4,000). In this November article he just sent us, editor Matt Lubich tells the story of a farm family coping with the unexpected death of Alan Rieder, 54 (in family photo).

Lubich recounts how Rieder’s wife, Lori, and sons, Chad and Travis, are going on with the farm, because "that’s what farm families do."

"So much has changed in the past nearly three weeks since Alan Rieder died, and so much has remained the same," Lubich writes. "There is still work to be done to get ready for another season, and Rieder brothers will again be out in the fields doing it. In a decade that has seen so many changes in Johnstown, the family’s field along North Second Street, just east of the high school, remains a rural vista unchanged by the growth. A place where the only thing growing this summer will be another crop, planted by another generation of Rieders." (Read more)

It's a prime example of community journalism, and it's worth a look. If you see other work worth highlighting, send it our way.

Students' school choices can impact rural districts

In some states, students and parents can choose their school. Due to the size of those rural districts — with enrollments often in the hundreds — these shifting students can have "dramatic" effects, writes Shari Chaney Griffin of the Colorado Springs Gazette.

In Colorado, students are free to go to a school outside their neighborhood so long as there is room and transportation. In the past, students from more urban areas switched to the smaller rural schools, but now some rural districts are gaining students from their rural neighbors, Griffin reports. The loss of students means a loss of funding. For example, the Miami-Yoder district in the Pikes Peak region lost about $1 million in funding since more than 100 students in the district have shifted to other schools each year since 2004-05. The total annual budget of the Miami-Yoder district, which has 338 students, is $3.6 million. (Read more)