When a local business that served as a community hub closes, residents may need to create a new meeting space

Dairy Queens served as a gathering spot for many rural
Texas residents. (Photo by Jaime Adame, Daily Yonder)

 

As Dairy Queens shutter in rural communities across Texas, locals see their social spaces disappear. The ice cream franchise shops have long served as places of connection for small-town residents.

"In rural areas, sites where people choose to gather are 'neither work nor home, but they anchor everything in between,' as a former rural school superintendent, Melissa Sadorf put it in a recent essay on the importance of what are sometimes called 'third places,'" reports Jaime Adame of The Daily Yonder.

Dairy Queen closures in Texas surged this year over legal disputes within the company, and smaller communities felt the loss. "Out of some 30 locations to shut down statewide, twelve were in towns with fewer than 3,000 people," Adame writes. "Civic leaders and townspeople must now grapple with literal empty spaces and rips in the fabric of community life."

When the Dairy Queen in Canadian, Texas, closed, the small town of roughly 2,300 people in northern Texas dearly missed the connection spot the restaurant once provided. The community is still working to recover from fierce wildfires that burned down parts of the town last year.

Remelle Farrar, interim director for the local economic development corporation in Canadian, told Adame, "It’s an impact to our culture, absolutely. . . . [It was] a place to go for many members of our population after the event of the day, to go sit and talk… and relax."

While Dairy Queen is still considered a "Texas icon. . . . The view of Dairy Queen as a community’s social hub doesn’t ring true as much as it did decades ago, even in rural Texas," Adame reports. "Rural areas are more likely to struggle at providing such third places, according to Danielle Rhubart, a researcher at Penn State University who studies rural health and well-being."

To fill holes the closure of a Dairy Queen or similar spot can leave behind, residents of smaller communities need to look around their town and see what alternatives are available. Adame explains, "Creating a third place can involve adapting unused buildings, even a former church. Rhubart said it’s important for small communities to support local businesses and make use of what’s already in place, such as libraries or outdoor spaces like parks, to ensure that welcoming places exist for people to gather."

As the U.S. faces an ongoing mental health crisis, 988 call centers look to add geolocation services

In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention verified 45,979 suicides; in 2021, the numbers increased to 48,183. Added together, the number of people lost to suicides could fill the Rose Bowl Stadium. When the CDC's provisional suicide counts from 2022 and 2023 are tacked on, the death toll reaches 172,520. 

With those tragic numbers in mind, in 2022 the Biden administration transitioned the country's 10-digit suicide hotline to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which provides an easy-to-remember three-digit number for 24/7 crisis care. But the 988 program has a gaping problem: It lacks geolocation service, reports Kery Murakami of Route 50, which "means callers are being sent to call centers thousands of miles away from where they actually are. . . People dialing into the hotline are sent to a call center based on their area code, not on where they are physically calling from."

The lack of geolocation means 988 counselors lack the capacity to connect a caller with services and follow-up support in another state. Murakami explains, "The issue, according to Rob MacDougall, director of emergency services for Johnson County, Kansas, is that a call center in Kansas isn't equipped, for instance, to connect someone in Florida to the services and help they need." The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Federal Communications Commission are working with cellphone carriers to "test routing calls based on where a person in crisis is generally located." To ensure a level of privacy, call centers don't receive a caller's exact location.

While adding geolocation information will help 988 be more effective, some areas are still working to implement basic 988 services. "Many states are still working out technical kinks or struggling with staffing, which can lead to wait times or not reaching a counselor at all," Murakami reports. "In Florida, a distraught caller may have to sit on hold for 32 seconds, according to SAMHSA data. 

Despite struggles, the lifeline is making progress. "Before 988 was implemented, it might take several minutes to reach someone. Now the average response time has decreased from 2 minutes and 39 seconds to 41 seconds, according to SAMHSA," reports Christina Caron of The New York Times. 

Opinion: Millions of Americans have stopped going to church, but what they've lost is more than religion

Paul Wesslund
(Photo via USA Today)

As Americans leave church behind, many fail to see it's more than religion they're giving up. "Record numbers of Americans have quit going to church. Studies and personal stories describe people either leaving churches or just drifting away for reasons like being too busy or disagreeing on social issues," writes Paul Wesslund in his opinion for the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. "The odd thing is that these former churchgoers seem to be searching for some kind of community. . . . And those pulling away from religion don't take into account what a church can offer that addresses what people say they're searching for: Friends, and being part of something larger than themselves.

"I attended the Kentucky United Methodist Annual Conference this year, where disaffiliations were approved for the last wave of the more than 300 churches that left our conference. At the meeting, I sensed the hundreds of remaining delegates going through the classic stages of grief, including depression and acceptance. It's a denomination figuring out how to navigate a new world, working hard at keeping hope alive.

"Much of the current commentary on church attendance refers to the new book, The Great Dechurching, by Jim Davis and Michael Graham. It takes a deep dive into surveys about why so many have stopped going to church. The studies found plenty of reasons, from wanting to sleep in after being kept awake by a new baby to attending brunch with friends. . . . Other widely reported reasons cut even deeper – the widespread child abuse in the Catholic church, the use of the Bible to score political points and the too-frequent requests for money.

"The U.S. Surgeon General issued a report this year on loneliness and isolation, comparing its health effects to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. He created the report, he says, after Americans repeatedly told him they felt invisible and insignificant. That's a condition every church seeks to address, however imperfectly. . . . We overlook defects in other parts of our lives. Who hasn't had a less-than-perfect experience at what is still their favorite restaurant? Or stayed loyal to their team despite a series of boneheaded plays?

"My disagreement with one of the church's policies didn't drive me away – I helped organize a group of church members to hold forums on the [LGBTQ+] issues, to let people know that at next year's United Methodist General Conference, there could be a vote to change those policies. . . . I choose to stay because no person – or institution – is perfect. Because leaving a more diverse group of thinkers and believers for people who are closer to being exactly like me seems sad – and even wrong – because it would just contribute to today's tendency to listen only to ourselves.

"A church's hold on people doesn't come with the drama of watching a sport or offer a dinner menu. It's bigger than that. I can't help but feel that both the church and its former members are wandering around looking for each other. . . . Maybe they'll meet again."