Ky. class blends science, drama, rural outreach

At the start of the 20th century, the Chautauqua movement used traveling shows to bring education and entertainment to rural American communities. An Advanced Placement physics class at Rockcastle County High School in Mt. Vernon, Ky., is following in that tradition by producing their own Chautauqua series on great scientists, which was highlighted in this month's Rural Policy Matters, the publication of the Rural School and Community Trust.

"Students write a research paper on an important scientist and then turn their findings into a dramatic portrayal-complete with props that help demonstrate one of the concepts or principles pioneered by the scientist," according to the feature. "Then the students take their portrayals 'on the road' to fourth and fifth grade classes in the district, where they also read excerpts about the scientist from children's literature."

The idea came from the class' teacher, Stephanie Harmon, who started the project in 2005 as way to help her students develop the technical writing and speaking skills they would need in college. In addition, she said the project sparks an interest in science for the elementary classes that see the presentations. (Read more)

N.Y. paper defends request for gun-permit list

The Glens Falls Post-Star is at the center of controversy — all about something that has not even run in its pages or on its Web site. Ken Tingley, the editor of the 32,000-circulation daily in upstate New York, wrote to readers this week to explain the situation, which was turning into a fight between gun owners and the paper.

Tingley writes that a month ago, a reporter filed an open-records request "to the county clerks in Warren, Washington and Saratoga counties asking for the names and towns of residence of all gun permit holders in their counties." He explains the concerned response of gun owners, especially those who want to know what the paper was planning to do with that information. He emphasizes that the paper would do nothing "to endanger private citizens or make information conveniently available that might lead to a safety concern." The purpose of the request was to aid in computer-assisted reporting. One of the possible stories to come out of the research would be to cross-reference a database of convicted felons with the database of gun permit holders to see if there were any felons who had guns who shouldn't.

Tingley wrote, "We consider this newspaper an institution that is an important part of each and every community as a news source, a watchdog of government and an entity that seeks to serve our readers and make our communities better." Since being published online Feb. 4, the column has received more than 50 reader comments, with a fairly even split between those for and against the permit request. (Read more)

Bush budget confirms his plan to undercut Freedom of Information Act bill he signed

President Bush's budget proposal confirmed that his administration is trying to undercut the bill he signed to strengthen the federal Freedom of Information Act, in particular a part of the bill that is most helpful to rural newspapers and broadcast stations.

Bush's budget would move the newly created position of FOIA ombudsman from the National Archives and Records Administration to the Justice Department, which opposed the bill. "Because the ombudsman would be the chief monitor of compliance with the new law, that move is akin to killing the critical function, some members of Congress and watchdog groups say," writes Elizabeth Williamson of The Washington Post.

In a letter to Bush today, 43 organizations that lobby for open government objected to the proposal, first revealed by U.S. Sen. Patruck Leahy (D-Vt.) on Jan, 23. The following day, National Newspaper Association lobbyist Tonda Rush wrote that the group, which represents mainly weekly newspapers, sought an independent ombudsman "because FOIA and its legal mechanisms are often too slow and costly for community newspapers." With an ombudsman, smaller news outlets could avoid paying lawyers to push their requests, which are often delayed far beyond the 20-day response period mandated by the law.

The article quoted NNA Government Relations Chair Liz Parker, co-publisher and executive editor for Recorder Community Newspapers in Stirling, N.J.: "We specifically endorsed housing it in an agency separate from the Justice Department because that agency acts as the government's lawyer. It can hardly be both an advocate for withholding information and an ombudsman for the public to enforce the law's strong mandate that records are presumed to be public." (Read more)

A White House spokesman told the Post that the administration strongly supports "the timely and fair resolution of FOIA requests" but that "only the Department of Justice, as the government's lead on FOIA issues and mediation in legal matters, is properly situated and empowered to mediate issues between requestors and the federal government." (Read more)

Rural vote by states goes to Obama; polls closer

"Barack Obama won rural America tonight," rural Democratic talk-show host Ed Schultz proclaimed on CNN just after midnight, but poll data from Democratic primaries and caucuses were inconclusive, just like the overall results. The Republican race was likewise. (Photo of Clintons by Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times)

Exit polls for the National Election Pool showed Obama and Hillary Clinton each winning the rural vote in seven of the 14 mostly larger states where polling was conducted. Not allowing for the difference in sizes of states, Clinton's average rural vote in those polls was 50 percent, Obama's 42 percent. John Edwards continued to get some votes despite leaving the race; Schultz said much of Edwards' vote seemed to be going to Obama.

But exit polls aside, the more rural a state's population, the more likely it was to go for Obama. Among the 11 most rural states where Democrats voted yesterday, Obama carried them all except Arkansas, a base state for Clinton, and two adjoining states, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Obama won every state that is more rural than the nation at large except New Mexico, which remains a tossup. "His continued victories in rural states -- in some winning two-to-one and even three-to-one -- are in part a reflection that he, his wife, his surrogates and his army of community organizers are able to, in those circumstances, establish a personal relationship and connection with more people as individuals, and not as blocs or demographic groups," Al Giordano writes in The Field. (Read more)

Obama's best rural performance in a state with a sizeable rural vote was 61 percent in Georgia; in his home state of Illinois, he got 60 percent of the rural vote in the poll. In the key state of Missouri, which Obama won narrowly, he carried cities and suburbs, with 50 and 52 percent, respectively; Clinton won the rural vote (26 percent of the state total) by 58 to 28. (Photo of Obama and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, his key endorser there, via The Field) In Clinton's home state of New York, she got 65 percent in the "rural Upstate," which the poll said accounted for 9 percent of the Democratic vote.

In California, the night's big prize, Clinton won overall but the poll gave Obama the rural vote, 49 to 43. Among Republicans, John McCain won statewide and among rural voters, 41 to 39 over Mitt Romney. The poll classified as "rural" 8 percent of the state's Democratic vote and 11 percent of the Republican vote; the 2000 census figure was about 5.5 percent, but the exit poll uses a different classification system, based on site of precincts (except in New York). No national figures on rural vote from the polls were available on the CNN Web site early this morning.

The polls showed Mike Huckabee continued his good showing among rural Republicans, mainly in the South, carrying them in six of the 12 states where exit surveys were conducted. McCain won the rural vote in five states, but his average rural-vote percentage was 34, compared to Romney's 31 Huckabee's 28. Remember, those figures don't allow for differences in sizes of the states; Romney got 87 percent of the rural vote in Utah, home of his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For our spreadsheet of these results, click here.

Tim Murphy and Bill Bishop at the Daily Yonder are doing a county-by-county analysis, still in progress. Looking ahead, the Dallas Morning News sees trouble for Clinton in her declining support among white voters in the South yesterday. "If it keeps sliding, she could be in trouble as the Democratic presidential slugfest comes to Texas, which votes March 4," Robert T. Garrett writes from Oklahoma, noting: "To take Texas, Mr. Obama must peel away more whites and Hispanics -- especially women -- from Mrs. Clinton, experts said." (Read more)

Columnist offers advice to hometown Iowa paper, its office destroyed by fire

In late January, fire destroyed the offices of the Valley News Today, a 2,500-circulation daily in Shenandoah in southwest Iowa. No one was hurt, but the century-old building (at left in a VNT photo by Craig Pulley) and its contents — computers, old volumes, photo negatives — were lost. Since then, the newspaper, part of the Omaha World-Herald group, has been printing in Bellevue, Neb., and continuing to update valleynewstoday.com. The fire and the paper's response to it led Chuck Offenburger, who grew up in Shenandoah and worked for the paper in high school, to remember his time there and offer encouragement.

In a column on his Web site, Offenburger recalls a time when he watched as the press foreman modified a tractor to power the printing press and get the paper out."I got one of my best lessons in journalism: 'Whatever it takes.'" he writes. "Come what may, the press must roll. The newspaper must be produced and delivered to its readers. When you’re in the news business, you do it in good times, you do it in bad times, you do it all the time."

That's his advice for the staff of the newspaper, to pull together and move forward, because the newspaper is about people, not a building. "Knowing small towns like I do, particularly my hometown of Shenandoah, I know that while the Valley News Today crew is scrambling to get back to good newspapering, there will be thousands of people across the area cheering them on," he writes. (Read more)

The Web site of Valley News Today reflects that connection as it includes a photo gallery filled with photos submitted by readers as well as locals' remembrances of the paper's old home on Main Street. (There is also a central page for coverage of the fire.) Sports editor Kevin Slater also wrote a feature on the building's place in the history of the community.

Ky. town honors longtime editor and her column

The best community journalists forge strong bonds with the areas they cover, and that is clear in the case of Betty Smith, a longtime editor at The Winchester Sun in central Kentucky. After 31 years as lifestyles editor at the 7,200-circulation daily, Smith retired Thursday at a crowded reception at Winchester City Hall, reports the Sun's Mike Wynn. Thanks to a mayoral proclamation, it was "Betty Ratliff Smith Day" in the town of about 20,000. In the state Capitol, a resolution honoring Smith was passed.

"For three decades she has written about their births, their achievements, their marriages, the deaths of their loved ones," Wynn writes of Smith (above in a Sun photo by James Mann). "She was stationed at the front of the newsroom so they could drop off their church notices and then 'come have a seat' to unload their burdens."

Smith started working at The Sun in 1957 as the society editor and left in 1962 to work in city, state and federal government. She returned to the newspaper in 1982 to be the lifestyles editor and to write "Betty's Babblin's" — column about small-town life in Winchester. In her time at the Sun, she had many roles — archivist, receptionist, crime reporter and more — and she took part in major community organizations and groups as well.

"I have never, ever seen the connections between a community and its newspaper through one person like I have here," said Sun Publisher Dave Eldridge, recently appointed to his post by Schurz Communications, which bought the paper in 2005. (Read more)

Iowa, Ky. and W. Va. each place two rural communities in list of nation's best places for kids

In the "100 Best Communities for Young People for 2008," 15 were in rural communities, and Iowa, Kentucky and West Virginia each placed two among the 15. It's the third time the Kentucky cities, one of the Iowa towns and one of the West Virginia counties has received the honor from America’s Promise Alliance, a creation of former Secretary of State and Gen. Colin Powell that unites businesses, non-profits and local governments.

The top 100 were selected from nominees from 300 communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Mt. Sterling and Murray, Ky., were two of the 44 communities that were also selected in 2005 and 2007. Mt. Sterling is in Montgomery County, which has a population of about 23,000 and is in the east-central part of the state, about 35 miles east of Lexington. Murray is in Calloway County, which has a population of about 34,000 and is at the southeast corner of the Jackson Purchase, Kentucky's western extension. It is home to Murray State University.

"Mt. Sterling was chosen, according to America’s Promise, in part, 'because of their work to ensure students have the best problem- solving skills to manage their future,'" reports Tom Marshall of the Mt. Sterling Advocate. "It also made note of the school system’s Reality Store, 'which provides mock life experiences for eighth- graders, where they are issued jobs, salaries and checkbooks, and must face costs and problems associated with daily living.'" (Read more)

"Murray and Calloway County were named because of its commitment to young people and their support," according to a staff report from the Murray Ledger & Times. "The release especially notes efforts with the Laker After School Educational Resource (LASER) program for K-5 students in the Calloway County School System, and the Angels Community Clinic, which provides free medical and dental care for uninsured but working families." (Read more)

Like the Kentucky towns, Lamoni, Iowa is a three-time winner. The town of fewer than 3,000 near the Missouri border on Interstate 35 made the list for its SAFE Coalition that brings together youth-serving agencies and businesses, according to the profile by Cynthia Hobgood of America's Promise (which also provided the photo of Lamoni above). Lamoni is in Decatur County, which has the state's lowest per capita income, but it is also home to Graceland University. (Read more) The other representative from Iowa was Storm Lake and Buena Vista County, a community of about 20,000 in the northwest part of the state, about 80 miles west of Sioux City. It's home to the weekly Storm Lake Times, which we have written about.

West Virginia's winners were Mercer and Monroe Counties, both on the Virginia border where the New River enters the state. Mercer County (pop. 65,000), another three-time winner, drew praise for its Creating Opportunities for Youth Coalition, which works to keep kids away from alcohol, drugs and tobacco, reports Charles Owens of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. To the east, just outside the Appalachian coalfield, Monroe County (pop. 15,000) drew recognition for its universal preschool. (Read more) The Daily Yonder has a quick rundown of the 15 rural communities on the list. (Read more)

Kansas governor signals veto of bill to circumvent her regulator's rejection of coal-plant expansion

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has signaled that she may veto a bill written to help a large rural electric cooperative in Western Kansas because its provisions aimed at reducing greenhouse gases "are so weak compared to other states that it could lead to rejected plants elsewhere coming to Kansas," report Jim Sullinger and David Klepper of The Kansas City Star.

The bill could make Kansas the nation's “coal capital,” said Sebelius, a Democrat who rarely comments on legislation before it reaches her desk. She said the “very troubling components of this bill (would) put Kansans at risk, and would put our state at odds with the rest of the country … I cannot support these components.” In Kansas, overriding a veto takes a two-thirds vote in both legislative chambers.

The Star reports, "Sunflower Electric Power Corp. had asked the state for permission to expand its Holcomb plant, but the state’s top regulator, appointed by Sebelius, rejected the plans because of the project’s estimated emissions of 11 million tons of carbon dioxide. Lawmakers vowed to get the plant built anyway, and introduced legislation last week to take away the discretion the regulator used." (Read more)

FCC, USDA launch one-stop site for broadband info

Having a hard time figuring out the complexities of high-speed Internet access in rural areas? Well, the federal government is here to help you. Really. In the form of two agencies that rarely have much to do with one another. The Federal Communications Commission, in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, has launched a Web site about broadband services that "makes available the expertise and resources of the FCC and USDA in a single, easily-accessible location and user-friendly format," reports Government Technology.

"The site provides information on the different technology platforms that can be used to provide broadband service, how to access spectrum necessary for delivery of wireless broadband services, government funding for broadband services, relevant FCC and USDA proceedings and initiatives, and data on broadband deployment," GT reports. The site also has "instructions on how to locate companies already licensed to provide wireless services in or near specific rural communities, as well as helpful links to other government and private resources related to encouraging broadband opportunities in rural America."

Why is broadband important? "Broadband technology is a key driver of economic growth," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin says on the site's home page. "The ability to share increasing amounts of information, at greater and greater speeds, increases productivity, facilitates interstate commerce, and helps drive innovation. But perhaps most important, broadband has the potential to affect almost every aspect of our lives."

Duluth paper runs front-page candidate appeals

Community newspapers often seek first-person editorials from candidates running for local offices, and The Duluth News Tribune has applied the practice to presidential politics. Today, the newspaper ran front-page pleas from Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and it will do the same for the Republican contenders tomorrow, reports Mark Fitzgerald of Editor & Publisher.

In 2004, the 40,000-circulation daily in northeastern Minnesota also ran front-page columns from President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry before the general election. "This is what America is all about — you want to hear from the persons themselves why they should be elected," Editorial Page Editor Robin Washington told Fitzgerald. "Washington gave the candidates a pretty tight deadline for the pieces, asking on Friday for something by noon Sunday," Fiztgerald writes. "The Clinton people got her article in early, while the Obama campaign, like a typical reporter, begged for some more time, finally delivering at 4 p.m. And, like a typical editor, Washington bounced the Obama piece back, asking for more references to issues important to northern Minnesotans."

Washington said the articles from Clinton and Obama were an improvement from those by Bush and Kerry in 2004. "I'm encouraged that in both cases they didn't talk about snowmobiling and hunting, which is what Kerry and Bush hit on," he said. "Not that we don't do those things, but snowmobile and hunting rights just don't seem like the main issues the next leader of the Free World should be concerned with." (Read more)

UPDATE: The New Tribune ran articles from Sen. John McCain and former Gov. Mitt Romney on Tuesday. The paper said the campaigns of former Gov. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Ron Paul chose not to participate.

Arson blamed for fire that destroyed the radio home of a top Southern gospel disc jockey

On Friday, a fire gutted a Morganton, N.C., radio station that is home to three-time Southern Gospel DJ of the Year John Whisnant Jr. Whisnant said authorities blame the fire on arson carried out possibly to hide a burglary at WCIS (760 AM), reports Mark Price of The Charlotte Observer.

"News of the fire has become the talk of the Southern gospel music industry nationwide, due to postings on popular Web sites like Singingnews.com and Sogospelnews.com," Price writes. "As a result, offers of financial assistance have come from radio stations across the United States and Canada, Whisnant says." The building was valued at about $119,000, but the station also lost 3,000 CDs and DVDs in the fire. (Read more)

The Whisnant family, which has performed Southern gospel music around the country for four decades, bought the station in 1993. The station broadcasts seven days a week, including a live morning show as well as live airings of local church services. Whisnant told Tracy Farnham of The News Herald in Morganton that the station would recover. "We will be back," he said. "Make no mistake about it. It is not a matter of if, but a matter of when." The station already has received plenty of offers of help, including from neighboring station WMIT-AM, which sent an engineer to discuss how to get the station back on the air. (Read more)

States expand use of unclaimed-property laws to collect billions in assets that owners forgot

Unclaimed-property laws aim to return forgotten assets to owners, but states have expanded their use of such laws to find and hold those assets for themselves, report Scott Thurm and Pui-Wing Tam of The Wall Street Journal. The article includes a state-by-state chart of unclaimed property that would be a great place to start reporting a localized story.

"States have broadened laws to cover unredeemed gift cards and uncashed corporate checks to employees and suppliers," the reporters write. "They've required businesses to turn over assets more quickly, and curtailed efforts to locate owners. And they've strengthened enforcement by hiring private auditors to examine corporate books in search of "lost" property. The auditors' reward: 10 to 15 percent of proceeds."

The Journal reports that as of June 2006, the 50 states together held $35 billion in unclaimed property. On average, they return about a third of it. States vary in their definition of unclaimed property and in their efforts to notify owners. California stopped running lists of seized, unclaimed property in newspapers, but a judge stopped that program temporarily after a former Intel Corp. employee sued after 200,000 shares of his stock were sold by the state. Delaware, a favorite legal domicile for corporations, is another aggressive collector and holder. It returns only 5 percent or so of unclaimed property it collects, and auctions off some assets on eBay. (Read more)

Major banks tie environmental standards to financing for coal-fired electric generating plants

The first wave of tougher environmental standards for coal-fired power plants is coming from Wall Street, not the federal government. If companies want private financing for coal-fired power plants, they must show they are ready for whatever limits on pollution could be coming, reports Jeffrey Ball of The Wall Street Journal.

"Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase Co. and Morgan Stanley say they have concluded that the U.S. government will cap greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants sometime in the next few years," Ball writes. "The banks will require utilities seeking financing for plants before then to prove the plants will be economically viable even under potentially stringent federal caps on carbon dioxide, the main man-made greenhouse gas."

About half of the electricity in the United States comes from coal, and these standards would apply to "all but the smallest plants," Ball reports. The banks want to make sure their investments won't be jeopardized if plants must spend more to upgrade emissions-capturing technology or to buy extra pollution allowances under a cap-and-trade system. Ball explains that the banks' standards came from negotiations with some major utilities and environmental groups. More than anything, the new standards would make building conventional coal-fired practical only if the utility could raise rates enough to offset the cost of pollution. (Read more)

Mississippi newspapers partner for series on lack of openness in state's government agencies

Open meetings and open records laws are only good if followed, and the task of keeping tabs often falls on newspapers. In Mississippi, newspapers have joined forces with The Associated Press and the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information to produce a series that investigates the state's open-government laws — both in writing and in practice. The eight-day series, called "Secrecy in Mississippi" began today. (Above is its logo, produced by The Sun Herald of Biloxi)

"Mississippi's Open Meetings and Open Records laws were designed to protect citizens' access to the workings of government, but are rife with exemptions that perpetuate a culture of secrecy," according to a series overview from the Mississippi Press Association. "Private citizens, organizations and media outlets have long pushed for more open government, but the Legislature has largely ignored these appeals. Bills are being filed this year to try to tighten some of the exemptions and to give people a better chance to see the workings of their local and state governments – the governments that taxpayers support with their hard-earned dollars."

Topics in the series include enforcement, campaign finance, crime statistics and investigative records. The series will run in MPA daily member newspapers this week, and it will be available for weekly newspapers starting Feb. 10. (Read more)

Budget would cut local anti-crime grants again

President Bush's proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2008, "calls for more FBI funding but less for state and local anticrime grants," reports Ted Gest in the daily news digest of Criminal Justice Journalists.

The Drug Enforcement Administration would get "a slight increase," but the Justice Department budget "would gut the Office of Justice Programs, which oversees state and local anticrime grants, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the Office on Violence Against Women, and the Office for Victims of Crime," CJJ reports.

"The White House would give the agency only $813 million, compared to the $2.3 billion appropriated by Congress this year. Advocates are seeking more funds for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program in a supplemental appropriations bill for the current fiscal year after Congress cut funding in December. The budget again proposed $200 million for a violent crime reduction partnership initiative, but Congress has not provided full funding for that in recent years."

Bush "seeks more than $7.1 billion for the FBI, compared with this year's $6.5 billion appropriation," CJJ reports. "The proposal includes $361 million in new money for intelligence and counterterrorism programs."

Writer calls for ethanol-fired locomotives, reserve

One of the main problems with ethanol is that it can't be shipped in pipelines. That's why the nation needs a strategic reserve of the fuel and a new kind of locomotive that runs on it, and can deliver it, Michael Bugeja writes in The Des Moines Register.

Bugeja is director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University, and an academic partner of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. He writes, "In the 1970s, I worked in Nebraska for United Press International, covering ethanol and debates about storage, pipelines and train transportation. We're still discussing the same things."

Bugeja refers to an Aug. 3 article by Dien Judge in the Iowa Independent, reporting that "Alternative Hybrid Locomotive Technologies, or AHL-Tech for short, is working on perfecting a 2,000 horsepower ethanol-electric locomotive. And the company would like to build them in Iowa." Bugeja writes that Tom Mack, CEO of the Ohio-based company, told him that "He hopes to sell two engines this year in Iowa and will announce that when the deal closes."

Bugeja says Iowa and federal lawmakers should support the idea. "Our U.S. senators should request Homeland Security funds to found a national reserve in Iowa with a fleet of engines running on and delivering ethanol to all points in a crisis.," he writes. "In the past, America was known for that kind of self-reliance. The future depends on it again." (Read more)

Carter leads effort to unite moderate Baptists

Richard Fausset of the Los Angeles Times writes from Plains, Ga.: "Jimmy Carter still spends much of his time injecting himself into the nastiest spats on the planet. But most Sundays, the 83-year-old former president manages to be back here in the tiny city where he was raised. He does not like to skip Sunday school. He gives his Bible lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church, an unassuming red-brick chapel on the outskirts of town." (Walter Petruska photo)

A lesson the day Fausset visited was Jesus' directive that we love our enemies as we love ourselves. "That directive has driven Carter to try his hand at healing the rifts between the great antagonists of the last half-century: Arab and Jew, Cuban and American, Hutu and Tutsi," Fausset writes. "For his efforts, he has been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize and derided as a quixotic fool. But there is one divisive row that is perhaps the most personal for Carter, and his failure to heal it has haunted him for years. It is the rift between liberals and conservatives within his own religion."

Wednesday night in Atlanta, Carter opened a three-day meeting "meant to unite moderate Baptists across racial and theological lines and show their tradition goes beyond conservative Southern Baptist beliefs," writes Rachel Zoll of The Associated Press.

Southern Baptist Convention leaders refused to attend. Carter personally invited President Frank Page, who said the meeting had a "smoke-screen, left-wing, liberal agenda." Presidential candidiate Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister and Arkansas governor, backed out, saying he feared the agenda would be "political rather than spiritual."

Healing the breach will be difficult because for many Baptists, religious identity has defined their personal identity. Fausset quotes Bill Leonard, dean of the divinity school at Wake Forest University and a liberal Baptist: "The curse and the genius of the Southern Baptist Convention for Carter's generation is that it inculcated a sense of Baptist identity that is so deep in people that it was hard to give up," said "It shaped your spirituality -- but also your own sense of who you were." (Read more)

Andre Walker reports today in Georgia Politics Unfiltered: "The three-day event ended last night with remarks from former President Clinton in which he discussed his faith and spoke of ways Baptists could come together" and said he was disappointed in Page's description of the conference "heaped praise" on Huckabee but said he was "sad Huckabee didn't come here." Clinton's remarks were the only partisan words of the conference, Carter said, but said they were not critical and he agreed with them. (Read more)

An exemplar of rural and community journalism changes, offering essential lessons in the craft

Examples of community journalism are easier to come by than a clear-cut definition of the term. For years, the Point Reyes Light in western Marin County, California, has been an exemplar. The weekly newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1979, for its coverage of the Synanon drug-rehabilitation group that turned into a religion, but well before that had established itself as an essential part of community life and function. That is less true today, and the change teaches lessons.

A little over two years ago, the Light was sold to a newcomer, and things changed. So reports Jonathan Rowe, who lives in the village of Point Reyes Station, writing in the latest issue of Columbia Journalism Review. His article, “The Language of Strangers,” highlights how central local and concerns are to community journalism, and what can happen when readers think their needs and wishes are being ignored.

Beyond the ups and downs of the Light, also reported here and here, Rowe’s report is worth reading for his broader points about weekly newspapers, points rarely made in the pages of national journalism reviews. For our take on it, with some additional information and links to Rowe's article and others, click here.

Super Bowl footballs take thoroughly rural route

Katie Thomas of The New York Times writes from Ada, Ohio, to tell "the legend of Wilson [Sporting Goods] factory workers in this town of 5,500 in rural Ohio, the birthplace of every football thrown in the Super Bowl since 1969." She notes that the National Football League is "the only major sports league whose balls are manufactured in the United States." (Encarta map)

The balls take a thoroughly rural route, beginning "on the backs of cows taken from feedlots in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska," Thomas reports. Plant manager Daniel Riegle "said he preferred young, lean steers over fat dairy cows because their leather did not stretch as much." (Photo by J.D. Pooley shows Sharon Mullins stretching a hide. For a good slideshow of how a ball comes together, click here.)

The plant is unionized, with pay based on piecework. "Husbands and wives work alongside each other. So do mothers and daughters. The average employee has worked at the plant for 20 years, Riegle said," Thomas reports. "There is something special about working in the Wilson factory, many of the workers say, not least because Ada is a football town. The Ada Bulldogs made it to the Ohio high school football playoffs last year, and most of the workers are fans of either the Cleveland Browns or the Cincinnati Bengals, with a few Pittsburgh Steelers fans mixed in. Working at Wilson is a job, they said, but it is different from making rubber bands or ball bearings." (Read more)

To the weekly Ada Herald, circulation 2,800, the Super Bowl story is old news, but still worth noting. This week's edition has a front-page color photo by Larry D. Spradlin showing three workers at the plant inspecting footballs before shipment. To read the page, click here.

Carolina Chocolate Drops cross racial boundaries

"The banjo claws, the fiddle saws, the twangy, ancient- sounding voice sings of darkness and murder," writes Richard Cromelin of the Los Angeles Times. "The recording of the folk staple 'Little Sadie' -- like most of the tracks on the 2007 album Dona Got a Ramblin' Mind -- is pure mountain music, the kind indelibly associated with the rural white communities of the 19th and early 20th century American South.

"But the Carolina Chocolate Drops . . . are three young African Americans, and for many their music will be an eye-opening introduction to the tradition of the black string bands that provided a soundtrack for the South alongside their white counterparts. The Drops' square-dance drive and infectious performances have made them a hot act on the folk circuit . . . despite the playfully provocative group name and the presence of the often divisive 'Dixie' in their song list."

Dom Flemons of the Drops (who hail from North Carolina) tells the Times, "Music will cross racial boundaries with no problem whatsoever. . . . We're just trying to play the music and be like, 'This is part of our whole American history.' Just showing people the musical traditions that America has. Through all of its hardships, it has very powerful music it makes. Whether it's out of the struggle or whether it's just social music or the mixing of different cultures coming together, it's amazing." (Read more)