Speaker offers hope for dying towns

By ANNE KAZMIERCZAK Register Reporter
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On Sept. 17, Richard E. Wood, author of “Survival of Rural America: Small Victories and Bitter Harvests” will speak at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center as part of the ongoing Speakers Series in the Dale P. Creitz Recital Hall. Wood’s talk starts at 7 p.m.; there is no admission charge.
“I intended the book to do two things,” Wood said, first, “to bring an awareness of rural America to the majority who live in big places” and secondly, “to explain why these towns existed in the first place.”
Wood remembers reading that Minneapolis, Kan., where his father had grown up, was dwindling in size. To combat the loss, Minneapolis was giving away land in an effort to attract new residents.
Curious about the fate of other towns in rural Kansas, Wood began researching the small communities.
“I think small towns are threatened by the loss of population — especially very rural towns away from population centers,” he said.
Wood uses the U.S. Department of Agriculture definition of a small town — those with a population of less than 2,500.
He had seen many in his youth.
“My father was in the grain business so he traveled through Kansas quite a bit and I traveled with him,” Wood said.
In both his youth and in researching the book he noted that “There were a lot of small towns ... that were struggling to survive.
“I ... discovered this is a worldwide phenomena, small towns dying,” Wood told The Register.
Hardest hit, Wood said, may be China.
“They’re undergoing the same thing there that we underwent 50 years ago when agriculture mechanized,” he said.
“With changes in the amount of labor needed for farming and the ongoing desire of people to live in large cities, it’s a very good question if really small towns have much of a future,” he said.
At issue for all small towns, Wood said, “is whether the initial population of a lot of these towns was artificially propped up.”
Rural America can survive, Wood noted, but it takes effort.
What’s needed, he said, is “a few strong local people investing in the town. Because these towns are so small, a very few people can make a pretty big difference.”
Small towns often “have a lot of (hidden) wealth, especially in farms and ranches, but the sons and daughters have gone off to places like Kansas City,” Wood said.
“My father is a perfect example. He left Minneapolis when he was 17 and I don’t think he ever went back. The pattern seems to be that kids go off to college, they learn about new worlds, and the idea of going back to a town of a few hundred is not appealing.”
Wood said, “It’s a matter of two things: Jobs — small communities don’t have a lot of rewarding jobs — and lifestyle. You have to convince them they want to live in a small town that doesn’t have a lot of diversity in entertainment.
“A town like Iola is better than some because its location is not that remote — you really have a lot going on. Where Iola and towns like it begin to look better is when people settle down and begin to raise families,” Wood continued. “They’re safe, and houses tend to be less expensive.”
But jobs are ever the issue.
“It is very hard to get manufacturing plants in or (bring in) one business that employs 200 people,” Wood said. Instead, he advised, “bringing in a number of small businesses is a promising approach, but it’s a little harder to do.”
When asked if rural lifestyles could disappear altogether, Wood responded, “I think that could happen. If someone asked me could the rural lifestyle be gone in 100 years, I’d have to say it could — but I don’t think it will. I think the rural lifestyle will appeal to enough people that many of these small towns will continue to exist, but I don’t think they will grow much.”

IN RESEARCHING “Survival of Rural America,” published in 2008 by the University Press of Kansas, Wood did discover that some communities are fighting that trend.
“Greensburg is a good story but it can’t be replicated,” he said. “Minneapolis and Sedan are having some success.” The towns, Wood said, are growing because “They are attracting some businesses; they seem to have stable school systems to attract new people; by giving away free land and helping people find get jobs; and some of these areas also have local entrepreneurs” that really make a difference.
In Sedan, for instance, “Bill Curtis has a grass fed beef business that’s bringing in people.”
During his Bowlus talk, Wood plans “to update what’s been happening in (rural Kansas in) the last two years,” and focus on whether the towns he featured in his book “are still doing well, or have they slipped a little bit.”
Wood will also talk about the overall economy and “those macro issues that effect the whole country.”
Wood currently lives in Denver, Colo., where he works as an attorney.
He will be available for discussion on Sept. 18 as part of the Iola Public Library-sponsored Family Reading Festival at Allen County Community College.