rural

Blueprints for rural progress: Report outlines critical need for federal development funding

By Lee Egerstrom, Minnesota 2020

Take away USDA Rural Development dollars and you start taking away small town assets, such as nursing homes, hospital expansions, access to affordable housing, wastewater infrastructure, and business development. Minnesota 2020’s latest report, Blueprints for Rural Progress highlights the importance of these community development programs in sustaining a strong rural way of life.

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Winona County couple believe freedom to marry essential for fair and strong rural communities

By Sally Jo Sorensen, Bluestem Prairie

Anne Morse and Jon Nicholson of Dakota, Winona County, Minnesota, who have been married since Trix was a pup, saw their own son marry last year. They can't entertain denying the happiness that they and their child have found in marriage to any other committed couple.

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Bluestem Prairie

Out in rural Minnesota: Jessi Tebben and Ashley Schuman build family-despite challenges

By Kendall Anderson, Minnesota Women’s Press

Jessi Tebben, left, and Ashley Schuman (Photo by Kendall Anderson)

Both Jessi Tebben and Ashley Schuman try to keep open hearts and minds as social and human services workers, and as moms.

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Minnesota rural housing gets big boost

By Lee Egerstrom, Minnesota 2020

While the federal fiscal year is winding down and the future of USDA programs are in doubt, rural Minnesota just got a big boost from one continuing program that should help strengthen the rural housing markets across the state.

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Minnesota 2020

1 in 5 Minnesota workers teleworks

By Ann Treacy, Blandin on Broadband

Last week, Connect Minnesota released a report on telework in Minnesota. I’m a little slow on the uptake reading it because ironically, I have been travelling to my annual summer exodus to Ireland. So I am acutely aware of the benefits of telework. To cut to the quick numbers…

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Blandin on Broadband

Universal Service Fund changes worrisome to rural communities

By Ann Treacy, Blandin on Broadband

Universal Service Fund, Intercarrier Compensation, Connect American Fund – big topics, technical topics, wonky topics, topics that most people avoid like the plague – but avoid at your own peril. USF, ICC and CAF are federal funding mechanisms that help build and maintain broadband to rural areas.

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Blandin on Broadband

New University of Minnesota research disproves the myth of rural "brain drain"

By Rebecca Harrington, The Minnesota Daily

Five years ago, Kathy Draeger and her husband decided city life wasn’t right for their young family. They wanted a slower pace of life. They wanted space.

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Ag bill receives green thumbs up

By Susan Hegarty, Session Daily

Shopping for spring garden supplies and landscape materials would be easier under provisions passed in the omnibus agriculture and rural development bill.

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Broadband deployment – bumpy ride, but moving forward

By Ann Treacy, Blandin on Broadband

I was at a non-broadband meeting yesterday morning when someone came up to ask me about the problem with fiber. He had recently heard MPR’s story on fiber (Broadband projects take a bumpy ride) and it left him feeling like things weren’t going that well for broadband in Minnesota.

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Blandin on Broadband

OPINION | Rural mental health in crisis

By Meg Reid, Minnesota 2020

We who live in more urban areas too often subscribe to the stereotype of rural life as peaceful and idyllic.

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