THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPECIAL REPORT
'We all would like to preserve the rural way of life, but we have to understand that progress is happening aound us. We can either be a part of it or watch from the outside.'
— Bob Meade
R-Pawnee Rock
See story p. 4c.
State of Rural Kansas Economic hardship forces residents to re-evaluate their futures.
'Economic development is only a small percentage of what state government does. It takes the initiative of the rural areas themselves to make a difference.'
— Gov. Mike Hayden
See story p. 4c.
'We are the exceptions. Not everyone can do this. Not everyone has the capital, the products or even the entrepreneurial personality. So let's help the ones who are trying.'
are trying — Karen Pendleton Value-added innovator See story p. 3c.
By Steve Buckner
Kansan staff writer
lthough the West was won more than a century ago, a different battle is being waged on the Main Streets of rural Kansas today.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
This section includes a six-story report examining economic factors affecting the state of rural Kansas. The stories are part of a project by the Public Affairs Reporting class of the School of Journalism.
At 11 a.m. on a weekday, the twoblock downtown area of Cherokee, a Crawford County town of 775 people in southeast Kansas, is almost empty. A few cars congregate at the Cherokee Home Cafe, and a couple more cluster at the tavern down the paved-but-muddy, pothole-marked street. Five of its 18 buildings are vacant.
At 11 a.m. on another weekday, the three-block downtown area of Hillsboro, a Marion County town town with 2,614 people in central Kansas, is thriving. Parking places are hard to find, and the lone signal light earns its keep. Customers enjoy a wide variety of shops among the 40 businesses along the street.
Cherokee and Hillsboro typify two sizes of rural Kansas towns fighting their way into the 21st century. Cherokee is one of 532 Kansas towns with fewer than 2,500 people to maintain their populations and be more than just a bedroom community for larger, nearby communities.
Hillsboro, which employed rare foresight in planning its future, is the type of town that gains by serving the needs of the Cherokee-sized communities in Marion County. But it still finds itself in the fray for survival after losing 103 people between 1980 and 1987.
Kansas and its communities are trying to stem the outflow of people with a statewide quilt of economic development programs and projects aimed at giving each town a self-determining role in its survival. To date, the effectiveness of the state's economic development actions is difficult to assess because most of the programs have existed only since the 1986 advent of Kansas Inc., a public-private partnership created by the State Legislature to develop policy direction to improve the state's economic competitiveness.
Strong forces
But Kansas Inc. suggested in a 1989 report that the state is facing
an uphill battle that may be impossible to win because, "The overall decline in population and economic activity in rural America cannot be reversed."
Rural Kansas is losing people with a whimper, not a bang, to its urban areas and other states. The 61 counties with populations less than 10,000 lost a total of 17,328 people, or 5.2 percent of their population from 1980 to 1987. Between 1960 and 1987, those same counties lost 64,459 people, or 17 percent of their population.
The 35 rural counties with more than 10,000 people posted a net gain of 7,232, but 18 of them lost population, among them Crawford and Marion.
The declines are part of a vicious cycle of job loss, lack of opportunity and the departure of the working-age people who would form an employment base. Between 1880 and 1988, 15,900 jobs were lost in all rural counties.
Kansas also is plagued by many differences in its rural towns,
according to the Kansas Inc. report.
In fact, rural Kansas is so diverse that it is impossible to find one or even several solutions to its problems. As every light on Broadway could be someone's story, each of Kansas' 627 communities is unique in its geography, resources, demographics or economic characteristics, rendering unfeasible any blank solution to the state's ecological development woes. To deal with this diversity, the state Department of Commerce offers about 100 programs that specialize in different phases of economic development.
Strategy
Another finding from the Kansas Inc. report indicated the strategy the state is using for rural economic development. The strategy relies on the communities to organize themselves to develop locally based, unique plans for growth. Two reasons exist for this strategy: the diversity of rural towns and the
Students rarely go back to small towns
When she grad from the Unive Michelle Smith immediately to become a teacher even if she has not found a job.
By Jennifer Metz
Kansan staff writer
Under no cir- cumstances, she WORK FORCE said, does she want to return to work in her southeast Kansas hometown of St. Paul, population about 700.
"If the residents of the town say to come back, students say, 'What for?' " said Smith, public relations major.
When she graduates this month from the University of Kansas, Michelle Smith plans to move
Many Kansas students, like Smith, are sparring their rural hometowns. KU students from rural towns usually intend to go on to bigger and better things, said Rachel Dawkins, KU director of admissions.
The average high school graduating class in St. Paul is 20 students, and the number is falling each year. The town does not have a traffic light or a fast-food restaurant.
Some students go away to college and never return. Others bypass college and go directly to jobs in larger towns.
Both groups are leaving at the worst possible time, when rural
towns need a secure labor force to redevelop and survive.
Decreasing numbers
Between 1980 and 1987, 61 rural Kansas counties with populations of fewer than 10,000 lost 17,328 people, which is 5.2 percent of the total rural population.
It is likely that a large portion of the 17,328 who left were in search of a better job, said Jerry Lengeran, Kansas Inc. vice president for
During the same seven years, all rural Kansas counties lost 15,900 jobs.
With young workers leaving.
rural communities are becoming disproportionately elderly. In a 1899 Kansas Inc, Rural Development Action Plan, studies indicated that by the late 1900s, people older than 65 represented 21 percent of the population in rural Kansas counties, but only 11 percent of the population in metropolitan Kansas counties.
To prevent the loss of workers, rural communities are looking for new industries to create jobs.
But the dwindling supply of labor in many small towns is unattractive to many companies, said Charles Warren, president of Kansas Inc.
See HOMETOWNS, p. 7c
Inside:
Local farm diversifies p. 34
Bell not tolling for rural towns p. 60
Maintaining traditional values p. 6c