PODCAST · society
Reframing Rural
by Megan Torgerson
Reframing Rural is the award-winning documentary podcast founded in 2019 by writer, Montanan and farmer's daughter, Megan Torgerson. Reframing Rural does the much needed work of challenging stigmas about rural places by introducing listeners to working people, history and culture that don't always get the spotlight. Season 1 transports listeners to Torgerson's rural homeplace, a tight-knit agricultural community on the plains of far Northeast Montana. Season 2 sows hope in the future of the rural West and Heartland through interviews with rural activists, academics, artists and entrepreneurs. Season 3 combines narrative episodes with interviews to probe the status quo of agriculture, explore farm stress and the need for rural mental health care, the familial challenges of farm and ranch succession planning, the Indigenous roots of regenerative agriculture and the threats of rural gentrification and cultural extraction. Season 4 shares the stories of five Montana farm and ranch families
Episodes
-
The Obit Project: Obituary for a Small Town
This episode about Megan Torgerson's hometown - Dagmar, Montana - originally aired on The Obit Project podcast and on Montana Public Radio, summer 2026. The audio obituary for Dagmar (in-town population: 10), asks how do you know when a town is dead? Megan, a local historian, post master, church...
-
Bonus | Nature Breaking: America is Losing its Grasslands – Why it Matters
In collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund's Nature Breaking podcast, we're bringing you a conversation between Nature Breaking host Seth Larson and vice president of WWF's Great Plains program, Martha Kaufmann. In this episode, Megan reflects on her personal connection to the Northern Great...
-
Succession Stories | Bonus | Country Musician Sterling Drake Tackles the Rural Mental Health Conversation
Sterling Drake is a musician from Philipsburg, Montana, who is using his platform to talk about mental health in agricultural communities. In effort to destigmatize the topic and connect people to resources, Sterling is talking about it in his lyrics and on the stage. Sterling and Megan met up in...
-
Bonus | A New Angle: "Megan Torgerson is reframing rural" & "Rural vs. Urban with Trevor Brown"
We've teamed up with A New Angle podcast to bring you two back to back episodes from their show hosted by Justin Angle a professor at the University of Montana College of Business. The first episode features an interview with Megan Torgerson on Reframing Rural's origin story, our latest season,...
-
Succession Stories | Bonus | The Tilt of the World with Joe Wilkins, Author of "The Entire Sky"
In this companion episode to our "Succession" season, Megan sits down with author Joe Wilkins to explore the pressures facing rural communities and how fiction can help us understand them more deeply. Joe's award-winning novel "The Entire Sky" follows a ranch family in eastern Montana navigating...
-
Succession Stories | Bonus | Our Season Partner, Winnett ACES
Megan shares an update from Winnett ACES since her first reporting trip to Winnett, three years ago, then re-airs the season three episode "Winnett ACES: Strengthening Community & Keeping Ranchers on Working Lands." In this story, she visits Winnett, the only town in the least populated county in...
-
Succession Stories | Bonus | Megan's Family Succession Story
From the archives, we bring you Megan's family succession story "Farm Succession in Northeast Montana," the season three story of Megan's dad Russ Torgerson's retirement. In this episode, Megan shares the intimate journey of her family's farm succession, giving listeners an inside look into the...
-
Succession Stories | Bonus | A Roadmap to Farm and Ranch Succession Planning
You've heard the stories of succession planning from families around Montana this season, and now you're ready to start thinking about succession planning for your own family's farm or ranch. In this bonus episode, we bring you a two-part, practical roadmap for getting started. In chapter one, we...
-
Succession Stories | 5 | Back to Grass
Sig Pugrud's ranch sits on a high bench above Flatwillow Creek, in one of the least-populated counties in the United States. Her family homesteaded in Petroleum County, Montana in 1910, surviving drought, the Dust Bowl, the farm crisis of the 1980s, and generations of economic uncertainty with a...
-
Succession Stories | 4 | The Messy Middle
When Jake Fritz moved back home at 19, four generations were trying to make a living off the same acres northwest of Chester, Montana. With no succession plan from the senior generation, Jake's mother Dena and her husband Jim were leasing land from Jake's grandpa and great-grandma, giving away a...
-
Succession Stories | 3 | From Sand to Soil
In the beaver flats outside Ekalaka, Montana, Ryan and Abbey Bruski are upending convention on their multi-generational ranch. After realizing that their traditional cow-calf model wasn't working for the land or the family, they sold the cows, shifted to custom grazing, and began rebuilding the...
-
Succession Stories | 2 | My Way or the Highway
When Valier rancher Gene Curry began planning the future of Curry Cattle Company, he approached succession with the same drive that helped him build his operation from a patchwork of leased pastures and foreclosure sales. But when it came time to pass the operation to the next generation, he…
more -
Succession Stories | 1 | A Diagnosis and a Deadline
When Howie Hammond learned he might only have months to live, he and his daughter Andrea had to make quick decisions about the future of their family's farm and ranch. In the Milk River Valley of northern Montana, the Hammonds' story shows how one family's health scare catalyzed the difficult...
-
Succession Stories | Bonus | Cowboy Poet, Jim Hamilton reads "The Changing of the Guard"
Curious to know the man behind the deep voice we heard at the beginning of Reframing Rural's Season Four preview? That's cowboy poet, Jim Hamilton. Here he is reading his poem about succession, "The Changing of the Guard."
-
Succession Stories | Preview
Aging farmer demographics, rising land values and farm stress are creating a challenging environment for the successful transfer of farms and ranches to the next generation. Behind the legal, financial and familial considerations of farm and ranch transition, lay a wellspring of stories that do…
more -
A New Season of Reframing Rural is in the Works
Megan has come back from maternity leave and is working with Winnett ACES on a new podcast season!
-
A Note from Megan
Megan has some big life news to share and is working with collaborators on the creative direction of the fourth season!
-
Groundwork | 10 | Creator Roundtable: A Behind-the-Scenes Conversation with Reframing Rural's Audio Engineer, Story Editor and Producer/Host
In this final installment of Season 3 "Groundwork," Reframing Rural founder, host and producer, Megan Torgerson speaks with the podcast's audio engineer, Aaron Spieldenner and story editor, Mary Auld about the inspiration behind the season and all the work that goes into producing the show's...
-
Groundwork | 9 | A Conversation with Grace Olmstead, author of "Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind"
Grace Olmstead is the West's preeminent author on place. In her book "Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind" and in this interview, she speaks to rural outmigration, connection to place, the history of how agriculture was industrialized and the future of agriculture in…
more -
Groundwork | 8 | John Wicks: the Story of a Punk Rock Farmer and his Fight to Save the Future of Family Farming in Montana
At 21 John Wicks was faced with the decision to stay in college or come home and save his family's farm. Today he is a leader in Montana's organic and regenerative farming movement and an advocate for family farms across the state, serving as the associate director of Montana Farmers Union....
-
Groundwork | 7 | Normalizing Mental Health Care in Agricultural Communities, Addressing Farm Stress & Restoring Wellbeing in Rural Montana
Dr. Alison Brennan, MSU Extension's designated mental health specialist, Courtney Brown Kibblewhite with Northern Ag Network and Beyond the Weather, and wellness coach and rancher Lisa Williams discuss mental health resources and stigma around mental health in Montana's rural and agricultural...
-
Groundwork | 6 | Winnett ACES: Strengthening Community & Keeping Ranchers on Working Lands
In Winnett, the only town in the least populated county in Montana, out-of-state absentee land ownership poses a threat to the future of ranching and the preservation of the region's intact prairie ecosystem. To keep people on the land and build a vibrant future for Winnett's main street, the...
-
Groundwork | Bonus | Developing Women Leaders for Montana's Future
This bonus episode features a webinar recorded for the Women's Foundation of Montana, June 2022. "Developing Leaders for Montana's Future" was a virtual conversation about the landscape of women's leadership in the state featuring leaders who've advanced opportunities for young rural women…
more -
Groundwork | 5 | Latrice Tatsey & Danielle Antelope on Culturally-Specific and Climate-Smart Blackfeet Food Systems
The convergence of mountain and prairie ecosystems along the Rocky Mountain Front is the awe-inspiring backdrop of the Blackfeet Nation, home of the Amskapi Piikani, or Blackfeet, for time immemorial. Latrice Tatsey, a rancher and cultural land ecologist with Piikani Lodge Health Institute, and...
-
Groundwork | Bonus | Working Wild U "Wolves in the West: Defining the Problem"
In this bonus episode from Working Wild U, a podcast by Montana State University Extension and Western Landowners Alliance, hosts Jared Beaver and Alex Few explore how people's values impact how they think about wolves and land use in the West.
-
Groundwork | 4 | Rural Gentrification in North Idaho
The small North Idaho town of Dover has seen the extraction of timber, cheap labor and the natural amenities that draw tourists and second home owners with high-incomes and high-expectations for the luxuries they're accustomed to. What happens to the natural environment and community cohesion…
more -
Groundwork | 3 | Kathleen McLaughlin on Class Inequality & Cultural Extraction in a Changing Montana
Montana has long held a distinctive place within the mythos of America. Today, it's becoming an ever-more attractive destination for those in search of a stronger sense of community, or an escape, in response to a dizzying and hyper-digital world. In this honest conversation with award-winning,...
-
Groundwork | Bonus | Stories for Action: "Strengthening Community in a Changing Montana"
In this bonus episode Stories for Action podcast host Lara Tomov explores how the pressures of rapid growth and development are affecting Montanans, and how community groups like Trust Montana, Successful Gardiner and Reimagining Rural are working to maintain vibrant communities where all…
more -
Groundwork | 2 | Farm Succession in Northeast Montana
After a lifetime farming wheat on the Northern Great Plains, the time has come for Russ Torgerson to retire. In this narrative episode, Reframing Rural producer Megan Torgerson shares the intimate journey of her family's farm succession, giving listeners an inside look into the emotional, legal…
more -
Groundwork | 1 | An interview with the "farmer's lawyer," Sarah Vogel
The "farmer's lawyer" Sarah Vogel is a hero to farmers across the country. In the 1980s she saved 240,000 family farmers facing foreclosure. In the 2000s she pursued justice for thousands of Native American farmers and ranchers who suffered decades of credit discrimination from the USDA. Sarah...
-
Groundwork | Preview
Reframing Rural's third season will transport listeners to Golden Triangle wheat fields, farmhouse kitchen tables and small mountain town main streets. Combining sound-rich narrative non-fiction episodes with in-depth interviews, season three will shine light on the state of family farming, the...
-
Bonus | The Modern West
Our friends at The Modern West have a new season out, and we're excited to share part one with you! Like Reframing Rural, The Modern West shares surprising stories from often overlooked rural places, helping to reframe how we think about the West as it is today. In "The Rolling Stone," the first...
-
Sowing Possibility | 10 | Emily Stifler Wolfe & Jason Thompson on "Common Ground" Montana Free Press Series(Part 2)
In part two of Megan's conversation with journalists Emily Stifler Wolfe and Jason Thompson of the "Common Ground Series" published by Montana Free Press, they discuss the threat of desertification, succession planning challenges family farms face and the sixth soil health principle of context.
-
Sowing Possibility | 9 | Emily Stifler Wolfe & Jason Thompson on "Common Ground" Montana Free Press Series(Part 1)
Combining profiles of farmers from the Golden Triangle with soil science, history, policy research and transportive imagery, the award-winning "Common Ground" series is sowing hope in the future for farmers across the West. Written by Emily Stifler Wolfe with transportive photography from photo...
-
Sowing Possibility | 8 | Randi Lynn Tanglen, PhD on Western American Literature and Public Humanities
Randi Lynn Tanglen, PhD grew up in the small NE Montana town of Sidney and turned an early love of literature into a career in education. Randi developed a specialty in hidden voices of 19th century Western American Literature including women, Indigenous and Black authors – a niche that has…
more -
Sowing Possibility | 7 | Jeanie Alderson on the "Big Four" Meatpacking Monopoly
Jeanie Alderson comes from a storied legacy of ranchers in Southeast Montana. In the 1970s, her parents were among the rural organizers to form Northern Plains Resource Council. Today, Jeanie and her husband Terry are continuing their work standing up for family farms and ranches by fighting...
-
Sowing Possibility | 6 | Ashley Hanson on Rural Cultural Work, Site-Specific Theater and Community Development
Ashley Hanson is the director of PlaceBase Productions, a site-specific theater company working with nontraditional actors to create stories specific to small towns, and the founder and executive director of Department of Public Transformation, an artist-led nonprofit that's fostering community...
-
Sowing Possibility | 5 | Benya Kraus on Stewarding the Next Generation of Rural Leaders
Benya Kraus is the co-founder of Lead for America, a national nonprofit nurturing the next generation of rural leaders. Benya embodies the virtue of getting proximate to issues most affecting her rural home, while striving to restore solidarity between disconnected cultures and a divided nation.
-
Sowing Possibility | Bonus | Ed Roberson on Creating his Celebrated Podcast, Mountain & Prairie
For an event hosted by the Rural Radio Collective Megan Torgerson sits down with Ed Roberson, the founder and producer of the acclaimed podcast Mountain & Prairie, to hear what he's learned over the past six years producing intelligent and thoughtful conversations that illuminate the unfolding...
-
Sowing Possibility | 4 | Ben Winchester on Rural Brain Gain and Rural In-Migration
Ben Winchester is a rural sociologist whose research into the rural "brain gain" has illuminated the trend of 30- to 49-year-olds migrating to rural America. A purveyor of good news that small towns are not dying, Ben is on a mission to elevate a positive narrative on rural America through the…
more -
Sowing Possibility | 3 | Miranda Moen on Rural Architectural Design and Norwegian-American Immigrant Architecture
Miranda Moen is a rural architectural designer studying the architecture and cultural history of her ancestors through a Fulbright fellowship in Norway. This stirring conversation covers Miranda's mission to uplift the importance of rural and working class buildings, and how she has come to…
more -
Sowing Possibility | 2 | Jake Bullinger on Challenging Rural-Urban Binaries and the Potential for Climate Resilience in Resource Economies
Jake Bullinger is a Wyoming native, freelance journalist and new father who covers the politics, culture, economy and environment of the West. In "Sowing Possibility: Episode 2" host Megan Torgerson and Jake discuss red state-blue state binaries, the history of mobility in the west and the...
-
Sowing Possibility | Bonus | Red Ants Pants Music Festival
Following Reframing Rural's interview with Red Ants Pants Founder, Sarah Calhoun, Megan Torgerson heads to Red Ants Pants Music Festival in White Sulphur Springs, Montana where she records powerful performances and speaks with musicians, festival attendees and Red Ants Pants Foundation timber...
-
Sowing Possibility | 1 | Sarah Calhoun on Rural Resiliency through Entrepreneurship and the Arts
Sarah Calhoun has long been venerated as a champion of rural causes in Montana and beyond. In the first episode of our Sowing Possibility series, Calhoun explores how her childhood in rural New Brunswick and New England informed her decision to move to the small agricultural town of White Sulphur...
-
Sowing Possibility | Preview
Reframing Rural's second season "Sowing Possibility" shares conversations with rural advocates from across the Heartland and West. Guided by host Megan Torgerson, this ten episode season leans into intimate and expansive questions about the past and future of rural America while provoking…
more -
Coming Home | 7 | Patchwork Quilt, A Narrated Essay by Megan Torgerson
In the final episode of Reframing Rural's inaugural season, founder Megan Torgerson recounts her experience leaving rural Montana to attend college in Missoula, her journey encountering and dismantling rural stereotypes, and why she is working to reframe the narrative on rural America. Offering a...
-
Coming Home | Bonus | The Modern West
Looking for another podcast set in the American West that weaves family stories, personal inquiry and cultural analysis to uncover issues affecting beloved rural places? Look no further than The Modern West's Ghost Town(ing) series! In this episode you'll hear from host Melodie Edwards who will...
-
Coming Home | 6 | A Mother's Day Celebration of Rural Womanhood
This special Mother's Day episode features Kay Brinkman and Renny Torgerson two old friends and rural Montana farm women who have lived in the Scandinavian farming community of Dagmar, since the 1970s. From braving a whiteout with a herd of cattle, to teaching in a two-room school house, these...
-
Coming Home | 5 | A Snapshot of Family Farming Amid Cycles of Modernization and Migration
The Torgersons have farmed for as far back as the family has record of, at least the 1500s, but likely much longer. Beginning with the onset of industrialization, this episode tracks the story of a family who left Norway for the promise of a better life in America nearly 150 years ago, and how…
more -
Coming Home | 4 | Faith the Size of a Mustard Seed
Ralph Summers is a mailman, bus driver, taxidermist and preacher living in Dagmar, Montana. In this episode, we explore the history of rural mail delivery, the value of neighbors, and what it means to have faith.
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Reframing Rural is the award-winning documentary podcast founded in 2019 by writer, Montanan and farmer's daughter, Megan Torgerson. Reframing Rural does the much needed work of challenging stigmas about rural places by introducing listeners to working people, history and culture that don't always get the spotlight. Season 1 transports listeners to Torgerson's rural homeplace, a tight-knit agricultural community on the plains of far Northeast Montana. Season 2 sows hope in the future of the rural West and Heartland through interviews with rural activists, academics, artists and entrepreneurs. Season 3 combines narrative episodes with interviews to probe the status quo of agriculture, explore farm stress and the need for rural mental health care, the familial challenges of farm and ranch succession planning, the Indigenous roots of regenerative agriculture and the threats of rural gentrification and cultural extraction. Season 4 shares the stories of five Montana farm and ranch families
HOSTED BY
Megan Torgerson
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Reframing Rural have?
Reframing Rural currently has 56 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Reframing Rural about?
Reframing Rural is the award-winning documentary podcast founded in 2019 by writer, Montanan and farmer's daughter, Megan Torgerson. Reframing Rural does the much needed work of challenging stigmas about rural places by introducing listeners to working people, history and culture that don't always...
How often does Reframing Rural release new episodes?
Reframing Rural has 56 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Reframing Rural?
You can listen to Reframing Rural on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Reframing Rural?
Reframing Rural is created and hosted by Megan Torgerson.
URL copied to clipboard!