Episodes
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Episode 54: Mitchell's Nursery and Greenhouse
In the latest episode of the Rural Business Show, we head to King, North Carolina—a small bedroom community just outside of Winston-Salem—to speak with a veteran of the horticultural industry - Judy Mitchell, co-founder and CEO of Mitchell's Nursery and Greenhouse. Judy and her husband, Jim,...
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Episode 53: The Rural Philanthropy Gap
While rural communities contribute so much to our nation, they receive a disproportionately small share of philanthropic dollars. The numbers are stark: rural areas make up 20% of the US population, yet they only receive around 7% of the nation's philanthropic giving. This disparity has real...
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Episode 52: The Rural News Business
It's been a while since we've recorded an episode of The Rural Business Show. It's been a year of change for our business, Nevada Central Media, as we went from publishing one rural weekly newspaper to four. This episode of the Rural Business Show focuses on the business of small-town news. The...
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Episode 51: Rural Housing
Housing continues to be a difficult challenge for rural communities. Often, jobs are unfilled because of a lack of adequate and affordable housing. Attracting builders is a challenge as is an increasing number of units being used as vacation properties. Community Rebuilds based in Moab, Utah...
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Episode 50: Rural Voice
The Rural Voice series, hosted by Minnesota Public Radio's Kerri Miller, captures imaginative and illuminating town hall conversations about the rewards and challenges of making a home in rural America. The town hall meetings are lively, engaging and enlightening as the host nudges rural...
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Episode 49: Rural Business Conference Helping Small Business Owners Connect
Amidst the busy life of running a rural business, it's often hard to find opportunities to network and connect with useful resources. Throughout the country, organizations are trying to help by putting on events that bring rural business professionals together through regional conferences. The...
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Episode 48: NC Rural Center
Since 1987, the NC Rural Center in North Carolina has worked to improve the quality of life for the state's rural people and places. It operates with the core belief that rural communities have inherent cultural value and are vital to the overall economic health of the state. Patrick Woodie is a...
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Episode 47: A Small Town's Fight to Save Its Historic General Store
Trevor Bruan of the Elmore Community Trust shares a remarkable story of how the small town of Elmore, Vermont, which has about 850 residents and no stoplight, rallied to save its only General Store and preserve the town's identity. The Elmore Community Trust also found innovative ways to fund the...
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Episode 46: The Farm Bill with Kalee Olson
Kalee Olson is a policy associate for the Center for Rural Affairs and joins Ben Rowley in this episode of The Rural Business Show to discuss some of the Center's top priorities for the 2023 farm bill and how it will impact rural communities. The Farm Bill comes up in Congress every five years…
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Episode 45: Rural Strategies for Utilizing Federal Funding
The American Rescue Plan set aside $7.5 Billion in relief funds for rural healthcare providers. Even as the money was made available, however, many towns across the U.S. were rejecting this and other Federal Relief Funds, "because they couldn't think of a way to spend it." Others knew how they...
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Episode 44: Housing Development Alliance
Scott McReynolds is the executive director of the Housing Development Alliance (HDA) in Hazard, Ky. The HDA's programs have helped more than 2,900 low-income people in rural southeastern Kentucky become new homeowners, make home-improving repairs, and break free of debt. The organization builds...
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Episode 43: Rural Marketing
Meredith Gernigin is an independent lead generation strategist focused on building small and mid-cap businesses into legacy assets. How? She creates demand with curated, done-for-you marketing tailored to each client's geographical needs. Her goal? To make businesses worth selling (or passing…
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Episode 42: Radically Rural
The Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship provides the space, tools and connections that innovative entrepreneurs need to build strong businesses, thriving local economies and vibrant communities. Julianna Dodson is the organization's Radically Rural Director, and she has gained a wide array…
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Episode 41: Leafy Green Farms
Brad Fourby is the Founder of Leafy Green Farms based in Pittsburg, Kansas. The farm uses shipping containers and vertical hydroponics to deliver hyperlocal vegetables and herbs to area businesses and residents. The farm grows and harvests weekly all year long. Climate does not affect the farm as...
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Episode 40: Building a Cider Business in Rural Colorado
Elizabeth Philbrick co-owns EsoTerra Cider with her husband Jared Scott in Dolores, Colorado, population 825. The business crafts hard cider using apples from historic local orchards. Just two years old, the company is finding a foothold reviving what they say was once rural America's drink of...
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Episode 39: Rural Commercial Real Estate
A rural developer is building a town square from scratch in the small town of Mapleton, North Dakota. Justin Forde recently completed the first building in the Maple River Town Square development. The six-acre project is selling commercial space to businesses looking to serve the town, which has...
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Episode 38: Community Heart & Soul
Community Heart & Soul is a resident-driven process that engages the entire population of a town in identifying what they love most about their community, what future they want for it, and how to achieve it. Developed and field-tested over a decade in partnership with more than 90 small cities…
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Episode 37: Rural Grocery Initiative
In 2006, Kansas State held listening sessions across the state aimed at identifying challenges facing rural communities. During these sessions, the need to support rural grocery stores rose to the top. Supporting rural grocery stores is important because they: Provide jobs and contribute to the...
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Episode 36: The Future of Rural Work
Matt Dunne is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center on Rural Innovation (CORI). The Center is bringing together a network of innovation hubs across rural America through a team of experts. The organization focuses on digital economic development, rural opportunity zones…
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Episode 35: Resilient Strategies for Rural Economies
Is the common view of rural America outdated? Are the strategies needed to build today's rural economies actually being implemented? Hanna Love, with the Brookings Institution and Mike Powe, with the National Main Street Center, recently collaborated on a five-part research series on rural...
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Episode 34: Building Possibility
Deb Brown offers programs on various small-town challenges and has traveled extensively through rural America helping communities on their path to vitality. Her keynotes, webinars and workshops help small towns figure out what to do with empty buildings, improve marketing and economic…
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Episode 33: Overcoming Challenges in Rural Healthcare
Michelle Rathman is the founder of Impact! Communications based in Geneva, Illinois. She started her business in 1989 as a Chicago-area public relations, advertising, and marketing firm. The company represented clients from a variety of industries and provided high-level PR services. This…
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Episode 32: TROTFITNESS
Nisan Trotter is an entrepreneur, public speaker, author and owner of TROTFITNESS in Lewisburg, Penn. (population: 5,730). Trotter grew up in Silverhill, Ala. (population: 997), where he was brought up by a loving support group of family and friends. He said he cut his teeth on the pews of the...
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Episode 31: Duivenvoorden Farms
Duivenvoorden Farms is a third-generation family-owned dairy farm in northern California. Originally started by partners Jerry and Rita Duivenvoorden, and John and Nel DeJong, Duivenvoorden Farms has been operating for over 50 years. Owners Marc and Lori Duivenvoorden took over the farm in 1993 -...
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Episode 30 - Sync.Space
Heath Guinn is an entrepreneur, community advocate and strategist based in Northeast Tennessee. Guinn has launched multiple successful companies and his most recent project is Sync.Space, an entrepreneur center with accelerator programs geared toward startups considering Northeast Tennessee as a...
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Episode 29: Rural Journalism
Community newspapers have served rural areas for hundreds of years, providing news and useful information to small-town residents. Local editors and reporters attend meetings, sporting events, and other community gatherings and provide an ongoing account of what's happening in their town. Most...
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Episode 28: Renovating a Small Town Building
Grace Pshigoda and her husband Ashley have worked hard to renovate a historic building in their hometown of Spearman, Texas. They turned the top floor of the 100-year-old structure into a three-room bed and breakfast and are opening the main floor for community meetings and events. The process...
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Episode 27: Little House on the Feedlot
Rachel Granstra is a young mom and business owner living with her husband, Brennan, and twin daughters in northwest Iowa. She's been in the region her whole life, benefiting from growing up in a tight-knit rural setting in a faith-centered home. She always knew she wanted to follow in her…
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Episode 26: A 'Tuttie Fruttie' Farm
Kristin Thompson's passion for plants and the empowerment of growing her own food started from a young age and has been calling her ever since. She believes it is one of the most grounding and self-empowering things a person can do for themselves and wants to share it with others through highly...
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Episode 25: Making the Cheese
Specialty Cheese Company is headquartered at a former high school in Reeseville, Wisc., population 679. The company is innovative in its growth and accommodating employees. Ten individuals are paid to drive staff from surrounding communities to work every day. The business is expanding, building…
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Episode 24: Rethinking Rural
Madeline Moore is a young mom, rural entrepreneur and founder of Rethinking Rural, which is a network of engaged millennials working on rural issues at a national scale. In 2018, the Rethinking Rural invited 50 rural millennials to Port Townsend, Wash. to discuss how to improve rural communities....
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Episode 23: Rural Startup Connecting Growers to Local Buyers
Vinder is a community marketplace for people to list, discover, and buy local produce - connecting community members to local growers. Founded in July of 2016 in Port Townsend, Wash., a rural Victorian art and seaport community, Vinder was originally launched on foot and bicycle by the founder…
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Episode 22: Rural Career and Technical Education
Every Career and Technical Education (CTE) class at Lincoln County High School (LCHS) in Hamlin, West Virginia is a Simulated Workplace. The classes cover a wide variety of professions – teaching, computer science, publishing and law enforcement, to name just a few. They run as businesses, taking...
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Episode 21: Simulated Workplaces in Rural Schools
The new Simulated Workplace initiative in West Virginia's public schools is making a big impact on rural economies in that state. The West Virginia Department of Education worked with numerous businesses and industries throughout the area to design the program. This initiative helps schools...
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Episode 20: Rural Workforce Development
Brent Parton is the deputy director of the Center on Education & Skills at New America, a D.C.-based think tank. He focuses on education policies at the Center in order to build learning-based pathways to economic opportunity. He took time to speak with Rural Business HQ recently on rural…
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Episode 19: Silver City MainStreet
Silver City MainStreet fosters economic development in Silver City, New Mexico's historic downtown. The organization does this through collaboration and promotion of downtown events, improvements to and preservation of the historic district, and the development of new and creative uses for…
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Episode 18: Rural Pathway Project
The Rural Pathway Project (RPP) in New Mexico is assisting communities with building up their own tourism assets. Suzy Lawrence is the Tourism Development Coordinator for the New Mexico Tourism Department and recently talked about the project and how rural communities can build their local...