Come, Hear about a rural county revitalized!
Spend two hours in the McKenzie County Courthouse, from 10 a.m. until noon, watching a video conference about how a rural county reversed outmigration?
The only cost is your time, and you will be fed afterward.
Yes, a pioneer in revitalization is Miner County in eastern South Dakota. Inspirational to McKenzie County and others seeking improvements, the Miner County Story will be told via 2-hour video conference “aired” at the McKenzie County Courthouse. Lunch will be served immediately by the Horizons Community Leadership to Reduce Poverty in McKenzie County group afterward on Friday, March 7.
You are invited to hear and see first-hand how local leaders change their rural community, to see what it takes, how they started (with youth!) and the lessons they learned. Their grassroots efforts reversed population decline and was a feature story on the Wall Street Journal’s front page in 2005.
Heralded as “the most extraordinary rural development project in the nation” by Dr. Forrest Calico of the National Rural Health Association one year ago, the story begins in 1995 with a three-year successful effort to connect rural schools with their communities.
The vision? To sustain a community by meeting basic needs, for a community is only as well off as its most destitute citizen; and to grow within ecological lines, for the people must inhabit the community in ways that sustain it for future generations.
You must pre-register by March 3. Contact Sandy Erickson at 701-328-9718 or email
sandra.k.erickson@ndsu.edu.
Northwest Area Foundation, a sponsor of this local Horizons program, chose Miner County as a partner in January 1999 because the county showed community cohesion and the ability to work together; they showed an understanding that economic , social and environmental issues are interconnected and must be addressed together; the county had already worked with at least one outside organization on community development and showed motivation to build on that work, plus, success seemed difficult without further access to outside resources.
The rest of the story may be seen and heard at 10 a.m. central time in the McKenzie County Courthouse, Watford City, on Friday, March 7, 2008. See the above information to pre-register.