"Distributed workforce" job completes puzzle for Curtis entrepreneur

Like many talented, creative, technically-educated people in the 1990s, Bob Willis was drawn into the tech startup boom. After completing a degree in information systems at Arizona State University, Bob took a series of jobs with software startups, but his companies kept getting bought out until he landed a job with real promise. Then 9/11 happened.more...

Producing trophy bucks is goal of Oxford entrepreneur

Nothing thrills a deer hunter more than a trophy buck with a massive rack of thick, sturdy antlers. But when winters are hard and feed is scarce, nutrition is compromised and bucks grow undersized antlers while does give birth to weak, undernourished fawns in the spring.

Rich Carpenter is a hunter with special expertise in supplemental nutrition for animals. He put his two worlds together to create Feed the Bone, a nutritional supplement designed to aid in bone, muscle and antler development in wild or farmed deer. Working with his sons, he’s building a market that includes sportsmen, outfitters, deer farmers and hunting preserves.

more...

Success of Three Brothers Winery keeps Farnham couple busy

What started out as a straightforward retirement strategy to grow grapes for Nebraska’s expanding wine industry grew into quite a different operation for Gary and Ricky Sue Wach.

“Originally, I wanted to plant an orchard,” said Gary. “I planned to retire and grow apples and cherry trees like my grandparents in Hayes County.” But before he could put that plan into effect, a colleague convinced him to plant grapevines instead.

more...

‘Da Brick’ is at the heart of Benkelman’s revitalization plans

“From the outside, the old brick building at 521 Chief Street is impressive to behold, rising three stories high and occupying a central position in Benkelman, Nebraska's downtown business district,” writer Gene Morris tells us. “In a different way, the inside is equally impressive, with high ceilings and 5,000 square feet of open space on every floor and rich details from an earlier age. The problem is that the building is vacant, left idle in 2009 after more than a century of use as a department store, and, more recently, as a NAPA Auto Parts retail outlet.”

It’s a problem that faces many of Nebraska’s rural cities and towns: once grand buildings, remnants of a more prosperous time, go vacant and remain so because they are too large or require too much repair for any single enterprise.

more...

Rural healthcare is better — a lot better — than you think
by Jennifer Chick

“One thing that stops people from leaving crowded urban cities for a life in rural Nebraska is the misperception that the quality of healthcare is somehow diminished,” says writer Jennifer Chick. “While it’s true that access to some types of specialists and unusual procedures may be less convenient, rural Nebraska healthcare provides an intimate setting where patients, doctors and surgeons can create more personalized treatment plans.”

Jennifer takes a look at the healthcare providers rural areas attract and retain, and the investment many rural communities are willing to make in order to insure quality healthcare is available for residents. Her assessment of rural healthcare will give you new hope about how rural communities are preparing to face the future.

more...

Choreographing a Swedish Christmas
by Betty Sayers

“Beginning in December, when I was growing up, my mother and her family members marched to the tune of Christmas Past in the Swedish tradition of Grandmother Anna Johnson. They prepared for our traditional holiday feast, a Swedish smorgasbord as near to the one Anna and [her sister] Augusta remembered as was possible to replicate far from the seaside of Sweden and in a small town on the Nebraska prairie.”

In Betty Sayers’ remembrance of Christmases Past, the menu for the Christmas Eve Day smorgasbord was long and detailed and preparations had to begin weeks in advance with the making of beautiful but labor-intensive cookies, homemade Swedish sausage and lutefisk, a dried cod that had to be soaked in water for weeks to leach out the lye. She describes the making of rye bread, butter balls and cinnamon apples and the moment when all the guests arrive to stare in wonder at the groaning board.

more...

Quasquicentennial makes for a big year in Eustis

One-hundred twenty-five years is a long time and a lot can change. For example, farmers might — in fact did — go from plowing fields with a team of horses to being able to sit back and read a magazine while satellites guide their powerful air-conditioned tractors down the rows.

Eustis, a town of about 450 in Frontier County, is just finishing up its year-long Quasquicentennial celebration - which they called the Q 125 — and according to resident, community leader and photographer Don Brockmeier, Eustis had a very full year of events celebrating “the good old days”.

more...

Spreading out: a modest plan to save the cities and repopulate rural America
by Phil Soreide

Since the earliest mud-hut villages, cities have grown almost continuously until today vast megalopolises like Tokyo, New York, Mumbai and Mexico City comprise tens of millions of souls each and massive urban complexes covering hundreds of square miles.

And it’s not over yet.

Here in the U.S., the rural population has dropped to the lowest it has ever been — 16% — while metropolitan areas have enjoyed double-digit percentage gains in population. The rural share is expected to drop further as the U.S. population balloons from 309 million to 400 million by midcentury, crowding millions more people into cities and suburbs and filling in the remaining open spaces around them.

more...

Breakfast among the Bald Eagles
by Betty Sayers, Phil Soreide & Pam Soreide

The Christmas holidays were over but had left the memory of too many rich banquets and too many sweets; the prospect of another big dinner – even at one of our favorite restaurants – was more than we could bear. So the talk turned to the large contingent of Bald Eagles that our friend Pat Underwood, director for Harlan County Tourism, told us were wintering at (relatively) nearby Harlan County Lake. Somewhere in there the conversation shifted back to food, and the idea of a “Norwegian” breakfast adventure to see the eagles first thing in the morning on New Year’s Eve day began to take shape.

more...

Holdrege County Club Restaurant is hard to find but worth the effort
by Pam Soreide and Phil Soreide

One of the Rural Foodies favorite spots for good steak or seafood, generous drinks, a friendly atmosphere and great ribs on Friday nights has no sign on the street, none in the parking lot and only a minimalist reference to its existence on the door. Yet, this is where the people in town bring visitors they want to impress, celebrate important events and have nice, romantic dinners.  It’s got a fireplace and a great view. Why haven’t people found this hidden treasure?

more...

Sandstone Grill in Burwell is sisters’ sweet success

We have a particular soft spot for sisters — after all, Nebraska Rural Living was founded by two sisters — but that wasn’t the reason we headed to Burwell one recent Friday afternoon. We’d heard from more than one person that the Sandstone Grill in Burwell was “our kind of place”; one that approaches its menu with care, thought and creativity.

We didn’t learn about the sisters until later.

more...

The Rural Foodies go to the city: experiencing Omaha's Grey Plume
by Betty Sayers

We have always said the Rural Foodies were mostly about the food, which is how we come to be featuring one of big-city Nebraska’s trendiest new restaurants.

The Grey Plume describes itself as, “Seasonally-driven, contemporary cuisine from locally-grown produce and livestock,” but that’s really only the tip of the experience. We chose it because the chef and owner, Clayton Chapman, serves Blue Valley trout raised in the cold, clean water pumped directly from the Ogallala Aquifer at Sutton, Nebraska. We know about Blue Valley Trout from the other end of the production line, because we visited with them and told their story in an earlier edition of Nebraska Rural Living. Now we’d like to get a taste of Chef Chapman’s signature recipe for the trout, which garners raves from our Omaha friends.           

more...