WISCONSIN
SMALL TOWN STORIES
Overcoming the Urban-Rural Chasm, for Everybody’s Sake
[I]t begins by finding practical ways to create healthy synergies between cities and the countryside, and by pursuing economic and ecological policies that don’t perpetuate unhealthy mutual dependency.
Pierce Hill Performing Arts – A lifetime dream, realized.
With this care and attention to detail, PHPA is a gesture of love: love of artistic excellence, love of natural rural beauty, love of food, and the desire to share these wonderful things with the community.
Wait —Wisconsin? Where is that again?
Now when I hear someone say “flyover country,” I grimace at the term. How do I begin to tell my friends of all the interesting aspects of my community, even though I want to? How can I convince them that my town and all rural communities deserve more than a quick glance out of their plane as they fly from city to city?
From Mining Gold to Farming Ice
The resilient Ouray Ice Park tribe refuses to be daunted, and continues looking for innovative solutions to attack this latest challenge. Perhaps developing new water sources to augment the municipal water supply will allow them to build a thicker, more resilient base of ice, that will hold up better against warming temps. Perhaps more tweaks to the Ice Park’s plumbing system will allow them to farm that ice in even more effective and efficient and smarter and safer ways. There is hope. Even on thin ice.
The Ways and Means: “Open the Doors”
What if you could change the trajectory of someone’s life by giving them a huge financial gift, and it would cost you nothing?
What if you could plant a seed of economic justice and generosity right where you live, not waiting for national policy to make it happen?
What if you had the power to enrich your entire community just by sharing what you have, one person at a time?
Changemaker: Euneika Rogers-Sipp and her resolute stewardship in the Black Belt South
If nothing else, I realized that as a left-leaning, white, northerner, it has been easy for me to make assumptions about the deep south, all the while giving it little thoughtful attention. The time spent with Euneika and her friends in Montgomery, Selma, Gees Bend, and Camden Alabama was a welcome wake up call to the steady work that continues to be done, quietly, resolutely, often in the margins and often without great fanfare.
Real Small Towns Magazine Vol. 2 -where to find it and how to have it mailed to you
For those of you who have asked about subscriptions:
I am happy to mail anyone who is interested a copy of the magazine for the cost of shipping and handling. Please email me at: shesherwin@mac.com
Casting Anchor in the Scarcity of Rural Life
People around here make things happen, possibly because there’s an understanding that if I don’t, no one else will. But also because there’s an opening, a freedom, a magnetic current running beneath the surface of everything.
RealSmallTowns Magazine: Vol. 1
The first issue of RST Magazine will be available in mid-April! Anyone who would like to have one sent directly to their home can subscribe here!
Breaking Away from Linear Thinking
“The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”