Growing Small Towns

08/13/2026

Six towns couldn't agree on where to put the school. So someone said, "Well, how about the middle of nowhere?"

This is a true story, and that "middle of nowhere" became the Northern Cass School District. Years ago, several small towns were trying to decide which town would get the consolidated school. Because schools are awesome and provide lots of amazing things for small towns, obviously everyone wanted the school to be in their community, and nobody would budge. So, instead of fighting over it, they built it on 80 donated acres (!!!) of farmland pretty much in the middle, so now there's a school literally surrounded by cornfields, 25 miles from Fargo, belonging to no town in particular.

While it sounds like the beginning of more conflict (or a sequel to Children of the Corn), that school now has over 700 students, sets a new enrollment record basically every year, and 35% of its kids open-enroll from OUTSIDE the district. Families drive past dozens of schools — teachers there joke about passing 30,000 students' worth of buildings — to get to the one in the middle of the cornfields. The district is turning people away.

Why? Former Superintendent Cory Steiner puts it simply: "Big school opportunities in a small school environment. We're going to know you. We're going to know your kids. We're going to probably know your grandparents."

And the culture is real, not poster-on-the-wall real. The staff can feel it, the students can feel it, the parents can feel it, and it makes people want to *stay.* While other rural communities are experiencing a teacher shortage, the school in the cornfield has over 90% of their teachers come back every year.

If they can do it, so can you. So can we! We don't do it by pretending we're the biggest or fanciest. We do it by helping people be known, seeking and finding opportunities, and just being ourselves.

What's one way your school makes kids feel seen that no 1,600-student building ever could? Brag about it below.

Seriously, brag.

(From episode 139 with Dr. Cory Steiner, former Superintendent of Northern Cass.)

08/05/2026

In small towns, back-to-school season is kind of for everyone, whether they have kids or not.

Because the school isn't just a building where kids go (that sounds kinda creepy, actually).

It's the backbone of the whole town. Ask anyone what keeps a small town alive and "the school" comes up before the grocery store, before the bar, sometimes before the church. (We said what we said.)

And here's the other thing that's true: in a small town, kids don't just get taught. They get KNOWN. Known-by-name, known-by-your-grandparents known. That's not a nice-to-have. People literally move to small towns for that knowing.

But "known" doesn't happen by accident, and it's not just the teachers' job. It's ours.

So as the backpacks come out, here's a back-to-school list for the rest of us:
- Show up to a game, concert, or play even you don't know a single kid on the roster. (You will by the end. That's the magic.)
- Meet the kids you see on the daily. Say hi!
- If the school needs help, support, mentors, volunteers, pitch in!
- When a student pitches a big idea — a fundraiser, a project, a community meeting (yes, kids do that, we have proof) — don't just say "cute." Say "how can I help?" and then actually help. Without hovering (remember the leash thing?)

When kids weigh whether their small towns are worth coming back to, the "Yes" column is full of the people and businesses that made them feel seen and welcome and were helpful. We can all make sure the yeses outweigh the nos.

New school year, same assignment: make sure every kid in your town knows they're somebody's favorite.

(Also, by a show of hands, who sang the song when they saw the picture?)

08/04/2026

We can't wait Revitalize, or Die.!

Headed to Oakes, ND for the first ever Civic Health Clinic, alongside my friend and colleague Rebecca Undem of Growing Small Towns.

The clinic walks through the five facets of civic health: civic trust, social health, mental health, fiscal health and physical health, and how each one shapes both our towns and the people living in them. By the end of the day, participants will see why health is a far more useful decision making lens than chasing growth for its own sake. Build a healthy environment and you get happy, healthy, engaged residents as a byproduct, not a hope.

It took years to land on this. Turns out the answer wasn’t “grow harder,” it was “get healthier.” I feel pretty fortunate to be doing what might be the most important work of my career.

08/03/2026

Listen to the candidates running for Dickey County State's Attorney as they answer questions related to their experience, visions for the future, and their intentions, if elected to the position.

Please note: we will not be accepting questions via the Facebook stream.

08/03/2026

Don't forget this live event tonight at 6 pm at our facility on Main in Oakes!

If you can't attend in person, we will be streaming the event from our page. It's a great opportunity to better understand the importance of this elected position and learn from each candidate about their intentions if elected.

Please share with everyone within Dickey County.

Tonight's event is sponsored by Capital Credit Union. Thank you for making this event happen!

08/01/2026

He thought he was a good neighbor, but then he counted the names of the people he knew.

Ask David Burton six years ago if he was a good neighbor and he'd have said yes without blinking. Quiet. Picked up after his dog. Nice yard.

Then he did the math: 18 years in his house, and he knew the names of exactly ONE household around him.

He decided that, no, he wasn't actually a good neighbor, and here's how he put it to us in episode 137 of the pod: "The opposite of love isn't hate. The opposite of love is apathy."

(Oof.)

So he started over and went on a quest to become an actual Good Neighbor. His wife baked her legendary chocolate chip cookies, they stuck their contact info on the plates, and David went door to door eating crow (vastly inferior to cookies): "You've lived here five years, and I've never spoken to you. We want to do better."

Not everyone warmed up right away. (As David says: neighboring is a crockpot, not a microwave) But then it got wild. He turned the experiment into a little online class and hoped maybe five or six people would sign up.

365 people registered. From 36 states.

For a class about talking to your neighbors.

(It became the Engaged Neighbor Project, btw.)

That's how hungry people are for this. Not for another program or app. For the most basic of human connection: "Hey, neighbor."

We can excel at this in small towns. Like, gold medal, big trophy, confetti-cannon excel. Literally every single one of us can be good neighbors (yes, even you introverts). People don't move to small towns to be anonymous!! Sometimes it's a little awkward to introduce yourself to a new neighbor, but so freaking worth it.

Are you a good neighbor?

07/31/2026

We never take for granted the people and agencies who take the time to drive to Oakes to visit our facility and meet with the good people of our community.

On Wednesday, we had Tom Campbell, Ranetta Starr, and Denise Sundeen from the ND USDA Rural Development for a visit to discuss a few development opportunities in Oakes!

Then, on Thursday, Kayla Deitch, the new director of North Dakota Association of Nonprofit Organizations, spent some time with our founder, Rebecca! They may have solved a few of the world's problems in their short time together...as women tend to do. ;-)

We often hear rural communities talk about themselves in a way that would suggest they believe no one would ever drive to visit them, particularly if they don't have an obvious tourist destination to see.

We have challenged that belief over and over in this town and here's what we've come to know: if you invite people and are welcoming and inviting when they arrive, they'll not only come once, but they'll tell their friends and likely, return again.

You are worth visiting. You just need to act like it.

07/30/2026

We often think about burnout relative to work, but what about volunteer burnout?

Recently, we were on a GST Club call, talking through a tough situation with one of our members. He's incredibly active in his community, but thinking of becoming significantly less active because he's getting burnt out.

He's on the younger side; he loves being involved, but he also needs to have a life, take care of his family and business, and, like, sleep. You know?

When he tried to take a little bit of a step back and hand off one of his roles to someone new, it didn't seem to change much: he still gets calls, he's still on the email list, people assume he's still helping out at events, and they've made no effort to replace him in any actual way.

People around him are going on as if everything is fine, when it really, definitely isn't.

He's just one person, with a limited amount of time, and it feels like no one cares that he's trying to take a bit of a step back and invest his time in the things that he really brings value to.

This is a different facet of the STP (Same Ten People) Problem: when new people finally do show up, we sometimes over-use them, and when they try to inject some balance back in, we don't respect those boundaries, and then they want to pull their participation altogether.

How to avoid this? We have a few suggestions, but we'd love to hear yours.

What do you think? How do we make sure we're not overusing our volunteers and making sure that people get the breaks they need?

(Also, if you have tricky situations and want a community to help, the Club is for you! https://www.growingsmalltowns.org/club)

07/28/2026

Mike Knutson works in community development across South Dakota now. But he used to be one of the sideline people.

Yes. It's true.

Young teacher, small town, and by his own admission, he didn't see the town having a future. So why get involved? He'd focus on his students and figure out his exit.

Civic apathy, meet your poster child. 👋

Then a group of STUDENTS held a community meeting.

Kids. Organized a meeting. For grownups.

They stood up in front of the adults of their town and challenged everyone to spend more money locally — laid out how those dollars would turn over and keep the community alive. That meeting changed Mike from a teacher who didn't believe in his town's future to someone who now sees futures for small towns across the region and helps them see it, too.

We talk a LOT about how adults can inspire kids. We talk way less about the reverse. But sometimes the person your town's biggest skeptic needs to hear from isn't the mayor, the chamber director, a consultant, or whoever.

It's a 16-year-old with a homemade slideshow (slide deck? Pitch deck? Who knows) who hasn't learned to be cynical yet.

Where could your students take the mic? What would happen if we asked them about our small towns and stood in their shoes?

(From episode 143, recorded live at the Main Street Summit. Same episode as the Pat-and-Angie story, because apparently that one was just stuffed with bangers.)