Amber Waves of Change: Hard Times on the High Plains

knees amber waves of change hard times on the high plains of production of kansas public radio and william allen white school of journalism and mass communications at the university of kansas hears associate professor of journalism david gates it's a few minutes after midnight july fifth nineteen forty three most of the twelve hundred residents of the oklahoma panhandle town a boy city or in their bets few if any of the residents heard a drone engine from four b seventeen flying fortresses coming in from the south at least not until six any

complaints came in about our army airbase in texas they were on a nighttime training mission a navigator had mistaken the lights of boys city's courthouse square for a bombing range in collin texas forty miles to the south the good news nolan was hurt the planes are using practice was told damage twenty five dollars and that's how boy city oklahoma became the only community in the continental united states bombed during the second world war today there is a small memorial the courthouse square to commemorate the event the bombing a boy city briefly return the community to the national spotlight it was also a metaphor for an even greater calamity that struck the town just a few years earlier when the boys it was a ground zero for the greatest manmade natural disaster in american history in fact it was an associated press reporters just back from boys seventy one following a massive black sunday dust storm of april fourteenth nineteen thirty five that gave the region and its

misery a name three words achingly familiar on a western farmers tell rule life in the dust bowl of the continent if it rains for most people the so called dirty thirties are a distant memory but for the people the southern high plains in texas oklahoma new mexico colorado and kansas the dust bowl days are very much on their minds even with the recent rains a prolonged drought haunts the area as a dry spell worse than that of the nineteen thirties the awkward fer that serves the area is in decline and so as the region's population and many are asking the same question are we headed for another dust bowl morris alexander is a retired farmer and boy city oklahoma rove we go yo john beckwith

is a cancer state university agricultural extension agent in scott city kansas where numerous an ongoing drought has been really tough and as ever have a minimal week problem in prison another anagram of all crop continues to continue building it worse and worse because the reasons will voyager the lack of sub soil moisture is a problem spread out across several state lines when the buxton and broadway serves as kelly commissioner ann powers county colorado i can tell you right now i guess for so many believe that we have learned from the mistakes of the past to improved farming methods they say there will be a repeat of the dirty thirties but nearly everyone agrees that the southern high plains is in peril the population of the region has been in steady decline for decades the regions groundwater reserves are diminishing life is hard yet many in the region remain optimistic they don't mind living

on nature's margins in fact there's no place they'd rather because they are focus of this report the people of the several high plains from a very real sense for twenty first century pioneers forging their futures in often unforgiving frontier us army lieutenant zeppelin pie was sent by thomas jefferson i'm a tenor sax to survey this other high plains called the region the great american desert ironically the area in prehistoric times was at the bottom of a great meal and see it was created sixty five million years ago what a positive change in rocky mount erosion it rises from eleven hundred feet above sea level the east to about seventy eight hundred feet in the west the us geological survey described the high plains as having ended a letter to dry continental climate

with abundant sunshine moderate precipitation frequent winds low humidity and a high rate of evaporation it was literally once a home where the buffalo roam however most of them were wiped out by the mid eighteen seventies the indigenous population was also forced out and driven onto reservations by a wave of european immigrants spurred by the homestead act university of kansas professor donald stall is a cultural anthropologist who has studied the region he says the initial wave of settlers were lowered into a false sense of secure you know it was said a little in a period of grey rainfall unusual and so it looked like it was going to be a place where people could make a living in a farming and ranching they have but you can't do that without irrigation first impressions can be deceiving baseball historian donald worster has written that the region soon became over populated with cattle and of the land could support them

much of the herd died following the winter of eighteen eighty five eighty six the harshest on record and then at eighty nine witnesses the region were struck by drought there trying to grow corn prices in the nineteen nineties and most desperate conditions in the out migration wave of higher there's no government assistance the drug at nineties finally eased with the homesteaders didn't know them as what kansas state university climatologist meringue that knows no the drugs roman cycles was actually if you do look at the long term records there seems to be something like a twenty two year cycle and droughts intensity very end the period between drought can be shorter or longer but there definitely appears to be a cyclical pattern spurred by demand created by world war was weak production peaked in nineteen eighty

in kansas alone almost ninety eight million bushels of wheat reproduce a year more than eleven million acres of virgin soil were plowed and one of them i am for week dropped after the war enthusiasm for planting the golden grain remain for one thing it was a lot cheaper to grow wheat and raised cattle but as a new deal era film documentary noted farmers were plowing their way as al our in nineteen thirty six was the plow that broke the plains it was created by the federal resettlement administration which itself was

created to deal with the greatest natural disaster mm hmm wheat production in kansas fell by twenty million bushels between nineteen thirty four and nineteen thirty five farmers who had won shielded more than eighteen bushels of wheat per acre or harvesting less than half that amount the worst of the storms came on april fourteenth nineteen thirty five a day that has been remembered as blacks that's how rain else acer of haskell county kansas remembered black sunday

gospel historian donald worster interviewed him in september nineteen seventy seven wester also interviewed ed phillips of boy city oklahoma who said the dust cloud that day rolled in so quickly and it soon became a question of survival first thank you farmers battled come always jack rabbits grasshoppers and dust ammonia according to document terry and ken burns there are only thirteen days three days and dodge city kansas in nineteen thirty five many fled the high plains for greener pastures in california but many state and literally rode out the storm called dr apologist still there's an old joke that eastern kansas is an extension in

missouri a central kansas an extension of nebraska and western kansas an extension of bell and you know there's always stay at a car the dust bowl called the people of the southern high plains some hard lessons soil conservation was no longer optional farmers protected the land through improved methods of plowing and increased ground cover the federal government pitched in and converted four million acres and a permanent grasslands the return of the rains the second world war and the end of the depression helped the region recover from the largely self inflicted disaster

and then there was technology that made it possible for farmers to cultivate more land with fewer people however one invention more than any other transformed the regional center pivot irrigation bringing water to a thirsty land became the stuff of legend and so on i mean isn't sam written and performed by sarah connor

the independent artists as she posted on youtube after being inspired passing for western kansas in her toward am i was not the kind of song you'd expect them at the top of the charts one can easily understand her enthusiasm it was the invention of center pivot irrigation by a colorado farmer in nineteen forty the change the fortunes of the region by tapping into the vast underground ogle all awkward for farmers became less vulnerable to the whims of nature in addition to wait they began to grow corn milo crops it did not fare well in the region's dry climate they are also expensive sources of cattle feed irrigation and other technological improvements made southwest kansas the center of the beef packing industry in north america donald stolen michael broadway are the authors of slaughterhouse blows the meat and poultry industry in north america in their two thousand twelve book stolen broadway say that garden city kansas had become a modern day boom town and the fastest growing city in the state

however is garden city mayor royce esta notes progress came the price we do have good water resources but that won't last forever and we know that because we're going to drill deeper to get more of that quality water and the water that we need to keep raising crops there that we have to irrigate razor william nash were offering oglala blue says the awkward fer contains enough water to fill nine lake erie is sincere correctional center pivot irrigation farmers have been pumping up all the low water at a rate of five trillion gallons a year depending on location and re re charge of the opera for only one quarter of an inch to six inches per year much of the water goes toward growing very profitable and water intensive corner other industries oil and gas and livestock ranchers also use a lot of talk for water ashworth says the result is

that the equivalent of one lake erie has already been drained from yoko kansas state university civil engineering professor david stewart has also sounded an alarm in a two thousand thirteen study store projected that at its current rate of use the awkward for will be sixty nine percent depleted by twenty sixty and the kansas geological survey says parts are already depleted in greeley wichita and scott counties kenny eisenhower of the scott county development committee says her community has closely monitored its water situation and she says she was surprised to learn where the war was going the shocking thing is that the impact of the livestock industry is about two percent of the total water use it's quite unique community three percent or vice versa the rest of the tour rex buchanan is the

interim director of the kansas geological survey the survey is a research arm of the university of kansas one of its major jobs is monitoring the state's groundwater wells he says it's hard to tell corn farmers they should grow something else for the most part if you got your characters they are behaving in ways that like i said are in their economic best interest to defeat of cultures with an irrigator and they see the comments were the first responses you get from them is a little water spout do anybody any good farmers seem to understand the problem many conserve water through improved filling in more efficient irrigation than simply is a dry land farmer he and his wife a leisurely ten thousand acre seat former twins got city indict an emt seed company provides week why in hybrid seeds for several hundred customers throughout the center planes in the face of this long term drought and key another dry land farmers have changed their business and farming practices

and i say of the market is there to weed out the inefficient cars as rigorous as you can get that that is the way it is and if you can figure out how to adapt to the situation or innovate your way out of your life some farmers have gone a step farther farmers in a ninety nine square mile section of sheridan and thomas copies have formed the state's first lima or local enhanced management area in lima the farmers agreed to a voluntary reduction of water use over a five year period in the case of the sheridan thomas leno that's about a fifteen percent reduction northwest kansas ground water district manager katherine durham says the program allows farmers to meet these goals in the manner in which they choose a u x pompa had an indian corn for the first two years of course i was fine you know they may just have to drop back down so they provide a lot of flexibility for how they want to make their own decision to get

that flexibility in that power back to our own from a sociological perspective is really really important when you're trying to do any sort of conservation work the lean idea is relatively new and many are skeptical despite expressions of confidence by elected officials local water rights holders defeated a proposed five kelly lehman in the scout city area and two thousand fourteen proponents such as catherine durham say they face the challenge of overcoming farmer fears and misinformation it's a gene hunt aviation has also featured science senior water says she got it on the scenes it's really difficult understand there's a large an entirely new idea that he's not been an especially at our wells there are concerns there's a you know a theory that it's about ten downing of your outcome that he is well that's not instead she says people should think of the old law as they do what economists said is if you're taken an egg carton kids

and now not then not have the part that exact same and you had seen a varying depths and also to think that in young rockin rollin and see hand in all sorts of different materials durham says the sheridan thomas laymon has a start a sort of guinea pig from which others can learn and eventually fall and the kansas geological survey's rex buchanan says much more will need to be done only nine in one county is not going to make a whole world a lot of difference on the high plains auction but if you were to have those kinds of things blossom all over western kansas that i think it may be for that for the first time really seen or was that effective response to how to deal with the kind of care of the one hundred

seventeen counties in the eight states that comprise the high plains seventy five have experience population declines since the two thousand census most of those counties are in the southern half of the region one in four high plains copies of experience population declines for at least five consecutive decades and almost all of those counties are in the southern half the population of several counties such as stanton stevens and morton in southwestern kansas people the nineteen thirty census and that was the beginning of the gospel finney kelly kansas the garden city area experienced a short term drop in population during the dirty thirties after bad it experienced a steady rise however is good or c corporal anthropologist donald storm notes there is a fine line between prosperity and hardship garden city and feeling county which guards are is the county seat was the fastest growing county in the state of kansas in the eighties it was the second fastest growing

second only johnson county in the nineties the end on christmas like two thousand the conagra beef plant there was a fire destroyed the plant but and fire was the second largest what employer employee twenty three hundred over the next couple years people move away they stayed around for a while for their kids to finish school they're hoping that the conagra rebuild the plant but it has never done so the county population with more than forty thousand during the two thousand census however because of the conagra fire it had dipped under thirty seven thousand in two thousand teng the good news is that any county's population is rebounding but stahl who has extensively researched the meatpacking industry says the new jobs coming to garden city are not as good as those that left the meat and poultry industry which fueled economic growth in rural midwest and rural south has quit expanding and so you're not seeing new plants come online like the

new plan and lexington the plant and diamonds that all those other new plan so i studied in the eighties and nineties the growth in garden city now is in the service sector that or big box stores but those are employers often only hire part time or most of their employees are part time and they don't pay that well if there is a silver lining in the population trends of the southern high plains it comes from what many may see as an unexpected source most of what population growth there has been has come from the hispanic and latino communities while the eighty two counties of the southern high plains lost population during the two thousands the region's hispanic and latino population grew by almost thirty eight percent many are immigrants looking for jobs in agriculture and meatpacking and wallabies jobs may seem undesirable they are a marked improvement from the situations many left behind

community leaders and thirty nine western kansas counties specifically journalists county commissioners and chamber of commerce executives were surveyed in two thousand thirteen according to the journal of applied journalism and media studies everyone who answered the survey said they welcome newcomers to their communities however only one in five of the community leaders indicated that they were comfortable on the knowledge that hispanics and latino has provided most of the region's population growth and only one in ten said they got the residents of their community would be comfortable in that knowledge dr sadler is the managing editor and publisher of the garden city telegram she says that the reaction of some of her readers tells or that the survey results ring true i'll occasionally address illegal immigration related issues and there's a pretty good current of anti immigrant and racist sentiment out there we know that i can

guarantee there are people who would prefer we went back many decades to when we were predominantly white community and i think they're just an undercurrent of racism here i think it's probably too many diverse community a similar sentiment has heard from wendy buxton and broadway a powers county commissioner in eastern colorado you know and this is something that i've noticed from going around the metro area down here my husband and i found two different nationalities in the metro area we didn't even think about it i'm my children didn't think about it we move back down here and we were reminded of it so yes i do see you know there are still bats wild it's up down here and i'm hoping that the more and more people can get to know people's insights very welcome it is undeniable that

there are some longtime residents of the southern high plains who are wary of and even hostile toward hispanic and latino newcomers however it is more common to hear the region's leaders say they embrace diversity katie eisenhower is the executive director of the scott county development committee she says the recent successful effort to get scouts are the designated an all american city pointed out the real problem it was a better community and welcome newcomers she says it didn't know how to reach out to them and really looked at ourselves again and try to talk about our diversity we have and at the time we had an eighteen percent hispanic population now it's probably closer to twenty two twenty five we knew it growing but we have a divide that it's unintentional it's cut out of complete poll likeness scott kelly's leaders made several cautious attempts to reach out to the communities hispanic latino residents county commission chairman james minick

says they've only been partially successful dinners and some exchanges trying to get startled the sky rain couple different church groups together and then we'd all participation for a while and it seems like you're right it does it with economics and drafts and everything else and we haven't done much less there we are down the road in garden city newspaper editor dino settlers says that when it comes to increasing diversity i get it i get the anonymous comments on my web site so i know it had the sentiment exists in the end and frankly i've even had letter writers you know you need to use your name and if you are elected or print who've written in in suggested as much that immigrants are driving down our economy and they seem to forget that the tyson plant depends on that labor and they need to look at the contributions of that plan tax dollars and cetera were a majority minority anyhow think you can avoid them there may be no more diverse community in the southern high plains and garden city kansas

according to the latest us census bureau estimates garden city of nearly forty nine percent hispanic latino will only forty three percent of its residents classified as being white alone its population grew by six thousand residents in the nineteen eighties one third of newcomers came from mexico another third are refugees from vietnam and southeast asia today immigrants from myanmar and somalia are coming to garden steve dyer the garden city chamber of commerce says one need only to sample the local cuisine to get a sense of the community is diverse and yet we can just go around and look for support for a post election and figure out over diversity is because the you know the growth of those bills divorce restaurants is because of the diversity of the population people have come here whether it's immigrants are wary of the locals that have worked up to where they can open their own business in a lot of open restaurants and if they cut off the ma at one at roy cessna public

information coordinator for the garden city schools says there are more than two dozen different languages spoken by students in the school district for half of the student population english is a second language some people think that diversity is a challenge and we do think it is an opportunity for community really and even with the new immigrants that were getting and you know we work with community leaders we were professionals we work with the community college so we really find out what our people would come to our community that migrate to this community that are new and try to help them to acclimate to our community sesno who was also garden city's mayor credits the communities leadership for its foresight in response to a new wave of immigrants following the end of the vietnam war the community leaders at the time felt that we needed to welcome these people instead of coal ash on them as other communities didn't have really bad effects and so we a daughter research into what we needed

to do to really welcome the people and to the community and fine trousers a former garden city mayor and sits on the city commission well i think you know you can you fire you can you know try to endorse it and work with people and i think the coach relations board has done a good job garden city's cultural relations board was created in nineteen ninety one its membership represents the diversity of the community michelle steadman is the human resources director for garden city government she provides staff support to the border the role of the court's ruling shows board is to surprise the city commission on issues that may affect the minority populations in the city of garden city and to promote cultural diversity in addition to counseling elected officials steadman says the community relations board has sponsored a series of events

designed to help the citizens of garden city to better understand one another it all boils down to one goal so there are many many community agencies in leadership got together to try to figure out what can we do to help these new populations be successful in garden city while guard is rebounding from the conagra fire that idled thousands of workers fifteen years ago it still faces the challenge of serving the needs of a diverse in economically struggling populations it's one with a growing service sector that doesn't pay as well or generate as much in tax revenues as before the fire a visitor's guide a garden city says the community was founded in eighteen seventy eight by james and william fulton their vision was to turn this corner of the great american desert into a town that would last and it got its name from the beautiful garden of william fulton the wife letitia is that kind of optimism that has helped the community whether drought

dust and economic hardship other communities are trying to follow this example so have been successful others anyway that city kansas anymore are examples of high plains communities are going in opposite directions scout city is the county seat as scott county about

five thousand people live in the county the native american does more river culture existed in this region long before spanish explorers climbed and seventy six agriculture and livestock dominate the local economy two hours west and south as per hour is county colorado the county seat is lamar county population is about seventy seven hundred it was establish an eighty eighty six at the sight of a santa fe railroad a pearl while harvesting crops and livestock are big business so is harvesting the wind the colorado green and twentieth when power projects or just south of the more along both sides of us highway to eighty seven the two towns are similar in many ways demographically both are predominantly white with a growing hispanic latino population both have economy is dominated by agriculture and livestock however when one looks closer it's really a tale of two very different cities while scott city a

smaller median per household income is almost two thirds higher according to nielsen a consumer research company the two towns have very different mindsets scott city is described as a mix of back country folks who value an old fashion lifestyle reminiscent of andy griffiths may vary nielsen describes lamar as an old mill town and rustic with older empty nesters and younger parents trying to make do with modest incomes most important scott city appears to be growing or at least holding it so while mars population have been plummeting in recent years driving south from interstate seventy on us eighty three the countryside begins to open up into wide vistas of a parched landscape is early june wheat fields are green and go with the crop is only a few inches high when you have your spouse at the first thing you notice her banners from all american city in

the courthouse in the highest government on major renovations there is a new hospital accounts into vibrant katie eisenhower of the scott county to the committee says it hasn't always been that way we were no different than anybody else in the nineteen eighties when farm and got really tough and people were telling their kids get out of here in america it somehow there's nothing free are we really sure that by a lot too and i think today we have great regret for having done that scott city has taken a number of steps in recent years to secure its future for example the community renovated scott county high school the reason that enrollment decline force of the consolidation of some western kansas school districts scouts anyone to be the place where the kids go to school and rob hacks in the city new says this kind of thinking required a change in the public's traditional mindset of attacks and they were out there were a keeper taxes down america today they were ordered to take

on additional tax bird even if that means maybe some future growth there does seem to be at my side scott kelly commissioner gary skivvies says the community's leadership realize they have to be thinking about more than just mere survival the leadership in this county has focused much on survival as i have on a progressive it on tv just in a survival mode the only way to go backwards eisenhauer says it was the community's desire to be the master of its own fate of gathered to go along with the issuing a millions of dollars are so in the nineties we had an understanding when were under when a strategic planning knew that we needed to fix our infrastructure and start making some repairs can't live in a building that was built in nineteen thirty one i'm not doing that you know i was speaking of the high school so slowly but surely we started by we're doing a home run along their courthouse and then a

high school and always responded to slow picture and the king in scott city banker and county commissioner jerry bock says says it's all about having a willingness to adapt we adapt to what we need to rent it would do it fairly quickly it's not it's not all that way ten years because what's going on on the market for even that well it's a what's out there let's try the staple and eisenhower says that city in scott county have taken great pride in knowing that we kinda pumping life into their community they did it themselves you know we're not big on aid around here you know sometimes there's little resistance when you want to implement a government program they're so upright arms

sometimes people would say that you know there's only sets in that religious connotation of the word pride but in this case tried is synonymous with success hop into your car the west from scout city and state highway ninety six and cross of the colorado when you get the sheridan like you start working away south where you are now driving through some of the most isolated featureless terrain in the country when you follow the park kansas river western us fifty four hundred you eventually reached them off to the county seat to a newcomer mr appears to be protests but looks can be deceiving and there's something else in the air the dust from parched fields its anger resentment and resignation part of the problem is water and living downstream from the first the denver

metropolitan area the more mayor roger stanger we are getting squeezed in and it's really hard to set their logic spatial of your phone records the border you can look across and again there's no pumpkin their wells and over there not that we have to allow so much water to them isis difficult unfortunately water may be the least the large problems there's a lot of anger in town about a one hundred fifty million dollar investment in a new power plant that has gone horribly wrong let's makar is the editor of a lot more ledger back in two thousand six or seven they decided they were going to build this plant times call was very cheap fracking and become a big thing in the past natural gas which is what it was before i was very high and so they decided to do this and then they being make enough didn't have enough money for the gene but enough and it ended up more than doubling it became hundred million dollars instead of seventy five million and right now we're experiencing what is a zionist an

adult most expensive electric power it's an entire nation eat anything it actually can run they can turn on and it works fine but it doesn't meet emission standards it never has and with new regulations from the epa talk about cutting their core foreign missions with thirty percent there's no way to work in a word you might be asking yourself about the window farm south of town there are more than one hundred fifty wind turbines out there can't they help bring down lamar's energy costs the short answer is no because of inadequate transmission lines that energy goes elsewhere the town does have its own small wind farm but it generates only fifteen percent of omar's electricity so omar is low on water and high on energy costs and as mayor stanger says the town was also coming up short on jobs we had a busboy in here at one time employed about six hundred fifty people they ended up going out of business cause they couldn't compete with

the bus companies got a candidate was the main problem and then they we had the presidents and there are prison and four lions in and they closed it down and actually changed it into now they're re opening is as eight veterans' hospital but it isn't employed the people it did so so we're losing jobs for people all the people are really skilled are moving elsewhere to where they can get a job water energy jobs all seem to be working against them or and parsed county as a result the county has lost twenty percent of its population since two thousand kelly commissioner when the box and i'm probably blames the communities decline in part on complacency five cents and in the last twenty twenty five years you've also seen declining population because

if you're not pushing not it not be a guest at the debate this thing is if you're not growing you're diane only on the ground for twenty five years it comes to a point where people we can expect more out of what is happening all the way past and people need to step up how islam or reached a tipping point can recover only time will tell but the comparison between scott city alum or suggest that the difference between the two has as much to do with community leadership in private as it does with geography and happenstance of where we are one of the most visible institutions within any communities the local newspaper

it is the eyes and ears and sometimes the conscience of the community it's the vehicle through which government often talks with the people local merchants promote their products and services and the place where news has defined as much by proximity as of his prominence there's no secret that the last decade has been a trying time in the newspaper business for big city newspapers the challenge has been a sluggish economy and internet growth however the story is different for small town rural papers that instead is executive director of the kansas press association he says the challenge for rural newspapers isn't an increasing competition it's the loss a population that animates community newspapers so prosperous think is his lack of lack of competition but the flipside of that is that those those communities not only have lost people which means they've lost subscribers but that was advertisers the fact is that even in the

best of times running a small community newspapers hard work and these are not the best of times a partially one in every three us counties lost population since two thousand some kansas counties have been a steady decline since nineteen hundred many people believe that newspapers play an important role in the survival of rural communities one of those is scott county commissioner gary skippy you have a newspaper you're really a decline it may just be a week but nonetheless it still is as noted scott kelly is a good example the western kansas community moving aggressively to stabilize its population county commission chairman james an accent it would have been nearly impossible to issue millions of dollars in bonds to support community improvement without public support the citizens voted on all those projects because they were current was one that recently happened and its trust and an understanding that newspaper can be a vital component of that

and the transparency that everything that we do here the people out on the street and understand what we did and why we did newspapers especially those in rural communities to play a couple of different roles first they serve as an impartial observer a watchdog on behalf of their readers editor sharon three letter of the call the free press we take all that very very seriously and sometimes they don't make friends in one county commissioners madden every now and then because of something we write but i still you know it's it's someone has to be there and to fill that need however friedlander says her second equally important role is that of a community booster we're right up there banging on the drum every chance we get a cold calm but that's also part of our row we should be a cheerleader those are commonly held opinions among world editors and western kansas the us after the guards hit a telegram says that when her community succeeds so does her paper

however she has an advantage that most smalltown editors do not share sadler has approximately four dozen full time and part time employees most rural papers function with just a handful one such papers just thirty six miles up us eighty three the scots or the news it editor and publisher abroad haxton settlers says she is amazed at the job paxton does i worry about rod getting out of the business and who's the next person step in and take on that kind of workload and their weekly newspaper workload has is incredible we think we have a heart that they are doing everything he's he's covering their city council in watertown street selling that probably in india will relate to that was well under the daily newspaper asher roth haxton he loves his job and he loves god city but he also wonders who will pick up the mantle when he retired it's about you know eco wonder you know what it is j schools are trying out somebody who want to come in

and take on this kind of an operation you know you're somewhat isolated out in western kansas yellow the community in order to be out here but you know that's that's true of a lot of things to say world newspapers are dying is an overstatement and an over simplification garden city editor leila sadler and yet warren buffett's bada prefer never newspapers i think he makes pretty good business decision just like tell my critics to come in say business is dying as a well worn by other needs to sharpen up his toolkit because he seemed to be investing in newspapers there's a reason for that many local newspapers continue to thrive against the hard realities of life on the southern high plains but for others clock continues to tick this teacher says what

are the key ally farmer it is the simple ingredients when it comes to the future of the southern high plains it's got everyone's attention especially politicians including two men running for governor they talked about it during a debate at the kansas state fair in september two thousand fourteen here are republican governor sam brownback and his unsuccessful challenger democrat paul davis there's a job and i've been working on since of this and also a road stop and i worked on was agriculture secretary we got a fifty year water vision be developed it is a complex issue there are a lot of people who have very different opinions on this that i would tell you that everybody was a stakeholder in this debate will agree on one thing is going to take some resources to address this issue and we have to address this issue figured if i don't do our state's economy the fifty year water vision mention by governor brownback is currently under review the proposal includes a blend of conservation reservoir

management technological advancements in irrigation and plant varieties and development of new sources there is one idea out there not specifically mentioned in the water vision draft that has been a source of debate for more than thirty years in nineteen eighty two the us commerce department proposed construction of an aqueduct to pump water from the missouri river and far eastern kansas to western kansas that's about four hundred miles up hill it'll cost estimate was four point four billion dollars however updated figures from the army corps of engineers in january two thousand fifteen now place the price tag at eighteen billion dollars play you have a polity professor don stull has extensively studied this issue you do have a chorus of people talking about the idea of the awkward up from northeast kansas down to southwest kansas people talk seriously about that in southwest

kansas that ain't going to happen in my lifetime i don't think given the politics of the indian border so as low as you know interstate of those issues is just not going to happen in water conservation is high on the list of things to do to extend the life of the awkward for as we mentioned there have been many steps taken over the years to deliver the crop using less water there's also the effort to voluntarily reduce water through locally enhanced management areas or lehman's however as noted there's only one small lima currently in operation meaning that any savings realized are well just a drop in the bucket dust bowl historian donald worster says the concept of conservation often complex with the pursuit of the american dream oh it's hard especially when you are obsessed with the image of infinite possibilities we accept the fact that they're natural elements that we have to understand and you listen

sometimes a closely related to the water issue is the erosion of the region's population as we've heard some towns are continuing to thrive as regional population centers while others are slowly disappearing after colleges donald still as an anthropologist or i'm not a big fan of the great man theory of history but in looking into as i have studied communities like garden and lexington and diamond and other places over the last thirty years it's clear that some communities have a greater human capital than others there some communities have individuals that are forward thinking or progressive and that are in positions of leadership oh in the police in the newspapers of the schools in the interfaith community that really do that much better than some other communities where you know for reasons that are that really can't be easily explained that you know the leaders of those

communities are not forward thinking and often take steps that aren't counter to their best interest there are several initiatives aimed at stemming the region's population decline one is the state's world opportunity zones program evolves tax waivers and student loan repayments for those eligible chris harris who oversees the program for the kansas department of commerce told the legislature that three hundred thirty individuals received eight hundred thousand dollars in tax waivers in two thousand fourteen he says they will have an estimated forty four million dollars economic impact on the state critics of the program know that nearly half of the recipients come to work in public sector jobs such as education and healthcare similar programs are being considered in oklahoma and nebraska there's also an effort underway at the university of kansas it's red tire program matches kansas college graduates with world business owners looking for a successor

wildly meyer heads up a program for the k u school of business if it was avoid being created by the lack of success or management for these businesses that or a central to the community and on the other hand here or at k you're the other regions university's we have a reservoir of talent that we regularly graduating would make sense to try to match make between those two hands and that was the plan you're going to fuel load of retire while most americans live in more populated place abruptly one point two million people live in the high plains that's only one half of one percent of the nation's population so why should we care lamar colorado mayor carter center well one of the reasons is that they will meet the need to start thinking about the smaller agricultural communities there was a book that on the table for the for the bigger cities they are the ones out there now

drawing on the ground in and raising cattle and going through the blizzard isn't and do all this stuff so that they're stayed out there for a state it's now eighty years later and the weather has been as dry if not drier than it was in the dirty thirties it begs the question could there be another gospel boy city oklahoma newspaper editor see if david says now not like the thirties i don't think the calls they you know they learned the quality of the league are less common political land here with a lot of state land out here for land the term progress reform differently give his opinion is typical of many of the region's farmers and community leaders however about a mile down the road from the boy sitting is jody risley says the area can expect more dust storms this weekend we had some this year only get bigger storms this year risley is the

director of the summer on heritage cultural museum her museum provided much of the source material used in the ken burns dust bowl documentary they were hard hearted people and i guess it's why some of us second and third generations are hearty people is because we have to be built to stay here you'll keep surviving that may be true but the essential math remains the same there's a continuing exodus from the southern high plains more people are going and coming the hardships of drought declining groundwater reserves extreme weather and isolation are not for the faint of heart however strong local leadership and the region's in a pioneer that they are helping some communities rise above these challenges for kansas public radio news at amber waves of change hard times

on the high plains written and produced by david garth with editing help from jay shafer the music is from the dust bowl documentary the plow that broke the plains written by virgil thompson performed by the angel gil warden is in post classical ensemble copyright twenty fifteen this was a presentation of kansas public radio and the william allen white school journalism and mass communications at the university is this vast those most daring mission here next week lunch at our present boldly going where no man has gone before and bringing back up figs even here it's been now if that asteroid redirect mission rapping an asteroid from outer space bringing it back to orbit around the moon i'm kate mcintyre join me and the next katy are present

when we'll hear from now says steve stitch for this time at the lindo whole library in kansas city there's lots of theories on how to redirect a big asteroid those terrible things like this instrument too pushing on an asteroid masses asteroid redirect mission and next week's k pr presents eight o'clock sunday evening and kansas public radio