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Learning Center could unite small towns
The Sioux Falls Argus Leader
June 30, 2006
By Gale Pifer
HOWARD - When residents, families and friends gather for
Howard's 125th anniversary celebration this weekend through
Tuesday there will be something new to see - the Rural
Learning Center.
The center won't necessarily deal with the past 125 years of
this Miner County community - it speaks to the future of
Howard and small towns similar to it.
"Our purpose is really quite simple," said Randy Parry,
executive director of the Miner County Community
Revitalization program. "It is to serve as a resource site
and uniting force by which small rural communities can not
only halt their decline, but build for the future."
Located on Howard's Main Street, the Rural Learning
Center combines conference rooms with video conferencing
capability and the latest in wireless technology, plus
offices for the MCCR, the Learning Center and Horizon Health
Center, a high-tech business that links small communities
with medical centers across the nation and world.
John Mengenhausen, CEO of Horizon Health, said it was
important for his organization to be able to communicate not
only with a patient in Buffalo but a hospital in Sioux Falls
or someone in Washington, D.C.That takes equipment, he said, "so we talked with MCCR about
sharing equipment costs. Today, we have a total of 26 T-1
networking lines linking Horizon executives with a network
of health centers in 29 separate locations in the Dakotas.
Working together as a group allows the clinics to share
costs."
The Rural Learning Center is the brainchild of Parry and Jim
Beddow, who serves as director of the center. Working
independently, Parry and Beddow both were concerned about
what most folks accepted as the eventual death of most small
towns.
Each worked with mixed success on similar projects for
years.
"I wanted to show them (officials in state government) there
were things we could do to spur population growth, economic
development and quality-of-life issues in rural areas,"
Beddow said.
But his idea didn't get adopted.
Parry, meanwhile, got a group of people together in Howard
to work on the same things. That was four years ago.
A chance meeting between Beddow and Parry revealed they
shared not only concerns about rural America, but they had
ideas that would help reverse the trends of declining
population, boarded up main streets and the apparent
acceptance that small-town living was a thing of the past.
They thought a lot could be done if the proper research,
data gathering and resolve could be harnessed.
"It really is something like neighbors getting together in
the old days to thrash grain," Parry said. "But this time,
we are putting people together to build schools, homes,
medical facilities, businesses and industries."
The main emphasis of the project was to help towns of 2,000
people or less.
Plans were drawn to open the Rural Learning Center to
combine experts in a variety of areas to help residents of
small towns build on the assets they already have.
"It used to be that most communities had the 'go it alone'
attitude. They simply didn't know what the others were
doing," Beddow said. "All we had to do is provide them the
opportunity to share information, to draw on accurate
information and to work together for realization of a common
good."
Money was raised, and today the Rural Learning Center is a
reality.
But the Rural Learning Center is just the beginning. Plans
call for a second phase which would add an atrium,
classrooms, hotels and a convention center where rural
leaders could gather to share information and develop plans
to revitalize their own and surrounding communities.
Howard's 125th anniversary celebration will be the kickoff
fundraiser for that project. |
