You can gain respect in a small community by participating in local activities and organizations. This is also a great way to network and generate personal warm fuzzies. Little towns in sparsely settled areas are studies in dichotomy. Residents are typically fiercely independent. They are obviously averse to the throngs and cacophony of big cities and densely inhabited areas. Most non-resort area rural folks are suspicious of government and external controls and, with few exceptions, totally self-reliant.
The other side of that coin is that remote areas lack the infrastructure of suburbs, exurbs and metropolitan areas. Many services are funded almost entirely by a combination of community and local revenues from the town or county government. In many cases, important area functions would not exist without volunteer effort to assist the few paid professionals a small town, county or rural jurisdiction can afford to hire. Rural people are particularly pleased when newcomers show tangible interest via involvement or financial contribution, or both. Attention to the health clinic or small hospital, volunteer fire department and the local school system, particularly athletics, are surefire winners, generate personal good will and they’re a pleasure to be involved with.
Rural volunteer fire departments are the backbone of public safety. These organizations provide 911 assistance, paramedics and firefighting. Firefighting in outlying locales is not only about saving a house but also includes fighting grass fires and forest fires, and taking preventative measures in advance of controlled burns. Local volunteer outfits have saved my bacon on more than one occasion. Just in the last five years, twice in Montana and once in Wyoming, lighting strikes started fires closely adjacent to or on one of our ranches. The volunteer fire departments were out in minutes, even though the locations were in remote areas with extremely difficult access.
Back in Colorado three decades ago, my then business/ranch partner and I were completing our own house on our first ranch. We had constructed the dwelling lovingly, if not perfectly. We were part-time members of the local Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department. We drilled with the regulars, and once in a while participated in dousing several small fires.
We were putting the finishing touches on the home one hot August morning. The usual riveting view of the high country plains to the east of our timbered hill was obscured by heat haze. Dave, our nearest neighbor, lived a couple of miles and several canyons to the west. He came roaring down to the house and jumped from his beat up Toyota Land Cruiser with eyes wide. We quickly ascertained from his garbled shouts and wild gesticulations that there was a fire right over the ridge. Bob and I looked at each other, startled. Dave sped off in a cloud of swirling dust, sounding the alarm like Paul Revere of the mountain.
We grabbed shovels and our always-full seventy-pound Indian Tanks. These are contraptions that strap to your back and shoot rather diminutive sprays of water to arrest small brush fires. We ran to the pickup and careened up the rough four-wheel drive road to the ridge. We could see heavy dense smoke but could get the truck no further. We leapt out, hitched on the Indian Tanks, grabbed the shovels and a chain saw and hustled up the steep grade. We came over a rise in the topography and stopped, dumbfounded. The fire was roaring out of control, perhaps encompassing ten to fifteen acres. It was crowning, jumping from tree-top to tree-top. Each successive pine tree erupted in a gigantic explosive ball of heat and flame. Bob looked at me, pale and horror-stricken. I’m sure my expression was the same. Late summer meant tinder dry conditions and the pine needles on the forest floor formed a perfect fuel bed. We then glanced at our puny shovels and the diminutive nozzles hanging suspended from our belts running from the Indian Tanks on our backs. Without a word we turned and ran back down the ridge. We had not been trained for this.
The volunteer fire department arrived shortly thereafter followed by the forest service crew. After a week of aerial retardant and a grimy slug-it-out with persistent flames in a dangerous environment, we brought the fire under control. It had consumed about seven hundred fifty acres. We were filthy, soot-blackened and exhausted, as were our fellow firefighters, but not an acre of ours was burned, the house was safe and none of our neighbors lost anything of substance.
Many towns or valleys are fortunate to have small health care units. There might simply be a clinic staffed by a rural doctor, perhaps several days per week. More fortunate towns have hospitals from ten to thirty beds, equipped to administer primary trauma care and keep someone alive for transport to a larger metropolitan area. Still others belong to co-ops for several different communities with some medical and volunteer staffing.
These outposts of health care are a pleasure to deal with. I know. They have treated me for everything from a horse stepping on my toes to flu, kidney stones and, incredulous as it may sound, the proper diagnosis of a rare malady after five specialists in four hoity-toity city medical centers were unable to figure out the strange abnormality that had suddenly overcome me in the 1990s.
I had finally dragged myself to the doctor at the little clinic in Sheridan, wanting merely to refill the purely symptomatic non-curative medicines that the experts in the big city hospitals had prescribed. Doctor Madany, a young, very talented physician, listened intently to my explanation of symptoms. When I finished answering his questions, he rose from his desk, walked out of his office and two minutes later returned with a big, thick book. He ran his forefinger across the pages as he skimmed through sections. He stopped, read intently and looked up at me.
“You have Graves Disease,” he said simply and with surety.
He was right. I had it treated a month later over at Bozeman Deaconess, a great regional hospital, and I have been fine ever since.
And then there are the schools. Education is as much a hot topic in the outlying areas as it is in the suburbs or the inner city. The focus in small towns is different, though. One can be involved on both micro and macro levels. There are several avenues to achieve either. Little things like showing up for parent-teacher conferences are noticed. Remember, every teacher knows who you are, recognizes your vehicle and knows your kids. They are, after all, just one of the four to eight students in their class.
My children attended high school in such an academic environment. The entire school population, grades nine through twelve, was less than one hundred kids. My son’s graduating class was twenty-three, and my daughter’s seventeen. Teachers know if you don’t show up for conferences. I am convinced that they keep a log of which parents call them to discuss poor grades, reasons for less than academic excellence and to request advice on how a parent can assist a child. This seemingly minor bit of community involvement says worlds about you to the school’s staff, and they know everyone in town. More importantly, it is the right thing to do for your children.
There are other actions that demonstrate concern. If you have the courage, you can get elected to the local school board. Be forewarned that you will have both supporters and detractors, and a few who hate your guts. However, everybody will respect your involvement. Support local school functions. As one example, rural schools have FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America) and FFA (Future Farmers of America). These great programs are half academic and half agrarian. Many chapters organize trips for their students to historical destinations, even Washington D.C., which my children were fortunate enough to experience. In addition to supporting your offspring with monetary donations to these school-based outfits, make sure you order generously from the local annual bake sales.
Then, of course, are the school sports. The fervor, excitement and the rabid support of local high school teams by the community rivals and perhaps surpasses anything one might see in professional or collegiate competition. The sons and daughters who comprise these six- or eight-player football, basketball, track and volleyball teams are the progeny of other local farmers, ranchers and rural property owners. The first and foremost rule for small-town athletics is attendance and interest. Friday night football games, Saturday volleyball tournaments and the twice-wee
kly track events of spring are all extremely well attended. The average event might well host two-thirds of the town. For the big events, such as football playoffs, conference championships or state championships, which my son was fortunate enough to enjoy, several thousand people show up for games from all across the state. And, if you have a fairly good team, it is absolutely the talk of the town. As I remember the struggling teams that got their share of discussion, too.
I mostly kept a low profile with my kids’ mentors and coaches. Every once in a while, I would make a suggestion, but that was the exception rather than the rule. Small town athletics are very much turf-driven. However, it is of immense benefit to your team, your children, your friends children, the community and yourself, to contribute your time and money generously. There is usually a local athletic boosters club for the high school teams. Join, donate and enjoy the experience. Attend awards banquets. These are big things for the kids, and even more important to the parents. So much the better if your son or daughter is the recipient of an award or two. With the entire varsity and junior varsity squads combined typically consisting of ten to fifteen kids, chances are everyone will get a trophy!
If your child does not participate in athletics, it is likely they will be involved in academic or creative groups. My daughter was editor of the school paper, won competitions in state-wide art contests and with others, put together the senior yearbook. I advertised in the school newspaper and yearbook, contributed to various fundraisers and enjoyed the camaraderie of the other parents at school plays and ceremonies.
Contribute behind the scenes. I would always call the coaches early in the year and inquire if there was anything in particular that the team needed. Alternatively, I would ask my kids to ask the coaches and teachers. I allowed the use of some of my photography in presentations and publications. I bought a lot of uniforms and helmets for the football team.
In my son’s senior year, the state championship track meet was held in Helena during two days of torrential rain. Fine athletes from all over the state would have done better wearing swimming suits and goggles rather than track shoes. It was miserable. One of the other parents and I went to the local Walmart, purchased several dozen towels (in the team colors of purple and white), umbrellas, rain parkas and ponchos for the team and the parents. To this day I still get smiles and thanks for that. Sometimes the opportunity arises to contribute simple but special efforts that stand out in everyone’s minds for years.
My son and I were perched on the ridge with our binoculars, glassing for big bucks one cloudy afternoon late in hunting season. We watched with amazement from our hilltop perch as two men furtively crossed the river onto our place from the neighbors, stuffed their orange vests into camouflage knapsacks strapped to meat packs and set off to obviously sneak around in forbidden places.
With stealth, Rhett and I tailed them. When we finally walked up to them, took their rifle and bid them to follow us back to our truck, it was apparent that they had killed something somewhere on our ranch. They were extremely nervous about their situation. Perhaps they had no licenses, or perhaps they had shot an illegal animal. I decided not to inquire. Whatever was dead was dead, and the game warden would figure it out.
As we walked toward the truck one of them turned to me with an apprehensive twitch and said, “What would it take for you to forget that you ever saw us here?” The other added with a tremulous voice, “You don’t need to call the sheriff, we can make this right.”
Rhett and I glanced at each other. I decided to play stupid. “Well, you are clearly breaking the law. You are not just trespassing. You are a mile inside our boundary. By the looks of those meat packs, and only one of you carrying a rifle, I would say that you have killed something too.” The oblique probe made the muscles in their faces tense.
“We’ll pay you a trophy fee,” stammered one of the men.
“Not interested, and a trophy fee does not breathe life into whatever carcass is lying up there on the hill, does it?” I shot back.
“Would five thousand dollars make it go away?” one of the men blurted out.
With effort, I tried to appear nonchalant. When we reached the truck, I turned to them. “I’ll tell you what. Lots of ranches around here charge trespass fees for hunting. I’m going to waive that fee, if, you make a generous donation to the Sheridan School District Panther Football Team and personally deliver it to the coach tomorrow morning by nine a.m. If we ever see you inside our fence line again, we will throw the book at you, including whatever you did here.”
The men agreed. We took their names and phone numbers from their licenses. They stumbled back up the hill.
The next morning the football coach called me. “I had these two really jumpy guys come to the school today. They dropped off a check for two thousand dollars to the football team. Would you happen to know anything about that?”
I indulged in a hearty laugh and replied, “Nope, wouldn’t know anything about it, but I’m sure the money will be put to good use.”
The coach chuckled and hung up. That story quickly became legend around town, was the subject of great amusement on the football team and endeared me to the parents of the team, with whom I enjoyed friendships on long road trips to distant tiny hamlets, sharing the thrills of our children’s competition.
Rest assured that at some point, ownership of rural property will result in involvement in an issue that will ignite, and unite, the community. It may be an intrusion of state or federal regulations. It may be a change in zoning or land use. Some misguided government jurisdiction may try to take, alter or influence water rights. The hubbub will most certainly affect the area’s property rights, property values or both.
It is critical is these situations to become involved, first, to protect yourself, and second, to support your neighbors against a common threat. I generally refer to large bureaucracies having little comprehension, no compassion and distant myopic mindsets as “monoliths.” I am not partial to monoliths. You will find that the huge majority of people in rural areas do not think kindly of them either. Nor are they sanguine when their rights are trampled, their voices not heard or their lands or property rights disturbed, altered, or taken.
These takings and other governmental intrusions, whether outright or indirect, are an accelerating trend due to current national politics and policies, and the populist mentality of certain states. Canada, on the other hand, appears to be moving towards increased protection of private property, particularly in British Columbia and Alberta. In the current environment, increased diligence is mandatory. Keep your ears carefully tuned to the hum in the tracks.
These situations, when they invariably arise, can be invaluable opportunities to become part of the community, help yourself and help others. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with neighbors who share common goals and common foes will cement friendships with respect. Our ancestors banded together to vanquish mastodons. The key to killing modern monoliths is also unity. It is the bundle of sticks theory. An individual stick is easily snapped. A bundle is impossible to break.
Within the alliance that assembles against a monolithic foe, there will be certain people who can lend special skills to the collective effort. Experience, contacts, knowledge and the ability to organize or be an energetic participant in the initial organization are all important. Delegation of these key skills, and formulation of the kill-the-monolith strategy as soon as possible after the threat is known, are critical to success. Be proactive. If you know how to help the collective, volunteer. Do what you say. Accomplish any missions you accept. This type of involvement can even sway some of those who previously did not like or respect you.
As an example, utility companies are monoliths. If backed by federal government largesse—usually without oversight by more localized government hungry for revenue—utilities are extremely dangerous. Quite recently the federal government beat drums and sounded trumpets heralding a concerted push toward alternative and renewable energy forms. This unorga
nized, unplanned, largely subsidized1 very political frenzy affects or will affect the majority of rural lands in the U.S. The clouds of this perfect monolithic storm will cast shadows over tens of thousands of landowners in the coming years.
I could wax eloquent here about the fact that the federal government admits that under the best circumstances, less than 20% of our energy demand by 2030 will be able to be provided by wind and solar. I could also write pages on the fallacy of dumping huge sums of money as repayment to campaign contributors in the form of grandiose subsidies to make non-profitable alternative energy “viable” in the marketplace. Wind and solar, for example, requires one hundred and one times and sixty-four times (respectively), the subsidy to fossil fuels to be affordable. In actuality, I like renewable resources, but they need to be carefully planned, constructed in the proper locations and pursued in ways that do not undermine other industries and economics. One cannot save the environment by ruining the land.
The key to renewables is the transmission of the power generated to a market that can use it. Generally, areas most conducive to solar and wind are remote. Forty-story-high wind turbine towers and square miles of solar collectors are more often than not located on large expanses of lands far from transmission lines. The utilities claim crisscrossing the entire country with gigantic twelve-to-eighteen-story, monstrous steel power line towers is an absolute necessity. This hodgepodge, largely uncoordinated assault is driven by time limits that mandate commencement of construction, at the threat of losing federal cash, grants and tax incentive programs. Many projects are poorly planned, and the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) guidelines often massaged or ignored. These subsidies have led many transmission companies to focus on the creation of future opportunity zones for wind or solar developers, rather than satisfaction of current demand. General Electric, as the largest manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels, is not shy about asserting its considerable political weight in Washington. Some of the prettiest wilderness areas in the country are at risk of industrialization.
Land for Love and Money Page 15