National Library Week is April 23-29. The theme this year is “There’s More to the Story.”

To the folks in north central Nebraska, where towns are small and there are many miles between homes, farms, and ranches, this theme comes to life at the Rock County Community Library. For the 1,264 residents of Rock County, the “rest of the story” is not just a home base, a comfortable place to be away from home and farm life, but also an open door to explore. 

Barbara Svatos is a proud member of the Wisner community. She helps run the scale for truck drivers hauling cattle in and out of a local feedlot. In this way, Barbara is part of the global food supply chain from her home in northeast Nebraska.

After serving in the U.S. Air Force, Bill Garmier returned to Ohio with nothing but starting a family farm on his mind. For years, his family would plant and harvest corn and soybeans, but when the market began to change Garmier knew he needed to find an additional source of revenue to sustain the business. In 1991, he established Renewable Lubricants, Inc. 

Seal Rock’s drinking water was in danger.

For nearly 50 years, Seal Rock Water District (SRWD) relied on water purchased from the nearby town of Toledo, Oregon. The water could only be delivered through a 7-mile-long, underground pipeline. Already prone to landslides and washouts, the decades old pipeline was also located within the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Any significant seismic or tsunami event had the potential to take the pipeline out of service for weeks or months.

Wastewater treatment is one of those services that most folks only think about when something goes wrong. In Elkton, Va., the quaint brick manholes of this scenic Shenandoah Valley community were covering a simmering issue with the sewer lines below.

The saying ‘it takes a village’ can carry many meanings. For Aberdeen resident Michael Mitchell, it meant multiple organizations coming together to help homeowners like him find and purchase an affordable home.

Through a partnership between USDA Rural Development (RD), Homes Are Possible, Inc (HAPI), GROW South Dakota, and the Aberdeen Housing Authority, Michael was able to move into a new two-bedroom, one-bathroom home with an affordable mortgage and no upfront closing costs.

Located on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, the City of Poplar is a thriving rural community of 759. It serves as Tribal headquarters of the Fort Peck Tribes and sits along Montana’s famed Hi-Line – the state’s northernmost route running from the North Dakota border in the east to the Rocky Mountain Front in the west.