Small communities such as Iola endeavor to remain an attractive place to live and work not only to outsiders, but also to their children. MAKING STUDENTS aware of such career possibilities in their own back yard might be a way of attracting them back home after they get their education.
The competition from metropolitan areas is stiff. The United States is increasingly becoming more urban.
Through effective design, city planners today see that suburbs, boroughs, and townships provide all the warmth and community of a small town with the amenities of a big city.
Today, four out of five Americans live in cities. In the Midwest and South, 75 percent live in metropolitan areas compared to 85 percent on the East and West coasts.
Over one lifetime, Kansas has gone from 52 percent living in cities in 1950, to almost 75 percent today.
So it is no wonder townsfolk long to hold on to yesterday but realize time is not on their side as more and more of their youth flee to cities.
One angle is to promote the intangibles of small town life — clean air, safe streets, open skies, friendly faces, helping hands, quiet nights and a slower pace.
The trick is to seem comfortable but not provincial; safe but not boring; quiet but still thriving.
In our effort to lure professionals to come our way, more and more emphasis is put on growing them.
Nowhere is the need more evident than in the health care field where increasingly, rural communities lack physicians and dentists and their residents must travel long distances for care.
KU Med has these communities in mind with a traveling entourage of health professionals whose goal is to enlighten high school students in the far reaches of the state of the many careers in medicine including X-ray technicians, pharmacy, orthopedics, nurses and physicians. More than 150 careers exist in medicine, they inform the students.
Locally, administrators at Allen County Regional Hospital make a pointed effort that personnel have opportunities to further their careers if they so desire.
Once in a hospital setting they see all kinds of directions they can take their careers with more training.
For some, that’s the best of both worlds.
— Susan Lynn
Coming home to a good job: The best of both worlds
