Individuals still make a difference in rural Nebraska

Things are looking up in rural Nebraska, and no, it has nothing to do with Saturday's defeat of the Minnesota Golden Gophers by the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

People in larger small towns think they can make things better in the coming years, but people in smaller towns say they're less likely to leave.

According to the 2015 Nebraska Rural Poll, the "Visit Nebraska. Visit Nice." motto chosen by the Nebraska Tourism Commission rings true.

Seventy-six percent of rural Nebraskans rate their community as friently, 64 percent trusting and 67 percent supportive.

Optimism is growing, according to the poll. The gap between those who think things will get better in 10 years, and those who think things will get worse, is growing.

Now, 26 percent of rural Nebraskans think their communities will be better in 10 years, 18 percent worse.

More importantly, 64 percent of those living in towns of 1,000 or more people disagreed with the idea that their community is powerless to control its future, 53 percent in or near towns of 500 to 999 people disagreed, but 23 percent in or near the smallest towns agreed that their towns were powerless to control their futures.

Fifty-five percent said it would be difficult to leave their community, while 30 percent said it would be easy.

McCook doesn't meet the 10,000 population cutoff for larger small towns, but with 11,000 people in Red Willow County, and because we are a trade center, it's not much of a stretch to include us in that group.

However, it would be a mistake to think individuals can't make as much of a difference in our town as in a town of 500, or that we wouldn't be missed if we moved away.

Members of the McCook Christian Church and the McCook Evangelical Free Church both took on major "faith in action" projects this month, good examples of individuals banding together for the community good.

They cleaned up yards and fixed up houses and found hundreds of ways to make life better for their neighbors, many of whom they were meeting for the first time.

Another example is the Bolles Canyon Skatepark, opened Friday on the edge of Kelley Park.

That started as the dream of a few skateboarders a dozen years ago, and while many of them are now in their 20s and even 30s, the dream has become a reality for today and the future.

Rural Nebraska may not have all of the cultural and economic opportunities of larger cities, but modern transportation, electronic communication and other factors have removed many of the barriers to those opportunities.

It's never been true that an individual doesn't make a difference, whether it's from serving in an elected office, participating in church or service club activities, or even just casting a vote during an election.

The latest Nebraska Rural Poll reinforces that truth and should serve as encouragement for all of us to be more involved.