Looking Back on 2024

This year was busy for Rural Resurrection. It was full of firsts, traditional favorites, and quite a bit of exploring. Although the year flew by, this blog covered a wide range of subjects geared to help rural communities not just survive, but thrive!

We started the year with the fourth annual National Implementation Month. A month dedicated entirely to implementing your community plans. This year we discussed breaking up a project into Bite-Sized Pieces to create a recipe for success.

Highlighting Excellence

Rural Resurrection also continued a popular series of posts entitled Star Communities. Star Communities are those communities that have shined above the rest. They may have overcome immense tragedy, or they have simply excelled beyond expectations for a town of their size. These are example communities that are role models for those who strive to be better. Chillicothe, Missouri, was deemed a Star Community for its commitment to downtown revitalization and the arts, including several beautiful murals.

A new series of posts that started in 2024 was about Destination Towns. Destination Towns are those that are unique and boldly different. They don’t think that they’re the needle in the haystack, they are the random sunflower standing up amongst all the hay. Successful destination towns can find what is unique about them and make them stand out. In each type of Destination Town you are about to see each town has taken something unique and snowballed it into something much bigger, grander.

The Destination Towns was the first series of posts that were hybrid posts with both a text post and a YouTube video. In total, four posts were specifically about destination towns, with several others related to the subject. Look for more on this popular subject in 2025.

On the Move

What’s a year on Rural Resurrection without RAGBRAI or bicycle tourism? This year RAGBRAI wound through my hometown of Red Oak on the way to the hilliest path on record. Great towns all along the route showed off their best to the throngs of cyclists rolling through. One town that really impressed me was Greenfield. Just over two months before RAGBRAI an EF4 tornado descended on this town of just over 2,000 in Central Iowa. To recover from the disaster enough to host the event as a “meeting town” was an incredible feat of perseverance.

Another new series started in 2024 as well. This one focused on a different type of trail that doesn’t typically see a bicycle. This year included the first posts about Water Trails. First, introducing Water Trails and then showing off Norfolk, Nebraska’s, great new whitewater park.

This year was also a year of exploration. The first summer road trip had stops in Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri along the way. It has resulted in a couple of new articles already, but there are posts more on the way from this excursion. The other trip was quite a bit longer. Jumping “the pond”, I visited the “motherland” of my heritage in Norway. Though I was there for my son’s wedding, I did get to sneak away to see some rural areas that affected my way of thinking about rural areas in America.

Reaching 300 in 2024

For Rural Resurrection, it was a year of many firsts and one 300th. In July this blog posted its 300th article! Hopefully, this blog has been helpful to small towns throughout the Midwest, I look forward to many more posts! Good luck to everyone in the new year!