Here & Now

Why Young Adults Stay in their Small Wisconsin Town

Zac Schultz:

Now we turn to a reporting project funded in part by the Otto Bremer Trust where we’ve been working to examine a mix of rural issues. As part of this project, we have gotten help from the students from the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Lab at Black River Falls High School. One of the issues we’ve been investigating is the population decline in Wisconsins rural counties. Last week we heard from five high school students who were deciding whether they wanted to stay in rural Wisconsin after high school. Tonight we have the story of young adults who faced a similar choice.

Jack Harkner:

Cranberry vines are super resilient.

Zac Schultz:

Jackson County is cranberry country and Jack Harkner was born into the business.

Jack Harkner:

I think it goes back to my great grandpa.

Zac Schultz:

His whole life has been focused on taking over the family farm.

Jack Harkner:

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to own the marsh for myself and run it myself and do all the things that my dad got to do cuz I thought those were the coolest things ever.

Zac Schultz:

Growing up out in the country, it took a while for Jack to realize the nearby city of Black River Falls was still a small town.

Jack Harkner:

I thought Black River was a big city. Eau Claire was ginormous, like, about the size of New York and I was like, whoa.

Zac Schultz:

Eventually he made it to New York City and immediately missed the openness of the marsh.

Jack Harkner:

I went on a New York trip in high school and I absolutely hated it. I thought there were way too many people around.

Zac Schultz:

Jack’s first stop after high school was to move to Appleton to attend Fox Valley Technical College and surprisingly, he likes it.

Jack Harkner:

I actually really like the Appleton area. There’s enough people to get enough businesses where you don’t have to travel. You know, you want to go shopping, you don’t have to drive 45 minutes to a mall but everyone goes to bed around 9:00.

Zac Schultz:

But Jack has no plans to move to the city full-time. He’s learning to be an electrician as both a backup career and a useful skill on the farm.

Jack Harkner:

If the marsh goes down, I still have something but also on the marsh, we do a lot of stuff.

Zac Schultz:

Jack says a memory from five years ago cemented his faith in rural Wisconsin. One November morning his school bus rolled over.

Jack Harkner:

Everybody who was on the highway stopped, pulled over, made sure all the kids were okay. Hey, do you want to get in our cars and warm up cuz it was cold. I think that’s a big thing about – that you wouldn’t find in a big city. I think that’s a big part of rural, Black River Falls is everyone is like, hey, let’s help each other.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I was on the left side of the bus and it flipped onto the right side so when I lifted up my head, I was on the windows that were on the ground.

Zac Schultz:

Jenna Quackenbush was on the bus that morning but the crash made a different impression on her.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I was still calm and I didn’t even cry. I just heard all the — like the younger children were crying and I helped them get off the bus.

Zac Schultz:

She says the crash changed her life.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I realized after that I really liked helping people.

Zac Schultz:

Soon after Jenna started taking classes to be an emergency medical technician and soon found herself working for the Black River Falls Fire Department.

Jenna Quackenbush:

It is exciting because you never know what’s going to happen but you never know what call will be a big call.

Man:

I’m going to tell you guys that you are dispatched to a patient who has overdosed on an unknown medication.

Jenna Quackenbush:

Have you ever had this happen to you before?

Zac Schultz:

For the moment, she has an apartment in La Crosse while she attends Western Technical College to become a paramedic. City life is an adjustment compared to growing up in the woods.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I like rural Wisconsin because I like to be able to have my windows open and not feel like people are looking in but yeah, La Crosse, I close the blinds at night but here I like having space.

Zac Schultz:

Jenna says emergency calls in her hometown actually feel different.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I think in a city it’s more fast paced. Everyone is trying to move really fast and Im sure if you have calls backed up, you’re going to try and move through things faster but here we can kind of take our time. It’s almost more homey in a way. I don’t know how else to explain it but — just, people feel more heartfelt.

Kelly Nieman:

Did you graduate now or are you a senior?

Girl:

I’m a senior.

Kelly Nieman:

You’re a senior. That’s what I saw on Facebook. I was like, what? How did that happen? I love being part of a small town because I do know a lot of people and a lot of people know me.

Zac Schultz:

Kelly Nieman is on a first name basis with a lot of people in Black River Falls.

Kelly Nieman:

She’s got two little boys, right?

Girl:

Yes.

Kelly Nieman:

How old are they now?

Girl:

I think they’re ten months.

Kelly Nieman:

Ok.

Zac Schultz:

As the owner of Studio 107, she gets everyone looking their best.

Kelly Nieman:

I like people walking in the door and everybody — hi Carol. How’s it going today? Bye Sue, have a good day.

Zac Schultz:

After high school, Kelly moved to Eau Claire for college but soon switched to cosmetology school, in part to get back home a couple years earlier.

Kelly Nieman:

I just never really wanted to go anywhere else and so I didn’t think past that. I just wanted to go get my education and come back here and work and live life in Black River.

Zac Schultz:

Now she owns the salon where she started as a receptionist. If she ever thinks Black River doesn’t offer enough, the drive to Minneapolis will change her mind.

Kelly Nieman:

Every year that I go there, I get nervous driving. Sweaty palms, gripping the steering wheel hoping the six lanes of traffic you can handle. But I have no desire to move to a big city.

Zac Schultz:

Kelly says the draw of family always pulled her back to Black River.

Kelly Nieman:

My roots are deep here.

Zac Schultz:

Once in a while, Kelly sees an empty store front in Eau Claire and thinks, what if?

Kelly Nieman:

I think about that sometimes like how my life might have been differently. And I don’t know where it would have taken me. You know, if I couldn’t get a job in Black River right away or if living in Eau Claire for four years maybe I would have decided I liked Eau Claire and stayed there. I’m not sure but that’s not what happened.

Max Hart:

You don’t want to ever live life second guessing or always saying what ifs.

Zac Schultz:

Max Hart almost didn’t come back home.

Max Hart:

My dad didn’t want me to farm. If he knew what I was doing, he probably wouldn’t be happy. I’m not quite sure.

Zac Schultz:

Max grew up on a small dairy farm.

Max Hart:

Typical farm kid.

Zac Schultz:

His parents pushed him to go to college.

Max Hart:

Im the first generation in my family to go to college and my dad, he instilled in me that you can always come home and farm but he wanted me to go to college.

Zac Schultz:

At the end of his junior year of college, Max’s father died in a motorcycle accident.

Max Hart:

It was a lot to handle. It was a tough summer milking cows. This is my mom and I and him not being there.

Zac Schultz:

That fall, he went back to school and the cows went to market.

Max Hart:

It was tough to see the livelihood of my parents’ farm go down the road in a couple of cattle trailers. I went back to school and I never dreamed I’d be coming back here.

Zac Schultz:

Eventually Max and his mother bought some cattle. There was no milking but the farm was alive again.

Max Hart:

Felt pride.

Zac Schultz:

Max got a job as an agricultural loan officer at a bank and he lives just down the road from his mom.

Max Hart:

So I actually live right halfway between the two houses I grew up in so I haven’t moved very far.

Zac Schultz:

Max is also carrying on another family tradition by serving on the county board.

Max Hart:

Public service has been ingrained in my family for a long time. So it goes back generations. My great grandpa Hart was on the county board. My grandma Hart was town clerk. My dad was a town chairman and supervisor. My mom has been the clerk and a treasurer. My sister’s the clerk in her township.

Zac Schultz:

In his personal life, Max symbolizes the locals who decide to stay in rural Wisconsin. In his public life, Max has to figure out how to keep more people from moving away.

Max Hart:

A lot of my friends that went to college didn’t come back home.

Zac Schultz:

Jack Harkner says he knew early on a lot of his friends from high school wouldn’t be sticking around.

Jack Harkner:

It’s like, I’ll see you when you come home and visit your parents and stuff like that.

Zac Schultz:

Jenna Quackenbush says career choices led many of her classmates to the cities.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I think a lot of people believe that if they want to get a very successful job that they need to move to a bigger city.

Zac Schultz:

Kelly Nieman says nearly half of her graduating class left town.

Kelly Nieman:

It’s probably about 50/50. I could be wrong but I feel like about half of our class isn’t here and about half of them are here still.

Max Hart:

It’s easy to move to the cities. It’s so convenient. It’s 5 to 10 minutes to the local grocery store. There’s so many amenities in the urban areas. So what brings them back to the rural areas?

Zac Schultz:

The answer for each has to do with family.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I feel like it’s more my family here cuz I love them so much. I got to visit them all the time so that really draws me back to here.

Jack Harkner:

There’s a lot of factors about people leaving and if they come back or not. Mine was the marsh. That’s the reason Im coming back.

Max Hart:

One thing about living or growing up and living around here, you have all the resources and contacts. You don’t have to learn new people or places or new traits. So it’s convenient. Not saying I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but I really enjoy living around here. Especially the farm, I really enjoy the farm.

Kelly Nieman:

When I think about the people that are here, I think it’s more of a choice. The ones I know and interact with, anyway. I’m pretty sure they feel similar to me. Their family is here. They grew up here. They like it here. So they stay here.

Zac Schultz:

Reporting from Black River Falls, Im Zac Schultz for “Here & Now.”