Success Stories

BROADBAND LOAN PROGRAM

Nex-Tech
November 4, 2004
Amount of 2 Loans: $6,574,000

Nex-Tech of Lenora, Kansas through a USDA Rural Development Broadband Loan has brought broadband, video and voice services in towns with poor or non-existent data services. This project has connected 2,251 voice lines, 1,855 video subscribers, 768 high-speed data as well as improving service to 528 dial-up subscribers. More importantly, high speed data connections have helped in the creation of new businesses while a bundled package of services means the technology is affordable to customers. The short and long term economic benefits as a result of Nex-Tech's installation of fiber optics to business locations have been numerous and obvious to community leaders and residents.

An example of this economic growth is the construction of a new ethanol plant in Phillipsburg. The $54 million dollar ethanol plant employs 34 people and depends on Nex-Tech for its broadband service which is an integral part of their business. There has been a slight increase in school enrollment across the three school districts in the county as well. The population is also estimated to be increasing, with new home construction on the rise and available rental properties being very hard to come by. Nex-Tech understood community development and had a long-term vision for communities in Kansas; this has been a successful combination for rural America.

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COMMUNITY CONNECT GRANT PROGRAM

Barking Wind Corporation

Wapanucka, Oklahoma, is a small rural town of only 445 residents. The town does not have its own post office, library, hospital, or police department, and its primary general store burned down about five years ago. Though once a thriving railroad town with a population of 2,500, steady decline has brought about the depopulation and unemployment synonymous with rural America. Wapanuckans realized that they needed to combat this destructive cycle to keep Wapanucka on the map, and eagerly applied for a USDA Community Connect Broadband Grant. The Barking Wind Corporation was awarded $379,000 in 2004, and shortly thereafter the construction of a community center was complete. The community center is available to all ages, from students to senior citizens, and all users are offered instruction on using the computers and the internet. In fact, students from Murray State College serve as interns, paid by Barking Wind Corp., who help users at the center. These interns teach the entire community to use the center to do all sorts of things such as researching for homework, sending emails to relatives who are overseas in the military, and applying for jobs. Individual citizens have clearly taken advantage of the many economic opportunities afforded by the center. Examples of these individuals include a woman who studies curriculum and takes nursing courses online; a trucker who now receives haul-jobs online, whose demand has greatly increased; and a poet who composes on the computers and submits her poems to literary magazines over the net. On a more general scale, sixty buildings and residences have Broadband service, allowing the town services to function much more efficiently, thus attracting more potential residents, and also allowing a number of in-home small business entrepreneurs to increase their customer base, thus increasing profitability. Jay la Moure, president of Barking Wind Corp., expressed how much Broadband brings to the community, noting that the citizens have "enthusiastically embraced" the service. He added that, in his opinion, Wapanucka is "a model town for the RUS grant program." Thanks to the combination of the RUS grant and the ambition of Wapanuckans themselves, la Moure is clearly right.

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DISTANCE AND LEARNING TELEMEDICINE SUCCESS STORIES

Berrien Springs

Berrien Springs, Michigan, is a rural area with a large number of schools. When the community realized that its schools were lacking the educational opportunities that schools in other areas were afforded, they actively sought out a solution. The solution was a USDA RUS Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant. The grant application was submitted, approved, and a grant of $350,000 was awarded for the project. Shortly after, thirty five elementary and middle schools received Polycom videoconferencing units, monitors and cards. BCISD provided extensive training and professional development to all schools in the project, and the students, and professors, clearly benefited immediately from the many new educational opportunities. Recently, many students expressed how much they have enjoyed their interactive videoconferencing programs and that they look forward to many more. At Mars Elementary School in Berrien Springs, for example, first-grade students all sent thank you letters saying how many interesting things they had learned about penguins through a videoconference with the St. Louis Zoo. In another example, at McKinley Elementary, in Dowagiac, second-graders learned about a blizzard in New York as well as bumblebee, fruit, and Vampire bats. Also at this school, third-grade students clearly had an amazing time playing science jeopardy; posing questions to the author of a book that they had read (Hard Times Jar); and last but certainly not least, talking about their home state with students in England, who read original poems to their Michigan peers. With 35 schools served, the extremely diverse list of educational benefits and opportunities goes on, showing just how powerful a DLT Grant can be.

Gundersen Clinic, Ltd

Gundersen Clinic, Ltd. operates several rural medical clinic sites within its 19-county, tri-state service area. Several of these sites provide radiology imaging services and many already have digital radiography services (x-rays on computers). However, four sites in their regional health system remained unconnected to their digital radiography environment. The equipment requested through a Rural Development Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant allows the radiographic images to be viewed and interpreted by radiologists at the hub site in La Crosse, WI. Gundersen Clinic, Ltd. now transmits 40,000 radiography images from regional health systems per year as a result of integrating all their digital radiography equipment.

WEATHER RADIO TRANSMITTER GRANT PROGRAM

Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Emergency Management Receives $59,900 USDA Weather Radio Transmitter Grant

On February 20, 2008, U.S. Rep. Thelma Drake, and Ellen Davis, USDA RD Virginia State Director, presented a $59,900 Weather Radio Transmitter Grant award to the Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Emergency Management, for its Accomack County, Virginia site. The event took place at the Town Hall in Onancock, VA. The grant funds will be used for the purchase and installation of a 1000-watt dual transmitter and antenna. The transmitter will provide NOAA Weather Radio all Hazards Broadcast to Accomack County, towns and locations along Route 13, and the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

In the picture from left to right are: Jason Loftus, Public Safety Director-Accomack County, Ellen Davis, State Director USDA Rural Development-Virginia, Bill Sammler, Warning Coordination Meteorologist-NOAA, Congresswoman Thelma Drake-2nd District of Virginia and Michael Cline, State Coordinator for Virginia Dept. of Emergency Management.

TRADITIONALTELEPHONE INFRASTRUCTURE LOAN PROGRAM

Heurfano, New Mexico

Need: Huerfano, New Mexico, , a very small town of only 379 residents, is located in the northeast of the Navajo Nation reservation. The reservation consists of 27,000 square miles of beautiful yet harsh land. According to a 1990 census of the entire Nation, the average per capita income on the reservation was $4106; 58% of its residents lived below the poverty line; 36 % of adults older than 25 had less than a ninth grade education; a third of all houses had no bedrooms, 52% had incomplete plumbing, and 54% were wood-heated only; and finally 77.5 % of homes had no telephone service.

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