Youth Opportunities

Jenny Nixon Author

10/04/2024 Added

3 Plays

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Craig Schroeder discusses youth surveys, engagement, and career pathways programs. Recorded 1/11/2023.

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[00:00:00.000]I've worked with Milan for about 30 plus years. I was the center's first intern when I was in
[00:00:06.540]college years ago, and really have focused on youth development over the past couple decades.
[00:00:13.040]I come from southwest Nebraska, small town of 200 people, and we still have our family farm out
[00:00:19.520]there. So I'm excited about the opportunities for rural communities because I think a lot of
[00:00:24.680]young people, as I'll show you, are interested in those opportunities, but sometimes don't
[00:00:29.900]know how to pursue them. So that's really a lot of the work is how we connect the business
[00:00:34.740]community, the community with the school, and support young people. So thanks for having me.
[00:00:39.060]Awesome. Melinda, you're next on my screen. Would you introduce yourself?
[00:00:45.020]Yeah, Melinda Pearson. I'm with the City of Kimball, a community developer. So we are going
[00:00:52.600]through our third boom. We've only gone through two boats. We don't intend to have a third. So
[00:00:59.800]right now, we're just interested in what Kimball is going to be looking like in the next five years
[00:01:05.040]going up and down. So really, thank you for the opportunity. We are looking at a little
[00:01:11.860]bit of everything. Awesome. Cheryl.
[00:01:16.460]Okay, typically, I have just crazy Wednesdays. So I don't get to touch in with you guys very often.
[00:01:23.260]But I'm an extension specialist located in Scotts Bluff. And mostly on Zoom,
[00:01:29.700]for a lot of things. So and so my husband and I live at Gurley, which is 15 miles north of Sydney.
[00:01:37.560]Awesome. Chelsea.
[00:01:40.460]Chelsea Herrian, Boxbee Development Corporation based in Alliance, but also serve Hemingford.
[00:01:51.140]Daniel.
[00:01:59.600]Oh, I had to get my mouse back on the right screen there. Anyway. Daniel Bennett. I'm with
[00:02:05.080]Civic Nebraska. We're a nonprofit organization that works on community engagement and youth
[00:02:09.680]civic leadership. I'm based in Scotts Bluff. Mylon. Mylon Wall. I'm co-director of the Heartland
[00:02:20.060]Center for Leadership Development. Our office is in Lincoln. And we have done work nationally,
[00:02:29.500]and to some extent internationally, in community and leadership development.
[00:02:35.580]Jamie. I'm Jamie Bright. I'm the Rural Prosperity Nebraska educator for the Southern Panhandle.
[00:02:45.060]I'm in the Sydney office today. Okay. Marla. I'm Marla Marks. I work for USDA Rural Development
[00:02:54.380]out of the Scotts Bluff office. And I am in the office today, so I can turn on my camera,
[00:02:59.400]but we've been warned there's low connectivity issues, so I got to watch.
[00:03:03.720]Yep. You're showing a yellow marker. Oh, boy. Good to see your face, though. I love it. Scott.
[00:03:13.020]Hello. I'm Scott Asmus. I'm the program director for SourceLink Nebraska
[00:03:20.240]out of the Nebraska Business Development Center in Omaha.
[00:03:22.920]Excellent. Mary. And I'm Mary Emory, director of Rural
[00:03:29.300]Prosperity Nebraska out of Lincoln. Lauren.
[00:03:33.800]Good morning. Lauren Sheridan Simonson with the City of Neely Village of
[00:03:42.180]Clearwater Economic Development in Northeast Nebraska.
[00:03:45.400]Phil.
[00:03:47.660]Morning, everyone. Philip Jensen, Great Plains Communications in snow-covered
[00:03:53.700]Chadron, just like Jenny and Harrison. I'm actually in Chadron today.
[00:03:59.200]And headed for Rushville. So I see all the people still moving snow and it's
[00:04:05.000]snowing in Crawford. So I am Jenny Nixon. I'm the Nebraska Extension Educator in
[00:04:09.600]Rural Prosperity in the northwest corner of the state, working out of Harrison
[00:04:12.700]some days, Chadron some days, and Rushville some days. All right. Let's get
[00:04:18.340]back to our main topic. Craig, what have you learned about working with youth and
[00:04:24.260]communities?
[00:04:29.100]You're muted, Craig.
[00:04:30.780]There we go. I'm sorry. Yeah, thank you, Jenny, and I appreciate the opportunity to
[00:04:37.460]share this work with all of you and towards the end maybe talk about some opportunities to
[00:04:42.700]collaborate with some of the work you're doing in the field too. So I'm going to show you a
[00:04:47.460]little bit about what we learned in northwest Nebraska, and that was last year with an
[00:04:53.400]assessment, and then a little bit about northeast, but very brief there. There's more there
[00:04:59.000]if you want to know more about it, but I wanted to be concise on that. And then I've got the
[00:05:02.920]new data for the four counties in southeast Nebraska and some of the activities we're
[00:05:07.400]going to be pursuing as we enter here at the spring semester and into the next year. So
[00:05:12.720]again, thank you for your time here. To start out here, there's a framework that we use
[00:05:19.200]for this work. This has really stood the test of time for about 30 years, and it really
[00:05:23.880]focuses on the key elements that need to be in place to have effective impact
[00:05:28.900]with young people seeking to stay or come back to the rural communities.
[00:05:32.220]And the first one is there has to be a career or business or ag opportunity that fits their
[00:05:37.620]interests and priorities. So entrepreneurship, education, and career development are really
[00:05:41.980]essential to this, and connecting young people with local employers that are needing workforce,
[00:05:46.060]but also helping young people think about starting their own business,
[00:05:50.500]maybe now or maybe later when they come back to a rural community, because sometimes the jobs that
[00:05:55.660]they may have in the city may not exist in a small community.
[00:05:58.800]So we want to help them think about how they create their own opportunities.
[00:06:01.600]But equally important is youth involved in civic leadership and community service roles.
[00:06:07.380]That's that bottom left quadrant.
[00:06:08.820]So they have a chance really to put their fingerprints on the future of their community
[00:06:13.720]and be involved in making their community a better place.
[00:06:16.820]And then the third element is the community investing in youth enterprises and mentoring
[00:06:23.180]those young people.
[00:06:24.060]And the reason all those are important together is that if you only do,
[00:06:28.700]one of them, especially the ones on the left there,
[00:06:31.380]you're still going to have challenges with young people staying or coming back.
[00:06:36.260]And the reason for that is just like I grew up in a small town.
[00:06:39.180]When I went home to my home community a long time ago, in my 20s,
[00:06:42.920]everybody said, what are you doing here?
[00:06:44.200]I mean, the mindset was to come back to a small town was somehow you failed.
[00:06:49.440]And sometimes we still send that message,
[00:06:52.180]even though we want to encourage young people.
[00:06:54.520]Sometimes we're not confident that the best opportunities may exist for
[00:06:58.600]them there. So if that message is sent to young people, even subtly,
[00:07:02.500]and of course there's peer pressure to, you know,
[00:07:05.800]go off and see the world. And I think that's great.
[00:07:08.420]I think young people should do that if that's what they want to do,
[00:07:10.440]get an education, post-secondary, that kind of thing.
[00:07:12.640]But if that message is also that there's no opportunities here,
[00:07:16.580]you're going to have trouble attracting young people to stay or come back
[00:07:20.020]because they perceive those opportunities are elsewhere.
[00:07:22.260]And that shows up in the data I'm going to show you too.
[00:07:24.280]So it's something we have to really address. So we,
[00:07:28.500]we do a great job with that,
[00:07:29.660]but we're still going to lose a lot of young people.
[00:07:31.620]Same with the youth leadership. If we only do that piece,
[00:07:34.860]but the perception of young people is there's no jobs here as much as they
[00:07:38.820]may love their community.
[00:07:39.960]They feel like they have to leave because they can't pursue their future
[00:07:43.320]there. So those two really have to be connected.
[00:07:45.840]And then really what holds that together and supports both of those is that
[00:07:51.100]community investment in mentoring and youth enterprises.
[00:07:53.540]So whether that be entrepreneurship competitions,
[00:07:57.100]where we invest,
[00:07:58.480]in young people, microenterprise loan funds, again,
[00:08:02.480]connecting young people to employers through internships,
[00:08:05.840]apprenticeships to seek jobs, things like that.
[00:08:09.260]And so when you do those together,
[00:08:11.720]a young person's perception is very different.
[00:08:13.740]That is that I've had an opportunity to really learn about how to be
[00:08:16.860]successful economically.
[00:08:17.960]I've had a chance to make a difference in my community and there are adults
[00:08:22.000]here who care about me and have invested in me and will continue to support
[00:08:25.980]me if I chose to stay or come back here.
[00:08:28.460]Very different case statement than what I got,
[00:08:31.180]which is what are you doing here?
[00:08:32.800]And so really trying to change the culture of how we engage community,
[00:08:37.140]engage young people in our community and equip them to be successful in life.
[00:08:41.300]Even if they leave developing an entrepreneurial mindset and getting these
[00:08:44.960]experiences is going to serve them well throughout their life and then support
[00:08:48.440]them in their enterprising ventures and then have a strategy to invite our
[00:08:53.420]young people to stay or come back as well as inviting newcomers because
[00:08:57.780]sometimes,
[00:08:58.440]the spouse may not be from your community.
[00:09:00.280]My wife is from Los Angeles.
[00:09:01.640]So obviously not from a town of 200 people.
[00:09:04.600]So that's the framework that we use for all this work here.
[00:09:07.520]So I'm going to just kind of summarize here what we saw in Northwest
[00:09:11.700]Nebraska.
[00:09:12.200]I know this is kind of small and I'm not going to go into detail,
[00:09:14.760]but I wanted you to see the trends and then I've got a table here.
[00:09:17.140]We'll get into more detail, but this is a Sioux County,
[00:09:20.060]Chadron Crawford, Gordon Rushville, Hay Springs.
[00:09:22.920]And then it compares it to the Nebraska national data on the bottom too.
[00:09:26.880]So the Burgundy,
[00:09:28.420]and the blue at the bottom of each of these is the Nebraska and the
[00:09:31.500]national data.
[00:09:32.260]So just in kind of summary,
[00:09:34.440]we asked the young people to consider their community as a place to live
[00:09:38.860]as a teen.
[00:09:39.580]And it's on a Likert scale is one to five.
[00:09:42.400]So that top bar chart is the young people who gave their community a four
[00:09:45.960]or five above average are excellent.
[00:09:48.120]And you can see it ranges, you know,
[00:09:50.000]from somewhere around 25 all the way up to the mid forties,
[00:09:53.180]which is a pretty good indicator that that young people,
[00:09:58.400]do value their community. And when we talk to them in focus groups, you know,
[00:10:02.020]they love that they come from a small community, a safe community,
[00:10:05.480]small schools where everybody knows each other connection to family.
[00:10:08.580]They are concerned about job opportunities, not enough,
[00:10:11.680]maybe positive things for young people to do in the community,
[00:10:15.920]things like that.
[00:10:16.700]But overall there's a pretty good indicator that they do value their
[00:10:20.580]community. The second one is important to us as community leaders,
[00:10:25.980]economic developers, people that work with young,
[00:10:28.380]people that most are young people do plan to go to some form of college
[00:10:33.660]after graduation. And I think that's awesome.
[00:10:37.220]We have a really high education attainment rate in Nebraska.
[00:10:40.040]That's been one of the great strengths of our state.
[00:10:42.340]But if you talk to young people about retention,
[00:10:45.500]that we need to retain more of you in our community,
[00:10:48.400]they're going to check out on you because that's their vision is I'm going to
[00:10:52.620]get out of here. I'm going to see the world and maybe someday come back.
[00:10:55.040]So we want to talk about attraction. How do we make our community an
[00:10:58.360]attractive choice for young people? Okay.
[00:11:00.700]I also asked them if they plan to stay or return.
[00:11:03.320]And then I asked the question a little different way.
[00:11:05.340]And that's a future visioning question. And that is,
[00:11:07.740]do you picture yourself living back in your hometown area after college,
[00:11:13.420]maybe some early career experience or starting a family. Okay.
[00:11:16.540]So that's the framing and you can see how that jumps into that 45 to
[00:11:20.980]almost 60% range among the young people in these schools in Northwest
[00:11:28.000]Nebraska.
[00:11:28.340]So there's a huge opportunity. Okay.
[00:11:31.880]A lot of our young people also own a business.
[00:11:34.680]Now you can look at Sioux County and that just jumped off the chart there.
[00:11:37.780]That's that's very high.
[00:11:39.080]And that's probably maybe some 4-H projects and things like that.
[00:11:42.580]But overall, a lot of young people have some form of business now,
[00:11:46.600]but then the interesting thing is when we ask them,
[00:11:50.240]have you been asked by an adult to become involved in your community,
[00:11:53.500]to make it the kind of place that you want to live in the future?
[00:11:55.840]And, you know, anywhere from,
[00:11:58.320]7% to 18% of youth, you know, in the case of Nebraska,
[00:12:04.640]it's a little higher and nationally it's better,
[00:12:06.680]but we need to do a better job of really talking to our young people and
[00:12:10.480]engaging them in real opportunities because of that third one from the
[00:12:14.280]bottom,
[00:12:14.580]the enormous number of young people that would picture themselves living in
[00:12:18.480]a small town.
[00:12:19.140]The other thing I'll hit on real quickly is that for every alum that we can
[00:12:23.620]attract back to a real community,
[00:12:25.060]the net impact in our population is closer to three.
[00:12:28.300]Because they tend to get married sometimes from someone not from the
[00:12:31.140]community,
[00:12:31.520]bring them with them to when they move back and they tend to have children.
[00:12:35.260]And so you get an exponential impact.
[00:12:38.840]So when you see 50% of your young people saying,
[00:12:41.160]we'd like to see her come back here,
[00:12:42.460]that's actually a very big number in terms of the size of our communities.
[00:12:47.020]And it's not just the number, it's what they bring with them,
[00:12:49.620]their education, their contacts, leadership skills,
[00:12:53.180]all those kinds of things that we can engage in,
[00:12:58.280]and supporting them to revitalize communities and build our economy.
[00:13:02.520]Okay. So real quickly, this is the individual data.
[00:13:06.900]You can see our vertigree.
[00:13:08.120]I added for Knox County that we did way back in 2012,
[00:13:11.640]just so you can kind of have a long-term perspective on this.
[00:13:15.100]And I won't go in detail,
[00:13:16.200]but some of the things that really stand out here is if you were asked,
[00:13:20.100]I told you how few said they had been asked. Whoops, I'm sorry.
[00:13:23.360]But when we ask them, would you volunteer if,
[00:13:28.260]when an adult asks you,
[00:13:28.960]you can see just how many young people would like to be involved in their
[00:13:32.820]community if they were asked. Okay.
[00:13:35.140]Some of the other things that stand out here in terms of interesting on a
[00:13:39.420]business of future, you can see in Hay Springs and in Sioux County,
[00:13:41.820]that's a very high number.
[00:13:43.320]A lot of young people would like to take some form of an entrepreneurship
[00:13:47.120]program, either a class, or I know we do camps, you know,
[00:13:50.640]through extension in the region there.
[00:13:52.780]And then here, look at this picture living,
[00:13:58.240]living in the area in the future in terms of vertigary back then it was 74%.
[00:14:01.340]We've seen some numbers recently in that range.
[00:14:04.000]The highest one in the area for this last round was 57% in Hay Springs.
[00:14:08.740]And when you think about how small Hay Springs is,
[00:14:10.740]that's pretty remarkable that many young people would like to stay or come
[00:14:14.980]back if they could.
[00:14:15.740]Now, then look at this here.
[00:14:22.180]This can vary widely here in terms of rating your communities above average
[00:14:27.120]to excellent in the case of vertigary.
[00:14:28.220]It was extremely high at that time.
[00:14:30.840]And still today they have a pretty intensive youth engagement program with
[00:14:37.160]the community.
[00:14:37.700]The young people get to be involved in things and that shows up in the data
[00:14:40.780]where we're a little bit more suppressed here in the schools that we did last
[00:14:46.260]year.
[00:14:46.480]Okay.
[00:14:47.580]Now I want to jump to Southeast Nebraska,
[00:14:49.220]unless there's any questions on what I shared with you,
[00:14:52.660]anything that stands out or you have a question on before I go on.
[00:14:55.660]So Jamie mentioned in the chat,
[00:14:58.200]that she was guessing this is mostly ranching families.
[00:15:01.560]And what do you think?
[00:15:03.300]I'm just wondering if they're the ones who are planning to come back or.
[00:15:07.900]Sure.
[00:15:09.460]Yeah.
[00:15:10.940]If there is a connection to,
[00:15:12.580]you know,
[00:15:13.120]a business or a farm or ranch that certainly impacts the number of young
[00:15:16.840]people that think they can do that.
[00:15:18.100]So that does come up with data,
[00:15:20.520]but I do want you to know that we work really hard with the schools to get
[00:15:25.140]as many students in the survey data set as possible.
[00:15:27.580]So we're typically,
[00:15:28.180]we're typically over the 75% range.
[00:15:29.880]I know in Hay Springs,
[00:15:30.900]I think we were maybe five students short of the entire student body from,
[00:15:34.540]I think that was seventh through 12th grade there.
[00:15:36.760]So in some case we do middle school, high school, six through 12th.
[00:15:40.600]So we have a high representation. So when we see that, you know,
[00:15:43.820]that number in there, if there's quite a few farmer ranch kids in school,
[00:15:47.980]that's going to certainly, you know, be impacted in the data,
[00:15:51.300]but it can also be other young people that have a love of community and,
[00:15:56.700]and see other possibilities.
[00:15:58.160]But you're, you're right.
[00:16:00.240]It's usually tied to a young person that sees an economic opportunity.
[00:16:03.080]Marla has a comment or question.
[00:16:07.320]And I think it, I think it really goes back to that community.
[00:16:11.660]And if you look at the communities, when I go to visit the communities,
[00:16:16.320]that's the thing that always amazes me,
[00:16:18.400]the communities that have everyone involved or the communities who do
[00:16:22.880]everything in a silo. And I think that if you look at Rushville Gordon,
[00:16:27.340]I mean, I grew up in Rushville,
[00:16:28.140]I grew up there. I know all three of those communities.
[00:16:30.900]Hay Springs is very, very cohesive.
[00:16:33.600]They all work together and, you know, they won't,
[00:16:37.220]they won't take out a loan if they need a new,
[00:16:39.380]when they needed a new fire hall, they raise money.
[00:16:43.440]When they needed money for the swimming pool,
[00:16:46.260]they were doing bake sales to do the restrooms for the swimming pool.
[00:16:51.560]I mean, they're just very, very community oriented.
[00:16:54.400]The other thing that I think is very interesting when you talk about,
[00:16:58.120]if we don't ask kids to be involved, you know,
[00:17:02.480]we have a tendency to leave them out of the things.
[00:17:05.660]And would they volunteer if asked by a civic leader?
[00:17:09.040]I remember when Potter Dix was working on their grocery store after their
[00:17:14.880]grocery store closed and they were going to reopen the grocery store.
[00:17:17.740]They put out a notice,
[00:17:19.500]everybody be at the grocery store because they were cleaning it out to redo
[00:17:24.680]the floor.
[00:17:25.180]And they were amazed at the number of,
[00:17:28.100]high school kids,
[00:17:28.960]high school kids that had never shown up to do anything.
[00:17:32.040]But when they put out that message,
[00:17:33.960]one of the kids,
[00:17:35.160]he was there all day long.
[00:17:37.720]And that was one of the things that the group that was working on that said
[00:17:41.660]to me,
[00:17:42.000]you know,
[00:17:42.620]we couldn't believe the number of high school kids that got involved in this
[00:17:46.300]project because they felt there was a need for it.
[00:17:49.780]They wanted to be able to go over at noon to go over and get snacks.
[00:17:53.420]They didn't have a place to go.
[00:17:55.340]Yep.
[00:17:56.140]Well,
[00:17:57.620]Hey spring,
[00:17:58.080]was actually in that process when we did the survey last year and we got a
[00:18:00.960]lot of input and the kind of products that the students wanted to have in
[00:18:03.820]their community grocery store. So yeah, you're exactly right.
[00:18:07.560]And if it's a project that young people are excited about being part of,
[00:18:10.880]as you just explained,
[00:18:11.860]that's going to really increase the participation level.
[00:18:14.900]And so I'm going to show you in a little bit,
[00:18:16.260]some ways that we actually involve young people in coming up with priorities
[00:18:20.360]that they want to participate in and then how we connect that to adult
[00:18:24.080]leaders. So very good insights. Thank you.
[00:18:28.060]Anything else? Okay.
[00:18:30.720]Yeah, this is Daniel actually had a question.
[00:18:33.360]You have a pretty wide range of survey participation.
[00:18:38.360]I was wondering just if you know what was,
[00:18:42.760]what seemed to contribute to high survey participation and what avenues you
[00:18:47.480]went through in the schools.
[00:18:48.460]Yeah, it comes down to the commitment of the school administrator and how
[00:18:52.660]much they're willing to really continue to put this out and the way they do
[00:18:56.060]it. I've not in these cases,
[00:18:58.040]but I had situations before where they just put it in the student
[00:19:00.540]announcements and that never gets us very good participation.
[00:19:03.960]So what I asked them to do is assign somebody in the school to be the lead
[00:19:07.820]person on this. I send them the survey link.
[00:19:09.820]I give them updates as we're doing the survey every couple of days.
[00:19:12.620]In some ways it gets a little bit competitive, you know,
[00:19:15.580]the schools are excited about it. You know,
[00:19:18.000]the other schools almost got everybody in there, you know,
[00:19:21.200]we'd like to get all your students in there. And, but yeah, like you said,
[00:19:25.260]it was Gordon Rushville was quite a bit lower. Hayes,
[00:19:28.020]brings their principals very active with youth in the community and was very
[00:19:33.220]intent on the students taking the survey. So that's,
[00:19:36.360]that's usually the impact on that. Also, if I'm in bigger schools,
[00:19:40.280]I'll typically get a smaller percentage also.
[00:19:42.420]So the smaller schools we tend to be a little bit higher usually, but yeah,
[00:19:47.180]that's a good observation that it does range to some extent. So.
[00:19:51.580]Great. Craig, can we have these slides after you're done and I will post them.
[00:19:54.980]Okay. That'd be fine. So I'm
[00:19:58.000]going to move to Southeast Nebraska and I'm going to do this a little bit
[00:20:00.900]different way. I'm going to show you the survey charts,
[00:20:03.400]but what I really want to talk about is kind of behind the scenes,
[00:20:06.520]what these numbers tell us as opposed to just the data,
[00:20:10.180]because it's going to be similar to what you saw,
[00:20:11.560]but this is how it comes out here.
[00:20:12.800]So when I'm working with the community or region, in this case,
[00:20:16.240]four counties, I'm going to show them, you know,
[00:20:17.720]participation by school district and by grade level.
[00:20:19.940]And you can see in this case,
[00:20:20.860]we have really consistent participation across the grades,
[00:20:24.360]a little over 1200 young people from four counties.
[00:20:27.980]So think about that 1200 youth voices in four counties sharing their
[00:20:32.760]perspectives with us.
[00:20:33.840]I asked them to rate their community as a place to live and you can see
[00:20:36.520]average came out on top there,
[00:20:38.000]but we also want to look at the above average and excellent like I did
[00:20:41.900]earlier in the Northwest data.
[00:20:44.240]And you can see between those two and then average it's, it's pretty high.
[00:20:48.820]We also want to pay attention to the young people that consider their
[00:20:52.520]community as a poor or below average place to live because those are some of
[00:20:56.460]our at-risk youth.
[00:20:57.960]In this case, we've got 46 young people concerned about their community.
[00:21:01.520]So again,
[00:21:04.240]a lot of interest in going to some form of college overall at 71%.
[00:21:08.860]These students plan to go to a four-year community college or technical
[00:21:12.200]school. I will say, as I'm doing these surveys,
[00:21:14.940]I'm seeing this number starting to decline in the four-year college arena.
[00:21:19.700]They used to be closer to maybe 65%.
[00:21:23.140]And now you can see we're dropping into the low fifties or that's cost of
[00:21:27.820]college.
[00:21:27.940]But also, you know,
[00:21:29.200]the words out about the trades and, you know,
[00:21:32.140]maybe going to a technical school and getting a good job right out of
[00:21:35.160]school.
[00:21:35.420]I'm also seeing the increase in the number of young people who want to go
[00:21:40.000]to work right out of, out of school.
[00:21:41.380]It's about 9% here in the historically over the past 20 years,
[00:21:45.040]that's been closer to 5% overall.
[00:21:46.900]So more young people think about going right into the work force after high
[00:21:51.280]school.
[00:21:51.520]In this case, this is a 16 career clusters.
[00:21:56.560]Nebraska divides these into four.
[00:21:58.000]Five subsets, but I do all 16.
[00:22:00.220]So we can compare them with other places around the country.
[00:22:02.660]Colorado does six.
[00:22:04.140]But the key thing for community leaders is to understand that not every
[00:22:09.240]young person in your rural community is interested in agriculture.
[00:22:12.280]And sometimes that's the message you send.
[00:22:14.640]You know, the only opportunities here is to farm a ranch.
[00:22:16.720]We just talked about that a little bit.
[00:22:18.100]Is that where the priorities are?
[00:22:19.740]It's a very vibricated set of career pathway interests.
[00:22:25.780]And so we really need to engage young people.
[00:22:27.900]Young people around those interests and then connect them to employers that may relate to some of those careers.
[00:22:32.740]Okay.
[00:22:33.360]One thing that's pretty exciting for us in this case is we have 220 students who are interested in becoming teachers.
[00:22:40.460]That's about 17%.
[00:22:43.840]And with our teacher shortage is something we're focused on in Southeast Nebraska.
[00:22:47.580]Let's find those young people and make sure that they know that we want them back to become educators.
[00:22:52.700]But we're in the other fields too, but that's one that's a high priority right now.
[00:22:57.880]Again, interested in owning a business in the future, that's pretty consistent.
[00:23:01.140]Take an entrepreneurship class, about 54% are interested in that to get hands-on experience.
[00:23:07.360]Here's a question about, do you picture yourself living in the area?
[00:23:10.760]55% of those students would picture themselves doing that.
[00:23:14.320]That's pretty consistent. It ranges about 50% on average nationwide.
[00:23:19.140]This is also pretty consistent.
[00:23:22.340]The reasons that they would see themselves living back in the community is family ties and good place to raise a family.
[00:23:27.860]Greg, when you say living in the area, what's the radius of a particular town?
[00:23:35.540]Shadron, for instance, are you talking Shadron or Gordon, or are you talking Pawnee City to Lincoln?
[00:23:41.280]What are you talking radius?
[00:23:43.020]Sure. Well, in this case, we're talking the four-county area.
[00:23:46.540]What they're going to tend to think about is their community they came from.
[00:23:49.860]There are some Beatrice students in this data set that go over to one of the smaller schools nearby.
[00:23:55.320]That'll buy us 27 out of 1,200.
[00:23:57.840]It's not going to change the overall data, but for the local data, it does impact that.
[00:24:01.360]And there are some concerns in Beatrice around challenges with drug use and things compared to other towns in that area.
[00:24:07.720]So those kinds of things will impact that data.
[00:24:10.760]But, yeah, that's what they're thinking about is in terms of the fairly local geographic area, you know, within maybe a 30-mile radius.
[00:24:17.760]Okay.
[00:24:19.620]One thing that popped up higher in Southeast was quality schools being a priority.
[00:24:27.820]That typically is around more like 20% rate, and they've got some really good schools in Southeast Colorado, in Nebraska, I'm sorry.
[00:24:34.260]And, therefore, that's coming up in the data.
[00:24:37.600]Some also see a job or business opportunity.
[00:24:39.680]Reasons that they would not picture living in the area in the future is career opportunities elsewhere and make more money elsewhere, as well as too few shopping and recreational amenities.
[00:24:49.340]And that came out in our focus groups that I'll show you in just a second, too.
[00:24:52.240]Now, here's an interesting one.
[00:24:54.660]Encourage to leave the community.
[00:24:56.320]That's one I added several years.
[00:24:57.800]ago to the data set.
[00:24:59.520]And you can see that 18% of the young people said that they've been encouraged to leave.
[00:25:04.280]Okay?
[00:25:05.560]So kind of interesting there.
[00:25:08.020]Now, this for opportunity elsewhere, make more money elsewhere is the two primary drivers
[00:25:13.300]here.
[00:25:13.620]When we talk to employers about the lack of workforce, this shows us that young people
[00:25:20.740]aren't aware that there are some good job opportunities available locally, perhaps.
[00:25:24.260]Here again, as a doll to ask you for your view.
[00:25:27.780]What would make this community a better place to live for teens?
[00:25:30.980]12% was the average.
[00:25:33.340]It ranged from as low as 7%.
[00:25:34.500]In one community, up to, I think, 20% was the highest.
[00:25:38.680]That was in a parochial school.
[00:25:40.180]And in the community, when we did the teen and adult dialogue session, after we did the
[00:25:47.440]survey in a focus group of the students, their number was 6.5%, I believe it was.
[00:25:53.660]We had the banker in the group with us at the table with us.
[00:25:57.760]And he said, that's ridiculous, because we have to do a better job of talking to our
[00:26:03.080]young people.
[00:26:03.640]So this data really can have an impact on changing perceptions and priorities about
[00:26:10.980]the importance of investing in young people when they see these numbers, because in this
[00:26:14.700]case, 68% said that they would volunteer if they were asked to improve their community.
[00:26:20.240]So again, a lot of opportunity there.
[00:26:22.160]So again, kind of like the chart I showed you earlier, here's kind of how it looks overall,
[00:26:26.120]the four county compared to Nebraska.
[00:26:27.740]And national, I won't go through this in any detail here, but you can see again, it's fairly
[00:26:32.100]consistent in picture living in the area, like we saw earlier, as well as asked to be
[00:26:37.000]involved, pretty low.
[00:26:39.140]So huge opportunity.
[00:26:41.520]If we can make more connections with these young people and ask them to become involved
[00:26:45.820]in the things that you were talking about earlier to improve their community, economic
[00:26:49.500]opportunities, jobs, entrepreneurship, we're going to have a chance of getting more of
[00:26:54.460]those young people to actually make that choice to stay or come back.
[00:26:57.720]Real briefly, and then I'll open up for some dialogue here, is we also did a visioning
[00:27:03.820]activity of students in five of the schools in the four-county area, Auburn, Johnson County,
[00:27:09.840]Tecumseh, Fall City, Johnson, Brock, and then HTRS and Humboldt.
[00:27:13.980]So several consolidated schools here.
[00:27:16.520]In Fall City, we had a parochial school and a public school.
[00:27:20.260]Okay, there are some images of what we do here.
[00:27:23.220]So one of the activities I do with the students is a,
[00:27:27.700]activity where I ask them to think about their community currently and things
[00:27:32.180]they like and things they don't like so much and would like to see improved
[00:27:36.120]currently about their community.
[00:27:37.920]And then I do a vision casting activity where I have,
[00:27:40.560]I think 10 years in the future, they're going to be 24 to 28 years old.
[00:27:44.700]That seems pretty old to them, but it's only 10 years.
[00:27:47.840]And I talked to them about the kind of things they're going to be doing as a
[00:27:50.760]young adult. And then the framing question is,
[00:27:53.320]if you're going to stay or come back here in 10 years, what,
[00:27:57.680]is your community need to offer to be the kind of community that you want to
[00:28:00.900]build your future in?
[00:28:01.800]I want you to think about the things you said you like about your community
[00:28:05.120]now,
[00:28:05.520]and you want to keep and enhance the things that you don't like so much and
[00:28:08.780]maybe you want to improve as well as your ideas about the kind of jobs you
[00:28:12.260]want to have recreational amenities, the school system, that kind of thing.
[00:28:16.260]Okay.
[00:28:16.880]So we spend about an hour and a half in this activity and we do it in the
[00:28:21.500]morning. And then at lunch, we have the adults come into the school to have,
[00:28:25.000]to tour. That's the bottom left slide there.
[00:28:28.020]Each of these small group stations. So it's not scary for the students.
[00:28:31.520]They're not talking in front of a big group of people.
[00:28:33.320]And they had, they repeat that presentation.
[00:28:37.600]And every time they repeat it,
[00:28:39.600]they get a little more confident in their presentation.
[00:28:42.300]They get great feedback from the adults who also have ideas about, you know,
[00:28:47.380]maybe they want to do a rec center and they say, you know,
[00:28:49.100]we have that building on main street, the city owns me.
[00:28:50.960]That's someplace we could think about that. Right.
[00:28:52.980]Or maybe the students have even thought about those kinds of facilities and
[00:28:56.800]the adults go, you know,
[00:28:57.640]that's an idea we ought to think about. Right.
[00:28:59.680]And so this dialogue really builds energy and builds bridges in about 20
[00:29:05.160]minutes, remarkably. And then we have them sit down and that's the bottom,
[00:29:09.680]right quadrant in mixed groups of youth and adults. And I asked the adults,
[00:29:14.040]what did you hear from young people? Give that feedback.
[00:29:17.220]The students can interject and clarify questions, things like that.
[00:29:21.740]And then we go through a process of identifying priorities. Okay.
[00:29:25.600]So some of the highlights that came out of,
[00:29:27.620]of the five that we did in Auburn,
[00:29:30.540]we have a really strong rural healthcare administrator and he's involved with
[00:29:35.440]national work and things like that.
[00:29:36.860]And he saw the number of young people interested in health careers.
[00:29:39.880]And he said, you know,
[00:29:40.500]I can provide a full college tuition for anybody in high school here that
[00:29:45.820]wants to get into healthcare field.
[00:29:48.060]He goes, I can only fill half of the positions I have open right now.
[00:29:50.860]And I can find the funding to pay for all their college.
[00:29:54.100]And so we connected him with the new counselor.
[00:29:57.600]It was not aware of that and build a bridge right there that day,
[00:30:00.560]not just in Auburn, but in the four County area at JCC,
[00:30:04.800]the blonde issue failed recently to build a new school.
[00:30:08.840]And so they were talking about how do we get the student's voice in the
[00:30:12.340]school improvement needs fall city.
[00:30:14.920]There's a concern about dilapidated housing, drug use.
[00:30:18.520]And so the conversation there was, well,
[00:30:21.120]what if we brought the trades together with the school's vocational education
[00:30:24.640]program in the city to tear down the,
[00:30:27.580]the dilapidated housing,
[00:30:28.720]open up those lots and have the students help to build those houses and learn
[00:30:33.100]trade skills. So again, in one conversation,
[00:30:35.700]we get begin to percolate these ideas that then lead to action steps later
[00:30:40.860]here.
[00:30:41.180]Johnson Brock,
[00:30:42.580]it was about job opportunities with employers and humble also related to that
[00:30:47.240]developing apprenticeship pathways to take their internship program to the
[00:30:50.340]next level of longer term paid apprenticeships.
[00:30:53.420]Some of the top action priorities again,
[00:30:56.560]around job shadowing,
[00:30:57.900]career opportunities,
[00:30:58.840]entrepreneurship,
[00:30:59.880]the housing issue I talked about and connected in some cases to challenge
[00:31:05.040]with drug use,
[00:31:05.780]the need for more recreational amenities,
[00:31:08.240]more positive things for youth and families to do in their community.
[00:31:11.690]getting students more involved in the community and mentoring with adults, which I mentioned
[00:31:16.630]earlier is one of the key aspects of this work. And then they have youth leadership programs,
[00:31:22.070]but they want to better connect those with civic organizations so that young people actually take
[00:31:26.930]on leadership roles within the community while they're still in high school. So that's some of
[00:31:30.690]those priorities there. So how this all now ties together, what I just shared with you is step one,
[00:31:35.970]where we do the youth assessment of youth engagement opportunities, and we also do a
[00:31:40.750]mapping of local development resources to support youth engagement. So, you know, of course, we have
[00:31:45.170]4-H, FFA, FPLA, student council, church youth groups, all those kinds of youth-serving organizations.
[00:31:52.310]And when we do the mapping of that, and we show all this great work that they're doing in their
[00:31:57.710]community, and step back and say, how is all this good work with you young people connected to your
[00:32:02.670]community's economic development priorities? And in most cases, it's not connected at all or in very
[00:32:09.810]few areas. Maybe the chamber has a couple youth serving on a subcommittee working on a project,
[00:32:14.310]but we want to make that more intentional. So the way we do that is we, in step two, develop a youth
[00:32:20.210]engagement action plan around those priorities of young people and the project opportunities that
[00:32:26.050]were identified through the youth and adult dialogue session, as well as other input that we
[00:32:30.070]get as we put the plan together. And then step three is we want to integrate that youth engagement
[00:32:34.990]plan with the community's economic development program or a county-wide program, in this case,
[00:32:39.370]the Fort County Regional Program, and then also have an alumni and newcomer recruitment strategy
[00:32:44.150]to support that work. We have tools for measuring, you know, some of the assessment work is pre and
[00:32:50.250]post. We can measure it over time and see if we're moving the needle, as well as other forms
[00:32:54.910]of evaluation that we can help the community, county, and regional leaders measure the impact
[00:33:00.890]that they're having with young people. So some of the things that come out of this are youth-led
[00:33:05.990]community projects, again, where they take ownership
[00:33:08.930]and work with adults to do those projects, build relationships with adults through those projects
[00:33:13.730]that then can lead to other leadership opportunities with young people.
[00:33:17.130]I think this is the best way to get started is to do a project. Young people don't really want
[00:33:21.690]to sit in a whole bunch of meetings. We as adults don't either, but we do it. And getting them out
[00:33:27.770]and doing something they're excited about with adults supporting them is a great way to get
[00:33:32.530]started. Obviously, we do youth entrepreneurship camps. Some of you are involved in those too. The
[00:33:38.490]camps that I lead, we actually have the students in business by the end of the camp, and they're
[00:33:42.690]pitching and making money. And sometimes we even lead that into like a regional entrepreneurship
[00:33:47.810]fair competition with local bankers investing in those businesses. Bankers love it because they
[00:33:54.130]get to meet the next generation of entrepreneurs that typically would not walk into the bank.
[00:33:59.350]So that's been a neat activity. Obviously, we had to talk earlier about the workforce
[00:34:03.930]challenges that we have. So one thing that I innovated several
[00:34:08.050]years ago, I had parents coming up to me and saying, I want to know more about the career
[00:34:12.090]pathway my child's interested in. So I can help
[00:34:16.030]them get good grades in the classes they need to take, get into the right post-secondary
[00:34:20.090]programs, get connected to local employers who they probably know in a small
[00:34:24.190]town. So I came up with this idea, let's do it around a barbecue and make it
[00:34:28.090]a fun event. So as opposed to a traditional career fair, one,
[00:34:31.910]I ask them to make it more interactive. The employers bring something
[00:34:35.770]with them that the youth can interact with.
[00:34:37.610]In this case, it's an aviation company that brought a tail.
[00:34:39.670]They also brought a propeller that they tuned propellers. But anyway,
[00:34:43.390]but parents also come with their child and get to hear those same discussions
[00:34:49.730]about the job opportunities and things like that.
[00:34:52.010]We also do something called career cabs. And this is where,
[00:34:55.470]and we'd like to do this regionally. So if we had maybe the, you know,
[00:34:59.310]Shatter and State College or a community college in a particular area,
[00:35:02.270]be the host for this activity,
[00:35:03.890]the buses in the region would bring their students a lot of times we'll do
[00:35:07.170]ninth and 10th graders or 10th and 11th graders.
[00:35:10.170]And then we reload the buses by career pathway,
[00:35:14.170]and then they go back out and the students in healthcare careers,
[00:35:17.130]see the healthcare facilities, the trades, agriculture, natural resources.
[00:35:20.870]And we try to align it with student career pathway interests,
[00:35:24.710]which I showed you earlier in the survey data.
[00:35:26.430]So we know what those career interests are as well as with workforce needs
[00:35:31.650]and employers that need employment.
[00:35:34.110]Students love this activity because,
[00:35:37.130]believe it or not, for a lot of students,
[00:35:39.050]they've never had an opportunity to see the workplace that they're preparing
[00:35:43.050]for in the future.
[00:35:45.670]You know, it's an academic plan.
[00:35:47.570]It's ICAPA's individual career academic plan.
[00:35:50.570]And so this is a chance to actually get exposed to the work environment
[00:35:54.310]that they're preparing for.
[00:35:55.470]Employers love it because they're talking to a focused group of students on
[00:35:59.390]that bus that are specifically interested in that career pathway,
[00:36:02.690]which then can lead to other things like internships and things like that.
[00:36:07.090]So those are integrated.
[00:36:08.270]Again, we have a lot of internship programs in our rural schools,
[00:36:11.190]but sometimes we need to make them more intentional and maybe think outside
[00:36:15.770]the box and maybe that particular employer isn't in the community.
[00:36:18.830]So how can we use the internet maybe to support this and expose them to the
[00:36:23.150]kind of jobs in their career pathway?
[00:36:25.230]And then also paid apprenticeships is kind of next level for that.
[00:36:28.590]Now, a really key outcome of this work with internships and apprenticeships,
[00:36:33.770]when you do it well, and part of it's preparing employers to be good mentors,
[00:36:37.050]is that these mentorship opportunities, if that young person is a good fit,
[00:36:42.250]of course, then can lead to a job opportunity.
[00:36:44.870]Often employers want to help pay for post-secondary education
[00:36:48.090]to prepare them for that career pathway.
[00:36:49.870]But it really sets them up in a mentor-mentee relationship long-term
[00:36:54.650]that can address this big issue, which is business succession.
[00:36:57.930]We have a lot of seniors that own our businesses in our small town
[00:37:02.070]who are planning to retire very soon.
[00:37:03.610]And a lot of them don't have a succession plan.
[00:37:07.010]And so we're in danger of losing that business.
[00:37:08.970]And you can't just typically find a young person with excitement and energy,
[00:37:14.950]but no experience, no money,
[00:37:16.410]and match them up next week with an employer that's ready to close in a year
[00:37:20.410]and maybe their business is struggling.
[00:37:21.770]It isn't going to work.
[00:37:23.430]But if we can do a long-term relationship that starts out with an internship,
[00:37:27.970]apprenticeship, mentor-mentee relationship,
[00:37:30.330]and they sustain that, and maybe over several years,
[00:37:33.430]a part of the compensation for that young person is equity,
[00:37:36.970]and the business.
[00:37:37.490]And so now when we're ready to retire,
[00:37:40.010]we've got a longer glide slope for that.
[00:37:42.650]Maybe the young person owns 20% of the business through the equity,
[00:37:47.070]and the employer,
[00:37:48.950]because they really have built a trusting relationship with this young person,
[00:37:52.270]is willing to do some gap financing with the bank.
[00:37:56.730]That's a very different scenario than we typically face when we see the
[00:38:00.510]billboard in the cafe on Saturday.
[00:38:01.970]Oh, my gosh, we're going to have an auction next week.
[00:38:04.490]We're going to lose our hardware store.
[00:38:05.690]We're going to lose our grocery store.
[00:38:06.930]And these are really important businesses.
[00:38:09.830]The other thing is these young people bring new energy and life into these businesses,
[00:38:13.370]you know, maybe using the internet to access markets outside the area and what's happening
[00:38:17.130]with 3D printing and now with AI and with chat GPT, that's going to be pretty interesting.
[00:38:22.990]So anyway, it's a great long-term strategy to address a very important economic development
[00:38:29.670]piece.
[00:38:30.290]So keeping young people in our community, attracting them back, and then helping to
[00:38:35.250]sustain our businesses.
[00:38:36.890]After retirement.
[00:38:37.610]So I did that about as quick as I could, Jenny, but I would like, I don't know how much time
[00:38:42.370]we have left, but just talk about maybe some of the thoughts of the group here around some
[00:38:46.150]things maybe you're doing or would like to do perhaps together and how we could be helpful
[00:38:50.250]in supporting that work.
[00:38:51.630]So just thoughts about what I shared or ideas that you have.
[00:38:55.330]Would anybody be interested in sharing some of your thoughts?
[00:39:06.850]Craig, one of the things that I thought about is our service industry folks that have their
[00:39:14.410]businesses in plumbing or electricity are typically overwhelmed with the amount of work
[00:39:20.210]they already have to do and finding them or allowing them to become mentors.
[00:39:25.210]How do you best approach that?
[00:39:27.310]That's a tough one.
[00:39:28.410]Yeah, it is.
[00:39:29.410]Yeah, there's real cost to businesses for hosting internships.
[00:39:32.250]It's a loss leader.
[00:39:34.650]Historically, for those that aren't ready to do that, it's a loss leader.
[00:39:36.810]It's very well built.
[00:39:37.490]It's been done just as kind of a community service activity because they want to support
[00:39:42.790]the students.
[00:39:43.370]But if we can tie it to that more intentional long-term outcome of one needing for workforce,
[00:39:48.530]but also at some point, I'm going to want to transition this business and get my life
[00:39:53.170]savings out of it so I can get paid what it's worth.
[00:39:56.290]If they can understand that long-term benefit, they will be more interested in participating
[00:40:03.210]in that.
[00:40:03.910]We also have questions about liability on the workplace.
[00:40:06.770]And that's actually pretty well addressed, that as long as it's a school-sanctioned activity,
[00:40:11.230]it counts first as school hours in the seats, even though they're out working in the workplace.
[00:40:15.250]And also, the school's liability package usually covers these kinds of activities.
[00:40:21.570]So we can address those things.
[00:40:24.270]But you're right, it is a challenge.
[00:40:25.850]And they're so busy that taking time for this, they have to understand the value.
[00:40:31.930]So what are some of the things you guys do?
[00:40:36.730]What are some of the things you guys are thinking about?
[00:40:37.610]Is there some opportunity for Craig to work with you in any way?
[00:40:43.050]Or do you have questions about his processes?
[00:40:44.970]I don't think anyone else on this call has been attending the
[00:40:51.650]Bandhandle kind of career pathways meetings.
[00:40:54.830]But it might be valuable to have Craig.
[00:40:57.450]Chelsea, you've been on some of them.
[00:40:59.150]It might be valuable to have Craig speak to that group as well.
[00:41:03.110]Trying to line up some of those internships,
[00:41:06.690]famous schools and businesses.
[00:41:08.030]Great.
[00:41:09.130]Yeah, I'd be happy to do that.
[00:41:12.130]Jamie, would you mind connecting Craig with that group?
[00:41:15.450]I can do that.
[00:41:17.830]That's okay.
[00:41:18.790]I think you have my email address in the group email,
[00:41:23.990]but if you need more information, let me know.
[00:41:26.290]Daniel, do you see any ways that,
[00:41:36.650]this might interact with Civic Nebraska?
[00:41:39.190]I know you have a lot of youth-based programs
[00:41:41.670]and maybe you've worked with Craig before.
[00:41:43.510]No, we haven't actually worked together.
[00:41:48.190]I'm thinking a lot about our after-school programs, actually.
[00:41:55.750]They're pretty successful.
[00:41:57.710]Well, they're in Lincoln and Omaha, so it's not rural,
[00:42:01.850]but I think there would be opportunity,
[00:42:06.610]in the after-school space, to weave a lot of this in
[00:42:11.310]and, in particular, connect students with those career pathways
[00:42:17.870]and opportunities to engagement.
[00:42:19.470]Yeah, it's a really good opportunity where you have attention,
[00:42:28.850]you have a place, and a lot of kids especially,
[00:42:31.350]who would be good candidates for something like that, too.
[00:42:36.570]So that's kind of where my mind's thinking right now.
[00:42:40.890]And there wouldn't have to be an after-school program with us.
[00:42:43.970]There's a lot of great after-school programs across the panhandle
[00:42:47.230]and across the state, too.
[00:42:48.430]Well, Daniel, why don't I connect with you after this
[00:42:51.970]and maybe we can set up a time to talk about some of those things
[00:42:54.170]because I think most of us here are interested in rural Nebraska,
[00:42:57.850]but there's a lot of challenges in inner-city neighborhoods
[00:43:01.730]that are consistent with some of the things we see in rural.
[00:43:04.270]So it might be some opportunities.
[00:43:06.530]There are two we could talk about.
[00:43:07.890]Okay.
[00:43:08.450]Yeah, definitely.
[00:43:08.990]Jenny, I'm kind of intrigued with the, and Craig,
[00:43:14.670]about not having been asked question.
[00:43:19.050]And it seems like there's one thing to being asked,
[00:43:23.390]but the next piece is to find something that's meaningful,
[00:43:30.030]you know, so that it's not a tokenism sort of thing.
[00:43:34.530]Exactly, right.
[00:43:35.390]Or it's really...
[00:43:36.490]Because it could, you can be asked,
[00:43:37.890]but it could turn you off as well.
[00:43:39.830]And so, yeah.
[00:43:42.330]I'll give you a clear example of that.
[00:43:43.790]When school bond issues fail, like with JCC, that happened.
[00:43:47.350]If you ask the students to be involved in that,
[00:43:49.710]then the community votes it down.
[00:43:51.050]That sends a pretty negative message,
[00:43:53.470]like, well, do you support us or not, right?
[00:43:55.670]Or if the community doesn't follow through
[00:43:57.870]on some of the commitments they made for projects.
[00:44:00.070]And so that's why we do that activity
[00:44:02.110]with the youth-adult dialogue.
[00:44:03.770]You know, we have the key leaders in that room
[00:44:06.450]with those students who hear that message directly.
[00:44:08.810]And then we build off of that and do projects.
[00:44:13.630]And I like to do, you know, short-term,
[00:44:16.090]high probability of success,
[00:44:17.410]low-hanging fruit kind of activities
[00:44:19.150]to get off to a good start with young people.
[00:44:21.790]And if we can find one of those to do together,
[00:44:24.730]and then we can tend to not get into that trap.
[00:44:28.690]But you're exactly right.
[00:44:29.550]If you ask but don't follow through,
[00:44:31.550]it's sometimes worse than not asking at all.
[00:44:33.990]So how much work do you have to
[00:44:36.410]do on the other side, on the adult side,
[00:44:38.650]on the community leadership side?
[00:44:40.930]Yep.
[00:44:42.790]So for those that are going to be
[00:44:45.130]mentors of young people in an apprenticeship
[00:44:47.810]kind of or internship experience,
[00:44:49.890]I like to do like a session with them
[00:44:53.910]to really help them think through
[00:44:55.370]how to set up an effective internship.
[00:44:58.410]And so one way I like to do that real briefly
[00:45:01.090]is first have that business person
[00:45:04.190]give that young person a
[00:45:06.370]360 overview of their company
[00:45:08.290]and business and what they do.
[00:45:09.830]And then let the student,
[00:45:11.290]as they learn about all those aspects,
[00:45:12.930]help define what they want to do
[00:45:14.790]in their internship.
[00:45:15.530]Okay, so what are you,
[00:45:17.210]maybe what you saw here,
[00:45:18.170]I'm kind of excited about
[00:45:19.050]what you're doing over here
[00:45:19.870]with your website or something like that.
[00:45:22.070]I think I could really help you with that.
[00:45:23.350]Okay, so that priority then
[00:45:25.270]becomes the focus of that internship.
[00:45:28.350]And then we set down specific activities
[00:45:31.770]that students are going to do each week.
[00:45:33.470]Okay, with that employer.
[00:45:34.990]And then we can,
[00:45:36.330]we do the evaluation based upon that,
[00:45:38.090]you know, how successful was the students.
[00:45:40.190]So a framework and structure
[00:45:42.530]is really helpful for the mentor
[00:45:44.770]to understand how they can be engaged that.
[00:45:47.350]Same thing with civic leaders,
[00:45:48.810]you know, being very thoughtful,
[00:45:50.090]kind of what you said, Cheryl,
[00:45:51.310]a specific project
[00:45:52.630]that we're going to have students involved in,
[00:45:55.030]best yet student led.
[00:45:56.730]Okay, so one way I've done that
[00:45:59.270]is that I asked the economic development person
[00:46:02.410]to reach out to their civic organizations
[00:46:04.490]and identify specific
[00:46:06.290]activities or projects
[00:46:07.610]that they would like students to be involved in.
[00:46:09.610]And so now there's a menu of options,
[00:46:12.270]maybe a dozen of those options
[00:46:13.970]in a community, different groups
[00:46:15.850]that want to involve youth in different ways.
[00:46:17.970]And then you take that to a student leadership group
[00:46:20.410]like student council or FBLA,
[00:46:22.150]whoever they want to have be their lead group there.
[00:46:24.690]And then they get to choose
[00:46:26.490]one or two of those projects themselves.
[00:46:28.630]So it gives the young people a chance
[00:46:30.530]to choose,
[00:46:32.390]which gives them ownership,
[00:46:33.490]but there's a structure there of actual real
[00:46:36.250]projects or activities that they can be part
[00:46:38.450]of. And so we have a higher probability
[00:46:40.450]of success because they've
[00:46:42.430]been invited to do that. One quick example
[00:46:44.610]of that is we had a list
[00:46:46.330]of options in a community I was working
[00:46:48.210]with a couple years ago,
[00:46:49.790]and one of those was to update the little
[00:46:52.170]placards in the museum on all the displays,
[00:46:54.550]and the students picked that one,
[00:46:56.410]and everybody was kind of surprised.
[00:46:57.930]That doesn't seem very exciting. The reason they
[00:47:00.270]picked it is that they were really
[00:47:02.230]excited about getting their community's
[00:47:04.610]history on the internet so people would
[00:47:06.210]learn about their heritage. And they said,
[00:47:08.230]if we do the placards, could we also build
[00:47:10.370]the museum a website?
[00:47:11.470]And the community said, yeah,
[00:47:14.290]we've been wanting a website, but we don't know how to
[00:47:16.310]do it. So if you want to do it, right?
[00:47:18.190]So those kinds of dialogues
[00:47:20.370]can lead to more effective
[00:47:21.930]mentoring opportunities by setting
[00:47:24.450]them up correctly from the beginning.
[00:47:25.810]Greg, I'm curious
[00:47:32.610]how much, I mean,
[00:47:36.170]I'm looking,
[00:47:36.630]you have like the assessment development
[00:47:39.910]of the implementation of youth engagement
[00:47:42.290]action plan and then the integration.
[00:47:44.150]How much
[00:47:46.170]does the success of each of those
[00:47:48.090]different parts rely on that base
[00:47:50.210]of that assessment
[00:47:51.350]and starting with the youth
[00:47:54.230]rather than
[00:47:55.830]Yeah.
[00:47:56.990]Very much so because we have
[00:48:00.150]a perception in our rural communities
[00:48:01.810]and maybe in neighborhoods too
[00:48:03.870]that young people don't want to be part of our community.
[00:48:06.130]Long-term.
[00:48:06.610]And that's what they talk about.
[00:48:09.370]The community is boring. There's nothing to do here.
[00:48:11.290]If it wasn't for sports, it wouldn't be anything for you.
[00:48:13.350]That's true.
[00:48:13.930]But there's this innate love of community
[00:48:16.890]around family and school
[00:48:18.750]and these things that we don't appreciate sometimes.
[00:48:22.150]And so the assessment
[00:48:24.030]is really valuable not only for us
[00:48:25.790]to understand the priorities of young people
[00:48:27.630]and make sure that we engage in the things
[00:48:29.630]that they care most about
[00:48:30.610]but also to kind of reawaken adults
[00:48:32.910]that this is a real opportunity.
[00:48:34.470]I remember when McCook, when Mark Brown
[00:48:36.090]who's now a retired banker there
[00:48:37.710]was involved with this
[00:48:38.930]and we showed them that 58% of the students there
[00:48:41.070]in McCook, even though it's a bigger community
[00:48:43.050]and that's where I'm from, that area
[00:48:44.730]has had historical out migration for decades.
[00:48:47.530]And when he saw that number
[00:48:49.290]I remember him sitting back in his chair
[00:48:50.650]and he goes, okay, what do we do about it?
[00:48:52.410]For the first time they had data
[00:48:54.590]and it also helps with fundraising
[00:48:56.830]because money flows to certainty.
[00:48:58.550]And so when we can say X number of students
[00:49:00.490]are interested in coming back to our community
[00:49:02.710]and here's the things that they say
[00:49:04.510]are important to them to be able to do
[00:49:06.050]that and then that can drive
[00:49:07.990]fundraising to do activities
[00:49:10.410]as opposed to just the hope.
[00:49:11.690]I hope this could be effective
[00:49:13.830]and we've had good success
[00:49:16.370]with attracting dollars to help
[00:49:18.050]support this work. So the assessment is also
[00:49:20.010]valuable in terms of how we
[00:49:22.170]engage in the work and sustain
[00:49:24.110]it long term. So it's a real confidence
[00:49:26.350]builder and
[00:49:27.710]especially those visioning activities
[00:49:30.250]when those adults come in and
[00:49:32.070]those young people are pitching their ideas and they're
[00:49:34.150]positive. I remember down in South
[00:49:36.010]East Nebraska, we had the utility supervisor
[00:49:37.890]in one of the towns and he said, these kids don't
[00:49:39.770]only care about our buildings, they care about what's
[00:49:41.930]under the streets because they were
[00:49:43.850]talking about the need to improve their water
[00:49:45.890]system and things like that. He's astounded
[00:49:47.810]by how much these young people
[00:49:49.690]know about our community because
[00:49:51.990]especially younger students, they see the community
[00:49:54.070]at the speed of a bicycle.
[00:49:55.090]So they're really aware of these things.
[00:49:57.710]I remember in
[00:49:58.910]David City, this was about a decade
[00:50:01.910]ago when they had a fair number of vacant
[00:50:03.950]buildings on their town square.
[00:50:05.970]And we did an extension
[00:50:07.990]as part of this project.
[00:50:09.070]Nancy Eberle, she's retired now, of course.
[00:50:11.910]We had them do a
[00:50:13.730]PICTEL activity to look at the community
[00:50:16.010]from the perspective of a young person
[00:50:18.090]and share those images back with
[00:50:19.830]community leaders. And they were just
[00:50:21.590]confident the young people were going to take a picture of all
[00:50:23.830]those downtown dilapidated buildings and say,
[00:50:25.650]man, our community is just blighted and stuff.
[00:50:27.610]And what they came back with
[00:50:29.970]was a lot of us want to
[00:50:31.850]start a business and look at all these buildings we have
[00:50:33.970]on our downtown that we could build a business
[00:50:35.930]in. Now, they don't understand the cost of putting a roof
[00:50:38.050]on a building, but the point is that optimism
[00:50:39.890]of young people, the entrepreneurial
[00:50:41.910]creativity of young people
[00:50:43.330]can really ignite that. And so, again, the
[00:50:45.850]assessment, the visioning activity, the
[00:50:47.870]dialogue, all those things
[00:50:49.850]are very important to being successful
[00:50:52.030]in implementation. Greg, there is
[00:50:53.830]one thing that I would question or challenge
[00:50:56.090]anybody, and Jenny and Chelsea
[00:50:58.130]know me well enough that I'll say this stuff.
[00:51:00.050]When
[00:51:01.970]anybody says there's nothing to do
[00:51:04.030]in this town, I don't care what town
[00:51:05.890]you live in. I travel
[00:51:08.150]a lot. Those two ladies both know that. I work
[00:51:10.130]with people in many different areas, many
[00:51:12.010]different things, and I hear different ones
[00:51:13.750]on the eastern side of the state can't get them
[00:51:16.030]to move from Omaha to Fremont
[00:51:17.550]just because there's nothing to do
[00:51:20.050]in Fremont, and you're talking
[00:51:21.910]30 miles. You've got to keep
[00:51:23.990]in mind that all of these individuals,
[00:51:25.810]most of them have grown up from
[00:51:27.590]birth until they leave high school in that
[00:51:29.890]area, and they've probably pretty much done everything
[00:51:31.750]there is to do. You can hear that
[00:51:33.870]in every single town. When somebody comes to the
[00:51:35.850]town, different ones will say, well, there's absolutely nothing
[00:51:37.830]to do. I first
[00:51:39.750]moved out here, and still today,
[00:51:41.870]and I use those two ladies because
[00:51:43.850]they can chime in or whatever. You take
[00:51:45.850]a 60-mile radius out here in Shadron
[00:51:47.970]and I'll go to any town you want.
[00:51:49.650]There's all kinds of things
[00:51:51.830]to do. It's just what
[00:51:53.770]do you want to do and what are you looking for
[00:51:55.770]to do? It's not going to be the opera.
[00:51:57.210]It's not going to be some things
[00:51:59.910]like that, but it depends
[00:52:02.030]on what you're wanting to do.
[00:52:03.410]I guess I never put any stock
[00:52:05.810]into somebody saying there's nothing to do
[00:52:07.970]in this town. There's something
[00:52:10.010]to do. Jenny, for instance,
[00:52:12.190]and Harrison, I don't
[00:52:14.050]know, Lusk, you do,
[00:52:15.870]but you'd have to drive to Crawford or
[00:52:17.770]Scotts Bluff to play golf, just as an example.
[00:52:20.070]There's
[00:52:21.670]something to do in those
[00:52:23.830]regions.
[00:52:24.250]I totally agree with you. What I'm sharing
[00:52:27.850]with you is what the youth say.
[00:52:29.450]A lot of that is in the context of when
[00:52:31.750]school's not in session,
[00:52:32.830]there's not very many amenities for
[00:52:35.770]us, and we end up hanging out at the gas station
[00:52:37.790]and kicking rocks down the street.
[00:52:39.010]Again, could we use
[00:52:41.750]the community center maybe for some
[00:52:43.490]youth activities and things like that?
[00:52:45.710]That's really the framing of that.
[00:52:47.210]I'll just tell you a really quick story. My
[00:52:49.330]roommate in college was from Omaha.
[00:52:51.030]I grew up on a farm
[00:52:53.530]outside of a town of 200 people. We come back
[00:52:55.510]on Sunday evening from being home for the weekend,
[00:52:57.670]and I'd ask my roommate, I said,
[00:52:59.770]so how was your weekend? He goes, boring.
[00:53:01.530]There's nothing to do in Omaha.
[00:53:02.610]I was out there riding four-wheelers and flying
[00:53:05.730]all airplanes and stuff like that, and I realized
[00:53:07.770]right then, it's up to you to
[00:53:09.750]make it interesting,
[00:53:11.530]but if you need to be entertained all the time,
[00:53:13.470]any place, including Omaha,
[00:53:15.870]can not have enough to do.
[00:53:17.270]You can come out here and scoop
[00:53:19.730]the snow that Jenny brought with her this morning.
[00:53:21.670]Now we're into the work ethic issue,
[00:53:25.750]which is also a great strength, though
[00:53:27.470]there are challenges there.
[00:53:29.130]Hey, Craig.
[00:53:30.490]You're
[00:53:32.990]surveying the youth in the
[00:53:35.690]schools and everything like that
[00:53:37.630]and you're getting the parent involvement.
[00:53:39.690]So kind of a
[00:53:41.590]two-prong. So when you come to
[00:53:43.770]the adults come to those meetings,
[00:53:45.890]are they just parents of
[00:53:47.530]youth that are in the school or is it anybody?
[00:53:49.830]And then secondly,
[00:53:51.590]what is being done to reach out
[00:53:53.710]to the alumni
[00:53:55.610]that's already gone that wasn't
[00:53:57.950]a part of any of the youth surveys?
[00:54:00.130]Right. Okay.
[00:54:01.370]Good. So there's a couple
[00:54:03.690]answers on the first one. Who
[00:54:05.650]participates?
[00:54:06.430]I showed you earlier that three
[00:54:09.610]circle diagram, and we do an asset
[00:54:11.770]map process to identify the youth
[00:54:13.830]serving organizations and economic development
[00:54:16.030]and educational partners and things
[00:54:17.750]like that. And so they get to decide
[00:54:19.650]really who they want to be representative
[00:54:21.310]of the organizing and leadership group
[00:54:23.870]for their community around that. And so
[00:54:25.870]that's really how that's organized.
[00:54:27.390]Certainly have some parents in there, but they're probably going to be
[00:54:29.810]wearing hats of community leaders in various
[00:54:31.870]aspects there. In terms of
[00:54:33.810]activities, like the career
[00:54:35.610]barbecue, that's where we invite
[00:54:37.470]parents of students in high school
[00:54:39.350]who are coming to that to be participating in
[00:54:41.530]that activity. But also what
[00:54:43.650]tends to happen, and maybe some of you have done
[00:54:45.650]youth entrepreneurship camps and things,
[00:54:47.410]what tends to happen in those experiences,
[00:54:49.990]the last day of the camp when the students
[00:54:51.590]bring their supplies to do their pitch
[00:54:53.510]and start selling and making money,
[00:54:55.330]they'll come up to me and go, I don't know what you're doing
[00:54:57.530]here, but my kid is so excited about
[00:54:59.350]this project. I just
[00:55:01.510]can't believe it. Thank you for doing this.
[00:55:03.530]And so we get that kind of engagement
[00:55:05.570]when their students come back and talk about it.
[00:55:07.570]It relates actually to 4-H.
[00:55:09.590]The ulterior
[00:55:11.590]motive when 4-H was created
[00:55:13.250]with land-grant universities was
[00:55:15.470]we were having a dickens of a time getting farmers
[00:55:17.530]and ranchers to adapt new technologies.
[00:55:19.390]So one day there was an epiphany,
[00:55:21.530]I think it was in Indiana,
[00:55:23.530]around the table of extension
[00:55:25.270]agents, they used to call them back then.
[00:55:27.510]They said, what if we had the kids
[00:55:29.550]do projects on their farm or ranch
[00:55:31.550]and then their parents had to help them?
[00:55:33.090]And that was wildly successful
[00:55:35.530]so when youth get involved in this
[00:55:37.530]sometimes it leads to family-owned businesses
[00:55:39.430]getting started or adults saying
[00:55:41.630]we've always had that dream to start a business
[00:55:43.430]and our kids are so excited about this, maybe we ought to
[00:55:45.450]take that off the shelf. So some of this
[00:55:47.490]involvement with parents becomes organic
[00:55:49.590]in various ways. You
[00:55:51.530]can't predict the outcomes
[00:55:53.610]but certainly they're aware of what their
[00:55:55.550]students are involved in and the
[00:55:57.410]excitement they have. Real quickly, the other thing
[00:55:59.650]is the students that
[00:56:01.490]struggle in traditional education,
[00:56:03.210]I was one of those kids,
[00:56:05.490]but now with a lot of at-risk youth,
[00:56:07.570]kids in single-parent households,
[00:56:09.630]challenges
[00:56:11.630]with drug use, abuse in the home,
[00:56:13.530]those are real things.
[00:56:14.810]When we can connect
[00:56:17.730]a young person with a community person
[00:56:19.770]as a mentor who can
[00:56:21.650]maybe teach them a skill and show them a
[00:56:23.630]pathway to build their future
[00:56:25.290]or in the case of entrepreneurship,
[00:56:27.510]I can't tell you how many times
[00:56:29.050]that that activity
[00:56:31.570]is the first time anyone's ever
[00:56:33.610]engaged a young person in
[00:56:35.450]thinking about their gifts and abilities
[00:56:37.450]and how they can use them to serve others and create
[00:56:39.450]a business and create a future for themselves.
[00:56:41.670]And I've had students
[00:56:43.510]just come alive and teach us,
[00:56:45.250]what did you do? And I said, it wasn't anything I did.
[00:56:47.610]I just helped them connect with something
[00:56:49.430]they really are passionate about.
[00:56:50.970]I remember one kid a couple years ago, his great
[00:56:53.490]love was his grandmother and her salsa recipe.
[00:56:55.630]And that became his business
[00:56:57.570]and he was confident that her
[00:56:59.470]salsa was the best in the world.
[00:57:01.330]And
[00:57:02.830]before this camp,
[00:57:05.410]his claim to fame was that he was
[00:57:07.350]the first kid to break into the new school building
[00:57:09.290]when they built it three years ago.
[00:57:10.570]He was now in eighth grade.
[00:57:12.610]And now you've got to sustain that
[00:57:15.390]engagement. You can't just do the flesh in the pan.
[00:57:17.250]It's almost like we were talking earlier about asking.
[00:57:19.130]Sherilyn said that and then we don't follow through.
[00:57:20.810]If you just do the camp and you create this energy
[00:57:23.430]and excitement and then there's
[00:57:25.370]nothing that follows it,
[00:57:26.550]then that's a problem. So we
[00:57:29.290]want to connect these middle school, junior high activities
[00:57:31.470]to high school programming like FBLA,
[00:57:33.570]FFA, those kinds of things
[00:57:35.370]that have entrepreneurship already built into it
[00:57:37.250]and then maybe help them enhance those
[00:57:39.290]programs to provide more community
[00:57:41.330]based business
[00:57:42.990]and career activities where the kids can
[00:57:45.370]use the community as a learning laboratory
[00:57:47.330]and get out there. So
[00:57:49.250]I answered one question. I think there was a second
[00:57:51.490]half that maybe I didn't answer.
[00:57:53.550]What was that? Well, it was how to reach
[00:57:55.570]the alumni. So those that are already
[00:57:57.530]gone. Yes. And I'll be
[00:57:59.510]brief on this because I know you guys need to run.
[00:58:01.330]But a lot
[00:58:03.610]of our learning has come from the communities
[00:58:05.330]that have led this. One of those is in Holt County
[00:58:07.410]where Nicole Slacek, who's now
[00:58:09.430]with Nebraska Power, innovated
[00:58:11.570]now probably a decade ago
[00:58:13.310]during the holidays,
[00:58:14.930]having the depot there in O'Neill
[00:58:17.230]open and had young
[00:58:19.370]adults from the classes that
[00:58:21.330]they were trying to target be available to
[00:58:23.450]greet and interact with
[00:58:25.270]people who had come home for the holidays to
[00:58:27.130]be with family. And they talked to them about
[00:58:29.270]how great it was to be in a small town that was
[00:58:31.250]safe and our kids can ride their bicycles. And by
[00:58:33.310]the way, we've got some new things happening with some
[00:58:35.290]employment opportunities and
[00:58:37.370]things like that and connecting
[00:58:39.550]those people that way.
[00:58:41.330]Also, you can use like
[00:58:43.230]class Facebook
[00:58:44.150]sites and things like that to promote
[00:58:47.070]opportunities. The very best
[00:58:49.250]idea ever, and it wasn't
[00:58:51.170]even intended to be this, it was a
[00:58:53.190]yearbook class that wanted to do
[00:58:55.210]a fundraiser for the school's
[00:58:57.150]yearbook. And so they decided
[00:58:59.090]to put all the embarrassing photos
[00:59:01.130]of the old yearbooks up on a website
[00:59:03.290]and then you had to pay to get it
[00:59:05.250]taken down.
[00:59:05.890]Well, you can imagine the buzz
[00:59:09.190]that created, okay?
[00:59:10.650]But some kind of creative things that engage
[00:59:13.070]alums and the memories
[00:59:15.110]of their community. On the Sandhills
[00:59:17.410]we have one community that the alumni
[00:59:19.010]banquet is so big in their small gymnasium
[00:59:21.530]that the spouses and kids can't
[00:59:23.210]attend. And so you can kind of
[00:59:25.050]see the message that sends to the spouse
[00:59:27.110]that's not from the community, I'm not allowed to come into
[00:59:29.210]the building. And so setting up
[00:59:31.070]a community tour, gift baskets,
[00:59:33.370]maybe activities in the park for the kids
[00:59:35.210]to do while the alum is
[00:59:37.190]actually in the banquet, but being intentional.
[00:59:38.930]The other real quick piece about this
[00:59:40.770]is, and I was actually talking to Nicole about this
[00:59:43.010]a decade ago, and she said, you know, we've got so many
[00:59:45.330]newcomers here.
[00:59:46.870]They're up to about 700 young people
[00:59:49.010]that have moved back to Holt County in the last seven, eight
[00:59:51.130]years, right? And so
[00:59:53.130]I said, well, what if at your
[00:59:55.170]annual banquet, you had a table
[00:59:57.150]of honor where you recognized all the people who
[00:59:59.230]have moved to your community in the past year
[01:00:01.210]and celebrate that, as opposed
[01:00:03.190]to the message that I got, and probably a lot of you, if
[01:00:05.170]you went back to a small town, what are you doing here?
[01:00:07.150]But celebrate that. Put stories in the
[01:00:09.230]newspaper about them. The other thing
[01:00:11.150]is forming a young adults
[01:00:13.190]social group where they can get connected
[01:00:15.150]socially with their peers and
[01:00:17.270]then get connected to things they care
[01:00:19.250]about, like maybe we need
[01:00:20.390]child care, and there's a committee working on child
[01:00:23.190]care, and so we get those young families that have
[01:00:25.110]just moved there connected to some of those
[01:00:26.870]priorities and take on leadership
[01:00:29.210]roles, because in
[01:00:31.130]too many cases, we've had
[01:00:33.110]people move to a community,
[01:00:35.130]with kind of the Norman Rockwell
[01:00:37.210]vision of what that community was going to be like,
[01:00:39.110]especially if they're a newcomer, and of course
[01:00:41.310]it's not like that,
[01:00:43.110]right? And so then if we
[01:00:45.110]don't engage them, we tend
[01:00:47.070]to lose them again, and so you really
[01:00:49.090]have to have that piece. You can't just do the youth piece
[01:00:51.270]and then forget about them once they graduate high school.
[01:00:53.190]You've done all that investment,
[01:00:55.130]you've got to stay connected, and then once
[01:00:57.170]they decide to come back,
[01:00:58.990]actively engage them in the
[01:01:01.090]community in positive ways, and then
[01:01:03.050]also work with the established leadership to
[01:01:05.090]make room for them at the table and their new
[01:01:06.930]ideas. That's a whole other topic, but
[01:01:09.090]that's important too.
[01:01:10.090]There's some ideas on how you
[01:01:13.110]can do the alumni recruitment piece.
[01:01:14.710]Thank you. Those are all very great.
[01:01:17.250]Okay, good.
[01:01:18.550]All right. Awesome.
[01:01:21.230]Well, we've come to the end of our time.
[01:01:23.350]If somebody wants to
[01:01:25.130]hang on, I'd be willing to do that, but
[01:01:26.930]I think this is awesome. We will
[01:01:28.950]take, Craig, if you'll send me your slides
[01:01:30.930]and I would put that up with this recording so
[01:01:32.930]people can get back to it. That'd be
[01:01:35.050]awesome. Sounds great. Well, thank you for
[01:01:36.910]the opportunity, and anybody that wants to
[01:01:38.970]stay, I can stay, but
[01:01:40.790]certainly afterwards, a couple of you, I think we wanted
[01:01:42.910]to follow up, so I'd be happy to do that. And those
[01:01:45.010]of you working in community economic development,
[01:01:46.510]this is of interest to you. I'd be happy
[01:01:48.970]to visit with you as well.
[01:01:49.990]Especially out in Kimball and
[01:01:52.310]some of those communities, right?
[01:01:53.950]Okay.
[01:01:56.070]All right, guys. See you next
[01:01:58.950]month. Thank you.
[01:02:00.210]It looks like it's
[01:02:11.710]mostly just us. It's time
[01:02:14.190]for lunch. Well, here it is anyway.
[01:02:16.190]Yeah. I got an hour to go.
[01:02:18.010]I got an hour to do stuff.
[01:02:19.510]Awesome. Thank you, Craig. You did a nice job.
[01:02:21.810]Thank you very much.

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