Sarah Calhoun on Rural Resiliency through Entrepreneurship and the Arts

Sarah Calhoun has long been venerated as a champion of rural causes in Montana and beyond. She shares exciting plans for the future of the Red Ants Pants Foundation and key takeaways on rural resiliency.

Jake Bullinger

Jake Bullinger is a Wyoming native, freelance journalist and new father who covers the politics, culture, economy and environment of the West. In “Sowing Possibility: Episode 2” host Megan Torgerson and Jake discuss red state-blue state binaries, the history of mobility in the west and the potential for climate resilience in resource economies.

Miranda Moen on Rural Architectural Design and Norwegian-American Immigrant Architecture

Miranda Moen is a rural architectural designer studying the architecture and cultural history of her ancestors through a Fulbright fellowship in Norway. This stirring conversation covers Miranda's mission to uplift the importance of rural and working class buildings, and how she has come to better understand her cultural identity through study of the built environment.

Ben Winchester on Rural Brain Gain and Rural In-Migration

Ben Winchester is a rural sociologist whose research into the rural "brain gain" has illuminated the trend of 30- to 49-year-olds migrating to rural America. This episode spans the history behind the negative rural narrative, how small towns can be more welcoming to newcomers and the positive work happening in the rural development industry.

Benya Kraus on Stewarding the Next Generation of Rural Leaders

Benya Kraus is the co-founder of Lead for America, a national nonprofit nurturing the next generation of rural leaders. Benya embodies the virtue of getting proximate to issues most affecting her rural home, while striving to restore solidarity between disconnected cultures and a divided nation.

Ashley Hanson on Rural Cultural Work, Site-Specific Theater and Community Development

Ashley Hanson is the director of PlaceBase Productions, a site-specific theater company, and the founder and executive director of Department of Public Transformation, an artist-led nonprofit. This episode explores the role of the arts in facilitating community cohesion and rural community development, and the challenges and opportunities of leading an art nonprofit.

Jeanie Alderson on the "Big Four" Meatpacking Monopoly

Jeanie Alderson comes from a storied legacy of ranchers in Southeast Montana. Jeanie and her husband Terry stand up for family farms and ranches by fighting against the "Big Four" meatpacking monopoly that's extinguishing competition and dictating prices, forcing some ranches to go out of business.

Randi Lynn Tanglen, PhD on Western American Literature and Public Humanities

Randi Lynn Tanglen, PhD grew up in the small NE Montana town of Sidney and turned an early love of literature into a career in education. Today Randi leads the statewide humanities council, Humanities Montana, ensuring the public humanities are stewarded in Montana's rural and Tribal communities.

Emily Stifler Wolfe & Jason Thompson on "Common Ground" Montana Free Press Series (Part 1)

Combining profiles of farmers from the Golden Triangle with soil science, history, policy research and transportive imagery, the award-winning "Common Ground" series is sowing hope in the future for farmers across the West. Written by Emily Stifler Wolfe with transportive photography from photo journalist Jason Thompson.

Emily Stifler Wolfe & Jason Thompson on "Common Ground" Montana Free Press Series (Part 2)

In part two of Megan's conversation with journalists Emily Stifler Wolfe and Jason Thompson of the "Common Ground Series" published by Montana Free Press, they discuss the threat of desertification, succession planning challenges family farms face and the sixth soil health principle of context.