美国国家公共电台 NPR Despite Economic Troubles, Residents Of Kansas Town Remain Proud

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: 

It is the town where Mickey Mantle 1 played his first season of professional baseball in 1949, the hometown of one of the first monkeys to be sent into space, Miss Able, 1959. It is Independence, Kan., a town with a rich past and an uncertain future.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: 

And that's where we find our colleague Melissa Block today. She's on a road trip that is taking her around the country. She's going to communities large and small, asking how people's identity is shaped by where they live. We're calling the series Our Land.

SIEGEL: In Independence, Melissa wondered what keeps a small town hopeful when many of its good jobs are gone.

MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE 2: If you're in Kansas on a Saturday night in January, you can bet you'll find some basketball.

UNIDENTIFIED CHEERLEADERS: Offense 3, offense.

BLOCK: Tonight we're watching community college ball. It's archrivals the Independence Pirates going up against the Coffeyville Ravens 4.

UNIDENTIFIED CHEERLEADERS: Defense 5, defense.

BLOCK: Independence, Kan. - population below 9,000 and dwindling 6. We're in the southeast corner of the state not far from the Oklahoma border. If you're from Independence, you wear that name with pride. People here are especially proud of their annual Neewollah Festival held every October, the oldest and largest festival in the state. They're proud to be the hometown of playwright 7 and novelist William Inge, who wrote "Bus Stop" and "Picnic."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PICNIC")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) She's the prettiest girl in town. I bet you they announce tonight she's going to be queen of Neewollah.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Nee-what-ah?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Neewollah, Neewollah - it's Halloween spelled backwards 8.

BLOCK: Their hometown author is celebrated 9 in the annual William Inge Theater Festival. It's attracted marquee names as honorees - Stephen Sondheim, Neil Simon, big city folks plunked down in rural Kansas.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: And then they marvel 10 at cows as you bring them back (laughter) into town.

(LAUGHTER)

BLOCK: At Ane Mae's Coffee Shop, we sit down to chat with a group of women who walk together early every Saturday morning - Sarah Wilson, Kym Kays and Sheri Hesse. In a town like this, they tell me you tread carefully when talking politics.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: I mean we do express our opinions, but then we kind of back away politely like...

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: We are Kansas polite.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: We are a Kansas polite community (laughter).

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Good old Midwest.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Right, right.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: It's kind of like, yes, I feel this way, but I understand...

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: That's OK.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: ...How you feel, you know. It's like - because we're a small town, and we all have to get along.

BLOCK: A couple of blocks away - most things in Independence are just a couple of blocks away - we stop in at the storefront office of the weekly Montgomery County Chronicle. Editor Andy Taylor is going over the sports schedule with reporter Brian Thomas.

ANDY TAYLOR: Then the game time's earlier. Is it 4 and 6?

BRIAN THOMAS: Yeah, they changed it, 4 and 6.

BLOCK: This is a tiny operation. Andy Taylor reports and edits and shoots pictures. At 5 in the morning, he's the guy who picks up the papers from the print shop and delivers them. If you get the Chronicle, chances are Andy has touched your paper.

THOMAS: Okie doke.

ANDY TAYLOR: So lots of sports this week.

BLOCK: Taylor's a fifth generation Kansas newspaper man.

ANDY TAYLOR: There's ink in the blood. That's for sure. That's for sure. And I still love going in the press room at night and just smelling it. It's just - there's something about it.

BLOCK: Well, I was hoping you could walk us around.

ANDY TAYLOR: Yep, we can do that. We can do that.

BLOCK: Great.

ANDY TAYLOR: Can I bring my wife with me?

BLOCK: Sure.

ANDY TAYLOR: Amy...

(SOUNDBITE OF DOGS BARKING)

BLOCK: We head out toward the main business street in Independence, a shadow of what it used to be.

ANDY TAYLOR: We used to have a J.C. Penney department store over here. That's now gone. We had a furniture store - it's gone - a Hallmark store - it's gone. We had a clothing store, department store. It's gone.

BLOCK: But the biggest body blow - that came in October 2015.

ANDY TAYLOR: We're the first town in Kansas in well over 25 years to lose a hospital.

BLOCK: Andy Taylor recalls the meeting where he heard the news that Mercy Hospital would be shutting down.

ANDY TAYLOR: Oh, my gosh.

AMY TAYLOR: It was a complete shock.

ANDY TAYLOR: And there were 18 mouths in that meeting. They all dropped to the floor - like, you're closing down the hospital?

AMY TAYLOR: I don't think people believed it would ever happen.

ANDY TAYLOR: No.

AMY TAYLOR: It's sad. That's where our daughter was born.

ANDY TAYLOR: Yeah.

BLOCK: Really?

ANDY TAYLOR: Yeah.

AMY TAYLOR: Yeah. So when that's gone, you know...

ANDY TAYLOR: It's not just that, but it was a great, great company. And it just - it still kills me.

BLOCK: The hospital and the oil pipeline 11 company that shut down here in the '90s - these were pillars supporting the community. Philanthropy flowed through them. They sponsored events, pumped money into schools and churches. And the jobs - they were high-paying, professional positions.

ANDY TAYLOR: We've evolved downwardly I guess, backwards.

BLOCK: And has anything replaced those jobs?

ANDY TAYLOR: No, no. Once all that old money dies off and leaves town, then that's - that really hurts. Again, there's that old theory that when Grandma and Grandpa die, the funeral's at 2 o'clock; the family's at the bank at 3 o'clock, and they're out of town with that money at 4 o'clock. And I've seen that happen many times.

BLOCK: That's a problem facing so many rural towns where opportunities are slim. The best and brightest leave and don't look back. For Independence to thrive, I figure it has to find a way to hang on to kids like sixth grader Gabe Schenk.

What you got?

GABE SCHENK: Probably the best homemade taco soup.

BLOCK: We meet Gabe at the Valley Victors 4-H club's annual soup supper - 32 Crockpots all in a row. The secret to cooking, Gabe tells me - you have to talk to your food.

GABE: I had a very long, philosophical 12 talk to the chili 13.

BLOCK: Yeah. What'd you say?

GABE: What is the meaning of a chili's life?

BLOCK: (Laughter) And did you get an answer?

GABE: He's the strong, silent type.

BLOCK: I see. I see.

Gabe's dream is to be a storm chaser or meteorologist. When he was younger, a tornado 14 came through and ripped the roof off his house.

GABE: And I thought it was kind of, like, scary but then amazing at the same time. If I'm going to study the big storms, this is the place to be.

BLOCK: Meantime, Gabe is working on getting straight As and memorizing the periodic table.

GABE: Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron...

BLOCK: Melissa Block, NPR News with Gabe Schenk in Independence, Kan.

GABE: ...Gallium, germanium, arsenic 15, selenium...

(SOUNDBITE OF PEARLS SONG, "FLOATING LEAF")