Ask any of my friends or family and they’ll tell you—I’m not a morning person. Truth is, I can get up and go in the morning just fine, it’s when I have to actually speak that I have a problem. Needless to say, I didn’t get to ask Secretary Vilsack any of the half dozen questions I’d been stewing over last week. I did however perk up when I heard him talk about a “framework for a new rural economy.” The traditional perspective is that rural economies are driven by the extraction of natural resources (think timber, gold, farming). But now, with increasingly large amounts of funding targeted at renewable energy, broadband, and entrepreneurs, Vilsack claims more and more rural communities will flourish. (Ok, he didn’t use the term flourish but you get the point.) I tend to agree…IF there are any teeth in the recovery funding. Vilsack didn’t get to some of the nuts and bolts of how we get more boots on the ground but he was very responsive to audience questions and concerns about farm worker rights, funding for renewable energy projects, rural hunger rates, and the work OGC is doing with farmers for certification requirements that impede local markets.

It’s no surprise that not everyone got to ask their question. Nearly 300 people gathered in Keizer at 7:30 am, and with only a little more than half an hour for questions, I couldn’t help but wonder—how will he better communicate and engage in social media as so many more rural communities get on line?

You can read and comment on all of Cassie Wieden's blog posts on the Rural Economy Project on Oregon Public Broadcasting's web site.

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