Betty Dotson-Lewis This is all that's left of our Canvas school. It serves now as a meeting place for a Ruritan club.

Where did you go to school?  

Were you one of the lucky ones who lived in a rural school district with small schools, good teachers, good administrators and support personnel who treated you as if you were their own? Were you fortunate enough to go to school where you were a real student instead of just a number? 

I was. 

I attended Canvas Grade School in Canvas, Nicholas County, West Virginia in the Appalachian coalfields. Canvas Grade School was near the end of the Ward Road where we grew up on a farm surrounded by coalminers and farmers.  

Canvas Grade School was the focal point of the Canvas community. The school was a basic cinder block and mortar structure painted a sick yellow. The building held classrooms for grades K-8, a long hallway, and a lunch room. Enrollment varied between 100-120. 

The school was not much to brag about visibly, but it was what was inside that counted. 

Our lives revolved around our home, church and school. We went to our school for 4-H Club meetings, dances, voting, community dinners and sports events. Our school was a safe haven for weary students, a source of healthy, home-cooked meals, a clothing bank — a building filled with dedicated people who hugged you, corrected you, encouraged you and presented opportunities for achievement. Our grade school friends became friends for life-we shared so much.

You could say Canvas Grade School to the residents of Canvas held the same rank and distinction as the Taj Mahal to the people of India. One difference: The Taj Mahal still stands and Canvas Grade School in 1994 was dissolved, demolished and leveled to the ground in the name of school consolidation.

Morry Gash for AP Fans like Steve Gash of DeForest, WI, invested in the Packers to build a new stadium. The same kind of ardor and hustle can create a rural broadband network.

In Green Bay, WI, football fans bought shares in the team to build a new stadium. Local ardor and hustle can raise money for a broadband network, too. Though bumped out of Super Bowl contention, the Green Bay Packers leave broadband advocates with a win: a potent strategy for community ownership of this critical asset. 



In five weeks the community-owned Packers raised $70 million for refurbishing its football field by selling stock in the team. More incredible than raising so much money so quickly is that the $250 stock share price buys the investor very little. The stocks are untradeable, pay no dividends, and do not have securities-law protection. Investors don’t even get a game ticket. (There’s a really fun annual shareholders party at the team’s Lambeau Field, though.)



Examining the path Green Bay took to execute this fundraising feat uncovers the seeds for successfully financing a community broadband network. The three main ingredients are belief in the cause, sound planning and a solid needs assessment.



Clearly, belief in their biggest community asset – the Packers team – is phenomenally strong. A share of Packer stock probably isn’t worth much more than a case or two of beer if an investor sells it back to the team. However, to mimic that credit card ad, the pride of ownership apparently is priceless.



This investor strategy can work if constituents believe in the power of broadband to transform their community. But will constituents put their money where their faith is? Two communities are saying, “yes, we do.”  

Here's a vintage view of the welcome arch erected across the Lincoln Highway (US 30) in Columbus, Nebraska, in 1940. Columbus became "the city of power and progress" after a large hydro-electric project was built there on the Loup River during the Great Depression. Sadly, the arch is gone.

A striking juxtaposition of two starkly different realities was set in front of me this week.  

First, a member of our Chamber staff sent me a link to an ABC News story about tent cities popping up around the nation as the jobless become homeless.  Second, in response to a question from a committee, I looked up the number of available jobs for my hometown, Columbus, Nebraska.

As of today, the Nebraska Department of Labor lists 1,288 jobs available within 10 miles of Columbus.  We have been very fortunate that local manufacturers have continued to expand and the agricultural economy has been healthy as well.  We promote Columbus as the “most industrialized city” in Nebraska, boasting more than 6,000 manufacturing jobs in our community of 21,000.  Our unemployment rate in Platte County in November was 3.1 percent.

We need every kind of skill: Information systems analysts, welders, registered nurses, crane operators, sales, quality engineers. The list goes on. All the jobs are available today, and many have been open for some period of time.  Columbus employers tell me on a regular basis how difficult it is to find qualified people to fill their jobs.