Browsing Tag

By Julianne Couch

Filling a Journalism Niche in Maquoketa, Iowa

Julianne Couch · May 15, 2019

Print journalist Sheri Melvold put her reporting skills on the air at her town’s locally owned radio station. The result is a professional talk show unlike any other in the world: an informative forum about Maquoketa and Jackson County, Iowa.

Media Beat: When a Region Tells Its Own Stories, that’s ‘New Territory’

Julianne Couch · Apr 2, 2019

“Get out of Missouri,” was the professional advice Tina Casagrand received as a young journalist fresh out of college. Instead, she hunkered down in a small city and started a print magazine for people who love the Lower Midwest just as…

Media

Writing News about the People You Know

Julianne Couch · Mar 7, 2019

The closeness of small towns means that local journalists are likely to know more than the “who, what, when, and where” of their news subjects. For writer Sara Millhouse, the challenge of living with the people she covers is part of the…

Agriculture

Book Review: Sustainable-Farming Book Lobs Ideas, not Stones

Julianne Couch · Feb 4, 2019

In One Size Fits None, a farmer’s daughter paints an informed and convincing portrait of our existing agricultural system and what might be done to make it more sustainable.

Media

Review | Storm Lake: A Study in Rural Resilience, Diversity and Hope

Julianne Couch · Jan 3, 2019

The small city of Storm Lake, Iowa, is full of surprises. Its population grows with each Census. Its public-school students speak 23 languages. It still has two newspapers, one of which won a Pulitzer Prize. Art Cullen shows the complexity…

Cool Places

Speak Your Piece: My Inevitable Life in Baseball

Julianne Couch · Oct 4, 2018

A peripatetic baseball fan finds she's never that far from a game. In cities large and small, it's almost as if there's no escape from baseball -- not that she wants one.

Cool Places

At Emporia’s Bourbon Cowboy Bar, a Woman Who Stayed Ahead of the Herd

Julianne Couch · Jun 14, 2018

Susan Brinkman became the first certified female entrepreneur bar owner in Kansas when she bought an old JCPenney's building, got a 160-year-old prohibition rule overturned and opened Bourbon Cowboy in downtown Emporia.

Agriculture

For Women Who Need Workwear, One Size Does Not Fit All

Julianne Couch · Dec 4, 2017

Though women have moved into agriculture and the trades, work clothing remains a man’s world, says an Oregon entrepreneur. She’s attempting to start a new apparel line that provides working women with rugged clothing that fits.

Health

Fast Cars, Slow Buggies Create Road Dangers for Amish

Julianne Couch · Sep 25, 2017

National figures suggest the number of deaths from collisions between automobiles and horse-drawn buggies remains fairly constant. But better roads that allow higher speeds for cars, along with the expansion of Amish communities, renew…

Economy