Jeanie Alderson comes from a storied legacy of ranchers in Southeast Montana. In the 1970s, her parents were among the rural organizers to form Northern Plains Resource Council. Today, Jeanie and her husband Terry are continuing their work standing 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.

Ashley Hanson is the director of PlaceBase Productions, a site-specific theater company working with nontraditional actors to create stories specific to small towns, and the founder and executive director of Department of Public Transformation, an artist-led nonprofit that's fostering community connection, civic pride and equitable participation in rural places. 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.

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.

For an event hosted by the Rural Radio Collective Megan Torgerson sits down with Ed Roberson, the founder and producer of the acclaimed podcast Mountain & Prairie, to hear what he's learned over the past six years producing intelligent and thoughtful conversations that illuminate the unfolding Zeitgeist of the modern American West.

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. A purveyor of good news that small towns are not dying, Ben is on a mission to elevate a positive narrative on rural America through the use of applied research and data. 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.

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.

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.

Following Reframing Rural's interview with Red Ants Pants Founder, Sarah Calhoun, Megan Torgerson heads to Red Ants Pants Music Festival in White Sulphur Springs, Montana where she records powerful performances and speaks with musicians, festival attendees and Red Ants Pants Foundation timber skills workshop facilitators.

Sarah Calhoun has long been venerated as a champion of rural causes in Montana and beyond. In the first episode of our Sowing Possibility series, Calhoun explores how her childhood in rural New Brunswick and New England informed her decision to move to the small agricultural town of White Sulphur Springs, Montana. She'll share exciting plans for the future of the Red Ants Pants Foundation and key takeaways on rural resiliency she's gleaned from her years running the Red Ants Pants workwear company and Red Ants Pants Music Festival.