When weather-related disasters occur, communities are affected in uncountable ways. We know all too well how climate disasters physically impact communities. Events like hurricanes and wild fires can destroy property, devastate the landscape, and claim lives. What might be less obvious is how a community’s cultural practices are affected. When Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina in September of 2024, one group of ballad singers felt the effect of the storm on their tradition.

Sig Pugrud’s ranch sits on a high bench above Flatwillow Creek, in one of the least-populated counties in the U.S. Her family homesteaded in Petroleum County, MT in 1910, surviving the Dust Bowl, the '80s farm crisis, and decades of economic uncertainty with a combination of grit and creativity.

When Jake Fritz moved back home at 19, four generations were trying to make a living off the same piece of ground near Chester, Montana. This episode follows Jake and his mom Dena through an era of transition across multiple generations

Determined not to repeat the past, Ryan and Abbey Bruski paired ecological regeneration with a new approach to family planning, creating clear roles, business structures, and a succession plan designed to give future generations clarity.

When it came time for Gene Curry to pass his operation to the next generation, he found himself facing a challenge that demanded something ranch life had never asked of him before: softening his dominant personality and learning to let go.

Reframing Rural-Season 4, Episode 1

Reframing Rural is a documentary podcast that challenges mainstream stereotypes about rural places by introducing listeners to people, history and culture that don’t always get the spotlight. 

In Season One, creator Megan Torgerson, journeyed back to her home community of Dagmar, Montana (population 10) to tell stories from the farmers, ranchers, preachers, teachers, and oil and gas industry professionals who call it home. Season two curated interviews with professionals fostering vitality in their rural communities. Season three took more of an issues-based approach, examining rural gentrification and cultural extraction, food sovereignty, farm stress, family farm preservation and regenerative agriculture.

Season Four “Succession Stories” follows five Montana farm and ranch families as they navigate complex social and environmental factors while working to pass on their operations to the next generation. 

Episode One:

When Howie Hammond learned he might only have months to live, he and his daughter Andrea had to make quick decisions about the future of their family's farm and ranch.

In this episode of Beyond the Clock, Ash and Anna are joined by Brigid Reedy, musician, poet, storyteller, and artist from southwest Montana whose work is deeply rooted in the rural American West. In this conversation, they explore what it means to be of a place in a time of mobility, polarization, and cultural fragmentation, and how place lives not just in geography, but as something carried within us. 

Brigid reflects on everyday ranch life and cowboy culture, the vital role of gatherings like the National Cowboy Poetry Festival, and how art-making helps to sustain connections across time and place. The conversation moves through the tension of staying or leaving home, what it means to resist isolation and lean toward interconnectedness, and how honoring one’s creative “spark” can keep cultural lineages alive without turning them into static relics. Rich with story, philosophy, and lived experience, this episode invites listeners to reconsider belonging, responsibility, and the evolving legacy of the rural West.

Learn more about Brigid Reedy here: https://brigidreedy.com/home 

In the United States, people have a complicated relationship with guns. For some, they’re fondly associated with family traditions, like hunting. For others, they’re reminders of pain and violence. In Western North Carolina, one organization is bringing together gun owners, faith communities and blacksmiths to turn guns into jewelry and garden tools. The goal?: Reducing gun violence. Reporter Rebecca Williams brings us the story.

In this first episode of the 2026 Beyond the Clock (BTC) season, Anna and Ash are joined by Nikiko Masumoto, this year’s BTC Resident Artist, farmer, and memory keeper who invites us to explore memory as a living practice. In this episode, we reflect on the quiet rituals (personal and public) that carry culture forward and how, across rural communities, artists and cultural workers are tending something essential: memory and imagination.

Inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s idea that hope is grounded in memory, this conversation considers how remembering can guide us through uncertain times. When artists act as memory keepers, they are also operating as futurists that hold complexity, honor ancestral wisdom, and open space for imagination, especially in the midst of grief or rupture. Nikiko invites us to remember that memories are not simply stories that preserve the past; they are recipes for futures we are still learning how to make.

BTC Season 1 Album: https://www.publictransformation.org/beyond-the-clock-album

Masumoto Family Farms: https://www.masumoto.com/

Weaving has a storied history in Appalachia. Indigenous groups like the Cherokee and Shawnee developed robust weaving traditions using plant fibers. When European settlers colonized Appalachia in the 18th century, they brought their own styles of weaving. These days, fiber artists in Appalachia are noticing an increased interest in weaving, and so they're making the craft more accessible to beginners. And they’re finding ways to connect in person for mentorship opportunities.