Rural Remix

In Rushville, Illinois, Erin Eveland and her team at The HUB - Arts and Cultural Center are carrying out a mission to to bridge the gap between art, culture, and rural communities.
In this new episode of Rural Remix, Eveland and Rural Assembly Deputy Director Libby Lane (a Rushville native!) talk about what drives the work, as well as the challenges of funding and the importance of community support in sustaining and growing the organization.
Keep listening for the lightning round of questions, where Eveland shares her favorite places, comfort food, superpower, and more.

Keep listening for the lightning round of questions, where Eveland shares her favorite places, comfort food, superpower, and more.

Was Burkittsville, Maryland ever the same after the "Blair Witch?" What about the Texas town that played host to the "Chainsaw Massacre?"

Dawn breaks and we conclude our series with some reflections on the lasting legacy of rural horror. How have the places featured in popular films been affected by their depictions on screen? And what do the tropes and shorthand used by horror filmmakers continue to reveal about the world around us?

No examination of rural horror would be complete without talking about folk horror. Superstitions about witchcraft and the occult hearken back to the country's pastoral, Puritan roots. We dig into the sub-genre and how it uses rural places to illustrate modern tensions between science and the supernatural.

Films discussed include "The Children of the Corn" (1984), "The Blair Witch Project" (1999), and the documentary "Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched" (2021).

Sometimes the monster isn’t so literal, and deeper fears take center stage: isolation, grief, disillusionment, despair. In these cases, rural landscapes often play a supporting role. In our third episode, we turn our attention to the fear of isolation — both physical and emotional —and how it’s connected to portrayals of grief in horror movies.

Films discussed include “Midsommar” (2019), “The Edge of the Knife” (2018), and “Deliverance” (1972).

Continuing on from our first episode, we zoom in to a specific kind of "urbanoia." Join us for a closer look at a set of iconic movies that made a horror trope out of an over-the-top stereotype, introducing us to an infamous class of villain: the killer hillbilly and his degenerate rural family. As some Appalachians and rural people seek to reclaim power and pride in the word hillbilly, what are we to do with the killbillies?

Films discussed include "Deliverance" (1972), "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974), and "The Hills Have Eyes" (1977).

Where do horror movies happen? Small towns, dark forests, cornfields, and farmhouses have each been the locations for iconic scary films. But why are rural settings so popular, and how do these choices affect the areas represented? In the first episode of our 5-part series exploring the often-flawed, but always interesting, depiction of rural people and places in horror movies, we look at urban fears about the country, and rural fears about the city.

Which is scarier, and should we take more issue with the tropes, or the inversions of them? Films discussed include "Jennifer's Body" (2009), "Pearl" (2022), "Frankenstein" (1931), and "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" (2010).

Beginning this month Everywhere Radio becomes Rural Remix.

Together with our partners at the Daily Yonder and Center for Rural Strategies, we'll bring you unexpected rural stories that talk back to the stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding rural communities.

Up first, just in time for Halloween, is our debut series, the Rural Horror Picture Show, five episodes exploring the depiction of rural people and places in horror films.

If you're already a subscriber to Everywhere Radio, you'll seamlessly transition into the world of Rural Remix. When our very first episode drops, you'll find it waiting for you in your podcast feeds. And if you haven't yet joined our community of listeners, now is the perfect time.

Daily Yonder reporters Sarah Melotte and Claire Carlson talk about what's at stake in rural communities when extremist political movements infiltrate local politics. Melotte and Carlson talk about their own reporting and how they came to the same notion: that when extremist political movements — banning electronic voting systems or defunding libraries for example — enter a rural community, there's often more at stake in that rural place than there would be in a suburb or a city.

How are rural people feeling about the future? What are they concerned about? What do they value? Pollster Celinda Lake talks with Center for Rural Strategies President Dee Davis about the findings of a soon-to-be-released poll that explores what's on the minds of rural voters in 2023.

"We really asked questions to get beyond the surface, and we looked in-depth at concerns and values and then support for policies," Lake says. "And what I loved about it was that the poll was really defying a lot of conventional wisdom."  

Find the video, interview highlights, and transcript at https://www.ruralassembly.org.

About the guest

Celinda Lake is a pollster and political strategist who is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts on electing women candidates and on framing issues to women voters. President of the polling firm Lake Research Partners, Lake grew up on a ranch in rural Montana. American Politics calls Celinda a "super-strategist or, better yet, the Godmother," and Working Woman says she is "arguably the most influential woman in her field." 

Teresa Kittridge has spent much of her life serving rural people across the country as a leader in the private, public and nonprofit sectors as well as serving in elected office in Minnesota. She founded the nonprofit organization 100 Rural Women to inspire leadership and create connections among rural women. We talk with Teresa about the organization; what has changed in rural policy work; the definition of rural; and what she heard from women in all 87 counties of Minnesota.

About Teresa

Teresa Kittridge, founder of 100 Rural Women, lives in Marcell Township in Northern Minnesota.  She has spent much of her life serving rural people across the country, with a career that includes executive level leadership in the private, public and nonprofit sectors as well as serving in elected office. 100 Rural Women models her life’s work, by serving women in rural places to inspire leadership, create connections, networks, support civic engagement and encourage leadership.

The first twenty years of her career were spent serving as an officer of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Following her time in the legislature, she built the Washington D.C. office of RUPRI (Rural Policy Research Institute) and served as Director of National Policy Programs. She has over a decade of experience in leading and building national and international businesses, as a publishing executive for MN based Coughlan Companies and then as founder and president of MNREM (Minnesota Renewable Energy Marketplace)  a non-profit organization. Kittridge returned to RUPRI in 2014 as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. She is currently building the national non-partisan organization, 100 Rural Women.

Teresa is an active civic and community volunteer. She is an elected Trustee and Secretary of the Board for the Bigfork Valley Hospital Northern Itasca Hospital District, serves on Marcell Township Business Loan committee and on committees of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Rural Innovation.  Kittridge served as Board Chair and as a Director on the Waconia School Board. She holds a M.A. in Organizational Leadership and a B.A. in Business Administration.