Katy Beem: What was the impetus for this particular doc?
Brian Gevik: “After seeing the success of Stephanie Rissler’s Vanished South Dakota documentary for SDPB, I and a couple of other people at SDPB thought a lot about what might have made the “Vanished” project so popular. One of the things we learned is that South Dakotans and especially rural South Dakotans are generally proud of where they come from. Heritage and history can be very personal for people when something can be said about where they come from or who their people were.
We started thinking about how rural South Dakota developed — why some towns thrived and some towns up-and-died. In historical terms, the obvious answer is that towns connected to the world by a railroad survived and towns without a rail connection died. But there’s more to it than that. A lot of things factor into how rural people and places thrive, from institutions like schools and churches to basic infrastructure like good farm-to-market roads. We tend to take a lot of these things for granted today.
Again, looking at history, think about when there was no electricity outside of towns and cities. The rural electrification work of the 1930s through the 1960s changed virtually everything about rural life. It’s right up there with the combustion engine. There’s the very literal reality of wires connecting remote farms and ranches to a reliable power provider and there’s also the fact that rural people connected with one another to make electrification happen. They formed co-ops and they figured it out. People without some connection to the basic amenities of the world and to their neighbors are living in the middle of nowhere, whether it’s South Dakota or anywhere else. People who have those connections can say they’re really living in the middle of everywhere regardless of where they live. And that’s how we came up with the show title.”
KB: At first glance, the topic may seem banal. But why is this topic so significant?
BG: “The topic is significant because of South Dakota’s rural character. Half of all South Dakotans live in rural areas — even more than that depending on what you consider rural. Along with electricity and telephones, people in the country need decent roads, mail service and, ideally, a local newspaper focused on very local news and information. It isn’t just that local newspapers let people know what’s going on. They’ve historically been the most economical and efficient place for rural businesses to advertise. Everybody who’s paying attention knows that most rural areas and towns have been losing population since about the late 1970s.
Along with that you’ve seen rural school consolidations and the loss of some rural churches because there just aren’t enough people to keep them going. Maybe looking at how economic and social connections have evolved over the years can shine a little light on the road ahead.”
KB: What most surprised a historic documentarian like yourself while researching this project?
BG: “The story of how radio got started in South Dakota surprised me. KGFX in Pierre was started by an amateur radio operator essentially just experimenting with the technology way back in 1912. His name was Dana McNeil and his experimental station was among the first licensed operations in the entire world. McNeil and his wife Ida lived in Pierre, but Dana worked for a railroad and regularly traveled back and forth between Pierre and Rapid City. Their radio was just a way for them to stay in touch, but people started listening in, basically eavesdropping, and they started asking the McNeils to relay messages or even run errands for them. ‘Can Dana bring me a fan belt from Rapid City?’, that kind of thing. By the 1920s they were doing weather and news reports and playing music. They also did hospital reports. Ida McNeil would find out who was in the hospital and how they were doing, even if someone had died. She did those reports every day for years and years. Amazing.”
KB: What is the continued relevance of this topic today?
BG: “Cellphone service in rural areas has improved a lot in the past few years in terms of reach and reliability, but most people living in rural areas still don’t have access to true broadband internet service. The ‘last mile’ cost of wiring the countryside has simply put it out of reach until lately. But wireless internet technologies have also improved.
More importantly, internet providers, people in community development and government agencies at many levels, are putting a lot of money into getting broadband service into rural homes. It’s similar in every way to rural electrification. It’s relevant right now because of how much business is done online these days, including livestock auctions and commodity sales and a lot of other things that farmers and ranchers can get involved with. But it’s especially relevant now because COVID-19 is forcing people who are already a little isolated to become more isolated. Maybe a farmer doesn’t need to be in front of a screen all that often, but what about that farm family’s children if online learning is their only option? It’s also very true that some people simply don’t want to live in a place that doesn’t have basic amenities and now, for a lot of people, the internet is a basic amenity.”
Images of the Past: The Middle of Everywhere — Connecting Rural South Dakota premieres Monday, November 16, at 8pm (7 MT) on SDPB1.