Welcome to this year’s final edition of New Rural Virginia.

As we close out 2021, it is worth noting that Rappahannock residents got much closer to a future of high-speed broadband this week, thanks to farsighted funding decisions by the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative and the Rappahannock Board of Supervisors. True, we don't yet have all of the funding nailed down, but we are so much closer. Hence, kudos to our Supervisors! Some of us may still be skeptical about spending so much money on a new technology. However, as New Rural Virginia noted in October, broadband is to our future what electricity was to the rural generation of the 1930s. Without it, we will be permanently left behind in an economy which is increasingly built online.

To remind us of the stakes at hand, here is a link to a report in the Daily Yonder that details how critical broadband is to the rise of a dynamic group of women entrepreneurs in rural areas, in the years to come.

Happy Holidays!

A Chat, Over the Fence, with John Odenkirk

by Mary-Sherman Willis

An expert in fisheries management, John Odenkirk grew up fishing on the Thornton River with his father, on weekends. However, since he came back to northern Virginia from grad school at Tennessee Tech, deer hunting has been his passion. 

A Solar Future for Rural Communities?

By Larry Wohlers

Imagine a Virginia where every small farm or rural landowner had the opportunity to own just a few acres of solar panels. Not only would they no longer pay electricity bills, they would also receive regular revenue from solar generation. This would transform their incomes; yet do so with installations small enough to not harm the environment around them.