The Cherokee Chronicle-Times ran a two-part series about Creighton economist Ernie Goss’ visit to Sheldon. Goss does the Mid-American Business Survey. Links: Part 1, Part 2
The first story dealt mainly with Northwest Iowa’s economic opportunities. The second was devoted to Goss’ “alarming concern for the dwindling rural population and the out-migration of young people to larger metropolitan areas such as Chicago and elsewhere.” That’s not hyperbole, as a bunch of facts on this website and elsewhere can attest. (If you need to be hit over the head with one: Two-thirds of Iowa counties lost population between 2000 and 2010, and another 10 had growth under 2 percent.)
It’s the throwaway line at the end of the Chronicle-Times’ story that I want to gently correct, though. “It kind a makes a person wonder when Iowa will see its first school system named after a highway as in the ‘Highway 3 Communities’ School District.'” Iowa already has a school system named after a highway: The Interstate 35 Community School District formed a few years after the interstate was built in Clarke and Decatur counties.
The Highway 3 Roadrunners? Hmm. It’s interesting enough it might work. Of course, Highway 3 goes all the way across the state, but on the other hand, it’s at least as specific as a river valley is. On the other other hand, I-35 has red, white, and blue for school colors, and the black and white of a state highway shield is a little blander. (Perhaps black and silver?)