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Internet access a key to rural towns' survival

By Mark Thiessen

Grand Island Independent, July 10, 2003

DUNNING , NE - It took a couple of doctors and a high-tech infusion to keep this Sandhills community's main street open for business.

Fifteen white block or red brick storefronts line the two-block-long downtown with plenty of parking for its 109 residents and scores of out-of-towners.

That's because there are only five open businesses along either side of the boulevard-wide Jewett Avenue.

There's not much in downtown Dunning to give most people hope, unless you are Carol Thompson. The part-time nurse and rancher's wife knew exactly what this town needed -- a doctor.

"We thought we had to improve the ability for the elderly to get health care, provide jobs and improve the general well-being of the people," Thompson said.

Thompson kicked in $30,000 of her own money to finish off an $84,000 clinic almost three years ago, but it wasn't just money that opened the Twin Rivers Wellness Center.

Two doctors at a clinic 45 miles away in Broken Bow agreed to see patients in Dunning on Mondays and Thursdays on one condition: High-speed Internet access.

The doctors wanted to keep all of their Dunning patients' charts back at the Broken Bow clinic. High-speed Internet links allow them to easily share records between the clinics, which was critical because of Dunning's high number of walk-in patients.

"I can have all their past history sent up to me," said Thompson, who also conducts volunteer immunization clinics at the site six times a year.

High-speed Internet access is helping shape rural Nebraska's survival by allowing people to live, work and learn in even the most remote areas. In some cases, easy access to the World Wide Web allows some small towns to literally stay on the map.

The technology has allowed almost anyone with a computer to overcome the greatest distances even when reporting for work, taking a college course or being seen by a doctor.

It enables David Glaubke to operate his Northwest Shoreline Foods seafood company from his home in Ord. His family moved from his native Oregon to his wife's hometown in 1995.

Through his home computer and a digital phone line, the 50-year-old Glaubke coordinates his customer's orders with suppliers on both coasts, each more than 1,200 miles away.

"I tell people if my husband can sell seafood in landlocked Ord, Nebraska, imagine what you could do," said Nancy Glaubke, the Valley County Planning and Zoning administrator.

Brian and Zoe Vakoc help build and sell Boeing jets from their home in Verdigre. The arrangement is only possible because they have high-speed Internet access in the village of 519 people.

"I work upstairs and she works downstairs," Brian said of their home office arrangement.

Zoe is an industrial engineer for the aircraft maker, while Brian puts together economic stimulus packages for countries that buy Boeing products.

The Vakocs send documentation to co-workers through e-mail, and attend meetings through conference calls.

"It's been a real treat," Brian said of moving to his hometown a year ago. The couple, both 37, live just down the alley from his mother.

More than 5,000 of Boeing's 160,000 employees work from home instead of going to the office.

The Vakocs said they are fortunate to have high-speed Internet access, considering some fellow employees living outside Washington, D.C., are still bound to the office because they don't have similar access at home.

Fiber optic cables also provide real-time distance learning opportunities at schools throughout Nebraska, including Twin Valley High School in Bartley. The 59-student school relies on a high-speed line for students to get daily Spanish lessons, taught from a teacher's desk eight miles away at Cambridge High School.

"It's like being in the same room," said Gina Petersen, who teaches three sections of Spanish at Cambridge via the fiber optic wire to corresponding classes at Twin Valley.

So up to 25 people a week can see a doctor in Dunning, the local telephone company stepped in to offer varying degrees of high-speed Internet access -- from a slower dial-up connection to a dedicated line connected to the Broken Bow clinics that would allow real-time videoconferencing so doctors can see patients via computer.

The clinic passed on the dedicated line because of costs, but it's available if they need it, said Brian Thompson, Carol's son and general manager of Dunning's telephone and cable television provider, Consolidated Companies of Lincoln.

Consolidated provides telephone and high-speed Internet access in 23 rural communities, including to medical clinics in Eustis, Brady, Hyannis and Mullen.

The Dunning health clinic was established on a trial basis, set to expire Aug. 14. Doctors have not yet decided whether to renew the contract.

"They're scaling back already. I'm deeply concerned," nurse Carol Thompson said after Monday afternoon clinic hours ended in late May.

The possible closure concerns other Dunning residents, too.

"It's a great deal for a small town like this," said Reggie Smith, the athletic director at Dunning's Sandhills High School.

Smith said it would be sad if the community didn't keep the clinic, where Smith -- the schools' football and track coach -- takes injured athletes about once a month.

"It would just be another inconvenience," he said. "We're 40 miles from anywhere."

If the clinic closes, Thompson knows that will be a tough sell as the ripple effect weaves its way through what remains of Dunning's business district.

"We wouldn't have any reason to pull people into town," she said.