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2025 Keynote
Rewriting the Rural Narrative with Rural Sociologist Benjamin Winchester
It seems the rural story has already been told. Small towns keep getting smaller. Churches, schools, clinics, businesses, and now post offices, have closed their doors as the lucky few migrate out to the big cities. This deficit framework dominates how we discuss and envision our rural communities. However, the story of rural America since 1970 is rich and diverse, with positive trends occurring under the radar. Learn how positive changes around migration, community involvement, economic development, and regional living have diversified this landscape that require us to rewrite the narrative of rural community change.
Keynote Bio
Benjamin Winchester
Rural Sociologist, University of Minnesota Extension, Department of Community Development
Ben has been working both in and for small towns across the Midwest for over 25 years. He lives in St. Cloud, Minnesota with his wife and two children. Ben is trained as a Rural Sociologist and works in the Extension Department of Community Development at the University of Minnesota. He conducts applied research on economic, social, and demographic topics surrounding a theme of “rewriting the rural narrative." He received the International Rural Renewal Research Prize in 2021 for this work.
Winchester received his B.A. in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Minnesota, Morris (1995) and M.S. in Rural Sociology from the University of Missouri, Columbia (2001). He was a founding employee at the Center for Small Towns, an outreach program at the University of Minnesota, Morris and specializes in community development, demographic analysis, data visualization, and moving communities away from anecdata.