Pocahontas survives with a resolute spirit

By ART CULLEN

This much should be clear to Michael Barbaro, a New York Times correspondent who hosted about a dozen Pocahontas community leaders for supper last Wednesday evening at the Home Plate Café on Main Street:

It is much cheaper to eat well in Poky versus Manhattan. Barbaro said the tab for the crowd would come up for a dinner for two at Tavern on the Green in Central Park.

The county predictably will vote for Republican Joni Ernst over Democrat Bruce Braley for the open US Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Tom Harkin. Steve King winning Pocahontas is a better August bet than the Yankees appearing in the World Series.

The rest is not so clear.

Pocahontas may be at more a crossroads than that of Highways 3 and 4.

Barbaro picked Pocahontas because he noticed it is among the state leaders in population loss, along with Sac and Calhoun counties.

He invited me because I am from a rare rural growing county with a burgeoning Latino population.

Barbaro wanted to provide a rural motif to a national political story.

So I asked County Auditor Margene Bunda, a Democrat, what the political registration looked like. Seemed like Pocahontas County used to be Democratic.

It sort of was, she replied. It used to be split in thirds among the two parties and independents. Now it’s heavily weighted toward the GOP and independents, who tend to be conservative. The change seemed to occur about the time Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980.

She cannot remember Tom Harkin ever winning Pocahontas County. She believes Tom Tauke beat him, and that’s as far back as her estimable memory goes.

The last time Poky voted Democrat was 1996, for Bill Clinton’s re-election.

It voted 60-40% for Steve King over Christie Vilsack.

The county seat is 40% Catholic, followed by 20% each Methodist or Lutheran. It is 98% white.

In 1997 the public school enrolled 1,192 students. In 2012 enrollment was 738.

The population is older than the state average. The average house is worth $50,000 less than the state average. There were 350 births from 2000 to 2005 with 598 deaths. During the same period, twice as many people moved out of the county as moved in for a net loss of 497 people. The greatest number of those who left went to Buena Vista County. Pocahontas County lost 2.1% of its population over the past four years.

Median household income is $42,138, compared to $46,947 in Buena Vista and $51,129 for the state.

The numbers tell a long story.

Pocahontas County’s population peaked in 1940 at about 15,000. It’s less than half that now at about 7,100. Most rural Iowa counties peaked in population around 1920.

They left because of the automobile, the tractor and combine, credit crashes and agricultural consolidation.

They have always left us, the young, for a deeper education and a better job, a better life than you had on the farm.

And that was the main lament at the table: Not enough young people in the schools, starting and running businesses, serving in government and farming the land.

This isn’t exactly the sort of place a white-collar woman with an MBA can get a job. Rural Iowa is a place of light manufacturing and food processing. Some manufacturing jobs in the county pay as little as $8.25 per hour — not enough to make it even in Laurens.

Some return, like Brian Dewey who opened a fitness center in January and has attracted 75 members. Pretty impressive for a culture that dwelt on kolaches. His main check comes from employment at Meridian in Storm Lake, founded by Canadian immigrants.

Like so many others, he can afford the good life in Poky because he has a good job in Storm Lake or Fort Dodge.

It got interesting then.

The NYT reporter asked what people in Pocahontas would think if 20 to 25% of its population were young and Latino?

Bev Holzmueller of Pocahontas Ford said she thinks most people in town would welcome immigrants.

“The older generation may have an issue with it,” Dewey said. “But it would be good for the schools, and it would be good for the kids because this is what the rest of the world looks like.”

“The main problem in rural Iowa is homophobia and xenophobia (fear of other cultures),” said Kaleidescope Factor owner Leonard Olson. “Poky is head and shoulders above most places, but they’re not used to it here. We have a long way to go on that front.”

People at the table agreed that most had heard people use the “N” word in reference to Barack Obama, and that it is not uncommon.

They agree, too, that King can go “over the top,” as one participant said. But most people laugh off his most outrageous race-baiting remarks.

It has taken rural Iowa about 30 years to recover from the Farm Crisis of the mid-1980s. For some the smell of it lingers, and it was in the air over the table.

You watch people leave. You lose so much. It is hard to take after awhile.

But there are young people. Niki Whitney said she moved to Pocahontas from New Hampshire because it is the perfect place to rear a family. The newspaper, the Record-Democrat, has a hard-working young owner in Chris Vrba who is a credit to his town and the industry. People are talking about using empty retail space for business incubators.

School enrollment may be showing signs of stabilizing. The ag sector has settled down into a seeming pattern of success through volatility. Industry is holding its own, but wages are low and good help is hard to find.

“We’re open to change to make ourselves better,” Holzmueller said.

I doubt that business leaders in 1980 would have liked the idea of a quarter of the town being Mexican.

But Fonda is gaining new life from Latinos. It just celebrated its second Cinco De Mayo event this year. They know the Newell-Fonda school enrollment is growing with help from young Latinos who happen to fit the dominant Catholic culture in Pocahontas.

Better isn’t necessarily bigger. Pocahontas always must draw from its own for it has no mountains or lake or even a river. Olson says it offers visitors or homesteaders a genuine experience. One would think the visitor from New York found the same. But it will take more than just who is here to help the town sustain itself.

On that, the numbers are clear.