HOLDREGE, Neb. — Betty Sayers and her sister Nancy Herhahn left this rural area the moment they could.

"Nancy and I were told that if you want to be successful, you leave your small town," Sayers recalls.

Other young people followed that advice, causing populations in the rural Great Plains to shrink. A sense of doom spread.

"We were told the Midwest had blown away," Sayers adds.

It took a few years of wandering around Chicago, Kansas City ...

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