We need you.  That’s the message to the Hays Association of Young Professionals (HAYP) from a leading expert in rural development.

Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at KSU-Manhattan, met with the group Tuesday at the Fort Hays State University Robbins Center to talk population decline  in Kansas.

With a presentation involving  lots of maps and lots number crunching, Wilson showed that most of Kansas is experiencing a long-term population loss and accompanying “brain drain.”

There is some good news, he says, and Ellis County is part of it.

“Considered as a ‘select rural area,’  Ellis County’s population is forecast to grow, along with the valued–added agribusiness complex in southwest Kansas, and of course, a handful of big cities in eastern Kansas,” according to  Wilson.

The group talked about why someone chooses to live in rural Kansas and how to build on those assets.   “We like to call them ‘ruralpreneurs’,'” he smiled.

The noon luncheon was part of the Eagle Communications Professional Development Series in cooperation with the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce.

Find out more tonight on Street Beat Eagle Community TV Channel 14.