Bythe IowaWatch Simpson College Journalism Project |
Listen as reporters in the 2019 IowaWatch Simpson College Journalism Project take you to small-town Iowa and the struggles those towns face. Part of a series.
Small towns around Iowa have been fighting to support themselves as rural populations continue to decline, while state government has been investing more in larger cities where the population is growing.
Small Iowa towns struggle to stay alive as people move away and others do not move in to replace them. Humeston, Iowa, with just shy of 500 people, is one of those towns.
HUMESTON, Iowa — A small group of businesses in one southern Iowa town has found a way to stay open by banding together to attract spending customers to town, rather than compete against each other. “Why not Humeston?” Leigh Ann Coffey, owner of Sweet Southern Sass, said when asked why business owners choose to open a business in a small town. This report is the result of an IowaWatch Simpson College Journalism Project involving student journalists in Simpson’s spring 2019 journalism seminar. Reporters for the project were:
Randy Paulson
Zoe Seiler
Emily Carey
Austin Hronich
Taylor Bates
Dustin Teays
The journalists worked on this story starting in January 2019 with Lyle Muller of IowaWatch and Mark Siebert, Simpson assistant professor of multimedia communication. Sweet Southern Sass, Snyder’s, Grassroots Gallery & Cafe, Snips of Thread Quilt Shop and Grampa Jims formed a group “Shop Humeston.”