With More Jobs Than People, Prairie Life Has Its Payoffs – Nebraska Appeals to Big-City Fatigue, Hometown Loyalty

"Here’s our problem," says City Manager Gary Person, describing an economic plight that most other cities would love to have. "We’ve got a town of 6,200 people, man, woman and child. And we’ve got 6,400 jobs to fill."

By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15372-2004Nov26

(Many thanks to Tom Rolfstad for passing this along.- Russ

Montana also has many exciting opportunities- http://www.montana-jobs.net and http://www.ComeHomeMontana.org )

Fueled by the explosive national growth of a local retailer and by a general wave of prosperity here on the prairie, Sidney’s economy is growing so fast that the town finds itself with more jobs than people. And these days, that pleasant predicament is reflected across Nebraska.

As a result, Republican Gov. Mike Johanns has launched a nationwide recruiting drive to persuade people to come to the Cornhusker State and fill some of those open jobs.

"A lot of states have too many workers and not enough jobs," says Richard Baier, Nebraska’s director of economic development. "They’re offering all sorts of tax breaks and relocation funding to lure employers. We’ve got the opposite problem — we are beating the bushes to fill the jobs we already have."

Nebraska’s recruiting drive has brought tens of thousands of new residents to the state in recent years, many of them heading to towns as small as Sidney. Demographers say that influx reflects a national wave of back-to-the-country relocation, as city and suburban dwellers fed up with crowded schools and gridlocked highways move their families to the open spaces of the rural Midwest.

"We have operations across the West, including small rural communities," says Gordon Hartman, a personnel executive with Omaha-based Union Pacific Railroad. "And we need a lot of people these days. Fortunately, we are finding good prospects who really want the small-town experience. For a young couple just starting to have kids, you don’t have to dangle the glamour of a big city anymore."

Those who have made the move from city to country generally say the results are positive.

"Back in Florida, I had to drive one hour each way to get to work," says Kevin Raasch, who moved to Sidney from the Miami area to run the local lumberyard. "Now, if my commute is longer than three minutes, then, gosh, there’s something wrong. Now, you know, a lot of people would pay a lot of money to add two more hours to their day."

Of course, Raasch sees a downside as well.

"A lot of stuff you get used to in a city is just not here," he says. "Sidney has no Starbucks. There’s no health club. No bookstore. We see those ads on TV for the national chain restaurants, but they don’t have a branch anywhere near us."

To cushion that kind of culture shock, the state has focused its recruiting operations on former Nebraskans who have moved away — the kind of people who fly bright-red Nebraska flags from the balcony of an apartment in Ballston, or jam the sports bars of St. Louis or Chicago every time the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football on television.

"There’s an enormous amount of power in the tribal feeling that Nebraskans have," says Jim Clifton, a Nebraska investor who bought the Gallup Organization in 1988 and moved the famous polling company to Omaha. "So, when we are looking to hire people — and we are hiring all the time right now — we start with former Nebraskans."

That appeal to "come on home" was evident just before Thanksgiving when Gov. Johanns hosted a Nebraska Alumni Celebration and Job Fair at a downtown Denver hotel. Hundreds of former Nebraskans showed up, bringing spouses, children — and résumés. Many of those attending already had good jobs. But they were interested in a move, several said, because they preferred Nebraska’s rural lifestyle to the rush of the big city.

"Our daughter was born eight months ago, and since then my wife and I have talked about moving every day," said Matt Sheffield, 31, who is from the farming hamlet of Wallace, Neb. Now a business consultant in Denver, Sheffield said he found several attractive leads at the Nebraska job fair. "We’d like to raise our family in a small town, with a school we know. And anyway, for the price of our house in Highlands Ranch [a Denver suburb], we could buy a much bigger house in Nebraska, with acreage for horses."

Of course, a prairie town in central Nebraska is not appealing to everybody.

"When you’re 22, you just want to get out of there," notes Katie Schmatz, a 2002 graduate of the University of Nebraska who fled Lincoln on graduation day to take an accounting job in Denver.

"Maybe when I’m settled and have a family Nebraska will be attractive again. But at my age it looks pretty deadly."

Still, the number of potential returnees at the Denver gathering was so promising that the governor says he plans further "alumni days" for former Nebraskans living in Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City and elsewhere in the Midwest.

"A lot of our neighbors thought they would find greener pastures in a big metropolis," says Baier, the state development chief. "But we’re telling them the jobs can be just as good back home in Nebraska. And the lifestyle is better."

Here in Sidney — like many western towns, named for an executive of the Union Pacific — the municipal government and the Chamber of Commerce have focused on lifestyle, particularly for young families, in their effort to fill the town’s many job openings.

"It’s a town where you know all the neighbors, you know the mayor, you know everybody at the school," notes City Council member Larry Hiers, a transplant from South Carolina. "You combine that with a good career opportunity and Sidney looks darned attractive."

Like many rural county seats, Sidney shrank dramatically in the decades after World War II. The population dropped by 50 percent between 1950 and 1980. The town’s self-promotion efforts fell back on its cowboy history — "toughest town in the panhandle" — and such oddities as Nebraska’s tallest flagpole, which towers over the town park.

Things started to turn up in the 1970s with the growth of a local mail-order business called Cabela’s, a midwestern version of L.L. Bean that sells a huge selection of hunting, fishing and camping gear. When the Cabela brothers built one of their huge retail emporiums here — all Cabela stores feature giant aquariums, massive gun displays, dozens of stuffed animals and a 40-foot-tall "Conservation Mountain" at the center of the sales floor — Sidney became one of Nebraska’s top tourist attractions.

Shoppers flocking to the glittering store drew new motels and restaurants to town, while the catalogue business sparked new jobs at the post office and local shipping companies. The town’s growing prominence helped it attract new businesses producing trailer hitches, birdseed and electrical equipment.

"We’re creating lots of new jobs," says City Manager Person. "But now we need workers to fill them. Anybody out there need a good job?"

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