Onaga, Kansas

This posting comes from one of the many case studies in the Heartland Center's publication, "Clues to Rural Community Survival."Clues was recently updated with updates from the original Clues communities as well as the addition of other communities who have been successful in their community development efforts.

Leadership, entrepreneurship, wealth retention and youth development are all pieces of the recent successes of Onaga, Kansas, a very rural community of 704 people. Driving down Kansas Highway 16 and seeing the sign “Onaga, next five exits” would make you think it’s a fairly large town. Indeed it isn’t. But it’s the brainstorm of community developers who propose that adding such a series of signs would encourage more travelers stopping by their small community.

“Onaga has a lot of assets that other communities would die for!” That is the sentiment of the part-time community development specialist for Onaga. This kind of sentiment is reflected in the philosophy of HomeTown Competitiveness (HTC). HTC is a collaboration between three partnering organizations in Nebraska, including the Heartland Center for Leadership Development, the Nebraska Community Foundation and the RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship. This philosophy is embedded in four “pillars” of youth, entrepreneurship, leadership and community philanthropy and is what prompted several people from Onaga to participate in an HTC Academy in Wamego, Kansas. County-wide, the HTC initiative has taken root in each of the pillar areas. In fact, a foundation has been established that has raised over $1 million dollars in only 20 months, with 13 affiliated local funds.

Nestled in the beautiful Flint Hills of north central Kansas, the community of Onaga is one that has grasped the HTC framework and run with it. Since taking part in the HTC Academy, leaders in this community have been busy implementing a plan for the future.

After many attended the HTC Academy, a group of Onaga citizens banded together to establish “Goals for 2010” with the assistance of the Pottawatomie County Economic Development Corporation. Goals were identified in eight categories including transportation, communications, quality of life, business and industry, agriculture, housing, population/school enrollment and tourism.

One unique outcome of this goal-setting exercise was a financial partnership between Pottawatomie County Economic Development Corporation, Community Health Care Systems, the City of Onaga, the Chamber of Commerce, down­town businesses and the Morrill & James Bank. The corporation, the city, the bank and the hospital each invested $5000, downtown businesses added $1800 and the Chamber added $1000. Combined, the $22,800 has been used to fund the part-time services of the community development special­ist for the community. It is the development specialist in turn, who has helped implement a neighborhood revitalization program, organized volunteers and fundraising for a playground project and secured funding for streetscape renewal. Other leaders in the community have taken on several other critical community improvement projects.

Some of the goals established included growing Onaga by 500 people, ensuring enough student enrollment to maintain 2A school status, identifying value-added agricultural opportunities as well as agri-tourism ideas and creating a local “homestead” program.

The homestead program is in place with 10 free lots currently available that also qualify for the city’s neighborhood revitalization program, a 10-year sliding scale tax rebate for improvements to existing residential and commercial properties, as well as new construction.

The community has applied for and received more than $4 million in state and federal grant funding to support new infrastructure and downtown revitalization, including sewer, water, and street-scaping. Funding for a new fire truck and fire fighting equipment was also received.

Community volunteers constructed a new senior center with the help of a state grant and hundreds of hours of volunteer time. The city purchased a nine-hole golf course (and club house) that also has room to add another nine holes in the future. The community found a new business to replace a failing enterprise and the local school system has been retained.
Blue Valley Telecommunications Cooperative purchased the area telephone exchange from Sprint and then promptly invested millions of dollars to install fiber optic cable to homes and businesses in Onaga and the surrounding area. Now, homes and businesses in the community and nearby farmsteads are served by high-speed broad­band interconnectivity.

The regional Farmers’ Cooperative built $2 million dollars in new grain storage and processing facilities, while agreeing to have the facilities immediately annexed into the city in order to increase the city’s property tax base.

Besides a vision for the future, Onaga takes pride in its past to build aspirations for the future. Case in point, Onaga has one of only an estimated eight 8-sided fair pavilions in the state. The pavilion, built in 1921, is modeled after one built during the Chicago World’s Fair. Fears of collapse and disrepair almost led to the demise of the pavilion until a group of concerned citizens formed “Friends of the Fair Pavilion” to restore this unique architec­tural feature. The building is now registered on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, reconstruction of the building’s unique truss system and supporting walls and roof is complete, replacement of all its windows, exterior paint and replacement of its interior concrete floors are also finished. This restoration was accomplished with Kansas Heritage Trust Grants from the Kansas State Historical Society and many private donations.

The Dough Boy, a World War I memorial purchased by the American Legion and unveiled on November 11, 1920, is another one of the community’s treasures. The statue originally stood in an inter­section downtown but due to highway repairs, the state roads had it moved to the town cemetery. After a number of years, the Doughboy found a final resting place again downtown.

This community understands the value of working together and volunteering in order to get the job done. The new senior center was built in part from proceeds of a Kan-Step grant that amounted to $168,000 of the $400,000 project. But it was the 110 volun­teers mustered by the leadership of a former mayor and retired banker who put in over 7,000 volunteer hours of work that saw the center come to fruition within one year of breaking ground.

One would think that a tiny town like Onaga would not be a center of financial wealth, but First Trust Company of Onaga is just that. First Trust acts as a custodian for a multitude of self-directed Individual Retirement Accounts. Established in 1978, First Trust now performs all the administrative work required to support thousands of individually managed IRA’s with over $50 million in assets in all 50 states and many foreign countries. Based on the results of a marketing study completed by a team of graduate MBA candidates from Kansas State University, and with financing from a USDA Rural Development loan, the bank recently built a new building and moved its 35 people to the new facility where it continues to expand.

While Pottawatomie County and the surrounding region braces for the return of the 1st Infantry Division and other troop expansions at nearby Ft. Riley, communities like Onaga are hoping that some of the new troops and civilian employees will opt to call Onaga their home. A related target market for new residents is people leaving the service who are looking for a place to settle down. With this much of a regional population increase economic opportunities abound, but challenges such as a lack of housing, childcare and healthcare create roadblocks. Roadblocks like these are being overcome with Onaga’s homestead program, which displays a model home in a dedicated housing area that prospective owners can tour. The health care system, the excellent school system, affordability, safety and recreation offer a small town quality of life that is a major selling point for those interested in moving here.

The hospital and its clinics are an excellent example of long term sustainable growth. In the early 1980s, the hospital governance and leadership conducted a market and service assessment to study the viability and sustainability of the hospital in its current configuration. The market study focused on those communities where the hospital had existing patient and community relationships. Because of its emphasis on communities, the transition included a name change that has evolved to today’s Community HealthCare System, serving a regional area. Family practice clinics and hospital inpatient and outpatient services have been established in Centralia, Frankfort, Holton and St. Marys.

So many rural communities face challenges and obstacles because of lack of opportunities, loss of youth and competition from urban centers. Many people in this community want to see Onaga succeed and this sentiment is echoed by the local newspaper publisher who says “you have to progress or you die.” Further evidence that supports the claim that Onaga is on the right track includes being chosen as one of only three communities in Kansas to take part in the pilot projects of the Governor’s Rural Life Task Force. This designation resulted in all the available rural housing program and financial resources offered by the Kansas Department of Commerce and USDA Rural Development being targeted on Onaga simultaneously. This has resulted in financing for several residential renovation projects as well as financing for purchases of existing homes and new home construction.

A family in Onaga recently discovered that its children had contracted a chronic deteriorative disease. Another group of leaders in Onaga immediately formed an action group to help this family and any others in the future similarly situated. They used the new com­munity foundation created by the Pottawatomie County Economic Development Corporation and others as the vehicle for creation of a special purpose fund, and have so far raised in excess of $40,000 dollars in private donations.

The mayor, the Pottawatomie County Economic Development Corporation and other local advocates were recently successful in clearing away the legal and financial “debris” from a failing compos­ites plant in Onaga to make it possible for the plant to be acquired by MGP Ingredients, which is headquartered in Atchison, Kansas. MGP Ingredients’ Onaga R and D facility has since been experimenting with the manufacture of combinations of wood composite resins and plant-based biopolymers in order to produce biodegradable dinner­ware for use by the military and the outdoor recreation industry. These starch and protein based products derived from agricultural products are made into pellets which are then processed into bio­degradable products.

With its homestead neighborhood revitalization program, Onaga is recruiting new people to its community and young people are also returning. A banker came back after going to school and gaining some world experience. Like so many others, he sought the quiet and solitude that reflects Onaga and he wanted a safe community to raise his children.

But Onaga is not relying solely on recruiting younger people to help the community thrive. Several older citizens have returned because of the peacefulness and the full range of services provided by the hospital and the numerous assisted living and long-term care services. The community development specialist and her husband retired but through serendipity, her experience with Main Street communities and timing of HTC, she was lured out of retirement to take on a new community development role with even greater responsibilities.

Onaga, like many rural Kansas towns, flourished as a regional agricultural and railroad center for many decades and still plays a large part in agriculture. With the new manufacturing plant, an ever-growing Trust company and several value-added agricultural producers, fiber-optic cable, regional health care system, golf course, K-12 school district and home to the county fair, Onaga like the Kansas motto can aspire “to the stars through difficulties.”

Onaga exemplifies the power of the application of the “four pillars” of leadership, entrepreneurship, use of charitable assets and youth development. It is well on its way to becoming a sustainable rural community which many thought had a “duty to die.”