On a crisp and vivid December Saturday morning, Maha Mohamed shared her enthusiasm.
She gave the Student address at the fall graduation for Truman State University. An African immigrant – now a United States citizen – she told how she came to America and thence continued her journey to Kirksville, Missouri. Along with several hundred other young people, she received her degree in a basketball arena filled with friends, parents, relatives and one prominent opera singer.
The university campus looks about the same as when I visited friends there back in the 1970’s. Now, as then, an island of brick buildings in the middle of a small town surrounded by farms on gently rolling hills.
On the drive to Kirksville the landscape appeared austere: the harvested fields mostly naked and, again and again, the weathered husks of abandoned farm houses and barns lined the roads.
For example, U.S. Highway 36 from Hannibal to U.S. 61 spends most of its time in Macon and Shelby counties. Back at the start of the 20th Century, 33,018 people lived in Macon County. Today it’s home to just 15,251. To the east, Shelby County had 16,167 residents in 1900 while today just 6,021 people live there.
The other important numbers run equally bleak. Median Household Income in Macon County, at $38,903, runs better than $200 a week below the state’s median and $460 a week below St. Louis County’s median. Shelby County has a bit more money but is still below the state’s number by over $120 a week.
And, where around 42% of adults over age 25 in St. Louis County have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, in Macon County and Shelby County the degreed portion lays around 15%.
A quick example of what that means…My wife and I stopped at the Hardees where U.S. 36 meets U.S. 61 on the edge of Macon. On this past Saturday morning the line staff all appeared to be 35 to 55 years old, the manager looked to be my age and, well, I easily earned the title “Sonny” among those waiting to order.
Every person there smiled and treated us city folk well. Still, when the nice man trying to talk you into a Honey Biscuit might be a grandfather, that points to an unhealthy local economy.
Now, common sense leads one to believe struggling folks ought to vote to help themselves…Not so much.
Remember the Minimum Wage proposition on November’s ballot? Across Missouri it received 62% of the vote. In Macon County it barely mustered 50% and over in Shelby County just 44% voted to put more money in workers’ pockets.
Both counties are also overwhelmingly “white alone” – 94% and 97% – according to the census. And, both counties are extremely red: Sandra McDowell received almost two of every three votes cast in this year’s race for Auditor. (Donald Trump got better than three of four votes in the counties in 2016.)
So, while Miss Mohamed spoke from an island of education and diversity in Kirksville, that university is surrounded by a desert with a fading population and failing prospects. They represent the state’s rural past, not its future.
I don’t think they want to talk about that.
Glenn