Word: clay
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Another heavy blow in the '80s was deregulation of rail, truck, bus and airline service, along with the breakup of the Bell system. These changes permitted corporations to abandon service or increase rates in thousands of small towns. H.E. ("Ned") Valentine, owner and editor of the Clay Center Dispatch (circ. 3,800), finds the outcome ironic: "Both Presidents Carter and Reagan espoused small-town American values. Both were admired for it. But Carter's deregulation program, amplified by eight years of Reagan, has taken its toll here...
...Clay Center's once-a-day bus service along two-lane U.S. 24 stopped two years ago. The bus carried mostly the poor and elderly to see their doctors or relatives an hour away in Manhattan. Bus service also meant that the town's two florist shops could count on daily deliveries of fresh flowers. And repair shops could often get same-day emergency shipments of spare parts. Although the town's cooperative grain elevator still has access to a working railroad spur, weeds surround the tracks. Reason: the Kyle railroad has added a $750- per-car surcharge...
...Clay Center's aging population is symbolized by the skyline of the federally financed senior-citizen housing on the town's west side. The eight-story red brick apartment buildings are the only high-rises on the horizon. "Our big industry is Social Security," says Thomas Lee, president of the Union State Bank. "Fully one-third of our checking accounts are senior-citizen deposits." The aging process has also led to a leadership vacuum, as older business people retire from civic life. And the town's young people show no inclination to stay. When a visitor asked a class...
Ginger Walker, a vivacious 30-year-old Clay Centerite, launched her own business, Ginger's Shoe Shoppe, three years ago. Her stylish boutique carries an impressive assortment of stock, and has attracted enough customers so far to make a passable profit. Says Walker: "The biggest challenge is to compete with the large communities around us. Our prices aren't that much different. It's just the magic of the malls...
Though the whitewashed grain elevators two blocks from Clay Center's town square are still in use, the county's economy is no longer primarily agricultural. Clay County benefited during the 1950s and '60s from the arrival of manufacturing companies that produced such goods as metalworking equipment and grain-handling machinery. But in the past decade almost 300 jobs have disappeared. Says Mayor Bisenius: "In the past few years we have realized that we cannot exist as a town without something new coming...