What’s There To Do in Abilene? with Julie Roller Weeks, episode 14

Summary: 

On Health on the Plains, episode 14, Wyatt Beckman takes us to Abilene to meet with Julie Roller Weeks, director of the Abilene Convention and Visitors Bureau. Abilene, the boyhood home of President Eisenhower, is known for its historical significance and award-winning tourism. A dedicated advocate, cheerleader and collaborator, Weeks advocates embracing new and creative ideas while celebrating history, fostering a positive image to enhance quality of life and economic growth. Roller Weeks emphasizes the role of community pride and collaboration in attracting new opportunities such as physician recruitment and business investments. The conversation highlights how strong local champions, cross-sector collaboration and a willingness to experiment help tackle local challenges and create vibrant communities people want to visit – and call home.

Episode Highlights

• 1:45 – 8:40 Julie discusses the importance of an asset-based approach when championing a rural community, and how being positive about what is going well can be a fresh outlook that attracts other opportunities.
• 9:35 – 12:04 Wyatt asks Julie to describe balancing the unique history of a place while finding growth areas for future endeavors and new opportunities.
• 12:20 – 14:35 Julie describes approaching challenges and opportunities rural communities face in innovative ways, from her position focused on economic development and tourism.
• 15:00 – 19:30 Wyatt asks Julie to explain how cross collaboration is key to her approach.
• 19:35 – 26:30 Julie discusses different approaches she has developed in Abilene such as internship and scholarship programs to retain and attract young professionals back to the community.
• 27:00 – 35:35 Wyatt and Julie wrap up by discussing the potential in rural communities and how they can improve their communities through creativity and leaning into enthusiasm and positivity.

Transcript

Voice over 0:00
This is Health on the Plains, a podcast about rural communities, rural life and the many factors influencing the health and wellbeing of rural Kansans. Health on the Plains is a podcast from the Kansas Health Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization, committed to informing policy and improving health in Kansas, through honest, nuanced conversations with leaders and doers from a variety of backgrounds. The Health on the Plains podcast offers unique insights into rural health challenges in Kansas, and shines a light on the people and organizations working to make their communities healthier, more vibrant places to call home.

Wyatt Beckman 0:41
Welcome back to another episode of Health on the Plains. We are here in Abilene, Kansas, here at the old depot. We just wrapped up a wonderful conversation with Julie Roller Weeks. She is the Director for the Abilene Convention and Visitors Bureau. We had a really great conversation, talking about all sorts of ways that we think about and celebrate what makes small towns unique, lean into the positive things to talk about, bring people together in collaboration and work to solve those hard challenges. It’s a really great conversation with lots of actionable advice, and I hope you enjoy. Well, welcome back to another episode of Health on the Plains. I’m your host, Wyatt Beckman. Today we are in Abilene, historic cow town, President Eisenhower’s childhood home, and I would say a rural Kansas community that our guest today is helping put on the map in a lot of ways. I’m here talking with Julie Roller Weeks, a self-proclaimed proud ruby-sneaker wearing Kansan, who serves as the Director for the Abilene Convention and Visitors Bureau, or the CVB. The Abilene CVB is a department of the City of Abilene, and the goal of the CVB is to generate economic growth in Abilene, Kansas, through tourism. Through Julie’s leadership here in Abilene, and a lot of great community collaboration, Abilene has won numerous awards over the past several years. Just to name a few: Top 10 True Western Town of the Year, Number 3, Best Historic Small Town, and so many more. On a personal level, in 2023 Julie was named one of Ingram’s Magazine’s 50 Kansans You Should Know, so we’re gonna get to know you today. Before joining the CVB, Julie serves on the Ag Marketing team at the Kansas Department of Agriculture, where she supported Kansas farmers, ranchers and agribusiness. Worked on the From the Land of Kansas program. She also worked at the Pottawatomie County Economic Development Corporation. She also served as Kansas Main Street Director in Augusta. Julie has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications from K-State and is currently completing her Master of Public Administration degree at Wichita State University. Julie, we are super excited to be with you today. Thanks for joining us.

Julie Roller Weeks 1:44
Well, thank you for visiting Abilene. We appreciate it.

Wyatt Beckman 1:45
So there’s lots of places we could start, and KHI, our work, we do lots of different things across all that we’re trying to better understand and inform efforts to improve all the many factors that shape health in Kansas. We talk about things like insurance, health care access and workforce, access to healthy food and lots of other things. And all of those issues in rural communities are complex and multifaceted, but where I want to go to start our conversation is something that I think sits underneath working on all those challenges and opportunities, and it’s something I think in your work you think about often, and it’s how rural communities think about themselves, and how they talk about themselves, and how they see themselves, And that underlying story, or that image that plays in our mind when we mention Abilene or rural Kansas, I think that influences, or can influence, how we show up to collaborate, how we envision the future of our community, how we partner in our community. And unfortunately, I think sometimes the loudest or only story that we hear about rural communities is that they’re dying or they’re falling behind. And we know rural communities have room for improvement, but I think oftentimes those narratives sell ourself short and maybe get in the way. So when you think about that and think about all your work that you are doing here in Abilene, how does that show up in your work, how a community sees and thinks about itself, how does that influence the way you all collaborate or innovate or solve problems?

Julie Roller Weeks 3:16
I think positivity attracts positivity. And if you have a negative attitude about your community, that’s what you’re going to get. What you put out into the world is what you’re going to get back. And so when I think about our partnerships, is everything always amazing in Abilene, no, we know that it’s not. But are we going to project anything different, no, because if we are not the best champion for our community, nobody else is going to save us. I love when I go to Topeka and legislators stop me and ask about a project going on in Abilene, because they’re part of our e-distribution list for our newsletter that goes out every week, or they’re friends with me on social media, and they see all the positive things. The fact that I’m sharing good news about my community attracts more good things to come. And if I wasn’t sharing that, you guys wouldn’t be here today. A lot of the people who visit our community, a lot of the people who write about our community, all the stories, the opportunities that come our way are because I’m positive about our community, and I think for rural communities, we have to be our number one best champion, because nobody else is going to save us.

Wyatt Beckman 6:26
And I think you’ve shared a story, and I think that positivity can absolutely play a role in how people think about and engage in a town. And sometimes when we talk about perspective or perceptions of town, we focus on how people outside of town view us, right? But it can also be people within your own town, and you shared this story about physician recruitment. Can you tell me about that?

Julie Roller Weeks 6:51
Yes, and I wish I would have saved the Facebook post. But years ago, when I was working in another job, I was following a community’s Facebook page, and they just were constantly harping on all of the negative and they had a hospital that was trying to find a doctor to come in, and the doctor’s wife that they were trying to recruit went and commented on this page and it said something like this, “Hey guys, we were being recruited to come to your community. My husband is a new doctor. We were looking for a place to call home. We had a great visit. We met with realtors, we looked at homes. Everything we did was just wonderful. The people we met with, they had done a great job of cheerleading for their community. But we wanted to get beyond the surface, beyond the sales pitch, and so we started looking around at your online presence, and the way that you all speak to each other, and the way that you attack anything new and different, and just the criticism that’s going on in this community, this is just not the vibe we’re looking for. And so we’re not going to be coming here.” And several years later, that town lost its hospital. And that vibe, I mean, your vibe attracts your tribe, right? And what you put out there, you never know who’s looking you never know what business opportunity businesses are looking to relocate. And I think we’d be foolish if we thought that site selectors never look at our online presence and the vibe of the community, and if a community is going to support something, I heard a story about a Sonic that was trying to be recruited to go into a small town, and the site selector finally said, “guys like, I’ve seen the way you attack a new restaurant, and you have such little bandwidth for lack of perfection. And nothing is perfect all the time, not at all. And we just, we don’t need this right now, and so we’re not going to locate in your community.”

Wyatt Beckman 8:40
Thanks for sharing that story. And in that you mentioned a couple of things, and it connects really well to another thing I want to talk about, this challenge, sometimes of openness or lack of openness to new things. And I think. So I was recently back home, and back home for me means back in Ness County, where I where I grew up, where my family is, and I was there for this wonderful event called Old Settlers. It happens once every five years. It’s this big event, multi day, there’s music, there’s games and parade, and it’s a wonderful time. And a lot of what it does, and a lot of the events focus on the history of Ness County, and people coming back and appreciating the history of nest County, I think they do a really good, great job of that. I think there’s something really meaningful and powerful about recognizing the unique history of a place, the unique assets of a place, the unique character of a community. At the same time, yes, I think there can be this tension embedded in that of if that can turn into resistance or lack of openness to a new idea, a new partnership, a new event, a new business, and that can show up in a lot of the things we think about for health too, a new health clinic, a new doctor, a new partner. So when you think about your work, how do you balance those two things? Because Abilene has a lot of history.

Julie Roller Weeks 10:20
We have a ton of history, and that’s amazing, but we don’t want to be the town that you visited once. We don’t want to be the town that you came to on your third grade field trip and you never come again. And so while I’m not trying to rewrite our history, I mean, it’s written, how do we tell that story in a different way? One of those things is the Kansas Gun Smoke Trail, and we’ve just recently received another award for that project. But we have incredible cowboy history here in Kansas. And two years ago, I was scrolling Facebook at night, and I found a Facebook group for Gunsmoke fans. I thought, “Oh my goodness. Like, there’s a Facebook group for this.” And it had like 150,000 people in it. It’s like, “oh my goodness, all right.” My in laws are from northwest Kansas. Gunsmoke is on TV when we go to visit, right? And so, I started looking at it, and somebody posed the question, “Are there still towns in Kansas connected to Gunsmoke?” Thought, “sure,” start Googling Wild Bill Hickok, Abilene featured in Gunsmoke at one point. Cool. So, I reached out to Dodge City, Hays and Wichita, and said, “Let’s start the Kansas Gunsmoke trail.” It’s not a new story. We’re just packaging our cowboy story in a different way. And now it’s tied to a television show that people can recognize. People who love Gunsmoke are retired, they have disposable income, they want to travel, and this gave them an easy way to do it. So any cowboy attraction in my community is under the auspices or the umbrella of Kansas Gunsmoke Trail now. And we have bus tours coming and following this entirely made up trail to visit these cowboy-themed attractions. So it’s not rewriting our history, it’s marketing it in a different way and celebrating that and getting new people to come to our community to experience it.

Wyatt Beckman 12:05
Yeah, what a what a great example. And you said, you know, it’s not, a new thing. It’s not and you could, make a parallel to some of the challenges and opportunities in rural communities. A lot of the challenges are going to remain the same. We want access to care, health care. We want good schools, we want opportunities for recreation. So a lot of the same goals, and that history is still there. But can you be open to approaching those challenges in a new way?

Julie Roller Weeks 12:35
Absolutely, in tourism, we love to tell the story that if you build a place that people want to visit, you build a place where people want to live. And if people want to live in a community, they’re going to want to work there. And if people want to work, business is going to be there. And if businesses are there, now you have a place where people want to visit. So it all starts with a visit. Whether it’s a site selector coming to your community or a tourist, everyone is first a visitor in a town. And what draws you to communities? I mean, we can look across the state and there are communities that are thriving and there are communities that aren’t, but what makes a difference, it’s the people. It’s that culture. And if you build a place that people want to live or to visit, it all comes together. They’ll live there, the business will be there, all the good things.

Wyatt Beckman 13:20
And that’s true for all the professionals that want to recruit, certainly physician recruitment, that’s the challenge that continues and is persistent and extends to other health professionals and going back to, can we create a place that people want to be?

Julie Roller Weeks 13:37
Years ago, when I was in economic development, we I just started there, and my boss said, we’re going to work on a trail project. And I thought, What in the world does a trail have to do with economic development? And he explained it this way, baby boomers are retiring. There’s not enough people to fill those jobs, so we have to make our county the best place to live. And what do people who are young, who are, you know, graduating who are looking, you know, for those jobs, what is something that they are attracted to? It’s like outdoor recreation and trails. And so if we can build out a trail system, we can help attract workforce to work in the hospitals, to work in manufacturing, to, you know, whatever that is. Quality of life really matters. And economic development can be grassroots in focusing on making your community the best place to live. And if you do that, the rest will fall in place. That’s why you see towns investing in sports complexes to attract families who have children, you know, who they don’t want to be here, who they don’t want to work here. All of those pieces quality of life is economic development.

Wyatt Beckman 14:37
And quality of life oftentimes, when are in my shoes, I talk about health, health can feel kind of abstract, or sometimes it can feel really narrow, like we’re just talking about taking care of, managing a health issue. Quality of life and health have a really big overlap. If we start framing or having conversations around quality of life, I think there’s a seat at that table for a lot of people, and it makes me want to ask about this cross collaboration-

Julie Roller Weeks 15:10
Yeah.

Wyatt Beckman 15:10
-across multiple sectors. We’re sitting in a partner space. We just like opened the door and we walked over, the Community Foundation space. You talked about the really good partnership with them. How does working across partners, across sectors, play into your work? Because I think that’s an often underappreciated aspect of doing almost anything.

Julie Roller Weeks 15:36
Collaboration is key, and I couldn’t do what I do without the Community Foundation of Dickinson County. They are the absolute best partner. I cannot say enough good things. When I speak at conferences, I say, “Your number one partner needs to be your community foundation.” You would be surprised at how many people don’t know about that. If I write grants, they can be match money. They’re connected to donors in the community. And you never know what conversation will be had where a donor says, “You know what? That’s cool. I want to invest in that.” They’re trying to continue all of our communities in the county and thinking about the quality of life and visitors and economic development and all of those pieces. The community foundation is huge. You know, in every town it looks different, but ours really has taken a proactive role in community and economic development.

Wyatt Beckman 16:35
Something that I’ve seen in some articles that describe you, they describe you as Abilene’s cheerleader, because you do. I think it’s absolutely a compliment. You do such a great job celebrating about and sharing about Abilene.

Julie Roller Weeks 16:42
Yeah.

Wyatt Beckman 16:41
But if I’m being honest, when I think about cheerleaders, cheerleaders are on the sidelines. They’re often not in the game.

Julie Roller Weeks 17:47
Yeah?

Wyatt Beckman 16:50
And when I hear and read about all the work you’re doing, all the the things you’ve helped bring to Abilene, it seems like you’re in the game. It seems like you’re writing letters of support, you’re securing grants, you’re sitting on boards. You’re doing a lot more than just sharing, but you’re proactively collaborating.

Julie Roller Weeks 17:13
Right.

Wyatt Beckman 17:15
But that, I think sometimes what comes with that, that doing both is, and you touched on different partners coming together. How do you create a space where your main job and focus is tourism? Your partner at the hospital, their main job and focus is providing care to patients. Your partner at the school is, their main job is educating kids. How do you create a shared vision when you do need to collaborate on something that everyone has a little piece of, but no one has complete?

Julie Roller Weeks 17:51
Most definitely. I think it’s staying in your lane. It’s respecting your partners and championing them. I don’t want their jobs. I don’t. But I need them to be in those positions. So I will certainly cheer for them. I will do anything I can to collaborate with them. So when the hospital is recruiting new doctors and they need welcome bags and gift baskets to try to, you know, just show all of the cool Abilene swag and get the vibe of our community, I’m happy to provide that. I want to be a good partner that way. And so I think it’s respecting everyone’s lane and seeing how we can help each other. So if the hospital is working on a project and they need a letter of support because they’re adding a mural to one of their facilities, I’m happy to provide that letter of support. But I think particularly in small towns, cheerleaders might be on the sidelines, but I think we’d be foolish to think that they weren’t influencing that team a little bit as well. If a cheerleader and a football player aren’t having a great day, that can affect the game as well, but really just being that good partner and a good teammate. And so then when it’s, you know, my time to shine, my partners are also supporting me as well.

Wyatt Beckman 18:52
And I would imagine being a good partner necessitates that you know each other,

Julie Roller Weeks 18:57
Yes.

Wyatt Beckman 18:58
-and know what the other cares about and what they’re good at and what that lane is.

Julie Roller Weeks 19:02
Oh definitely. You know, we’ve had a lot of changes in our community and leadership roles, but trying to welcome the new ones in, to support those who are still here, who are still in the trenches, who are still doing the work, day in and day out, I think, is key. And stability is so important. And sometimes small towns have a short fuse. And if we could have a little grace and a little patience and keep people in their positions a little while longer, you’re able to build something. The things I can do today in my job, I could not have done day one, but it’s a snowball, and little by little, you build that credibility.

Wyatt Beckman 19:39
The short fuse, I’m dwelling on that. We talked earlier about creating a place that people want to be,

Julie Roller Weeks 19:49
Yeah.

Wyatt Beckman 19:50
-as well. And I think about things like school or hospitals or health department. Sometimes that stability in professionals there can really be meaningful to a community.

Julie Roller Weeks 20:07
It can make or break.

Wyatt Beckman 20:08
Yeah, my hometown, we had the same family physician for decades,

Julie Roller Weeks 20:13
Yeah.

Wyatt Beckman 20:13
-and my quality of care wouldn’t have been the same without his tenure there, and knowing our family, and building that relationship. But to accomplish that, you have to, it’s almost a community-wide effort to make a place that people want to invest in.

Julie Roller Weeks 20:32
Without a doubt, and that they feel supported, and to know that nobody does something perfect 100% of the time. We don’t, and people don’t do something new perfectly the first time. You know, we have to have some grace. And I think sometimes in communities, our fuse is short. But realize that every time somebody leaves your community, it’s harder to replace them. It’s way easier to grow and help the person that you have than trying to recruit somebody new. You look at, for our community, city managers. And several years ago, I was at a city manager training, and they said, “Here’s the deal, Kansas, you don’t pay anything for city managers compared to other parts of the state, and there aren’t enough graduates coming out of the programs to fill the vacancies. And so you need to really look at who you have that you can grow and have some grace with and really invest in those people.” There’s just there’s so much competition for those roles that if your community has a reputation of churn and burn and that short fuse, that can really make a difference. If you look at opportunities, it’s relationship-based. And things come to my community, honestly, because, I mean, people would know me and they know that I’m going to follow through. But if this role was changing every year or every two years, I don’t think other partners around the state or around the country would be investing in Abilene, because they don’t know what the playing field is going to be. And so we need to support each other and help grow each other. And yeah, there’s going to be bumps and bruises along the way. We all make mistakes, but you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Wyatt Beckman 22:08
And it makes me think about, a connected piece of that is, we have young professionals that or young kids that are graduating high school, and goes back to where we started. How do they see this community?

Julie Roller Weeks 22:27
Yeah.

Wyatt Beckman 22:27
Do they see this as somewhere where I go off to college, we all want you to do that, or I go off and I get my trade skills, whatever it may be. Oftentimes, it’s when we’re talking about a small town, you’ve got to go somewhere to get that training. But when it’s done, do you see a future here, where you can come back and you can have a good life, you can have a career? And how do we make that easier for you to come back? And I know one piece of that, that I think you’ve been involved in, is your, “I love Abilene” campaign, tell me about that campaign.

Julie Roller Weeks 22:59
So Love Kansas is a statewide initiative trying to recruit people back to Kansas. I mean, some of our greatest exports are our people. They have amazing education in our state, higher education in our state, and they’re recruited by other states for those careers. But how do we get them to come back home? I mean, the easiest person to recruit to your community is somebody who’s familiar with it. And I think that that’s just, it’s a really big piece of it. I say I’m a boomerang. I left Dickinson County. I didn’t anticipate that I would come back home. And eight or nine years ago, my position opened up, and I thought, “You know what, I think I’m ready to go back.” And I did, and it was the perfect time. I got to experience other things, and then I got to come home. And coming home, I’m originally from Dickinson County, not Abilene proper, but that familiarity that my community has with me, I started off with a level of trust, and that really was huge. And I think inviting people back is a really big deal. And so the Love Kansas campaign, the Love Abilene campaign, it’s happening all across our state, but talking to those people saying, “You know what? Now you have a family. Think about the, you know, the great childhood you had. Wouldn’t you want that for your kids as well?” And so if we have great quality of life here, we invest in some of those facilities that families are looking for, maybe some of those families will come back home.

Wyatt Beckman 24:09
When we think about that story of the physician recruitment, one way that that can play out is, if you’re the local hospital, you’re the local schools, how can you support those that are interested in a career in health care, and early on, lay that foundation of, “Hey, what are ways we can get you experience here and make it inviting for you to come back, to where, when we’re looking for that position, we’re looking internally too.”

Julie Roller Weeks 24:44
Oh, absolutely. It’s, you know, looking at those internship opportunities. One of the neatest programs we have here in Dickinson County was started five years ago or so, and it’s called Dickinson County CEO, and it takes a group of students from across the county, and they meet every single day somewhere in the county in a business, and they’re learning about that business. And these aren’t necessarily your valedictorian of the class. They’re people who have grit. They want to work. Traditional school might not be so much for them, but they’re smart, they’re savvy, like they’re hungry, they want to do something more. And so these kids, you know, 10 to 20 of them, you know, depends on the year, come together. They learn about the opportunities right here in Dickinson County, and it’s amazing to hear their story. From the start of the school year to the end, they said, “I had no idea so many cool things happen here in business,” but without that program, they wouldn’t have known. They start, you know, a class business. They start individual businesses, and if we got just one or two of them to come back home every year, we’d be winning. There’s just, there’s so much opportunity if we welcome people home. I have a friend who was from Colorado, and in her high school graduating class, they gave everybody a suitcase and said, “Go out and make something of yourself.” And that message was, there’s nothing for you here. You have to leave. But how do we offer, you know, here’s a mailbox, and we want you to come back home and put your mailbox here. We want you to come back home. Our community foundation has a great scholarship home program, so we scholarship kids out to school, right? But how do we incentivize them to come back? And so you have student loan debt if you come back home, you know, come to Dickinson County, you buy a home, you know, you have you work in a business. Whatever those parameters are, we’ll help with your student loan debt. So let’s recruit them back, not just send them away.

Wyatt Beckman 26:16
And so much embedded in all of those programs, all those ideas is, there’s something good here.

Julie Roller Weeks 26:31
Yes.

Wyatt Beckman 26:35
It’s worth sharing, that’s worth being proud of. And yes, we have our challenges and we’re working on those together, but we can hold both of those things at the same time. We can say, “There’s stuff we need to get better at.”

Julie Roller Weeks 26:52
Everyone has stuff they can get better at. Johnson County has things they can get better at. All of us do. It’s not one or the other, but it’s the lens that with you see it. If you want to only see the bad, you’re only going to see the bad. But when you stop and look around, there’s a lot of good. I’ve started a Good News Friday, and it’s a chance for me to recap all the good things that happened that week, and I share it online. And, you know, sometimes it can be completely as insignificant as so and so, you know, like they pulled the weeds in front of their business. And doesn’t it look great? It doesn’t have to be big things. But when you stop and look for good, you’re going to see it, but what you put out is what you get back.

Wyatt Beckman 27:32
And I imagine you’re getting just as much value from people within Abilene, seeing that as people outside.

Julie Roller Weeks 27:39
Totally, I mean, we have a great reputation, and I wish sometimes that our own residents would see Abilene the way visitors do. I wish that they would come and work our visitors center and hear all of the positive. Because when visitors come to Abilene, they don’t see the bad, they don’t see the weeds, they don’t see the curb that needs to be painted. They just see the good. They’re on vacation. They’re wowed by our community. They’ve pulled off of Interstate. They’re greeted with American flags lining the street, and they’re like, “This is what’s right with America.”

Wyatt Beckman 28:11
You know, Abilene, we drove in and we drove by the giant spur,

Julie Roller Weeks 28:17
Yes.

Wyatt Beckman 28:18
-and there’s some other giants around Abilene. And it’s, Abilene is known for a certain fellow,

Julie Roller Weeks 28:27
Yes.

Wyatt Beckman 28:29
-we saw it on the street. We still like Ike,

Julie Roller Weeks 28:32
Yeah!

Wyatt Beckman 28:32
-Eisenhower. So, you know, in many ways, Abilene has some really unique historical and cultural assets. And I can imagine someone listening to this in another town going, “Well, we don’t have a President, we don’t have the world’s largest belt buckle.”

Julie Roller Weeks 28:51
But you could, we didn’t either, until a few years ago.

Wyatt Beckman 28:55
So yeah, so let’s think about, how do you, how do you think about the role of of tourism, even in those cases where they would say that worked for you, but that can’t work for us. We don’t have those assets.

Julie Roller Weeks 29:10
You can create it. For example, WaKeeney is known as the Christmas City of the High Plains, right? They have a new festival this summer, and it is called Leon Day. And do you know what Leon Day is?

Wyatt Beckman 29:21
Noel backwards?

Julie Roller Weeks 29:22
Yes. Like, how cool is that. It’s entirely made up. Think of Independence, Kansas. For over 100 years, they have celebrated Neewollah, and that is Halloween backwards, and it is a big festival in Independence. You don’t have to have a president. You don’t have to be along, you know, the end of the Chisholm Trail to create new history. I would absolutely love a museum that highlighted, maybe my parents’ history, my childhood toys, like, where’s the 1980s museum exhibit. You can create that. I just spoke at a conference for a midwest travel network and DMOS from around the country, and it’s just, you know, like, if you don’t have it, create it. And if you do it with complete enthusiasm, you’re going to get earned media off of it. You’re going to get visitation. So rather than investing in ads, invest in the product, and that will bring people back to your community. Do cool things, and people will talk about you, and they’re going to want to visit.

Wyatt Beckman 30:18
Great advice. Let’s end with couple, a couple things. There’s this brochure here,

Julie Roller Weeks 30:28
Yeah.

Wyatt Beckman 30:28
-which is chock full of tons of things to do. But on the front, has this quote.

Julie Roller Weeks 30:36
Isn’t it the best quote ever?

Wyatt Beckman 30:37
From, from President Eisenhower, “The proudest thing I can claim is that I’m from Abilene.” And I see this quote in lots of places, and for good reason. When I think about a through line of all of your work,

Julie Roller Weeks 30:52
Yeah.

Wyatt Beckman 30:53
-and all the collaboration, it’s having more people feel like they hear that and they can agree with it,

Wyatt Beckman 31:02
Yeah.

Wyatt Beckman 31:03
-feel some of the same thing. And it makes me wonder, if we had more towns, more rural towns, where people, despite the challenges, despite the gaps, were proud of their community. How would that shape how they showed up in meetings to collaborate on saving their hospital or how they showed up in meetings to talk about addressing the the challenge they have with a school, or whatever it may be. If there was more of that collaborative pride, how would that show up?

Julie Roller Weeks 31:39
It would be absolutely amazing if we flip that conversation, focus on the positive, and if you celebrate the positive and you’re so proud of it, then you can start acknowledging and tackling some of those bigger challenges. But if you only focus on the negative, who wants to invest in the negative? You know, if I were a Wall Street banker and I was looking to where I was going to where I was going to invest my money. Would I want to invest it in a failing corporation? No, I’d want to invest in something that’s strong, that’s, you know, rising. Our best history, I mean, doesn’t have to be in the past. We can create new history. I mean, Abilene doesn’t have to be only Chisholm Trial and Eisenhower. What are we doing moving forward? How are we making our community the best place to live? Our story isn’t complete.

Wyatt Beckman 32:25
What a great, “Our best history doesn’t have to be in the past.”

Julie Roller Weeks 32:28
It doesn’t. It doesn’t. We have so many good things, and we can make more good things if we just work together and we are positive. Acknowledge the negative. What’s not great? That’s fine. But let’s now focus on the positive, because nobody wants to be around somebody, or work with somebody that just, it sucks the life out of you. You don’t need that negativity. Let’s focus on the good.

Wyatt Beckman 32:51
I think that can be really valuable advice for all of us that are trying to work to make rural communities healthier, more vibrant places. But I think there’s probably a lot of people that are in a position that maybe is similar to yours, or maybe informally, they have taken on the role of they care about their communities. They want to see it better. They want to honor all the great history and past. But they also are open to creating a new history-

Julie Roller Weeks 33:22
A 1980s museum!

Wyatt Beckman 33:23
What advice would you give to that person that sits in a similar spot to you in our rural communities?

Julie Roller Weeks 33:30
Embrace every opportunity and do it with complete enthusiasm and positivity. It’s amazing the opportunities that will come your way when you just say “Yes.” I have a wish list of things that I would love for Abilene. And several weeks ago, a woman contacted me and was able to help me with one of those items on my wish list, and she’s from out of state and all those things. And I was like, “Yes, this is amazing. I’m on board.” I said, “I can see this through.” And she said, “Alright, like we’re gonna work together on it.” But embrace the opportunity. Don’t figure out ways to say “no,” figure out ways to say “yes.”

Wyatt Beckman 34:06
What a great way for us to end, figure out ways to say yes. I’m so thankful you said yes to this conversation, and I’ve had just a wonderful time talking with you, learning more about your work and the way you think about celebrating your community, and facilitating collaboration. And starting from a place of honoring the past, building on the resources, but being open to creating new history in innovative, creative ways. I think that’s evergreen advice and ideas that apply to all sorts of the, across the spectrum of ways that our communities are working to make their communities better. Thank you with full enthusiasm,

Julie Roller Weeks 34:49
Oh, good!

Wyatt Beckman 34:50
-for your time, and I really appreciate it, and can’t wait for us to go check out some of these great Abilene sites.

Julie Roller Weeks 34:55
Oh, go check them all out. Check out the belt buckle. Check out the world’s largest I Like Ike Button. We just have some cool things going on. I think people assume we have a huge budget, and we do not. And so the way that I’m able to market Abilene is through that earned media. And so we do cool projects, we send out the press releases, we get the media. And any town can do that. You just have to communicate what you’re doing, but do it with positivity and just embrace the opportunity. Why not, right? Let’s have some fun.

Wyatt Beckman 35:25
Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for welcoming us. Really appreciate you giving us the time.

Julie Roller Weeks 35:30
Great. Well, thank you so much.

Voice over 35:31
You just heard Health on the Plains. Look for new episodes twice per month. Follow us on social media and continue to listen to the latest episodes, wherever you regularly listen to podcasts. Learn more at khi.org/podcast. Thanks for listening.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai