Rural by Choice: seeing another side

There are problems with rural areas, but if everyone were like me and saw the hospitals leaving and decided this is it, this is where I pack my bag and run, it would only get worse. We all have such great opportunity to help here. Even if it’s just by dumping the negative views of these rural areas. Even if it’s realizing that there is more than the two severe points on the spectrum, that the middle ground exists and should be acknowledged. I hate the negative attitude I have adopted about my rural area, that I have accepted all the one-sided stories. That I took everyone else’s complaints and carried them on my shoulders. I realize [now] that those single stories never spoke for me.  After I pass the barn each day I continue my drive down to my piece of heaven (which also serves slices of heaven). The bakery of my boss and role model, Stuart Shull, stands just a couple of miles away from the National Forest. His business is a shining beacon of what rural areas need. It’s an example of the potential these areas have. He bought an old destroyed building when he was in his early 20s with his wife, Anissa. Both are professional bread and pastry chefs. Then with a whole lot of help from the community of Tellico, they managed to revamp the pile of brick and sheet rock into Tellico Grains Bakery, which is in its 16th year of business.