Rural Narratives is a podcast about public health, power, and storytelling in North Carolina’s rural communities.
In this series, we explore how trust is built, how narratives take shape, and how communities shape the systems meant to serve them.
Through conversations with organizers, strategists, cultural leaders, and public health thinkers, Rural Narratives examines who gets to define rural communities — and what it means to reclaim those stories from the inside out.
Brunswick mayor Jason Elleby on challenges to growth and looking beyond Election Day
Today is Election Day. Across North Carolina, voters are deciding who will make decisions about healthcare, education, public infrastructure and essential resources and services. But for small rural towns, there’s a larger question that extends beyond any single election: How much influence do residents have over the decisions that shape their communities? And what happens when local leaders know what their communities need but struggle to secure the resources to make those changes poss...
22 Oct 2026
Briyana Baker on Rural Leadership in North Carolina
How do small rural communities in North Carolina influence decisions about healthcare, economic development, and public resources? In this episode of Rural Narratives, host Layna Hong speaks with Briyana Baker, a 25-year-old town commissioner in Conetoe, a community of approximately 200 residents in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. Baker discusses rural leadership, community trust, and the challenges of ensuring that residents have a voice in decisions affecting their health and well-being. ...
7 Oct 2026
The community efforts behind bridging western NC's digital divide
Across western North Carolina, residents are working alongside local government, churches and other organizations to identify where people are being left offline and find ways to connect them. In this episode, we look at what it takes to build that kind of community infrastructure — and what becomes possible when people have access to it. We’ll hear from two people who have been working on these questions for years. Terri Wells is a Buncombe County Commissioner whose family has lived in...
23 Sept 2026
Bridging the Digital Divide in Rural North Carolina | Through The Trees
What does it take to participate fully in community life when so much of it happens online? In rural western North Carolina, digital access can shape whether someone can apply for a job, attend school, reach health and public services, start a business, or stay connected to their community. In this episode of Rural Narratives, we visit Through The Trees in Brevard, North Carolina, where a community effort to close the digital divide has grown beyond broadband access. The organization helps pe...
10 Sept 2026
Public Health Is Human Health: A Story from Columbus County, NC
In Columbus County in rural North Carolina, the COVID-19 pandemic changed how Lisa Richey thought about public health. Lisa came to Columbus County as a banker nearly 40 years ago and made Lake Waccamaw her home. During the pandemic, she began to see public health differently—not as something meant for other people, but as something that belongs to everyone. In this episode of Rural Narratives, Lisa reflects on COVID-19, trust in public health, rural healthcare, and the relationships that hel...
26 Aug 2026
What We Carry With Us
Vicki Wiggins worries about what happens when young people grow up surrounded by violence and become “unfortunately unfazed” by it. In Hertford County, Mayors Weyling White and Yahmale Vaughan and public health leader Amy Underhill each carry experiences from their younger years into the work they do today. Weyling grew up losing people he loved to gun violence. Yahmale was jailed at fifteen before neighbors helped his family hire a lawyer. Amy remembers finding a place to turn at her local h...
29 Jul 2026
Stories from Hertford County: How Public Health Shows Up Every Day
How do we build strong public health systems? In rural Hertford County, North Carolina, the answer begins with people. These stories emerged from community story circles, where neighbors gathered to share their experiences and listen to one another. Through four personal stories, you’ll hear how a childhood vision screening changed one woman’s future, how a community health worker helps neighbors navigate care, why hundreds of residents lined up for COVID-19 vaccines, and how first responders...
17 Jun 2026
Beyond the Rankings: Stories from Columbus County
What does health look like in a rural community? In Columbus County, North Carolina, it looks like a long drive to specialized medical care. It looks like a neighbor sleeping outside in freezing weather. It looks like local leaders building trust, sharing information, and finding ways to help people live longer, healthier lives. In this episode of Rural Narratives, you'll hear four personal stories about healthcare, housing, communication, and community action from residents working to make...
3 Jun 2026
The Hands Behind Our Food: Farmworker Stories from Rural North Carolina
Agriculture contributes billions of dollars to North Carolina’s economy and helps put food on tables across the country. Yet many of the workers who plant, harvest and process that food face barriers to healthcare, emergency information, language access and other resources that help communities thrive. In southeastern North Carolina, farm work is woven into everyday life. Counties like Duplin and Sampson are home to large agricultural industries and vibrant Latino communities whose labor and ...
13 May 2026
The Stories We Tell About Rural Health
Across this series, we’ve explored the stories told about rural communities. This episode examines how rural health is framed — and what those narratives reveal about who belongs, who gets overlooked, and who gets blamed. Sociolinguist Julie Sweetland of the FrameWorks Institute explains how language shapes public understanding of health, responsibility, and community, and why changing the story can change what solutions people believe are possible. Learn more: Read FrameWorks Institute’s wor...
6 May 2026
How trusted messengers in eastern North Carolina are building faith in public health
Public health depends on science. But science alone doesn’t build trust. In rural eastern North Carolina, trust is shaped by lived experience — by whether systems have shown up, whether care is accessible, and whether people feel heard. This week on Rural Narratives, we look at trusted messengers: the neighbors, providers, community health workers, and local leaders who help people make sense of health information because they understand both the facts and the realities of the communities the...
22 Apr 2026
What does it take to strengthen the systems people rely on in southeastern NC?
Health is often talked about as a matter of personal choice. But the truth is, our well-being is shaped by much more than individual decisions — it depends on what resources are nearby, which institutions are supported, and what kinds of help people can count on close to home. This week, producer Rend Smith talks with Les High, a third-generation journalist, founder of the nonprofit newsroom Border Belt Independent, and a volunteer first responder from Columbus County. They talk about what Co...
8 Apr 2026
Inside Black rural life: What we miss when these stories aren’t told
Black communities have long been central to rural life in the South, helping shape the culture, economy and civic life of the places they call home. In North Carolina, nearly half of Black residents live in rural counties, reflecting a history that reaches back to the founding of the country and continues to influence where people live, work and build community today. Yet these stories are too often overlooked in how rural America is understood and portrayed. In this episode, Layna Hong talks...
25 Mar 2026
How access shapes trust in rural systems
In southeastern North Carolina, residents in Columbus County face some of the steepest challenges to living a healthy life. They consistently have the lowest health outcomes in the state. Like in many rural communities, people have to put in more time and effort to access public services and healthcare systems. And a lack of access and familiarity informs how much people trust the systems meant to serve them. In this episode, we look at what builds trust in the systems people rely...
11 Mar 2026
Building rural power with Down Home North Carolina
In this week’s episode, we visited Down Home North Carolina, a non-profit organization that builds rural, multiracial and working-class power across the state through local campaigning and community organizing. Guests: Taí Coates-Wedde, Director of Communications at Down Home North Carolina Jon Council, western North Carolina regional campaigner at Down Home North Carolina Voices: Tatiana Jones, operations manager at Down Home North Carolina Emily Miller, Down Home N...
25 Feb 2026
Who gets to define rural communities?
In our first episode, we ask: Who gets to shape the stories that define rural communities? Welcome to Rural Narratives, a new podcast about public health in North Carolina’s rural communities. In this series, storytelling isn’t just about the news — it’s a way to listen, learn, and understand how meaning is made. We speak with: • Dee Davis, President of the Center for Rural Strategies • Makani Themba, Chief Strategist of Higher Ground Change Strategies • Mik Moore, CEO of Moore + Associates T...
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