“Dreama Gentry, a fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and founder of the nonprofit Partners for Rural Impact, emphasized the national stakes of rural inclusion in a keynote address.
‘We have to refine the American dream, we have to continue to create a nation where every person — every young person — has a chance to be successful,’ Gentry said. ‘I don’t think we’ll be able to do that until rural America is engaged and not written off and not vilified.’
Gentry received HURL’s inaugural Rural Representative Award at the forum’s close.”