Looking at Numbers, Finding a Story

Molly Messick / StateImpact Idaho

When I went to Camas County to report our recent story about Fairfield, I was thinking about numbers.  The county is rural and small.  That means it has a low population — about 1,100 people — which makes its unemployment rate a moving target.  In August, unemployment in Camas County stood at 16.7 percent.  Only Adams County had a higher rate, at 16.8.  In September, the most recent month for which numbers are available, Camas County’s rate was a much better-sounding 11.8 percent.

I was thinking about all of this because of the general story idea I was aiming to follow.  Idaho is somewhat unusual in that its unemployment rate has gone up since the summer of 2009.  (That’s when the Great Recession officially ended, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.)  Camas County’s unemployment rate reflects this post-recession rise.  In late 2007 and early 2008, unemployment hovered in the three to four percent range.  As the recession progressed, unemployment inched up, moving toward five, six and seven percent.  It was only in mid-2009 that Camas County’s rate hit 10 percent, and in 2010 that it began to reach highs between 14 and 16 percent.

What did all of this mean in the actual county and to the actual people living there?  I wasn’t sure.  I had spoken to some very helpful and knowledgeable people — a Department of Labor economist, a Department of Commerce business development specialist, the vice-president of a nonprofit economic development group — but none of them lives in Camas County, either.  The local people I reached told me things weren’t great, but I still didn’t have a clear picture.  Sometimes, it takes a visit.

The first person I met was David Hanks, the former mayor of Fairfield, Camas County’s only town.   As we talked, I started to understand the particular weight of the downturn in this small community.  He described the pain of watching a local family — people he knows, because in a town of 400, everyone knows everyone — being evicted from their home.  He talked about how hard it was to lay off four of the more than 30 local employees who work for his company, High Country Fusion, after the economy finally started to affect business early this year.

Hanks is the sort of person who radiates enthusiasm, and he clearly pours a lot of that energy into his community.  To meet one person with that kind of love for a town is remarkable.  Meeting many such people over the course of one day more or less blew my mind.  It’s hard to describe the feeling with which a person can say, “I love this town.”  You have to hear the tape.  In the case of this story, there were too many examples.  Many people said it and in many different ways, too many to include in a single radio story.

I began the reporting process thinking about numbers.  I found a story about a town that was on its way up and that is now fighting to hang on.  Many local people are fighting for it.  Fairfield is a beloved place.