Society & Culture

Reframing Rural

by Megan Torgerson

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Latest episodes

Bonus | Live from Old Salt Festival with Amber Smith and Jaimie Stoltzfus

October 1, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min

Sitting in the shade at the 4th annual Old Salt Festival in Helmville, Montana, Megan Torgerson interviews Amber Smith and Jaimie Stoltzfus about their journeys into ranching and motherhood. Amber and Jaimie are both first generation…
The Obit Project: Obituary for a Small Town

July 28, 2026 · 38 min

This episode about Megan Torgerson's hometown - Dagmar, Montana - originally aired on The Obit Project podcast and on Montana Public Radio, summer 2026. The audio obituary for Dagmar (in-town population: 10), asks how do you know when a…
Bonus | Nature Breaking: America is Losing its Grasslands – Why it Matters

July 1, 2026 · 33 min

In collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund's Nature Breaking podcast, we're bringing you a conversation between Nature Breaking host Seth Larson and vice president of WWF's Great Plains program, Martha Kaufmann. In this episode, Megan…
Succession Stories | Bonus | Country Musician Sterling Drake Tackles the Rural Mental Health Conversation

May 26, 2026 · 58 min

Sterling Drake is a musician from Philipsburg, Montana, who is using his platform to talk about mental health in agricultural communities. In effort to destigmatize the topic and connect people to resources, Sterling is talking about it in…
Bonus | A New Angle: "Megan Torgerson is reframing rural" & "Rural vs. Urban with Trevor Brown"

April 28, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

We've teamed up with A New Angle podcast to bring you two back to back episodes from their show hosted by Justin Angle a professor at the University of Montana College of Business. The first episode features an interview with Megan…

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Succession Stories | Bonus | The Tilt of the World with Joe Wilkins, Author of "The Entire Sky"

March 31, 2026 · 57 min

In this companion episode to our "Succession" season, Megan sits down with author Joe Wilkins to explore the pressures facing rural communities and how fiction can help us understand them more deeply. Joe's award-winning novel "The Entire…
Succession Stories | Bonus | Our Season Partner, Winnett ACES

February 25, 2026 · 1 hr 21 min

Megan shares an update from Winnett ACES since her first reporting trip to Winnett, three years ago, then re-airs the season three episode "Winnett ACES: Strengthening Community & Keeping Ranchers on Working Lands." In this story, she…
Succession Stories | Bonus | Megan's Family Succession Story

January 23, 2026 · 55 min

From the archives, we bring you Megan's family succession story "Farm Succession in Northeast Montana," the season three story of Megan's dad Russ Torgerson's retirement. In this episode, Megan shares the intimate journey of her family's…
Succession Stories | Bonus | A Roadmap to Farm and Ranch Succession Planning

December 16, 2025 · 1 hr 29 min

You've heard the stories of succession planning from families around Montana this season, and now you're ready to start thinking about succession planning for your own family's farm or ranch. In this bonus episode, we bring you a two-part…
Succession Stories | 5 | Back to Grass

December 9, 2025 · 52 min

Sig Pugrud's ranch sits on a high bench above Flatwillow Creek, in one of the least-populated counties in the United States. Her family homesteaded in Petroleum County, Montana in 1910, surviving drought, the Dust Bowl, the farm crisis of…
Succession Stories | 4 | The Messy Middle

December 3, 2025 · 56 min

When Jake Fritz moved back home at 19, four generations were trying to make a living off the same acres northwest of Chester, Montana. With no succession plan from the senior generation, Jake's mother Dena and her husband Jim were leasing…
Succession Stories | 3 | From Sand to Soil

November 25, 2025 · 1 hr 7 min

In the beaver flats outside Ekalaka, Montana, Ryan and Abbey Bruski are upending convention on their multi-generational ranch. After realizing that their traditional cow-calf model wasn't working for the land or the family, they sold the…

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About the show

Reframing Rural is the award-winning documentary podcast founded in 2019 by writer, Montanan and farmer's daughter, Megan Torgerson. Reframing Rural does the much needed work of challenging stigmas about rural places by introducing listeners to working people, history and culture that don't always get the spotlight. Season 1 transports listeners to Torgerson's rural homeplace, a tight-knit agricultural community on the plains of far Northeast Montana. Season 2 sows hope in the future of the rural West and Heartland through interviews with rural activists, academics, artists and entrepreneurs. Season 3 combines narrative episodes with interviews to probe the status quo of agriculture, explore farm stress and the need for rural mental health care, the familial challenges of farm and ranch succession planning, the Indigenous roots of regenerative agriculture and the threats of rural gentrification and cultural extraction. Season 4 shares the stories of five Montana farm and ranch families navigating the transition to the next generation.