Bonus | Nature Breaking: America is Losing its Grasslands – Why it Matters
Release Date: 07/01/2026
Obituary for a Small Town
Reframing Rural
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 town is dead? Megan, a local historian, post master, church goers and farmers and ranchers try to answer the question.
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Bonus | Nature Breaking: America is Losing its Grasslands – Why it Matters
Reframing Rural
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 reflects on her personal connection to the Northern Great Plains, before Martha and Seth explore why the grasslands are overlooked, why people should care about them, the state of the grasslands today and the work World Wildlife Fund is doing to keep grassland ecosystems intact.
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Succession Stories | Bonus | Country Musician Sterling Drake Tackles the Rural Mental Health Conversation
Reframing Rural
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 his lyrics and on the stage. Sterling and Megan met up in May 2025 at Live from the Divide in Bozeman. In addition to the impact he's making on the rural mental health crisis, the conversation ranges from how he simultaneously built a career as a rancher and a musician, to the role of folk music in helping us understand our history and the sonic identity of...
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Bonus | A New Angle: "Megan Torgerson is reframing rural" & "Rural vs. Urban with Trevor Brown"
Reframing Rural
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 Torgerson on Reframing Rural’s origin story, our latest season, “Succession Stories," and "Mother Range," a short documentary film Megan co-produced that premiered at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in February. The second episode from A New Angle features Trevor Brown, a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Economy and Society at Johns Hopkins...
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Succession Stories | Bonus | The Tilt of the World with Joe Wilkins, Author of “The Entire Sky”
Reframing Rural
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 Sky" follows a ranch family in eastern Montana navigating grief, generational change and the uncertain future of their land. Through these fictional characters, the novel offers a different way to think about succession and what happens when transition is delayed or avoided. Like Megan, Joe also grew up in rural Montana and has since chosen a home...
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Succession Stories | Bonus | Our Season Partner, Winnett ACES
Reframing Rural
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 visits Winnett, the only town in the least populated county in Montana, where out-of-state absentee land ownership poses a threat to local ranchers. To keep people on the land, preserve the region's intact prairie ecosystem and build a vibrant future for Winnett's main street, the rancher-led nonprofit Winter ACES is furthering economic and environmental...
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Succession Stories | Bonus | Megan's Family Succession Story
Reframing Rural
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 farm succession, giving listeners an inside look into the emotional, legal and financial factors at play with succession planning. Curious what the next generation of farmers are facing, Megan also interviews the Jorgensens, another farm family from Northeast Montana who is transferring the management of their farm to their son Tanner.
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Succession Stories | Bonus | A Roadmap to Farm and Ranch Succession Planning
Reframing Rural
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, practical roadmap for getting started. In chapter one, we take you to Winnett, where Megan hosted a live panel discussion with succession specialists Dr. Marsha Goetting of MSU Extension, Michael Stolp of AgWest Farm Credit, and CPA Stacie Arntzen. They break down what it really takes to begin a succession plan, sharing guidance on communication, business...
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Succession Stories | 5 | Back to Grass
Reframing Rural
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 the 1980s, and generations of economic uncertainty with a combination of grit and creativity. As a child, Sig watched her parents gamble on emerging cattle genetics, hauling 4-H calves as far east as Ohio and Kentucky to stay afloat. Decades later, she would make her own high-stakes decision: taking her family's ground out of production and reseeding it...
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Succession Stories | 4 | The Messy Middle
Reframing Rural
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 land from Jake’s grandpa and great-grandma, giving away a quarter of their crop while carrying all the operating costs. This episode follows the Fritzes through an era of piecing their farm back together: buying land from relatives, absorbing sudden expenses when Grandpa Errol decided to sell, and slowly shifting authority to Jake. Their story captures what...
info_outlineIn 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 reflects on her personal connection to the Northern Great Plains, before Martha and Seth explore why the grasslands are overlooked, why people should care about them, the state of the grasslands today and the work World Wildlife Fund is doing to keep grassland ecosystems intact.