Bismarck Tribune

By LAUREN DONOVBy LAUREN DONOVAN

RHAME - The automatic doors on the Wal-Mart Superstore in Dickinson create a giant sucking sound that can be heard ever so faintly in Rhame.

As for Rhame itself, it is not so big, but it sure is pretty, with the houses, school and a few businesses shook out like from a blanket at the base of a high grassy knoll on the east.

It is quiet, with 100-some souls living there and the most playful of them tucked away inside the school all day.

The subtle sound of people leaving town to shop at the new five-acre shopping megalopolis, or anywhere else for that matter, is like soft elevator music - you have to be listening for it to even hear it.

It surely wouldn't be fair to blame Wal-Mart baron Sam Walton for closing Rhame's grocery store, though he isn't going to make it any easier for any of them.

It is just one more factor.

Rhame High School's closing for good in May is another factor.

So are all the people who ever died, or graduated from high school and went someplace else - sad to see them go, but no one's playing the blame game in Rhame.

The same force of fewer people in town and in the countryside is in play in every direction from Rhame.

Lori and Ron Eagon plan to close the store Aug. 31 after six years of trying to make it work.

Rhame isn't alone, either, in losing its grocery.

Larger towns like Belfield, New England and Stanton saw their grocery stores close in the last year. So did New Leipzig, Strasburg and Underwood, though those towns' stores are now back in operation. The Dodge grocery closed up shop a few years back.

The rural map is increasingly peppered with communities that are losing convenient access to one of the staples of life.

It's different than losing, say, a grain elevator service. In that instance, whoever normally hauls the grain to town just hauls it further down the line.

The loss of a grocery store in a small town is hardest on those for whom life is already hard - the elderly, the handicapped, the impoverished, or even just someone who can't temporarily drive because of an auto accident or license suspension.

Lori Eagon worries about Rhame's old folks, when the store closes.

"They'll suffer the most,"she said.

The elderly rely on being able to walk or drive the short few blocks to her store, but their meager needs aren't enough to carry the business.

Eagon said she can only get a supply truck in every other week now.

The last time a truck came in, the delivery man only had to replace 50 items on the shelves. The two weeks before, he replaced 100.

On a good day, her receipts add up to $300; twice that if it's really busy.

The Rhame grocery is a nice store leaning toward nostalgic, with a narrow girth and high ceilings that speak to the historic building that it is.

The freezer holds gourmet items, like pink salmon steaks and shrimp, and the produce is colorful and appealing.

Not long ago, Eagon said, she returned seven cases of food items that had passed their expiration date.

As more and more items expire on the shelves, the Eagons talk about the store's future like they have been for some time.

What iced the cake was hearing that when the high school closes and students are bused to Bowman, some families are planning to send their elementary-aged children over, also.

They can't be blamed, either, for doing what seems best for their family. But it makes it that much harder.

Eagon said it was exciting and scary to buy the store, and it's just as scary to shut it down.

"I don't know how to close the doors," she said. They've picked Aug. 31 to close, but that could be sooner if sales drop off disastrously before then.

Jim Miller, of Rhame, said he uses the store all the time. Having to drive west to Baker, Mont., or east to Bowman will be expensive with the price of gas. He said he wonders if people are factoring that into the cost of the groceries they buy out of town.

Scott Lavass is the town's maintenance man.

Generally, he winds up a day's work with a stop at the store for some supper groceries and heads home.

"I can tell you, it's hard. We don't have the people. In 20 years, there won't hardly be anybody here," he said.

Anthony Erickson and Dalton Braatan, both sixth- graders, walk to the store after school for a package of a dozen sugar cookies apiece.

Erickson said all the changes are hard - the new school, the new friends he'll have to try to make.

Losing the store isn't good either. "It's close enough to home, so I don't have to go too far," he said.

Eagon said the business could probably succeed if it were opened as a coffee spot, with staple groceries for sale.

They'd be willing to sell for the $50,000 they've got invested.

Realistically, Eagon said, "Would you buy a grocery store in a town where the high school just closed?"

Folks in New Leipzig could answer that, maybe.

After the high school closed years back, the town's elementary closed down at the end of 2005. The store closed that year, too.

The New Leipzig Job Development Authority stepped forward to buy the building when no one else did.

The fixtures had sold separately, so the JDA, along with some investors, bought used store fixtures from the New England grocery store sale.

Mark Stelter, president of the New Leipzig Star Grocery, said the JDA hopes it isn't in the grocery store business for long. It already owns the school building.

He said the group hoped to get the grocery back into operation until it's running successfully and then find a private owner-operator.

"We're not breaking even, but we're getting close to that point,"" he said. The JDA had to kick in some additional funds to pay bills, but Stelter said he remains optimistic that the store will soon pay its own way.

Stelter said he thinks the community got a wake-up call when it went without a grocery for three months.

People are making it a point to support the store because being without one made them very aware of the inconvenience, he said.

Ruth Pastian, wife of the town's mayor, was in the store one recent afternoon, picking up a few items for the day.

"It's nice to get what you need when you need it," she said.

The sounds of Sam Walton's automatic doors may be soft in Rhame, more than an hour's drive away, and a little louder in New Leipzig, but it's pretty compelling in New England.

It's just a quick 25-minute jaunt up the highway, and this fall, the New England football team will co-op with Dickinson Trinity, bringing the towns that much closer together.

But it isn't that close for everyone, especially the town's senior citizens, who may not drive, or even have a senior bus service to take them.

New England has been working hard to get a store re-established, surveying the community and setting up a committee to study and fix the problem.

Gary Nieuwsma has been on the committee.

He said if New England is to have a grocery, then "people have to want it. The surveys show we do have enough interest and people wouldn't have to spent that much to keep it open."

The city had acquired the grocery building and sold it last week. The owner will dedicate most of the building to relocating the hardware store out of an older structure, but reserve space for a grocery.

Now, the committee will decide whether to put a small grocery store in operation in the space and then sell the setup as a going business.

It's likely any grocery store will be scaled down, offering more than a convenience store and still reasonably priced, he said.

"It's not like they have had in the past," Nieuwsma said.

He's right.

It's not like the past, not like the past at all.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@;westriv.com.)