LINDSBORG — Holly Lofton stood inside the meeting room of downtown Lindsborg’s J.O. Sundstrom Conference Center Wednesday, July 10, and quietly questioned the seven people around her.

What does prosperity look like in rural Kansas? she asked.

The answers covered a range of subjects, most of them aimed at a good quality of life. However, one of the more obvious — pointed out by Lofton, director of the Lindsborg Convention & Visitors Bureau — was the conference center itself.

The $2.4 million project, she said, is a good example of “smart risk taking,” often a trait of successful rural communities.

A half-dozen or so similar conversations could be heard as about 100 residents of central Kansas and beyond split into small groups to discuss the future of their communities.

The Lindsborg meeting was the sixth on a 12-city rural prosperity tour conducted by Kansas Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers. Rogers, a former state senator, arrived here from Marquette, where he met with grocery store owners Steve and Mary Piper and banker Scott Johnson.

“I just get energized when I get out of Topeka,” Rogers said.

The seed for the tour was planted more than a year ago during a stop in southwest Kansas with running mate Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, who would go on to capture the governor’s job in the November election.

It was one of their early public meetings together and the first time Rogers had heard the complaint about residents of western Kansas feeling as if no one in Topeka listened to them. He was to hear it many more times before the campaign ended.

The result is the Office of Rural Prosperity, which received at the request of Gov. Kelly a $2 million allocation in the fiscal year 2020 state budget. Its goal is to improve life in rural Kansas.

“We don’t have a ready answer for that,” Rogers said. “We’re not here to tell you what you need. You’re here to tell us what you need.”

He said this year’s tour will continue through early August. Responses will be cataloged and used to create a report that will go to Gov. Kelly and Kansas lawmakers.

The seven areas targeted in the office’s mission are:

• Development of rural housing.

• Revitalization of Main Street corridors.

• Investment in rural infrastructure.

• Support of rural hospitals and medical professional recruitment.

• Making state government work for rural Kansas.

• Encouragement of active tourism.

• Support of agribusiness.

The small groups talked about these and other issues, including having “positive pride” in a community, creating an environment that attracts younger residents, low poverty rate, hope and pride in a community, unique branding and “the ability to write your own story.”

After the individual groups reported on their discussions, Rogers asked participants to indicate which of the areas in the target items were most important to them.

The three top vote getters were: Supporting rural hospitals, making government work for rural Kansas and infrastructure.

The answers were in line with what appeared to be general support for Medicaid expansion, an issue endorsed by the Kelly Administration but blocked by Republican leadership earlier this year in the Kansas Senate.