Back in the day, we partnered each year with a photographer to explore an issue of special importance to rural Kansas. One time it was water. Another time we tracked the history and changing landscape along Old U.S. 40.

Of the many hundreds of words and photographs those projects produced, one photo still stands out. It appeared on the cover of a series of stories we did on technology and the impact it could have on places like Ellsworth County.

The photo showed a car driving through an isolated area of Smith County, a neighbor to the north along the Kansas-Nebraska border. It pulled a U-Haul.

We were never sure which direction the driver was headed, but for our purposes the scene represented the hope that technology would allow younger residents to work from anywhere — even rural Kansas — if the necessary resources were available. Put another way — technology held the promise of bringing home our children who had moved elsewhere to build successful careers.

Has that promise finally become reality? Emily Benedick thinks the answer to that question may

Emily Benedick thinks the answer to that question may be yes and — if it is — rural Kansas will have the coronavirus pandemic to thank, at least in part.

Many, including workers in larger cities, were forced to sit at home with their computers and perform their jobs from there because of the pandemic. As tedious as that became, it also protected the workers from long drives to their offices, bumper-to-bumper traffic and other annoyances associated with city living.

Benedick, executive director of the Beloit-based North Central Regional Planning Commission, thinks the downtime created by COVID-19 has created a desire for a less hectic lifestyle, the kind found in rural Kansas. It’s up to us to provide the kind of places these potential new residents seek.

If we’re successful, we will know which direction that car in the photo from years ago was headed. It was headed home.