The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) announced yesterday that it had picked the Arkansas delta country and the central Kentucky heartland for a pilot rural preservation project to help the states revitalize their countrysides. The two regions will divvy up $745,000 in funds meant to keep these regions strategically down home.

"It's the small details, the small places that work to knit a region together. The little country store, the churches, the barns," said Valecia Crisafulli, director of state and local preservation programs for the District-based NTHP.
"These are the types of signature places we want to identify. Those barns, for instance. They are an immediate physical symbol of agricultural economy and farm culture," she said.
"And they're slipping away. Sometimes it's from development pressure, sometimes a large scale farm overlooks the hidden potential of an old building," Mrs. Crisafulli added.