If you're from an urban or suburban upbringing, you might ask, “What is a ROMEO Club?”

Out here in rural America, every small town has one. They might not call it a club, and it’s not official by any means, but it happens like clockwork, every morning except Sundays. ROMEO stands for Retired Old Men Eating Out.

In my hometown of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, it’s down at Hardee’s. Has been for most of my life. You sit down with your biscuits-gravy and coffee, and you're jumping into a real-time community bulletin board, no subscription required. 

Conversations back in the day used to be dominated by local news, what the Town Council was up to, whether the County Board of Supervisors was gonna spend a pile of money on new Sheriff’s cruisers or boost the school budget. And always, always, local high school sports…especially football in the Fall.

Point is, the talk used to be about things that actually affected us. Real life stuff. Stuff folks cared about because it was happening in our backyards.

That was back when we had local newspapers and local reporting on tv news. With real reporters. Folks who went to public meetings, took notes, asked the hard questions, and then wrote it up for the paper. You didn’t have to agree with everything they printed, but they were there, and they were watching. And that mattered.

Now? Hardly any of that exists.

And what’s filled the void? National news. Loud, angry, partisan news. Especially FOX News. Now you’ll sit down at the ROMEO Club and hear fellas talking about some mayoral race in New York or a radical candidate out in California, New York banning gas stoves. And you’ve got to wonder, what on earth does that have to do with us here in rural Virginia, in rural America?

Answer: nothing. But that’s what’s in front of them. That’s what’s on the TV and in their Facebook feeds on their phones.

The truth is, when local news dries up, it doesn’t leave silence, it leaves a vacuum. And vacuums get filled. Axios reported that most counties in America now qualify as news deserts…places with little to no local news coverage. In Virginia, we’ve lost over 45 local outlets in just a couple decades. And when you lose local reporting, you lose the connective tissue that holds communities together.

Now, a lot of the ROMEO table talk is national politics, conspiracy theories, culture war stuff. All stirred up by big media companies that wouldn’t know our zip code if it bit them on the leg. And it’s not just changing the conversation, it’s changing how we think.

So maybe it’s time to revive what we had. Not just ROMEO Clubs, but community journalism. Local watchdogs. Papers that show up, take notes, shine light in dusty corners, and aren’t afraid to ask what’s going on behind closed doors.

And here’s where we tip our hats.

Because not everyone walked away.

Barn Raising Media is out there doing the kind of reporting that matters in places like ours. They're covering rural stories, labor struggles, healthcare issues, and things corporate media won’t touch, or won’t understand. They’re putting boots on the ground and ink on the page, and they’re doing it for us.

And The Daily Yonder. They’ve been in this fight for years. Telling rural stories. Lifting up communities that national outlets overlook. They’re not just writing about rural America…they’re of it. That’s a big difference.

And here in Virginia, Cardinal News is working to fill that gap too. They’re a nonprofit newsroom covering the stories that actually affect people in Southwest and Southside Virginia. They’ve reported on how the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” and its Medicaid cuts could close local hospitals and healthcare access hard, especially in rural areas already stretched thin. They’ve covered how Governor Youngkin left pay raises for 911 dispatchers out of his budget, despite the critical work those folks do every day. Cardinal News is focused on the policies that shape real lives in our part of the state…not what’s trending on cable news.

These folks are carrying the torch. So if you want to help fix what’s broken, start there. Share their work. Read it. Support it. Because saving democracy doesn’t start with a speech, it starts with knowing what your local officials are up to and holding them accountable.  Remember, democracy dies without local news.

And if we can get that back…even just a little…we’ll have given the ROMEO Clubs of the world something worth talking about again. Something that actually matters locally.  

Be curious, not judgmental.

Till next time, that’s the story from the ‘Back Forty’. — John W. Peace II

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John W. Peace II is a fifth-generation farmer from Big Stone Gap, Virginia, where he grew up on his family’s dairy, Clinch Haven Farms, and still lives today farming hay and beef cattle. He’s a proud father to Trey and Shelby Peace, and partner in life to Cathy Swinney. A Virginia Tech graduate with graduate studies at Penn State, he served as the youngest Chair of the Wise County Board of Supervisors (2004–2008). John co-owns SafeHavenServices.co and urTOPIX LLC (urTopixLLC.com), a Democratic campaign consulting firm focused on reaching rural voters that is sponsored by www.RuralAmericaRising.com PAC. He’s also a two-time Amazon bestselling author. Learn more at www.JohnWPeace.com.