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By TOM C. DORAN
tdoran@shawmedia.com
MADISON, Wis. - Alan Guebert experienced countless changes over his long career as an ag journalist, ranging from technology to news coverage.
Guebert, who announced his retirement as a columnist this week, reflected on the changes over his 45-year career.
ON TECHNOLOGY
In my first job at Professional Farmers of America, it was already computerized. This is 1981 and I composed all of my copy on a programmed computer.
A year later, at Successful Farming, which was part of Meredith Publications along with Better Homes and Gardens, with millions of circulation, I went back to typewriters.
When I started as a freelancer in 1984, 1985, I bought a compact computer that weighed 43 pounds. It had a 9-inch screen, and I wrote on that computer for 10 years. So, I've not been on the front wave, but I've been on the waves.
I have all Apple stuff from phones on down and I love it. It's truly amazing.
The biggest rise in technology has been the internet. I used to spend $300 and $400 a month on a phone bill. I don't have to do that anymore.
I had four phone lines into my office at one time - fax line, dedicated modem line, an office line and a home line.
Now I don't have any landlines at all. You don't need them, and you have your office in your pocket with this little Apple iPhone. It's just incredible.
ON SOCIAL MEDIA
I was on Twitter for probably seven or eight years. I waited to get on it, and when I got on it everybody was like, holy cow, Guebert the heavens are going to fall, Guebert is on Twitter. I didn't know that, but I guess I had a reputation of being old fogey. It didn't bother me. Who cares? But it really evolved into an absolute bloodfest, and I have no interest in doing that. I found it useful to test ideas, useful to converse with farmers and others in ag journalism, and everybody could kind of stay in touch. It was pretty slick, but now I'm not on any of it at all.
I read some Substack of friends of mine who I find in quite informative. I like Substack. I'm not on any other social media platform at all and I'm not going to be on any. I don't need to be washing the windshield from all the stuff thrown at me and everybody else ever.
It's just a waste of everybody's time and it devolved the discussion into an anger that never gets resolved; it only gets fed. I'm gruff enough. I don't need to be angry. I've been accused of being grumpy a lot - and I have to confess, guilty.
ON WRITING COLUMNS
When I started the column, and still to this day, I try to make sure the column has three or four ideas or three or four facts in it that you're not going to get anywhere else in the meaningful context that can help you to choose.
My my job is not to choose for you. My job is to give you enough information so that when you do choose, you make the right choice for you.
I hope it's not the choice I would make because the choice is yours and you have to make it relative to your community, or your church, or your family, or your farm.
The only thing I want you to do is agonize over that choice, because if you agonize over it, I know you'll make the right choice for you. That's what all a column writer ought to be doing. You pay me to tell you what I think.
Here's what I think, here's why, here's three, four, five or 10 numbers - which I often plead guilty to, putting more data in columns than you probably should.
ON AG JOURNALISM
Ag journalism has come a long way. When I was at Successful Farming, every headline had to have a number in it like 10 ways to boost your yield.
We always had to have pounds or bushels or yield or profits, and agriculture is a lot of that. I get that, but there's just not enough people who focus anymore on policy.
We can talk about Democrats. We can talk about Republicans. I just don't think there's any difference in the policy choices offered up by most, at least not the people who end up making the policies.
And definitely not the White House. No White House that I've ever had the pleasure to call and talk to has ever had a scintilla's impact on the farm bill. They just don't. They don't think it's relevant or important enough even at this level of payments.
We're seeing $40 billion and $50 billion in taxpayer money being spent per year on farm programs. That's nothing at almost $4 trillion a year of federal spending. That's a rounding error.
What ag journalists should be talking about is how that money and how the failure for policy to work that requires that payment is affecting rural people, rural lives, soil and water, air, all these vital programs that we used to take into account in the farm bill and farm policy, and we don't do that anymore. It's really sad.
We used to grow 80 million acres of wheat in this country, and now we're down to 40 million acres. Who's going to grow the wheat here? When your farm policy emphasizes corn because you're gonna make ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn. It's just not going to happen.
Farmers have this reputation, deservedly so, for being practical. They know in their bones that ethanol is not the future, but it's the only horse they're trying to whip, and it is a horse and they're going backward as fast as they can. They're whipping this poor thing to death. It can't go anywhere.
So, we should be thinking about the future. We should be talking about the future, and still we have farm policy that's bent in the past.
We have 12,000 farmers to grow and 12 million acres of cotton, and we're paying for every pound in farm program subsidies that exist out of sight.
And somebody tell me why we're using 10,000-year-old water in the Sacramento Valley to grow rice that nobody wants, that they basically have to give away?
It's the same deal with dairy in California. The milk production in California is two times that of Wisconsin - great. And it comes from less than 100 dairies - bad.
There are 4,400 dairies in Wisconsin right now producing milk and in 10 years there will be 400. Does anybody want to talk about dairy policy and the need for us to figure out who's going to be milking cows in 10 years?
There's so many issues that need to be talked about. When you ask about ag journalism, I worry about ag journalism because I think it's a lot more agriculture and a lot less journalism. You read these stories in ag magazines now and there are a lot of stories that are don't mean much.
I'll give you another example. When I worked for a Successful Farming for four years, I probably wrote 500 pages of copy. I don't know how many stories there were, probably 200.
And in all those words, and all those stories, I got one letter, and it told me, pretty clearly, that the stories I was writing didn't apply to anybody's life.
When I started writing the column, I got 15 letters the first week. That's back in the day when people had to look up your address, buy an envelope and a stamp, and send it to you.
So, tell me about impact. Tell me about writing about issues.
Successful Farming, Farm Journal, they're good magazines, they're good people, but they're still trying to chase that stuff I talked about as an ag economics major - price per pound, bushels per acre. We measure all these things, but we just don't measure the impact these have on culture.
"So, we should be thinking about the future. We should be talking about the future, and still we have farm policy that's bent in the past."
Alan Guebert
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 26, 2026 Media Contact Information: Cartwheel Emily Paisner (888) 500-2067 emily.paisner@cartwheelcare.org
$1 million grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois will help Cartwheel scale access to care in rural and underserved communities through 2028
CHICAGO — August 26, 2026 — Cartwheel Care, a telehealth mental health provider for K-12 schools, today announced plans to expand access to care for up to 100,000 students across Illinois, supported by a $1 million grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL). The additional funding builds on an existing partnership between Cartwheel and BCBSIL, following a year of strong engagement and clinical outcomes. Cartwheel currently serves 40 Illinois school districts, and the grant will help expand services further into rural and underserved communities across the state through 2028. Mental health needs among Illinois students remain high. According to data from Lurie Children’s Hospital, approximately 50% of Illinois youth (ages 2–17) have experienced worsening mental health symptoms in recent years. At the same time, access to care has not kept pace: more than 80 of Illinois’ 102 counties have no practicing child psychiatrist, and the shortage is most acute in rural areas, where families often wait months for an appointment or travel significant distances for care. Cartwheel’s telehealth model is designed to remove the access barriers rural families face, like long waitlists and the need to travel to see a provider. By partnering with schools, Cartwheel provides licensed, Illinois-based clinicians with no waitlist, accepts all major insurance plans including Medicaid, and reaches kids and families where they already are, without requiring them to find or travel to an outside provider. “Every student experiences mental health challenges differently, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to supporting them,” said Dr. Juliana Chen, chief medical officer at Cartwheel. “Our goal is to meet students and families where they are, with practical support that helps them build skills, strengthen relationships, and feel more confident navigating challenges at school and at home. BCBSIL’s support is what allows us to bring that care to more Illinois communities.” “Supporting the health and well-being of Illinois youth is critical to building stronger communities,” said Brian Snell, president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. “The results we’ve seen through our partnership with Cartwheel demonstrate the impact that timely, accessible mental health services can have for students and families. This investment will help bring those services to even more communities across our state.” To date, four Illinois districts have received Cartwheel’s services through this grant: Steger SD 194 in Cook County and Will County, Troy CCSD 30-C in Will County, Mattoon CUSD 2 in Coles County, and Wolf Branch SD #113 in St. Clair County. In the first year of the program, more than 200 students were referred for care and completed more than 1,000 telehealth sessions. Appointments were scheduled in the same week with no waitlist. Sixty-eight percent of students served were covered by Medicaid or uninsured. Overall, 73% of students showed meaningful improvement in anxiety and depression symptoms on standard clinical screeners (GAD-7/PHQ-9). Additional districts where Cartwheel services are launching this fall include Litchfield CUSD #12, Panhandle CUSD #2, Leyden High School District #212, and Regional Office of Education #40. With the support of this grant, Cartwheel expects to expand into another 30 to 50 school districts, bringing access to care to a total of 100,000 students across Illinois. “Before this partnership, getting a student connected to care could take months,” said Jeffrey Peterson, director of student services & records at Troy CCSD 30-C. “Now our counselors can refer a student, know they’ll be seen within days, and are seeing real improvements as a result.” Through the grant, Cartwheel provides individual and family therapy, parent guidance, psychiatric evaluation and medication management, and specialized care programs for challenges like school avoidance, social media use, and intense emotions and behavior challenges. As reported in Illinois Policy, in 2025 about 25% of Illinois students missed at least 10% of the school year and this was more severe among low-income students, with 35.1% in that group chronically absent. Cartwheel’s school avoidance program delivers evidence-based care designed specifically for students struggling with school avoidance. In partnership with Cartwheel, Peoria Public Schools saw a 62% reduction in absences per student, along with decreases in suspensions and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Illinois school districts that want to learn more about this opportunity for the upcoming school year should visit: www.cartwheel.org/illinois. About Cartwheel Cartwheel is the nation’s largest and most trusted telehealth provider for K-12 schools, students, and families. Cartwheel partners with 350 school districts across 15 states to deliver comprehensive mental health services to students, families, and school staff. Founded in 2022 by educators and clinicians, Cartwheel combines evidence-based clinical care with technology to ensure every child has access to high-quality mental health support. Cartwheel accepts all major insurance plans including Medicaid and provides care at no cost to uninsured families. For more information visit: www.cartwheel.org. About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is the largest health insurer in Illinois, serving nine million members and operating in all 102 Illinois counties. BCBSIL is a division of Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Reserve Company and an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Learn more at bcbsil.com and follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 24, 2026 Media Contact Information: Mather Institute Cindy Droog, president, Sabo PR (616) 717-8654 cindy@sabo-pr.com
Free online tool by Mather Institute supports local planning, partnership and investments
EVANSTON, Illinois – Chicago has a new tool to help understand where neighborhood conditions support social wellness among older adults – and where thoughtful investment and partnership may expand opportunities. Mather Institute launched a first-of-its-kind free Social Wellness Map, which scores the 77 community areas in Chicago on social wellness – a measure of feeling connected with others and with a community – for adults 55 and better. Previous research shows strong social ties are one of the most important predictors of a happy and long life, and that neighborhoods and communities shape how people interact, support one another and build shared identity. Mather Institute developed the map in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago. Designed as a planning and advocacy resource, the interactive map can help policymakers, community organizations, funders, planners and service providers explore local patterns, identify assets and consider where new investments may have the greatest benefit for older adults. “Social wellness is a crucial, yet often overlooked, part of healthy aging,” said Cate O’Brien, MPH, Ph.D., chief transformation officer at Mather Institute. “Because every community contains diverse histories, people and experiences, the map is intended to inform – not replace – local knowledge. The most useful next step is conversation. When organizations bring this data together with resident voices, they can better understand what is already working and what could be most beneficial to older adults and their communities.” The map is based on a new survey of more than 4,000 Chicago residents age 55 and better, combined with public data on community conditions, including walkability, economic factors and access to gathering places such as libraries, churches and community centers. Factors such as crime, lack of local businesses and poverty can hinder social wellness, but don’t tell the whole story. Users can view a side-by-side comparison of communities to explore how social wellness relates to health, happiness, income and other factors. Key findings include:
“Community leaders often have deep local knowledge, but need data to support the case for programs, funding and partnerships,” said Jennifer L. Smith, Ph.D., vice president of Mather Institute. “The Social Wellness Map offers another lens for understanding older adults’ experiences and for turning local insight into action.” High social wellness scores were not confined to one part of Chicago or to its wealthiest areas, suggesting that other factors such as neighborhood identity, belonging and longstanding social ties are also important to connection. Chatham emerged as a notable example, with a social wellness score of 8.14 out of 10, illustrating social wellness reflects aspects of community life beyond economic and safety indicators alone. Beverly received the highest community connectability score: 100 out of 100. Beverly is notable for its low crime rates, a strong family culture and several longstanding community gathering places. Jefferson Park stood out for having community conditions that support connection such as accessible transit, retail activity and established cultural gathering places. The map is free to use and does not require user registration. It can be explored at: https://www.matherinstitute.com/social-wellness-map/
About Mather and Mather Institute
Based in Evanston, Illinois, Mather is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1941 that is dedicated to a vision of changing the way society views aging. Mather creates Ways to Age Well℠ through programs, places and residences for today’s older adults. These include developing and operating communities that support older adults in pursuing wellness and fulfillment; sparking creativity and connections for older adults in Chicagoland and beyond; and through Mather Institute, conducting research and incubating innovation to help all live and age well.
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