It’s always been easy to associate Howard with green. The town sits on the South Dakota plains surrounded by fields of beans, corn, flax and prairie grasses, each a contrasting shade of the color. But these days when people say Howard is green, of course, they mean environmentally conscious—and consciously growing businesses that connect to the nation’s demand for environmentally smart products and services.

Being green in Howard may or may not reflect a personal political or lifestyle commitment, but it certainly indicates a 21st century business savvy. And there’s real community pride in knowing local industries, big and small, are leading the way in areas good for all America.

For example:
—The owners of Energy Maintenance Service and Knight and Carver, Howard’s wind turbine industries, are key to South Dakota’s current excitement about combining hydro and wind energy to produce electricity in amounts never approached before—enough to address the state’s needs and to export elsewhere.

—South Dakota’s been beef country for 130 years. When Scott Lively learned organic beef is the fastest growing trend in this huge industry, he considered South Dakota’s largely pristine grasslands and came from out of state to establish Dakota Beef in Howard. Three years later, his company is the nation’s leader in this expanding specialty market.

—Howard farmer John Wunder believes flax, eaten daily, offers tremendous health benefits. But it’s hard to communicate that via traditional media, dominated by food corporations that have turned vast profits by processing, packaging, and marketing farm produce around their own themes. So John is building a small, model sustainable agriculture operation that reaches the public by Internet. He grows Wunder’s Golden Flax and sells it over the web, at a site where customers can also read and blog about flax.