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Ozarks Notebook: Going Back to the Land With Ozark Area Community Congress [1]
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Date: 2024-11-26
Despite Missouri’s two dateline cities of St. Louis and Kansas City and northwest Arkansas’ shift from farm trucks to fancy thanks to Wamart-infused money, the Ozarks is still largely a rural place where, for centuries, people have come to get away. And, for some, to find a life more connected with the earth.
One of those proof points is through the Ozark Area Community Congress (OACC). Per its website, it’s said to be the country’s first bioregional congress, the annual gathering which began in 1980. Every year since, it has served as a magnet for folks in search of improving the delicate balance of living on the earth and treating it well.
“Our purpose each year is to share our love of the Ozarks and to help each other understand our place within it,” said Denise Vaughn, one of OACC’s longtime organizers. “This means learning how to live comfortably within the context of its geology, climate, topography, and biological inhabitants: plants, animals, even insects. It means devising or expanding economic systems that use but do not exploit resources and help maintain these natural communities.”
The most recent gathering was in October 2024. Several dozen people came together in the Mark Twain National Forest, a rugged and remote part of federally protected acreage near the Missouri-Arkansas state line. Technically they were there for the year’s theme – “Shaped By The Ozarks” – but many come back every year.
“I would say that OACC is a cultural community, and more so that it is a keystone for the bioregional culture in the Ozarks, and even more widely for the continental bioregional movement,” said Sasha Daucus, another of OACC’s longtime organizers.
The Mission and the Evolution
The year was 1980 when the first OACC – pronounced “oak,” like the tree – was held in southwest Missouri. It was an outgrowth of the local Back-to-Land movement, an ideology that drew people to the Ozarks for cheap acreage, plentiful natural resources, an opportunity for self-sustainable living and to develop their own sense of community.
“The Ozarks, thanks to the combination of travel writing, increased interest in folklore, and the out-migration of hill folk during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, loomed large in the national consciousness,” scholar Jared Phillips wrote in his book “Hipbillies.”
Founded in 1980, the Ozark Area Community Congress brings together people from multiple states to find common good and ground around the Ozarks’ unique bioregion. Its first session is “Opening Circle,” during which attendees introduce themselves by name, watershed and passion. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
“It was as if the Ozarks was a living museum of American hillbilly life waiting to be consumed – an idea not lost on the back-to-the-land movement that sought a place where they could learn traditional methods for self-sufficiency,” Phillips wrote in his book. “Though often associated with Appalachia due to environmental and cultural similarities, the Ozarks were indeed a distinct area, especially in the minds of the counterculture. Where Appalachia became known for its poverty and despair, the Ozarks presented a different vision of life in the hardscrabble hills.”
While Phillips’ book was focused on the Arkansas Ozarks, there were many who moved to Missouri in this time – propelled by their individual reasons, but perhaps linked by versions of the similar visions.
On the Missouri side, those people included Vaughn, who moved to the Ozarks after high school, where she lived on a homestead bought with babysitting money. Another was David Haenke, a former English teacher from Michigan who relocated to the region after finding cheap farmland in a catalog. It wasn’t long before Daucus also relocated to the region.
It was out of this spirit that OACC was born in 1980, “originally organized to offer a forum for Ozarkers working in various fields considered ‘alternative’ at that time, and to encourage them to consider themselves as part of the emerging bioregional movement,” states OACC’s website.
Haenke and Vaughn helped coordinate that first event, which drew about 125 people to New Life Farm, also located in rural Missouri, which at the time was conducting experiments around alternative energy sources and organic farming.
Now nearly 45 years on, OACC has changed location several times and has evolved in its focuses. Yet it still brings some of those same folks together, while offering new opportunities to discuss and collaborate on new ways to live better and support the environment.
As OACC’s website puts it, “OACC is not a formal organization nor is it an advocacy group that promotes an agenda, and it typically does not state positions on current issues. Rather, it is more of an ecological network and a forum for idea exchange; individual participants work in their own respective fields, but meet annually to share about their work.”
And it has changed over time.
“It’s the same urge—to live in harmony with ‘all our relations,’ but that can show up in different ways,” said Daucus. “For instance, in the ‘70s there was a lot of emphasis on rural living. While that is still a value, there is also a significant number of people with a similar outlook who are finding ways to take these values into more populated areas. I think it’s really interesting how many children of the ‘70s and ‘80s back-to-landers are working in ecologically related areas as professionals now, so that is how those values are showing up.”
A “Framework of Tradition”
Each OACC is inherently unique, which is why each one is identified by its own number. For example, in October 2024, it was OACC 45; next year, it will be OACC 46. Despite that snapshot-in-time approach, each event builds on a framework of tradition.
For years, the new session has begun with Opening Circle, a time when attendees circle up, introduce themselves, state their watershed and what they’re passionate about.
Part of the event includes “open space,” which allows attendees to schedule pop-up presentations focused on topics they’d like to share. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
This leads to the rest of the day’s activities, segueing into sign up for “Open Space,” a time later in the day when people are invited to host pop-up presentations. Those wide-ranging talks this year went from climate change to “Rediscovering a Tribal Approach to Human Relationships in the Ozarks,” each listed with sticky notes on a large schedule for the day. Kids roam and play; side conversations pop up along the way.
“As this movement is experiencing a new wave of interest, the fact that OACC has been meeting continuously for 45 years makes it a model for what can happen when the values of bioregionalism… develop into a way of life over the span of several generations or more,” Daucus said.
Larger group activities also include panel presentations, meals – that are subsidized by volunteer labor and donations – and State of the Ozarks, where all are invited to share (within a four-minute limit) updates about their work in the region.
The rest of the event is filled with panel discussions that focus on topics tied to the year’s theme, the open spaces, and its signature coffee house, which wraps up the evening. The next day begins planning for the next OACC.
Eric Tumminia, a local farmer and community organizer, was part of the “Regenerative Culture in the Ozarks” panel, reminding that regional work and harmony is about more than just the land. It’s also about the people and relationships built in connection with the region and its resources.
“The land is an important part of thinking about regenerative culture, but human culture is a really important part of regenerative culture,” Tumminia said. “The land really doesn’t need us, probably. It probably does just fine without us; maybe even better without us. I’m passionate about trying to help myself and my family and the people around me live fulfilling, happy healthy lives with minimal oppression.
“I think that’s really important. The land plays a part in that, but it doesn’t necessarily always. I want to inspire people to be free, have fun, think for themselves, not be manipulated. I think we’re doing it. I think we’re regenerating the culture – so let’s keep doing it.”
Attendees share meals at the Civilian Conservation Corps dining hall, where meals are prepared by limited paid staff – much work is done by volunteers. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
45 Years of Value
OACC’s presence has been a through line in a region that has experienced significant social change since it began. Part of that relates to how topics are presented and where work ends up making a difference.
Even as the model and location have shifted, it has fostered a space for conversations and continuing work – from folks who live in the Ozarks to others far beyond. It’s been part of fostering ideas, but also sharing knowledge – one example is the presence of the late Steven Foster, a herbalism leader who died in 2022. He was heralded as an expert on the historical uses of herbal medicines, and long had ties with OACC.
“There’s a core of folks involved with OACC who have known each other for decades, and we keep coming back because we have long-term bonds and a shared goal of living lifestyles that keep the Ozarks as clean and natural as possible,” Vaughn said. “But we long-timers are not enough by ourselves. It’s been a delight in recent years, gradually over the last decade, to see an influx of young people who share our values and seem interested in carrying on our work and our traditions. If it continues long-term, it will be because of them, not us.”
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