Last May, author Mara Tieken attended graduation at a high school in a small, mostly African-American town in the rural Arkansas Delta. This school is not much to look at. But for this rural town, it is everything: close relationships, strong academics, the community’s hope and future. Across the United States are thousands of rural schools just like this one, which against all odds are trying to make it work—a challenge that has only grown with the current pandemic.