RUSSELL — The sheer number of mud-spattered pickup trucks says a lot about what people here do all day.
For a century, the people of this central Kansas town have built a life around the up-and-down businesses of oil and farming.
These days, that isn’t a happy thing.
Russell, like most of rural Kansas, is in recession. Plunging oil, gas and agriculture prices have forced businesses to lay off and families to cut back.