And many parents told me they feel guilty because they know the education there is subpar and opportunities are few. Stacy King, a PTA head, said there's no secular summer camp in the county and no children's museum within 30 minutes. “Sometimes I feel guilty I haven’t moved,” she said.

Then the Simpsons, a kind teacher couple who live in a 750-square-foot mobile home. Their classrooms are beside each other. The grant money was going to land for their forever house. They also voted for Trump. “This has been a kick in the head,” James Simpson said.

There's Amanda Henley, the Harry Potter fan whose students love the sorting ceremony she does every year and whose sick husband appreciated her using her grant money on oxygen for him.

And here’s Ravon Sheppard. He’s a restaurant worker by trade, but he now runs the (combined middle and high school) band program. And he just had a little girl. The grant money gave him freedom to enjoy her first months on earth.

I’d like to introduce some of these folks. Please meet Katie Kimrey, an English teacher at the county’s high school. She loves her children and her students and horses and ECU football. She also doesn’t mess around.

But then came DOGE's chainsaw. The Education Department, which didn't respond to my questions, cut Montgomery's grant and others nationally after 1 year due to claims of DEI, which the district denies. Teachers left. Morale plummeted. Futures dimmed.

One of those educators now out money is Janet Deaton, principal of Star Elementary by the town's sole stoplight. She predicts it's $250-$300 less a month for the rest of her life after she retires soon. The one year of grant money she got before it was cut went to a new heating system in her home.

The school district limps along on federal grants and prayer. Then they got a godsend, $21M grant to help recruit and retain teachers. It meant bonuses, ones that counted toward pensions to woo veteran teachers into staying, that hit $8K or $10K. Amazing for state No. 43 in national teacher salary.

The county has great bones, infrastructure rural leaders dream of: The county manager says they have 360 miles of water lines, an airfield with a 4,000-foot runway, a hospital. But the bones are from when the county last had money. The original test date for the elevator in county hall? 1989.

But the beautiful scenery is also a problem. About 15 percent of the county's land mass is government-protected forest. That means lots of ecological restrictions, so there's little heavy industry and no real hope of that changing any time soon.

BONUS: Here's what it looked like on the front of Sunday's @washingtonpost.com Business section. (My deep thanks to our wildly talented design staff for this display and to the exceptionally kind Helen Fessenden for editing the story.)

Also, the United States doesn't grow much coffee! There's some spots in Puerto Rico/Hawaii/California, but they're producing next to nothing compared to biggies. [7/9]

So, now, January's CPI report showed a retail price of ground coffee hit a record high of $7/lb. It was $4/lb. in January 2020. One expert said the cost of beans accounts for 30% of a bag of supermarket coffee. (To scoffing C-market nerds: Don't yell at me. I know it's even more complex.) [6/9]

The recent spike was worsened by way lower crop yields thanks to a two-headed weather disaster linked to climate change in the world's two biggest growers of coffee beans: Brazil (arabica) and Vietnam (robusta) [3/9]

Let's level-set here: The wholesale price of arabica (probably the whole-bean stuff you drink at a coffee shop) was between $1 to $2 per pound for like 50 years. We were at like $1.50 in fall 2020. But we hit $4.30/lb. last month.

Several things are causing the mind-boggling prices. [2/9]

for instance

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@alexhorton.bsky.social. | Live updates: Pete Hegseth facing senators in high-stakes confirmation hearing www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

A thread to catch up on all the @washingtonpost.com coverage of the tragedy in New Orleans. We've been covering this non-stop for more than the last 24 hours. 🧵