Young people aren't staying the way they used to. "They're going to the Lincolns and the Omahas and the bigger areas," Williamson says. "These houses you're going to see them go up for sale, and there isn't going to be a market to buy them."

Welfare changes don't affect just the big cities. Clay County, which includes Harvard, is part of a four-county pilot program in the state that requires welfare recipients to find work. Already, nearly a dozen families have left town. "The state services have been used a lot and probably abused.... People don't look for or try to find employment," Hagley says.

Still, a bittersweet humor persists in the heartland, even in towns that have known hardship, like Harvard. Williamson, the principal, was born in Oxford, Neb., and has lived throughout the state. "I tell people I was born in Oxford and educated at Harvard," he says, chuckling. "That's one for the books."

Harvard, Ill.

An eight-foot-long, five-foot-high fiberglass cow is this town's claim to fame.

Harmilda, according to the town's official written history, was built by two brothers named Jones in 1966, "when Harvard had the reputation of being the Milk Center of the World." The cow is named for the Harvard Milk Day Celebration, an annual festival held since 1942 to "salute the dairy farmers and the belief in our community," the history notes.

Smack in the middle of northern Illinois dairy country, and about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, Harvard is a typical Midwestern farm town. Most of the 5,975 residents work on dairy farms, in tool and plastics manufacturing, or in health care. In June, Motorola Inc., the telecommunications giant, completed a cellularphone facility, and is the town's largest employer. About 15 percent of the population is Hispanic.

The town was founded in 1855 when Elbridge and Mary Ayer, two natives of Harvard, Mass., bought 400 acres here and named the settlement after their hometown. Mr. Ayer later offered free land if the railroads leading to Chicago agreed to make every train stop at Harvard; the town blossomed.

The town is solidly middle-class. The median household income is $29,882, slightly below the state average of $32,252, but only 75 of 2,050 households are on public assistance.

Harvard entered the national spotlight in 1993 when it began a big-city-style crackdown on teenage gang members that raised eyebrows. The town passed an ordinance making it illegal to wear "colors, emblems or insignia" indicating gang membership or sympathies. The symbols included such articles as a star of David, a Dallas Cowboys jacket and a Georgetown baseball cap.

One boy was booked in 1994 for wearing a star of David. Town officials say the youth was not Jewish. The boy was convicted, placed under supervision and fined $25.

Harvard officials say their nearly zealous vigilance is necessary to prevent urban blight from afflicting their wholesome community. "We've seen what it does to other communities," says Harvard High School assistant principal Dean A. Albright. "We felt it was better to get on the ball and prevent it before it became a problem." Albright says the worst crimes he's seen are occasional vandalism, graffiti and minor drug use.

The high school--which Albright describes as "the biggest social event around"--has also taken a tough stance against smoking and drinking, conducting annual canine searches of the school for drugs and punishing violations with Saturday school, $50 fines and suspensions.

Indeed, the cohesion of this community--most of whose members are Catholic, German Protestant or Baptist--is evident in its epic defense of its beloved cow.

In 1991, the state Departmetn of Transportation offered the town $650,000 to move Harmilda, who stood at the intersection of Routes 14 and 173, which the state wanted to widen. Residents bristled and refused to budge.