Political organization is an alternative to the so-called inevitability of losing one's rural school or one's small community; People United for Rural Education (P.U.R.E.), organized to promote the survival of rural schools and the concept of rural as a credible way of life, has been an effective political organization. The reversal of urban attitudes concerning rural schools and rural communities has become one of P.U.R.E.'s most difficult political tasks. Newspaper editorials have repeatedly seen rural schools as inefficient and inept and have called for school district reorganization to consolidate smaller school districts. The state-wide media have not been successful in influencing all Iowans and all state legislators with their printed propaganda because of politics and P.U.R.E., a political organization and a successful alternative. Since February of 1977, P.U.R.E. has grown in membership, in stature, and in the eyes of Iowa's legislative officers and educational specialists. Tremendous sacrifices have been required from P.U.R.E.'s lay leaders, lay membership, and professional Advisory Council. The key to a successful political organization is sacrifice. Additionally inherent within this key are endurance, esprit de corps, compromise, tenacity, re-evaluation, commitment, and faith. Rural people are a viable, credible, significant, vital, important and worthy minority. (CM)