Returning to Eastern Kentucky: How a Relocation Incentive Helped Turn Someday Into Today

When Molly Bates left her hometown of Pikeville, Kentucky, she assumed she’d return someday. But “someday” stretched over nearly 13 years as she navigated medical school, residency and eventually a competitive neurology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Her husband, Rhett’s post-graduation life, followed a similar trajectory - nearly 19 years away with a budding career in the insurance industry, together they built rhythms and relationships far from the Appalachian hills they once called home.

In Minnesota, their lives were stable, comfortable and in many ways deeply fulfilling. They lived in an apartment near the Mayo campus, surrounded by the conveniences and pace of a mid-sized city. They had access to world-class healthcare, a network of colleagues and friends and all the amenities that come with living in a major regional hub.

“We loved Rochester,” Molly said. “Mayo is an incredible place to learn and work. It really shaped me as a physician.”

But the nature of their life there was different - structured, busy and often insulated.

“Where we lived, our apartment windows looked directly into a hospital,” Rhett said. “There was traffic, noise and people constantly coming and going. We had good experiences but it wasn’t peaceful.”

They tried to build community, attending church when their schedules allowed and slowly connecting with neighbors. But the sense of belonging they grew up with in Pikeville proved difficult to replicate.

“You’re always trying when you live somewhere new,” Rhett said. “You’re trying to meet people, trying to get involved, trying to create roots, it can take a long time.”

As they started to plan their future and Molly approached a major career crossroads, the couple found themselves weighing what they had in Minnesota against what they had left behind.

A Question They Couldn’t Ignore

Around the same time, flooding hit Eastern Kentucky. From Minnesota, the couple watched the devastation unfold in the region they once called home. But they also saw something else - the enduring strength of the local community.

“We saw how people came together,” Molly said. “Neighbors helping neighbors, families taking care of each other. And we were in Minnesota, alone and started to wonder if something happened here, who would we turn to?”

Around the same time, Rhett came across an article that mentioned MakeMyMove, a relocation platform that offers incentives to remote workers who are looking to relocate to a new community. He clicked through the website and found that Pikeville, their hometown, was part of the program.

“It made us feel like the community genuinely wanted us back.”

Rhett then decided to submit their application. “Even though we had started looking for a new apartment in Rochester, I finally sat down one day and said, ‘I’m going to apply. We fit the criteria and I figured, if we decide to stay in Minnesota, then no harm done.”

A month later, they learned they’d been selected.

“When we told our families, they were thrilled to hear that we were able to use a relocation program to help us move back.”

While Pikeville’s remote worker incentive program offers $5,000 cash for relocation and an additional $2,500 for spouses who secure a local job in healthcare, it didn’t make the decision for them but it did make it easier to bridge the financial gap between Molly finishing her medical training and the start of her new job as a neurologist at Pikeville Medical Center.

“Molly’s training was expensive and so is moving,” Rhett said. “The incentive helped us clear those hurdles.”

A Family Reconnected

Their return to Pikeville didn’t just reposition their own lives; it triggered a ripple effect across their family.

Molly’s parents live just down the street from the home she and Rhett moved into. Her sister and brother-in-law work at local schools and several of her extended family members remain in the area. The density of family connections - proximity, history, shared traditions - shaped nearly every aspect of their homecoming.

“My whole family is here,” Molly said. “It’s something you don’t realize how much you miss until you’re gone.”

In contrast, Rhett’s family had been drifting outward for years. His parents lived in Lexington while his aunt and uncle had settled in Arizona. But after the couple moved home, that trajectory reversed.

“Almost immediately, my mom started looking for houses,” he said. “She ended up buying one just down the street. We're hoping my sister will be next.”

To them, having their family back closer together has been an additional benefit brought on by their move.

A House Full of History and the Chance to Bring it Back to Life

Their homecoming also coincided with a deeply symbolic opportunity: the preservation of Rhett’s grandparents’ house, a property his family had been preparing to sell.

“It had been vacant for nearly nine years,” he said. “Homebuyers were touring it with realtors. It felt like we were about to lose something important.”

Buying the house meant reclaiming a piece of their family identity, a place where stories lived in the walls, where gathering rooms echoed with memories and where the couple themselves had been married.

“When we moved back, it felt like we were moving into a haunted mansion,” Rhett joked. “It needs some work but it also has so much heart.”

Through large windows, the Appalachian mountains are in view - a daily reminder of why the move felt right.

“After years of looking at traffic and buildings, now we look out at mountains and trees,” Molly said. “It feels like living in a state park.”

Integration, Instantly

Back in Minnesota, getting integrated into the community took years. In Pikeville, it took minutes.

They returned to Cornerstone Christian Church, where they first met as teenagers and its members pulled them back into the fold instantly.

Together, they started volunteering at a local food pantry, helping with children’s events and are already preparing to host a large gathering this spring.

“It’s been really special to come back and serve in ways we didn’t get to while we were away,” Rhett said.

Their reconnection extended to Pikeville’s schools as well. Molly visited classrooms to teach neuroscience through Jell-O “brain” dissections. Rhett’s sister-in-law, Sarah Blackburn, the Digital Learning Coach at Pikeville Independent School District, invited him to address teachers at a professional development session highlighting alumni who had left and returned to Eastern Kentucky.

“When you’re from Eastern Kentucky, people just adopt you back like you never left,” he said.

Returning to Practice and to Purpose

Molly says that starting a medical career in Pikeville felt, at first, like starting over.

“It’s weird when you leave a place and then come back,” Molly said. “You hold onto this image of what it was like when you left but when you return, everything has changed and so have you.”

But she adjusted quickly and what surprised her most was how fulfilling the work felt.

“It’s so rewarding to treat patients in the Pikeville area,” she said. “We’re an underserved healthcare area, so the impact is bigger and patients are very appreciative.”

She also discovered that some of the assumptions she had carried about healthcare in rural Eastern Kentucky weren’t accurate.

“When you move away, you hear things,” she said. “People outside the region make comments about how rural it is and you start to internalize some of that. But when I started working at Pikeville Medical Center, I was pleasantly surprised by what we do have. There are some incredibly talented doctors here.”

She wants to help strengthen the region’s medical landscape even further. One of her goals is to bring guest physicians to Pikeville to collaborate with local staff and share knowledge, similar to the interdisciplinary approach she witnessed at the Mayo Clinic.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to advance healthcare in this region,” she said. “And I’m excited to be part of that.”

For Rhett, who works as a flood insurance claims adjuster, his remote job hasn’t really changed except that several of his colleagues live in the area and that he’s been able to connect with other adjusters in person, which he wasn’t able to do before.

Unexpected Positive Changes

Life back in the mountains brought changes the couple didn’t expect - especially in how they felt physically.

Rhett tracks his daily steps on his Oura ring. Since they’ve moved, he’s noticed that his numbers have jumped considerably.

“My steps went up fifty percent a day without even trying,” he said. “I’m walking more, doing yard work and I’m outside constantly.”

But the biggest shift, he said, has been mental.

“The constant traffic and stress of a bigger city wears on you. Even in Lexington, I was sitting in traffic for hours a day sometimes. Here, we’re not losing two hours of our waking life just commuting. The days feel longer here.”

Planning for the Future

The couple has only been back in Pikeville for a few months, but they’ve already begun planning for the future.

They’re preparing to start a family, renovating their new home room by room and they’re talking about additional ways to support the community - not just through medicine or volunteer work, but by encouraging others to return as well.

Rhett laughed, “Molly’s motto is 'Everybody come home.” They believe Eastern Kentucky would be transformed if more of its former residents - the people who understand the culture, the land and the history of the area - returned.

“We talk about this a lot,” Rhett said. “If more people who were from Pikeville moved back, it would be an even more amazing place.”

For them, the benefits of returning have been immediate. More time with family, a deeper sense of purpose, a better lifestyle - all set in their new home tucked away in the mountains.

“We absolutely love it here,” Molly reflected. “It feels like the place we’re meant to be.”