REYNOLDS, Ind. – Like many withering rural communities, this corn, soybean and hog farming town, which has only 533 residents, worries about keeping the school open, persuading sons and daughters to stay and finding a role for small farms in a changed economy. But a different worry has risen, too.

With government financing and help from state agriculture officials, Reynolds is starting a one-town rebellion against the nation’s dependence on ordinary energy supplies. Some say the goal might be too ambitious for any town, much less little Reynolds.

True, most of the plans are just that, for now. But in the end, the town wants to secede from America’s energy grid and power itself entirely with renewable sources, like its corn and pigs.

Reynolds is in a conservative patch of a largely conservative state, where many drive pickups and the word “environmentalist” can draw a groan.

Still, frustration, driven in part by the price of gas at the only station in town, has boiled over and rendered labels meaningless.

King Van Voorst, 85, a longtime resident, blamed Arab nations for the spike in gasoline prices.

“We have got to get some kind of energy going over here to show we can do it ourselves,” he said.

The State of Indiana brought the idea to Reynolds last year, dubbing it BioTown, an experiment Gov. Mitch Daniels acknowledges could be viewed as a bit of “a stunt.”

But in the months that followed, as the price of gasoline soared, Reynolds adopted the notion.

Since November, nearly 100 residents have begun driving cars that can run on ethanol-based fuel. And this month, officials began work on a plant that would allow Reynolds to draw its electricity from pig and cow manure as well as human waste.

In an interview, Daniels said, the real test would lie in private investment in a town that functions solely on renewable fuels.

“Ultimately,” he said, “this concept has to be self-sustaining.”