This is the audio from our monthly radio show Focus on Stafford County. This show aired in December. It includes discussion on Giving Tuesday, Stafford County’s commercial kitchen, the partnership between Stafford County Economic Development and the Ida Long Goodman Memorial Library’s Lunch and Learns, a new gazebo for the St. John Square and some upcoming grant writing workshops.
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By Beccy Tanner
For many Kansans, the Christmas holiday season begins first with a visit to the Delp Christmas Tree Farm in St. John.
It’s tradition and for good reason:
The Delp Christmas Tree Farm is the oldest continuously operating commercial Christmas tree farm in Kansas. Cecil and Ruby Delp started the farm in 1959 and were founding members of the Kansas State Christmas Tree Growers Association.
Decades later, one of the Delp’s sons, Tony and his wife, Linda, returned to St. John to help with the farm. And now, Joel and Sarah Delp and their children help – representing the second, third and fourth generations of the Delp family to help with the farm.
Go now, and there are Christmas carols playing nonstop on a sound system.
The scent of fresh-cut trees, swags and wreaths hangs in the air.
Inside the main office is a fireplace and a help-yourself area with peanuts, candy canes and hot apple cider. Outside are rows and rows of trees where generations of families have come to select Christmas trees.
In the beginning, it was small-town life that first drew the Delps to Stafford County.
Cecil and Ruby moved to St. John in 1946. Cecil was originally from the St. John area. His parents did some farming south of St. John, near the Antrim community. Ruby, although she was born in Arkansas, grew up near Guthrie, Okla. The two met in Oklahoma.
Tony and Linda were the next generation to move back.
“We moved back to St. John so we could be closer to family and also a smaller, rural community where we could raise our family and have the advantages of a smaller school and the opportunity to work out on a farm,” Tony Delp said.
How the farm began
The idea of a Christmas tree farm began with his father’s cousins, who would talk of harvesting 40,000 to 60,000 trees grown in natural habit for sale at Christmas in Detroit and Chicago. Also, Cecil Delp’s two brothers both operated fruit orchards in Yakima Valley, Wash.
“Dad always liked to try different things,” Tony said. “He never liked to do like everybody else. So, he took trips and looked at nurseries and trees. He worked with Kansas State University with the state forester.”
By the 1960s and 1970s, the Delp Tree Farm in St. John was a large operation. During the summers, high school and college students would often help with the farm labor.
When it was the first Christmas Tree farm in Kansas, it wasn’t unusual to see car after car lined up along US-281, waiting for the chance to pull in and select a tree.
Travel the surrounding highways then – especially after Thanksgiving — and it was a common site to see station wagons and pickups with Christmas trees tied securely on top or in back.
The Christmas tree farm heyday for the Delps and other tree operators was during the 1970s and 1980s, when there were 150 tree farms across the state. Now there are closer to 30.
Pre-lighted artificial trees have grown in popularity, Delp said, but he has seen their popularity peak and decline over time. Also, there are more trees available at local grocery stores and at organizations that set up lots in cities.
Cecil Delp was well past 50 when he planted 17,500 evergreen trees using his Fordson tractor, sons Phil and Tony and a planter he borrowed from the local Soil Conservation Service.
Ten acres were set aside for a 4-H project for Phil and Tony.
For decades, Ruby Delp taught first grade to students at St. John Elementary School. Then, in the early 1970s, Ruby and Cecil built a combination tree office and pre-school on the farm. The center of the office included the huge fireplace where customers could go to get warm after tromping through rows and rows of trees to select a Christmas tree. Cecil and Ruby both died in 1997 after 65 years of marriage.
Joel Delp has also experimented with various fruit trees including growing some paw paws. The paw paw trees are normally grown only in thick woodlands, usually close to streams in eastern Kansas, as far west as Butler County. And so, it is rare and exceptional the trees are beginning to thrive on the sandy soils of Stafford County.
Still, it is the Christmas trees that remain popular.
“We couldn’t have a better customer base than the people who come for the Christmas trees,” Tony said. “Most of them are happy, pleasant, and easy to talk to and get along with. It’s fun to see them each year.”
It’s all about family for the Delps.
Linda Delp – according to Tony – is an expert bowmaker and has literally created and tied thousands of bows. She also runs the counter and keeps the office going.
For the Delps, Christmas is their family legacy.
“We care about the community,” Tony said. ““For our family, Christmas begins with Christ and then, it’s about spending time with each other.”
By Beccy Tanner
When Darrell Bauer, owner of the Wheatland Café in Hudson talks about the quality and uses of Hudson Cream Flour, his voice takes on that enthusiastic tone of a loyal fan.
“There’s all kinds of flour out there but Hudson Cream never fails,” Bauer said. “And, they have a lot of good products – a biscuit mix, gravy mix that’s really good.”
But then, he starts listing all the dishes he uses the flour in:
“I use it in our cinnamon rolls, bierocks, for making gravy, breading chicken, chicken fries … I’ve used other self-rising flours before when I was out, and it just doesn’t do the same. I can’t tell you what they (Hudson Cream) do differently, but the food is always good.”
Stafford County Flour Mills Company in Hudson, which has produced Hudson Cream Flour for the past 118 years, has developed a mighty loyal reputation.
The gourmet magazine Saveur told readers in 1998 that “Hudson Cream is not a blend of hard and soft wheat flours, as all-purpose flours are, but is made entirely from hard red winter wheat. The result: higher, lighter breads with a rich flavor.”
Hudson Cream Flour is all about innovation and creativity.
It’s also about a loyal fan base of chefs and cooks that grows exponentially with each generation.
Especially in Stafford County, think about a holiday meal that doesn’t somewhere have Hudson Cream Flour included in a couple of the recipes.
But beyond flour, the Hudson mill is also a trendsetter in many other ways.
For example, in 2014, Stafford County Mills installed a wind turbine outside the city limits of Hudson, making it the first commercial flour milling facility in North America to use wind power-generated electricity produced on site.
That kind of innovation really began decades ago.
According to its website, hudsoncream.com, in 1922, “Leila English Reid, who was born and raised in Stafford County, moved to West Virginia.” Not happy with the type of flour she found there on grocery shelves, she negotiated to bring a train car shipment of Hudson Cream Flour to West Virginia.
The rest is history because now, a majority of Hudson Cream Flour still sells and is popular on the East Coast.
“Why it has survived, I think, goes to two things: number one, it is a premium product on the market, and it’s allowed us to keep a market share when a lot of people sold out.,” said Derek Foote, who is in management at the mill’s corporate office in Hudson. “The other is the local community supporting it. When the mill went up for sale, there were local people buying it to keep it local.”
That happened in 1986 when, the Krug family – the original owners of the mill -were ready to retire and looking to sell the Stafford County Flour Mills. Fearing it might mean a loss for the local economy, several area residents pooled their resources to buy the flour mill and keep the company local.
The end results is that the flour and other products are now shipped to 41 states, Foote said.
“Not all that’s in our bags, nor the Hudson Cream Flour or Stafford County Flour Mills label,” he said. “Most of our label goes either in the Midwest or back to the Appalachian states.”
In addition, the Stafford County Mills supplies the public schools in Hawaii with flour, and product for kosher companies in New York and Chicago.
When the mills are running, 400,000 pounds of flour can be turned out in a day, Foote said.
“A lot of it is the quality of the product,” Foote said. “I think that’s the biggest thing is that we have kind of a cult-like following, especially back in the Appalachian states because of its short patent flour. Basically, it’s how we refine it. We pull a lot of the clear flour, the heavy stuff off. And so, what we are left with is just the heart – a flour that is smother, softer. That’s why the cream is in the name. Big mills can’t do that — or they don’t do it so much. It allows us to make more of a premium product that differentiates ourselves. We have been able to sell to niche markets.
“We are about the only one (in the nation) that does it with winter wheat – that’s the key part.”
In recent years, the mill has also substantially grown a market for organic flour.
“We actually do a pretty good volume of it,” Foote said. “It’s not grown around here as much and not as much of it is sold around here – but that product goes more to the east coast and to places like Denver and Austin. We do a significant volume, and it just keeps increasing.”
Not bad for a flour mill where the majority of its wheat is grown within 26 miles of Hudson.
2023 SCCF $5,000 Children’s Health Grant Recipient:
City of Stafford: West Park Equipment Update
2023 SCCF Community Grant Recipients:
Lucille M. Hall Museum for Education and History:
Isaac B. Werner Memorial Fireproof File Cabinet……………… $1,000
USD 349 – Stafford Schools: Art Program Materials and Supplies……………. $1,000
Macksville Middle School: Social Studies Books…………………………………….. $1,000
Zenith Community Presbyterian Church:
Stafford Ministerial Alliance Food Assistance Program……….. $1,500
USD 350 – St. John-Hudson Schools:
Therapy Dog Training and Certification………………………………. $1,760
Macksville City Library: Hometown Hospitality on Display Project………….. $1,395
Nora E. Larabee Memorial Library: Computers………………………………………. $1,000
St. John High School: Robotics Technology……………………………………………. $1,000
USD 350 – St. John-Hudson Schools: Orff Instruments……………………………. $1,838
Stafford County Core Community: Core Curriculum…………………………………. $680
Macksville Grade School: Library Books……………………………………………….. $1,000
Macksville Grace Church: Food Pantry and Necessities Nook Supplies……… $2,000
City of Stafford: Uptown Sound System………………………………………………….. $1,462
St. John Elementary School: STEAM Day Supplies………………………………….. $1,240
St. John High School: Cameras……………………………………………………………….. $950
Macksville High School: Leadership Workshop and Supplies…………………… $1,600
Stafford County Economic Development:
Youth Entrepreneur Challenge Supplies………………………………. $1,880
Nora E. Larabee Memorial Library: ADA Bathroom Project…………………….. $1,954
2023 SCCF $250 Teacher’s Grant Recipients:
St. John Elementary School: Social Emotional Online Learning………. Michelle Christiansen
Macksville Junior High and High School: Care Closet Restock……. Jessica Neeland
St. John Elementary School: Shoe Lacing Trainers…………………………… Trish Wade
St. John Junior High School: Classroom Library Books………………….. Andrea Long
St. John Elementary School: Kagan Cooperative Learning Materials. Bonnie Ward
Stafford High School: Classroom Library Books………………………….. Dianna Fisher
USD 350 – St. John-Hudson Schools: Ceramics Tools and Glazes…….. Brad Emery
By Ryan Russell
Stafford County leaders have been working to finalize details in opening a commercial kitchen at the Stafford County Annex in St. John.
While some of the initial construction has yet to be completed, the county commission has generously given to help get the kitchen going. In addition, Stafford County Economic Development Inc. was awarded a grant by South Central Community Foundation to hold Youth Entrepreneur Challenge (YEC) this year with a focus being on value added food creation.
The YEC youth are challenged to create a business concept and compete against each other.
Stafford County Economic Development will offer an entrepreneurship training program in 2024 — that is food related, once the kitchen is completed and licensed.
Additional programming will be in partnership with 4H extension with their youth programs to create commercially viable products. We will also work with 4H extension to create year-round programming.
The idea behind this is that Stafford County has an abundance of raw food materials from the flour mill, produce farmers, a number of small farms producing high-quality meat and dairy products; however, there is a lack of value-added products that are marketable.
Additional funds are needed.
The goal is to raise $10,000 for the operational and programming costs connected to the Commercial Kitchen. This will include the costs of bringing in people with the technical skills and knowledge to help with training in packaging and food processing. We will also be putting in a gas stove and other equipment that may be needed depending on who uses the kitchen.
Here’s how that money can be raised:
Beginning in November, South Central Community Foundation is doing a matching day on Giving Tuesday. They have a pool of $70,000 to use in matching. Each organization has an opportunity to get the funds they’ve raised matched, and an endowment created that will gain interest every year to be used for whatever projects an organization has to fund.
Though Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, individuals can give throughout the month of November. Stafford County Economic Development is participating in South Central Community Foundations month of giving.
So, give generously this November and help Stafford County Economic Development spur economic growth in Stafford County’s nascent food product industry. To donate to support this important program, click on the link. https://www.sccfmatchday.org/nonprofits.cfm?id=1830
Stafford County Economic Development has been working hard the last 2 years to complete 10 houses that are in St. John, Stafford, Hudson, and Macksville respectively. These houses have government requirements for income and age and meet the need of a critical group in our community. We are now looking for a lucky person or family to move into the last house in Macksville. The 412 W. Halveson house has a large yard and has 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. The other houses in the county are now called for. The house on First and Monroe in St. John was recently filled and the house in Hudson has someone moving into it starting in November. If you or someone you know needs housing in Macksville please contact Housing Opportunities Incorporated (HOI) our partner who manages the houses. Reach out to HOI by phone (620) 792-3299.
By Beccy Tanner
Stafford County’s two area community foundations are gearing up one of the largest global giving days ever – Giving Tuesday, which falls this year on Nov. 28.
Worldwide, it’s a movement that promotes “radical generosity,” according to the organization’s website: www.givingtuesday.org.
Locally, it means the Golden Belt Community Foundation and the South-Central Community Foundation are promoting local nonprofits and encouraging residents to give as generously as they can to support their favorite nonprofits.
For Golden Belt Community Foundation, this is their 10th year in promoting Giving Tuesday.
They have 100 local nonprofits participating in this year’s event.
“You can give to your favorite nonprofits and those funds can move directly to them or you can give to your favorite nonprofit endowment fund and that money can stay here with us and can grow that fund to continue to support that nonprofit organization,” said Teresa Powelson, program officer for Golden Belt.
The Golden Belt’s Community Foundation area covers counties in Barton, Pawnee, Rush and Stafford County.
In year’s past, the foundation raised more than $288,000 in Giving Tuesday.
“Last year was one of our biggest giving years,” Powelson said. “I think the thing that means the most to us is that we get to continue to support the nonprofit agencies in our community. This is a way that we can continue to help them grow, build their programs and serve the community just by allowing them to participate in Giving Tuesday.
“I think that’s one of the greatest benefits we can provide to the community.”
People who have participated in Giving Tuesday with Golden Belt before can expect to receive forms in the mail informing them of Giving Tuesday.
If they haven’t participated before and would like to, they may go to the Golden Belt Community Foundation’s Facebook page or website or stop by the foundation’s office in Great Bend to find out more information.
The office is located at 1307 Williams St, Great Bend, KS., 67530.
The website is www.goldenbeltcf.org.
The South Central Community Foundation in Pratt represents Barber, Comanche, Kiowa, Kingman, Rice and Stafford counties.
This is the foundation’s first year participating in Giving Tuesday and has 10 nonprofiit organiztions signed up to participate.
“It’s a big deal,” said Holly Launchbaugh, the foundation’s executive director of this year’s event. “It’s not just about the actual monetary donations but about giving back to your community, as well. It’s volunteering in every capacity. It has a lot of different meanings, for sure.”
Through a grant with the Patterson Family Foundation, which was established to reinvest in rural communities, the South Central Community Foundation is able to provide for the first time up to $70,000 in matching funds.
“We have a matching pool,” Launchbaugh said. “So, if we raise $70,000 or above, we will receive that full amount. Of course, if we received from the community, $30,000, that’s what we will get. So, it depends on how much you raise up to $70,000.”
Last summer, the South Central Community Foundation did a listening tour of each of its seven participating counties. The counties are, of course, all rural and all face similar issues with housing, childcare and the workforce topping the main concerns.
“When we received this opportunity to receive this grant, we really wanted to help out the nonprofits that serve our counties,” she said. “Helping our communities is something that we all support.”
The money goes straight to the nonprofit of choice.
“So, it’s really helping with whatever the nonprofit’s specific need is,” Launchbaugh said. “This is open-ended to let the nonprofit select where the money goes.”
The Patterson Family Foundation grant opened up an opportunity this year for the SCCF, Launchbaugh said. In the past, much of the foundation’s dollars was spent specifically on other grants or scholarships. The Patterson grant allowed the foundation to participate for the first time in Giving Tuesday.
People wanting to participate in Giving Tuesday can drop checks off at the office beginning Nov. 14th in Pratt or by mailing checks to the office. The office is located at 114 W. 5th, Pratt, KS., 67124.
“As long as the check is postmarked by Nov. 28, they will be counted for that matching grant this year,” she said. South Central’s website is https://www.sccfmatchday.org/.
This is our September 2023 Radio show with our director Ryan Russel
By Beccy Tanner
Mark your calendars for Oct. 21st for our Homecoming Festival.
The all-day event includes a chili cook off, concert, a pickleball tournament, horseshoe tournament, face-painting, a petting zoo, carnival games, free barbecue and so much more.
Most of the events will be in and around the square.
“Well, I think it’s a great community event where it will bring people of all ages out to enjoy the beautiful square and hopefully, we will have beautiful weather that day,” said Cami Raines, the festival’s committee chair.
“It’s a great event for families with small children because we have lots of activities planned for them – that will not cost a single penny, thanks to our very generous sponsors.”
Nationally-acclaimed photographer Bo Rader will present demonstrations of wet-plate photography — the kind of photography W.R. Gray worked with —and what the St. John Homecoming Hall and Museum is using to document the diverse cultures who have lived in Stafford County. Those demonstrations will be in the W.R. Gray Studio from noon to 4 pm.
At 2:30 pm in the square on the 21st, plan on learning more about the St. John Homecoming Hall and Museum’s recent Humanities Kansas Grant that allows Rader and museum staff to photograph, video and write stories about Native American tribes who once lived in Stafford County.
This year, we have invited some Native Americans to attend our festival to tell us more about their culture.
The festival focuses on the different cultures that have lived in Stafford County.
“It’s just good to focus on the cultures that helped start the county and the state and to encourage people to think about the past, our ancestors and support their local museums,” Raines said.
One of the highlights of our festival will be a concert featuring Jim and Salli Ratts with Ernie Martinez.
Their concert starts at 3:30 pm. In the square.
Jim grew up in Stafford County. The Ratts farm was a few miles northwest of St. John. The love of music has been passed down from generation to generation in the Ratts family. Many will remember Jim’s father, Loyd Ratts who lived to be 103 years old. He died in 2018.
Loyd Ratts’ legacy was not only as a farmer and inventor, but also as a musician. During the 1930s, Loyd Ratts, along with his two sisters, Vida and Thelma, would travel through central and southwest Kansas to local radio stations and perform live for their radio listeners.
Jim Ratts is considered a musical storyteller and is a solid fixture of the Denver music scene, having fronted his country-folk-rock band Runaway Express with his wife, Salli for more than 30 years.
Some of Jim Ratts’ songs have been recorded by artists such as Sam Bush (the bluegrass chart hit “Howlin’ at the Moon” and the Dillards. In the 1990s, he was one third of the Wild Jimbos with Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Jimmy Ibbotson.
Besides the concert, there will be an Old Coots table in the square beginning at 1 p.m., where local personalities have been invited to share their wisdom on random questions. They may not offer the right advice but really, who cares if it tickles the funny bones!
There will be raffle tickets and prizes, cotton candy and who knows what else!
“Free food,” Raines said.
What? There is no such thing.
“Oh, it’s free,” she said. “If you happen to be one of the first 200, it’s free. And, it’s a yes for old-fashioned popcorn, peanuts and cotton candy.”
Indeed, Equity Bank is providing a free barbecue for the first 200 participants at the festival, beginning at noon.
In addition, beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 21, David Dalke, author of “Knees Lifted High and Toes Pointed” will be making a presentation on the second floor of the St. John museum about how the St. John Marching Band back in the 1930s became national champions.
The St. John Homecoming Hall and Museum has produced a video that highlights those champion years and what Dalke’s father, Jake, experienced in creating that band.
So come to the festival.
There will be prizes.
And lots of fun.
By Beccy Tanner
The Stafford County Zoning Commission has unanimously given their approval for a special use permit that help sets the stage for constructing the Port Authority of Stafford County.
Final approval, though, lies in the hands of the Stafford County Commission, which are set to hear the zoning case in October.
The Port Authority of Stafford County will be located near the junction of US-50 and US 281 highways, near a BNSF railroad mainline.
It is a site where hundreds of cars and trucks pass daily.
And while those vehicles will continue to pass daily by the site, there is hope that a 256-acre site will soon be constructed and handle full-size grain trains of more than 100 railcars and semi-trucks that can carry more than just grain but merchandise and consumer goods that may eventually pump as much as $7-to-9 million into the local economy.
The new Port Authority will in fact be a transportation and shipping hub.
Carolyn Dunn, president of the Port Authority and who currently is the Stafford County Economic Development’s Strategic Projects Manager presented the case to the zoning board, Sept. 12.
Dunn is also the county’s former economic development director and has been involved in the county’s development for the past 12 years.
“I was made aware that we were missing some critical business opportunities in the very first few months of economic development being in existence in 2011,” Dunn told the board. “We had a company at the time that was interested in putting a unit car loading facility here and had some purchase options on land but then decided to locate somewhere in Nebraska, instead. We subsequently had two other companies that considered Stafford County closely but invested somewhere else.”
Stafford County, because of its rural population, does not have a large labor force to attract manufacturers. But it does have agricultural products that can bring investment opportunities into the county.
And that is what local business and agriculture leaders are hoping to draw on.
“We are at the crossroads of two U.S. highways that intersect with the mainline railroad,” Dunn said. “It’s not an accident. Some of these companies that were considering Stafford County as a location is because we do have that strategic location when it comes to transportation.”
Additionally, there are few other public points of entry to a major railroad in the western 2/3 of Kansas. Those that do have rail service are owned by private companies, who control who uses the tracks.
“So, that is something we can put out there as an advantage that we could offer for developing,” Dunn said. “Our purpose here is to create more and better-quality jobs that diversify the economy. One of the biggest goals for me is to increase the tax base with the goal of preserving essential services and quality of life.”
Because construction of the Port Authority will be costly, Dunn said, she wanted to do it in such a way that local taxpayers would not have to pay for it.
“We’ve made an application to the Federal Railroad administration … There is no way we would have even had an application worth sending in if we hadn’t already had over $5 million secured and other components already in place. It’s a very long process,” Dunn has said previously. “There have been a lot of different entities along the way that have been willing to be open and helpful to us. I feel we have the kind of support that the FRA looks for from the Kansas Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture and the Department of Transportation. We have the support of both our U.S. Senators, US Representatives, and State Rep. Brett Fairchild, and local representatives who have endorsed us.”
The $5 million that has already secured for the Port came from a $2.5 million BASE grant through the Kansas Department of Commerce and a $2.5 million appropriation in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill (HB 2510). Another $800,000 was awarded to Stafford County Economic Development to loan to the Port Authority with flexible repayment terms.
Yet, more money is needed – at least another $5 million—which Dunn has applied for and is hopeful the county will receive.
That’s why the special use permit is needed – as part of the process.
“What we have is agriculture and we are missing the opportunities to capture some investment in the benefits that that brings because we maybe didn’t have the right tools to really make it an appealing investment for potential businesses,” Dunn said.
