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Apple dumplings and hot beef sandwiches are Stafford County staples at Kansas State Fair

You cannot go to the Kansas State Fair without entering the Pride of Kansas building and seeing the crowds line up in front of the Wheatland Café booth.

Sure, you can check out the butter sculpture and the giant pumpkins, but really the main star in that building is Shannon and Darrell Bauer’s food creations.

“We do about 5,000 apple dumplings and 3,000 bierocks,” Shannon Bauer said.

The Bauers do things the hard way – from scratch. Which means, it is really good food.

They, of course, run the Wheatland Café in Hudson, which is open the first and third Sundays of each month – as well as a sizeable catering business.

At the café in Hudson, it’s not unusual for the Wheatland to draw in customers from miles around on the Sundays they are open. Folks line behind the buffet bar and the line snakes out the building and sometimes down the sidewalk.

The Wheatland lines at the State Fair are no exception.

The Bauers draw lots of hungry people to their booth for the 10 days the fair is in operation.

“We do this to make a living, that’s a big part of it,” Shannon said. “Plus, Darrell likes having that break from the everyday things. He likes going to the state fair and seeing all the people and reconnecting with people he’s known for years. Plus, we meet new people.”

They’ve met Kansas governors who have lined up at the booth.

Happy customers tell them they’ve made buying food at the Wheatland part of their fair tradition each year.

“We start making lists and gathering foods the first of August and then, we start cooking our meat, like for our roast beef sandwiches,” Shannon said. “We cook it ahead of time and then, as soon as it’s cool, we bag it off into gallon baggies and freeze it. We do that the second week of August. We cook on and off and freeze. Those are the things we do ahead of time.”

Then, they live at the state fairgrounds the entire time of the fair – in two RV campers, one for the men, one for the women.

“Our help stays with us, as well,” she said.

“My schedule is that I go to work at 5 a.m. and work until 7 at night,” Shannon said. “Darrell comes in at 7 a.m. and works until 10 at night. The building closes at 9 pm and it takes about an hour to clean up after that.”

How many people do they serve each day?

“I couldn’t even tell you,” she said. “Sometimes, they are lined up clear down the middle aisle to the other end of the building. It is mind boggling. It never amazes us every year to see people waiting in lines that long.”

The Bauers often have the same people helping run their booth, year after year.

They have 15 employees.

“We haven’t had to hire anybody new for quite a while now,” she said. “I mean it’s wonderful to get the same people back each year. For years, we had a family drive out from El Paso, Texas and help.”

It’s a team working like clockwork to make to make a little bit of Stafford County heaven possible at the fair.

The most popular items are, of course, the hot roast beef sandwiches and apple dumplings, a la mode.

But then, they also do a hefty business in cinnamon rolls, coffee, cherry and peach cobbler and bierocks.

“Bierocks are big sellers but hot roast beef, I don’t know why because that is the easiest thing to make – that’s our biggest seller,” she said.

As a longtime fair-goers know, you can’t go wrong with a hot roast beef sandwich. Sure, there are the Methodist Church chicken and noodles, the Lady of Guadalupe enchiladas and Pronto Pups at every turn, but the hot roast beef sandwiches are always a winner.

Think of it, after one of those long afternoons of walking around, seeing exhibits, people watching, buying gizmos and coming into the Pride of Kansas building. You finally get a chance to sit down and have something warm and nurturing to eat.

It goes down mighty fine with a hot apple dumpling and a dollop of ice cream.

“The state fair always helps our business as far as catering goes,” Shannon said. “We have booked so many weddings and funerals from our state fair business because people from all over the state come there.

“It’s good for us as we make our living. I mean, it’s really exciting and a lot of fun.”

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Sunflower Trailer, a landmark for St. John

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It was only a few years after Keno Maxom opened Sunflower Trailer at the corner of the old St. John Motel off US-281, that Bruce Heller, first began hauling trailers.

It’s been a trailer dealership since 1991, according to their website, sunflowertrailersales. Com.

Their inventory is endless – equipment trailers, car haulers, tilt trailers, utility trailers, dump trailers, livestock trailers and more.

The address is 2-A, N.E. 20th Street.

“Then I was working in Chapman, Ks. and Junction City and hauling trailers for him and different things,” Heller said. “It got to be every night I was going somewhere half the night and delivering stuff. In 1993, he came to me and said, ‘Why don’t you come down here and we will just start growing this thing.”

And before he knew it, Heller had moved to St. John. “The more I was down here, the more I liked it.”

Now, he is the owner and president of Sunflower Trailer.

His customers technically come from across the nation.

“Yesterday, we had a guy come from Waco, Texas and last week, there was a guy from Colorado.”

More specifically, the business has customers in an eight-state region around Kansas.

“We’ve had some really good ones over the years and a lot are repeat business,” Heller said. “We go to the state fairs and set up for 10 days and man, you end up seeing people you saw 20 years before. I mean, it’s crazy how you hear from people. One guy bought a trailer from me in ’97 and a friend he knew decided he wanted to come try them. Pretty cool when it’s word-of-mouth.”

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Elroy’s Pizza in Stafford brings in crowds from all around

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Years ago, there was a little restaurant on Stafford’s Main Street with a sign out front saying “Pizza.”

That’s how it was known until a family stepped in.

Now, it is “Elroy’s,” and its pizza is legendary.

And so is its family history.

In July of 1985, Leroy and Ollie Meyer bought that restaurant – because the lifelong area farmers wanted something different to do with their lives.

 Their daughter, Jennifer and husband, Todd Alpers, have since bought the place in 1995 and have since created a mecca for the pizza-starved of south-central Kansas.

As the family story goes, the name “Elroy” started as a joke for Leroy Meyer.

It was Stafford students who started the nickname – and he loved it, so, the name stuck.

That’s how the restaurant started.

But there is more to the story.

“I came back in 1995 and took over,” Jennifer Alpers said. “My brother bought it – it would have been in 1992.”

 Her brother, Jeff Meyer is the owner of Meyer Electric.

“My folks had it from 1985 to 1992. And then, in 1995, I came back on September 1, 1995,” Jennifer said.

And the date, September 1, 1995 is significant because on Oct. 7 of that same year was the first time Jennifer went out on a date with Todd Alpers.

“We got married in 1997,” she said.

Her parents both died in 2000.

 The couple have since raised their three children in the restaurant.

“People have asked us, ‘why don’t you move to such and such a place.’ Well, you can’t replace that much history. We have people come in and say, “I can remember being here when I was a kid.’”

The restaurant walls are covered in family memorabilia.

Both Todd and Jennifer’s families have lived and worked in Stafford County for more than five generations.

“She (Jennifer) trained her parents how to do this and she trained me,” Todd Alpers said. “She loves to bake. She’s the rock star.”

So, with the ovens going at a fiery 650 degrees, Jennifer laughs and explains, “The guy who owned it before my parents bought it gave me a day’s training. It was Basic Training and then you just do it.”

She tells the story of why they don’t use Hudson Cream Flour in their dough (although Todd worked there before they were married).

“It’s cake flour, basically,” she said. “It’s great for something where the dough can be fine – but we need sturdy dough. We need a higher protein content so technically, a lower grade flour.”

So as the years have gone by, Elroy’s has become a meeting place where locals gather to discuss the latest and where families and friends come to get great pizza.

“We are so lucky to have the community’s support,” Jennifer said. “I tell people that the whole town – the whole community – helped raise our kids.”

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Non-Profit Capacity Building Opportunity 

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Grant Writing Certification 

If your organization wants to build capacity in grant writing, then check out these great opportunities where you can send someone to get trained.  Stafford County Economic Development will have some limited funds available to give scholarships to individuals that wish to attend. 

Fort Hays State University Grant Certification Program  

• 8 Weeks  

• All Online  

• September 6th Start Date  

• Program cost $175 USD  

This is an introduction to the grant proposal writing, although several highly experienced proposal writers have found great value in our course as a review and refresher course. The areas of focus will be the key parts of the most sophisticated type of proposals: title page, abstract, statement of need, goal, objectives, procedures, budget, qualifications, evaluation, sustainability, dissemination, sources cited, and appendix.  

https://www.fhsu.edu/sociology/grant-writing-certification-program/

Nancy Daniels Grant Writing Workshop  

• 1 day  

• In person (Dodge City)  

• September 26th or 27th 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.  

• Program cost $40 USD includes lunch  

K-State Research and Extension Office Community Vitality Specialist, Nancy Daniels, will share her knowledge on how to write a grant and where to find grants.  

raisingthewest.org

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Winners of Photo Contest Announced

Photo of winter’s sunset with irrigation by Jody Suiter

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The Petal Shop Opening Soon

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There is a new flower shop opening in town just off the square in St. John behind Equity Bank.  The Petal Shop will be aiming for a soft opening on July 31st and will have everything from homemade gifts, fresh flower arrangements, candy bouquets, and plants.  The family behind the opening of the shop are the Truitt’s who are also the owners of Kansas Pest Inc. Jarrin Truitt is known by many through the Pest control business. But his wife, Kimberly, will soon be in charge of the flower shop. Keith Van Doren and Darla Stone were instrumental in helping the Truitt’s get their building. Kim is originally from Medicine Lodge and has lived in St. John for nearly five years following Jarrin who’s lived in here since 2005. The Truitt’s also have two boys Dylan and Jett who you’ll probably see hanging around The Petal Shop with Kimberly.

 Kimberly loves doing scrapbooking, journaling, photography and started focusing on crafting in 2020 right as Covid was starting and needed an outlet while being a stay-at-home mom with a one-year-old.  She first got into doing art projects when she joined Facebook groups that had cute inexpensive ideas.  Ideas like the pizza pan wreaths that are featured on early posts on her Facebook page.  In Medicine Lodge Kimberly arranged several community fund raisers and worked with the Chamber of Commerce through social media campaigns and Peace Treaty Pageants.  Since moving to St. John, she’s been a stay-at-home mom.  Now that her boys are bigger, this is the right time to start The Petal Shop.

 Kimberly had been thinking about opening a small craft/gift shop in St. John for the past 5 years but was encouraged by Jarrin to dive into it after seeing the need for a flower shop in the community.  Kimberly says, “Jarrin’s persistence and faith in me probably was the driver. But when we started to investigate what we needed to do, everything has come together like it’s meant to happen.”  They’ve also received lots of encouragement from the community once they announced they planned to open. 

 The Petal Shop will have delivery eventually for the entire county but at the start it will just be Kimberly by herself running the shop.  Eventually they will be able to provide full-service delivery to the entire county.  For now you can do pickup at their shop or they can deliver within St. John area.

 The Petal Shop logo was inspired by Kimberly’s Grandma Violet’s fabric paint design on a pillow case. 

 Follow The Petal Shop and make orders on Facebook or [email protected].

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Abilene Meat Processing Site Visit

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Stafford County Economic Development (EcoDevo) has been looking into different concepts that might work with the growing need of the county’s beef producers to slaughter, process, and package meat to sell directly to consumers.  After talking with Kansas Commerce and Land of Kansas, EcoDevo organized a site visit to see Midwest Meats mobile beef slaughter trailer in Abilene, KS.  On June 23rd a group of 5 people including Billy Milton, Lisa Cornwell, Scott and Jennifer Pfortmiller, and EcoDevo’s Ryan Russell went to Abilene to meet with Troy and Brian Leith of Midwest Meats.  

The group first went to lunch and discussed Midwest Meats journey of over 2 years in trying to figure out how to create a system of farm to table beef products.  The main challenge had been city ordinances which stopped them from doing beef slaughter within city limits.  Now they were operating and had followed guidelines to be Federally approved.  Troy said, “All small towns in Kansas should be replicating this, it’s the only way forward economically allowing small beef producers to slaughter, butcher, and sell directly to customers.  Our goal at Midwest Meats is to promote branded beef specific to beef producer farms’.” 

 The concept they had built was a 13 ft tall trailer that had cooling capacity for 5-6 slaughtered cattle.  They could drive it to any farm in their county, set it up with a 3 man crew, and complete the slaughter process of  a cow within 40 minutes of setup.  After that, drive the cooling beef to their butcher shop and transfer them from the trailer for processing at their butcher/retail shop.  The trailer has on board electricity and water.  They have plans to set up slaughter staging stations at all the farms they worked with, equipping them with a concrete slab and electrical hookups for their trailer.

The trip made all participants intrigued about what might be possible for beef producers in Stafford County.  This is the starting point in the due diligence process to create a project that fits the needs of beef producers in Stafford County.  There will be a followup meeting with all beef producers interested in entering the discussion on how to go about getting beef slaughter and processing into Stafford County. More information about next steps will be available on EcoDevo’s facebook page soon.

If you have any questions or interest please contact Ryan Russell at [email protected] or 620-314-5561. 

Midwest Meats Trip Media

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2023 Photo Contest

Stafford County Economic Development sponsors an annual photography contest for images that will be used on promotional materials and/or our website. A $25.00 prize will be given to the winner in each of the 3 categories listed below, and an unlimited amount of honorable mention winners will receive a $5.00 prize for each entry.

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What’s happening with Eco Devo housing?

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The new rental houses completed earlier this year in St. John and the currently under construction in Macksville are part of the nine house county-wide rental housing Stafford County Economic Development (EcoDevo) started building in September 2021. The first house was built in Hudson and completed in February 2022. Three houses in Stafford were completed in June 2022. The three houses in St. John were completed in January 2023. And the final two houses in Macksville should be completed by August 2023. 

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