This is the July 2024 radio show Focus on Stafford County. This month’s show covers a variety of topics including an introduction of the new Stafford County Economic Development office administrator, Sarah Hampton. Other subjects covered are childcare updates and Rural Champion funding; new housing, prices and availability; a grant for a historic district survey in Stafford; nominations for historic register designation; Hudson’s Easter egg hunt and Christmas celebrations; a grant for getting quality internet broadband services in Hudson; an update on St. John’s Pickleboard Court. and status of Gray Studio renovation.
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This is the audio from our monthly radio show Focus on Stafford County. This show aired live in May 202nd. Topics include housing updates; childcare; the creation of a historic preservation district in Stafford, the Kansas Main Street Program; Pickleball courts coming to Stafford County; the Farmers Market and events surrounding the first time it opens on June 13; the Commercial Kitchen, job openings, grant writing projects and the possibility of showing outdoor movies in the park.
This is the audio from our monthly radio show: Focus on Stafford County. The show aired liven March.Topics discussed include construction updates on Gray Photo, a museum room at the studio and apartment.Other topics include new housing projects, downtown historic district ini Stafford, book discussion on “`13 ways to kill your community” and update on potential future of Stafford Depot.
This is the audio from our monthly radio show: Focus on Stafford County. The show aired in February, 2024. Topics include an upcoming Lunch & Learn book discussion of “Thirteen Ways to Kill your Community;” updates on Stafford County’s commercial kitchen, childcare; Gray Photo Studio grant, art auction and renovation; EPIC grant projects in Stafford County and the Sttafford train depot.
By Beccy Tanner
Four years ago, Glora Batten started her journey into canning.
A friend asked her to come over to their house and help can pickles.
“We got started and made a batch of pickles and I just thought it was very fun,” the 29-year-old St. John woman said.
That moment started her thinking about the possibilities of canning more foods.
Soon, she had created an array of jams and jellies, pickles, relishes, and syrups.
Currently, Batten says she is in a canning hiatus.
Her youngest daughter, Charlotte, was born last June and is taking much of Batten’s daily attention.
But she is hopeful to get back into the full canning swing later this spring where she can offer sometimes as many as 30 different varieties of items.
When she does, Batten said she plans on using the new commercial kitchen in the Stafford County Annex.
“I have filled up my dining room table laying down jars and canning equipment,” she said. “I always go through a deep cleaning before I make anything, so it will be nice to walk into a nice, clean kitchen (at the Stafford County Annex) and just simply get the process going.”
Her business is called Preserved Goodness and she sells all over Central Kansas – Salina, Hutchinson, Wichita and Great Bend — and on Facebook.
“I’ve done a lot of pop-up markets over the last couple of years,” she said. “And I’ve been invited to sell products in a couple of stores and in different small businesses … I’ve always enjoyed cooking. I have a good friend. Her name is Phyllis, and she runs Dilly and Doc (a creative studio in Great Bend). She kept telling me I should have a booth with my jams and jellies.
“I didn’t think I had the audacity to do such a thing. I kept telling her so. And then, I went down in my basement after a day of canning, and I realized that I had filled up an entire room with probably 400 to 500 jars of jelly.”
Batten and her husband, Shawn, have four girls – Talley, 10; Rebekah, 4; Savannah, 3; and Charlotte, 7 months.
“My oldest daughter likes to do lemonade stands at the farmers markets,” Batten said. “This summer, I am hoping to go with her and have a few jellies to sell. And then, we will start back up doing random pop-up markets this fall.”
Until then, Batten said she can take small orders with advance notice.
She makes pepper jams, sandhill plum jelly, mulberry and blackberry jams. She has traditional flavors of jams and then, some not so traditional – think chocolate strawberry, blueberry-strawberry, carrot cake, monkey butters and tropical jams.
She sells half pint jars, typically around $7 each.
“Anything that looks fun, I usually try.”
To check out Glora’s business, see Preserved Goodness Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/preserved_goodness .
This is the audio from our monthly radio show: Focus on Stafford County. This show aired live Thursday, Jan. 25. Topics included a $50,000 HEAL grant that was awarded to the W.R. Gray Studio in St. John and a $50,000 loan from SJN Bank for the studio’s renovation. Other subjects included the Stafford County Port Authority, updates on the upcoming Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge; the county’s commercial kitchen, childcare, the Community Fair Building and new housing construction.
By Beccy Tanner
There may be a new/old look coming soon to the northwest corner of St. John’s Square.
A $45,000 matching grant awarded by the Kansas Creative Arts/Industries Commission – a division of the Kansas Department of Commerce—will portion some of that grant to St. John for use in building a Victorian-type gazebo.
The largest portion of the grant will go to Stafford to help them in helping the city construct a band shell.
A study last year determined both communities lack public outdoor spaces for special events.
Stafford’s project is called “Spaces Within The Places” and celebrates Stafford as the Gateway to Quivira.
With the annual Jubilee and Homecoming events held in the St. John Square, about $4,500 of the grant will go to St. John for construction of the gazebo and concrete pad.
In applying for the grant, Ryan Russell, director of Stafford County Economic Development wrote:
“These spaces will draw people together to hear music from all kinds of artists and bring young families together to enjoy the outdoors.”
The 10 x 16-foot gazebo in St. John will cost roughly $10,000 with $4,500 coming from the grant. The City of St. John will provide the remainder in funding along with the concrete pad and electrical wiring and sound for the gazebo.
Sturdi-Bilt near Hutchinson is constructing St. John’s gazebo.
It is expected to be delivered to St. John sometime in April or early May – in time for the Jubilee.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the square boasted a similar type of gazebo, and it was used as a forum for bands and special events. It eventually fell into disrepair and was torn down.
It is hoped the new gazebo will be a gathering place for people to once again come together.
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.
By Beccy Tanner
When Connie and Tim Gross retired in 2015, they moved to Stafford County.
For both, it was a coming home.
Connie was born and raised in Stafford County; Tim, from Pawnee County.
They moved to her family’s fourth-generation homestead located six miles north of St. John, off US-281. The property was originally homesteaded by John Shotton in the late 19th century. The Walls family farmhouse was built in 1900.
And, in their own way, Connie and Tim began their lives in 2015 as pioneers back on the farm.
“We decided we wanted to put up a garden because I have always liked to play in the dirt,” Connie said. “The garden we planted had a whole bunch of things.”
It did great.
In fact, there was lots of produce.
“We decided to go ahead and take things to the markets because we had more than we could use,” she said.
A lot more –oodles of green beans, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, squash, watermelons, cantaloupe, Brussel sprouts and even more than that.
What they didn’t sell at local markets, they gave to churches.
“We just had too much,” Connie said.
So, they began canning.
But as they began selling produce and canned products, they needed a name.
That’s where family history and humor come in.
“When I was little, my cousin, Carol, asked her dad what their farm was named,” Connie said. “Because they had a little hill, her dad (Fred Walls) told them it was Mountain View. And I was really thinking, ‘Well, I wonder what our farm is called?’ At the time before they leveled out the land, the road went up a little hill and came back down then went up again. My dad said it was Turkeyknob Hill. I thought that was pretty cool. I didn’t think it was as pretty as Mountain View but I got a kick out of it.
“So, when we were doing this, we decided we’d call this TurkeyKnob Farm.”
First came the salsa.
And pickles.
Then, their creativity really set in.
The names of their canned products roll off the tip of a tongue. Some are just fun to say:
Bourbon Caramel Apple Jam, Strawberry Jalapeno Jam, Chokecherry Jelly, Jalapeno Butter and Rattlesnake Relish.
TurkeyKnob Farms was one of the first businesses to utilize Shop Kansas Farms, a Facebook page and website that promotes Kansas grown products.
After that, the rush was on.
“I wrote on the page that we had jalapeno butter, and we were selling it around town and at local markets,” Connie said. “We had over 800 responses, 600 people wanted to order it. We had 24 jars at that time. So, that’s really what started TurkeyKnob Farm as a small business.”
The jalapeno butter is Tim’s personal tried and true recipe.
“Tim was working at the stove almost continually making the jalapeno butter. There was no way we could meet the first 600 orders but we did try to meet most of them. As time went by, he began making candied jalapenos as well.”
He has also made and created barbecue sauces.
Both Connie and Tim are mostly self-taught cooks. Both their fathers inspired them to experiment with jams and food combinations.
Connie said her father, George Walls, loved to make strawberry rhubarb jam. However, she doesn’t care much for rhubarb but does make some mighty-mean strawberry jam.
“It seriously tastes like you are eating fresh strawberries,” she said.
Tim was in college when he began exploring different methods of cooking.
“I was living in a house with roommates, and I got a lot of cooking in that way,” he said. “I had an interest in what kind of spices go together to get an optimal taste. It was trial by error. I learned to make the barbecue sauces and then the jalapeno products, as well.”
Currently, the couple market 15 different products. They are sold in eight White Foodlineir stores, some co-ops and various specialty shops such as Smith Market in Hutchinson, Sunflour Café & Collective in Wichita, Happy Valley Farm in DeSoto, Golden Belt Beef near St. John, Miss Pretty Pickles in Great Bend and Simply Unique in Larned.
The number of products they have available can vary from time to time.
A link to their page with Shop Kansas Farms is https://shopkansasfarms.com/turkey-knob-farm-llc
Last year, their business was placed on hold for about nine months. Connie suffered a major fall and ended up with several broken bones, torn muscles and ligaments. Then, there were several surgeries.
And, in the meantime, they moved – twice.
“One of the reasons we moved is that we felt, at our age, we couldn’t take care of the property like we wanted. And, we wanted to get our living area all on one level,” Conniie said. “My dad and Tim’s mother have already passed away. We didn’t have any big reason for keeping us in Stafford County. A couple of our kids now live in the Kansas City area, and we wanted to be a lot closer to our grandkids.”
They now live in Berryton, Ks., near Topeka.
Still Stafford County is close to their hearts.
“I was born and raised in Stafford County and we still have a lot of friends still there,” Connie said. “It was a hard decision to leave. We lived there eight years. But we felt we were getting older and didn’t want to miss out on our grandkids.”
In the meantime, TurkeyKnob products can be found in almost any store around.
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.”
Stafford County Economic Development, Inc.
We are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
Our Office
311 N Broadway St, Saint John, KS 67576
620-549-3527
Mailing Address
PO Box 233, Saint John, KS 67576
Our Mission
To promote economic and population growth throughout the County by assisting our local businesses, engaging in community activities, and promoting Stafford County as a great place to live, work, and play.
We are an equal opportunity provider and employer.