A letter signed by 32 city and county officials from 5 counties was created in response the Quivira’s Call for Water. The letter which outlines the catastrophic effect the diversion of water would cause to these counties was sent to Martha Williams Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. It was also sent to Gov. Laura Kelly’s office.
Carolyn Dunn wrote the letter and a number of Economic Development Directors from several counties collected the signatures.
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.”
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.”
“A Refuge to Explore” is a program developed for Stafford County with the goal to cultivate a county level pride/identity. It’s part of the Engaging Placemaking for Innovative Communities (EPIC), which is a placemaking pilot program lead by the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission (KCAIC). The goal is to find, preserve, and provide programming that taps into a community’s history and enhances the cultural environment for locals and tourists.
“A Refuge to Explore” focuses on Stafford County being the gateway to Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. Quivira is a wetland of international significance with proximity to the Central Flyway migration route and the salt marshes on the refuge combine to endow the refuge with a large variety of birds. Many of these birds are uncommon in other parts of Kansas or even the central part of the continent. Quivira also boasts as a migration stop for Monarch butterflies who stop in Quivira to rest and eat. Quivira has untapped tourism potential as a destination for bird watching, hunting and fishing, and education for young families. It’s a place that can be leveraged to develop the economy of the county.
The Stafford County EPIC cohort’s plan is to develop 3D statues of whooping cranes at the entrance of each city just off the highway that highlights Quivira. The whooping cranes outside of Stafford will invite guests to enter their gateway to Quivira. Stafford intends to develop an event space that incorporates a spot where monarchs can stop and eat, a park where people can enjoy learning about the different animals from Quivira while listening to music or enjoying a picnic with friends. A band shell will be placed in the park for the many events that Stafford does downtown including their Octoberfest that is continuing to grow. Another event is going to be created to kick off the spring season to invite the migration of both the birds, monarchs, and tourists. A Crane mural will be painted on the side of the old lumber yard to enhance the beginning of the downtown area. Steel banners will be added to the light poles showcasing the majesty of the crane with its wings outstretched. All of this enhances the gateway to Quivira and invites people to “Explore the Refuge”.
We will also be offering smaller cranes and monarch butterflies that families can put in their yard or on their houses as a fund raiser to fund further tourism activities.
People living in Stafford County know that this county has an abundance of raw materials.
We are agriculturally focused.
We have everything from orchards, a tree farm, a flour mill, watermelons, honey, vegetables and several farms producing high-quality meat and dairy products to name a few. However, there are still just a few farm to table products developed within Stafford County.
The reason for this has to do with available facilities and also the cost of setting up manufacturing. There are opportunities to get support from places like Land of Kansas that help support local small food producers (https://www.fromthelandofkansas.com/) with advice on setup, labeling, and even have a marketplace to sell products they support.
Hudson Cream Flour ships flour to biscuit makers and bakeries. We have the ability to not only create products within our own communities but because Hudson Cream Flour ships anywhere in the U.S. and with the market access the internet give us today through platforms like etsy.com., it would be great to see Stafford County products in stores across the U.S. and around the world.
What about salsa? What about cheese? What about jelly for your PB and J? What if you created those things?
That’s why Stafford County Economic Development is working on a pilot project to support Farm to Table Food Processors. We will be launching this pilot project soon to 1) locate all the people and businesses developing value-added food products, 2) provide mentoring through the business plan/product development process, 3) connect these entrepreneurs or businesses to food processing resource experts (production, packaging and marketing), and 4) help them make connections with sales channels in and outside of the county.
If you have a desire to create a food product for commercial purposes, please reach out to us. We want to hear from you. Whether you want to create a product or support the pilot project as a partner business, please reach out to Ryan Russell at [email protected] or 620-314-5561.
Raindrop Repair started with Stephen Batten’s passion for problem solving and the fact he was talented with electronics.
“It was a good fit,” says his wife, Tammy Batten, the office manager at Raindrop.
Located on US-281 highway, south of St. John, the business is family owned. Their son, Shawn, represents the next generation of the Reinke irrigation dealership.
“My husband started working just out of high school over here (Stafford County) for a farmer,” Tammy Batten said. “He ran his pivot irrigation systems.”
Stephen Batten continued working in the area through college and the first years the couple were married.
She grew up in the panhandle of Oklahoma.
“My husband grew up in Lyons, so not that far away from here,” Tammy Batten said.
They both loved the rural lifestyle that Stafford County offers.
“We don’t care for the city,” she said.
Raindrop employs six people.
The company draws customers from not only Stafford County but many surrounding counties, as well.
“Our customers are the cream of the crop,” Tammy Batten said. “I don’t know if you are going to stereotype a group of people or not, but I would say farmers are your best group of people to work for.”
The Stafford County Childcare Committee just signed a lease with Logen Kernell to be a childcare provider in St. John. Logen currently lives in Great Bend but is originally from Fowler, KS. Her boyfriend Garrett Thomas is a truck driver and is from Larned. Logen likes watching her two favorite animated movies Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. Her favorite children’s books from her own childhood are Goodnight Moon & Love you forever.
Logen has worked in an in-home daycare as well as her Aunts Community Daycare. She’s even spent some time working in a preschool classroom. She’s having lots of younger cousins she’s watched over the years and now has an 8 week old son!
Logen says, “I was trying to find childcare for my son, but it was very stressful as most of the daycares were full. I want to be able to help a community like St. John as I know firsthand the struggles with childcare.” She’d looked at starting a daycare in Great Bend but ran into several roadblocks. She was then recommended to the Stafford County Childcare Committee. She’s excited to get started and hoping to open August 1st. There will be an open house on July 25th, from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Different activities she plans to do with the children would include Circle time, this will include the calendar, days of the week. She plans on also having story time once a day and the kids doing a craft at least once a week to take home to their families.
If you are interested in getting on her waiting list: [email protected] or 620-539-3102
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.
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.
