How about we go to a garden store? Or, what if the garden store could come to you?
Renata Goossen
Today we’ll meet an innovative young rural-preneur who has created a mobile system to bring vegetables, herbs, ornamentals and plant care information to the public.
Renata Goossen is the founder of Renata’s Garden in her hometown of Potwin. Her parents gardened, her dad raised tomatoes, and her mother’s family operates Henry Creek Farms, a fourth-generation family farm.
“I grew up in 4-H,” Goossen said. She tried the horticulture project and found that she loved it. “Our Butler County extension horticulture agent, Larry Crouse, was excellent at encouraging young people with judging and plant identification. Our extension agents influenced me greatly.”
“In junior high, I started a project I called Renata’s Garden,” she said. She raised special varieties of plants, created a catalog and marketed those plants to the community. “Thankfully I have great parents who were willing to drive me to deliver those plants when we went to school or 4-H functions.”
Goossen attended Kansas State University where she earned her degree in horticulture. “The College of Agriculture is really great at helping you find where you fit,” Goossen said. “I had great professors who helped me.”
Let’s go to Atlanta, to the largest blade and knife show in the world. Among the exhibitors is a craftsman from halfway across the continent. He is displaying his high quality knives that are handmade in rural Kansas.
Harvey King
Harvey King is the craftsman who started his own business, known as Harvey King Knives. Harvey is a native of Topeka. After college, he met and married Bonnie who was from Eskridge. They moved to Eskridge and lived there for 34 years. In 2004, he and Bonnie noticed a place that they admired in the country near Alta Vista, and eventually moved to where they live today.
“I have been interested in knives most of my life,” King said. “My dad was an avid outdoorsman. He loved to hunt and fish, and he taught me the value of a good knife at a young age.”
“I spent 31 years building earthmover tires at Goodyear in Topeka,” said King, who is now retired. “The maintenance men at Goodyear knew I liked to hunt and fish and trap. They showed me some of the knives that they made in their spare time and, pretty quick, I wanted to try it.”
He started making knives in 1988 and soon found other people wanted them. A taxidermist friend talked him into sharing a table at some of the local shows and Harvey’s knives sold well. He launched his own business, Harvey King Knives, and started selling them at knife and gun shows around the country. In July 2022, King will turn 75.
“My daughter asked when I would retire,” King said. “I told her, when it ceases to be fun or when I’m too shaky to do it right. (Right now), it’s still fun.”
Building better beef. That’s one goal of an innovative Kansas entrepreneur who is using a unique breed of cattle and careful quality control to create a remarkable beef-eating experience for consumers.
Dave Dreiling
Dave Dreiling is the founder and owner of Booth Creek Wagyu. As we have previously profiled, Dave is a successful entrepreneur who studied business at K-State. He met and married Kristen Spaeth. Dave founded GTM, the sportswear company, and also owns numerous restaurants.
In 2008, he bought a Pottawatomie County ranch, primarily for deer hunting. Through the years, he expanded the property, now known as Booth Creek Ranch. Meanwhile, Dareiling’s uncle raised greyhounds near Abilene and had started raising beef cattle as well, including some cows that had been bred to a bull from a Japanese breed known as Wagyu.
“We got some of this beef and fell in love with it,” Dreiling said. They found it to be especially tender and flavorful. Dreiling went to his uncle’s dispersal sale with the intention of buying one animal, but ended up purchasing four full-blood Wagyu and 28 Wagyu embryos. “My intent was to buy a few head to have great beef for family and friends,” he said.
The more Dreiling learned about Wagyu, the more he became convinced about the potential of the breed and the opportunities to upgrade beef consumption. “There aren’t a lot of Wagyu producers,” he said. “One was a cattle company in California that was shipping them to Kansas to be fed, and then shipping them back to be processed.”
Remember when small town Kansas had filling stations instead of convenience stores?
Nancy Fife-Eagle and Beth Stockebrand
Today we will meet an old time filling station, but this one is not about filling your gas tank. Instead, it’s about filling your stomach.
Nancy Fife-Eagle and her daughter Beth Stockebrand are co-owners of Hys Filling Station, a diner in Yates Center. Nancy is vice president and compliance officer for GNBank in Yates Center. Beth is a nursing home administrator. Nancy and her husband live in the house where she grew up, in the nearby rural community of Toronto, population 281 people. Now, that’ s rural.
For decades, Yates Center had a small diner named Tip-Top Café. It had great memories for both Nancy and Beth.
“Tip-Top was my first job at 15 and I could barely drive,” Beth said. Her late father worked in the restaurant industry and even ran a small carryout place. “My dad was a really good cook.”
The Tip-Top Café closed and became another restaurant briefly, but was then abandoned. Beth attended Emporia State, married a Woodson County guy, and returned to the community.
In 2016, Nancy and Beth decided to purchase, remodel and reopen the old diner. “My husband is a car guy,” Beth said. “He runs an auto body shop in Iola so we wanted an automotive theme.”
Imagine a classroom with a teacher at the whiteboard and students at their work stations, joined by mobile robots through which additional students can participate in the class from another school miles away.
Raven Peterson, Anissa Bigler and school board member Daren Hurd (on screen)
Robots in the classroom? Is this a futuristic movie?
No, it is happening right now, in schools in rural Kansas.
Pam Irwin is superintendent of USD 240, which serves the communities of Bennington and Tescott. Each community has a pre-kindergarten through 12th grade center. Pam is a native of Hays with four degrees from Fort Hays State and 29 years of education experience. She works with Anissa Bigler, a Council Grove native who is a K-State grad and now teaching in USD 240.
Pam became school superintendent in July 2020. The school board charged her with expanding the educational offerings for students in the district.
Meanwhile, the Rural Education Center in Kansas State University’s College of Education had successfully applied for two federal distance learning technology grants that would fund and deploy what were called “telepresence robots” in rural schools. Spencer Clark, director of the Rural Education Center, said there were 29 Kansas sites receiving the robots, two of which were in USD 240.
No, this is not about tasty caramels, it is indeed about camels. Beyond that, it is really about an educational leadership development experience that is helping rural Kansas leaders expand their skills, relationships and global knowledge.
Jill Zimmerman
Jill Zimmerman is president of the Kansas Agriculture and Rural Leadership program, or KARL for short. A K-State and KARL program graduate, Jill was an extension agent and later executive director of the Kansas FFA Foundation. She was on the executive team of Eastern Kansas Agri-Energy in Garnett before being named president of the KARL program in 2017.
KARL is a privately-funded, two-year leadership development program for up to 30 individuals across Kansas. The program is headquartered on the campus of Kansas State in Manhattan. It began 33 years ago, under the guidance of the founding board members, the late professor Barry Flinchbaugh, and the program’s first president, Jack Lindquist of Manhattan.
“The purpose of KARL is to take a group of thought leaders who are already committed to their purpose — be it for agriculture, rural communities, or the general needs of Kansas — and provide them a learning experience through which they create a bond that allows them to be change-makers,” Zimmerman said.
From hay to historic buildings — and parts to pies — Craig Stertz is involved in his rural community. He is what we call a ruralpreneur, an entrepreneur taking on multiple projects in his small town.
MaryAnn and Craig Stertz
Craig and MaryAnn Stertz are ruralpreneurs in Lincoln, Kansas. Craig was born in Lincoln before his family moved to Belleville. Nine years later, the family moved back to Lincoln where Craig’s father founded Lincoln Farm Supply.
Craig followed his dad into the family business, which he owns today along with his brother Terry and partner Darrell Oetting. Craig also met and married MaryAnn, who works in the county treasurer’s office. He is in his second term as president of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce.
Lincoln Farm Supply provides new and used equipment, parts and repairs for farm operations in north central Kansas. The company is a dealer for multiple lines of farm equipment.
In response to customer needs, hay handling has become a specialty of Lincoln Farm Supply. “A combine or a planter gets used one time a year, but hay equipment might get used 4-5 times a year,” Craig said. Equipment has changed to include the making and stacking of giant square bales, and even treating the hay by steaming it.
“At one time, we were the largest big square baler dealer in four states,” Craig said. Access to the Internet has also made a difference. “It extends your reach,” he said. “The other day I got a call from a guy in Oregon who bales rice straw and he wanted some of our equipment.”
In order to complement the farm store, Craig co-located an auto parts business with Lincoln Farm Supply. “That makes good use of our parts guys’ time when it’s slow during the winter months. It also brings new people in the door,” Craig said.
One of MaryAnn’s clients owned an old stone building downtown. After the owner’s husband passed, the building sat empty for years and was deteriorating. The woman decided to sell it rather than see it torn down.
“MaryAnn came home and told me, `We don’t want a hole in downtown,’” Craig said. Craig and MaryAnn bought and remodeled the building. “It was 2 ½ years of working nights and weekends, and MaryAnn was working side by side with me,” Craig said. “We had to tear out a lot of rotten wood, but we put it back the way it was.”
It looks great. Now a coffee shop is on the first floor and the upstairs is an Airbnb.
Craig also explored investing in food businesses. “Mostly I followed my stomach,” he said. He considered out-of-state companies that make salsa and barbecue sauce before he considered MarCon Pies.
As we have previously profiled, MarCon Pies in Marysville produces handcrafted pies for the wholesale market and fundraisers. The company is named for the original bakers, Marilyn and Connie, who started the business.
In 2020, Craig and MaryAnn bought MarCon Pies and moved the business to Lincoln, where it is housed in another building that Craig and MaryAnn bought on Main Street.
In addition to wholesaling pies to retail outlets, MarCon partners with local churches, athletic teams, community foundations and K-12 schools to sell pies as fundraisers.
Using heirloom recipes and delicious ingredients, MarCon produces pies in flavors such as apple, apricot, blackberry, blueberry, cherry, peach and strawberry rhubarb. No-sugar-added options are available in apple, cherry and peach. Pecan and pumpkin pies are available in April and in October through December.
Craig tries to encourage other businesses in town to have an Internet presence. “You can have a Main Street business, but if you also sell online, you can generate additional revenue from outside the community,” he said.
It’s great to find this ruralpreneur in the rural community of Lincoln, population 1,297 people. Now, that’s rural.
From pies to parts, from historic buildings to hay, we salute Craig and MaryAnn Stertz for making a difference with their local investment. They demonstrate commitment to their community.
To find a good brewery, does a person have to go to the big city? No. In fact, we’re going to visit the state’s smallest town with an active brewery.
Fly Boys Brewery and Eats, Sylvan Grove (Kan.)
Lucas Hass and Grant Wagner are the owners of Fly Boy Brewery & Eats in Sylvan Grove. Both Lucas and Grant are originally from Bennington.
“I’ve always loved food and cooking, and also a good beer,” Lucas said. He worked at a steakhouse in Emporia before taking a job doing business analytics at a manufacturing company in Salina.
Grant became a chef at top-end restaurants in Kansas City before moving back to north central Kansas to be near family.
In 2014, Clay and Linda Haring bought a building in Sylvan Grove, remodeled it, and started a brewery and restaurant. Clay is an agricultural pilot and Linda is a teacher. Because Clay was a pilot, they decorated the establishment with an aviation theme and called it Fly Boy Brewery & Eats, or Flyboys for short.
Grant Wagner helped them set up the kitchen. When Clay and Linda got so busy with their other work that they decided to sell the restaurant, Grant approached Lucas with the idea of buying it. Together they became the new owners of Fly Boy Brewery & Eats. “This is a great restaurant and we didn’t want it to be lost,” Lucas said.
“We try to make all the main dishes from scratch,” Lucas said. The menu features steaks, burgers, sandwiches, seafood, chicken and salads. There’s the Landing Strip Burger, Plane Jane burger, Crop Duster, Hanger Over, and more.
“At heart, we’re a steakhouse,” Lucas said. “Our ribeye, KC strip, and chicken fried steak are really popular.”
Not once…not twice…not three times. For four years in a row, a basketball team of small town, homeschooled high school boys has claimed the championship in a national basketball tournament. This team is based in rural Kansas.
Manhattan CHIEF Thunder
Casey Amerin is coach of this championship team. Jeff Schurle and Travis Goff from the Keats/Riley area are the volunteer athletic directors. Their team is the Manhattan CHIEF Thunder.
Casey grew up at Plains. He enjoyed playing basketball and football. He studied business education at K-State, became a teacher and coach, and met and married Rebekah. They moved to her home area near Clifton, where Casey manages LCL Buffalo Ranch and worked as a basketball official for several years.
Casey and Rebekah had four sons and a daughter. When they decided to homeschool their children, they learned of a Manhattan-area organization named Christian Homes In Educational Fellowship, or CHIEF for short.
CHIEF is a non-profit organization that provides support to Christian homeschooling families through group meetings, field trips, curriculum and athletics.
CHIEF sports include football, girls volleyball, and boys and girls basketball and golf. The team home court is at the Beacon Center gymnasium owned by Lighthouse Baptist Church in the rural community of St. George, population 639 people. Now, that’s rural.
The Amerins joined CHIEF. When their oldest son Gage became old enough to play basketball, Gage joined the junior high team. Casey made the hour-long drive to take his son to practice and eventually was asked to help coach. In 2017, as Gage moved up to the high school level, Casey became the head boys basketball coach.
Today let’s visit a community college in western Nebraska. As we approach the headquarters building, we encounter a state-of-the-art electronic entry system. The provider of that high-tech alert system is located in rural Kansas.
Nick Strecker is a co-founder of INA Alert, the national company that created this technology. Nick is a native of Great Bend.
“There have been five generations of our family in the Barton, Russell, Ellis county area,” Nick said. After earning a fine arts degree at the University of Kansas and marrying his wife Laura, they moved back to Ellinwood.
“My father Monty is an entrepreneur and my mentor, and I spent a couple of years learning business principles from him. My mother is in education,” Nick said. “One day my dad asked if I could build technology for one of his businesses.”
Nick did so. It worked so well that Nick and other family members launched a technology projects and service company in 2010. Since it used an Instant Notification Application, they used those initials for the company name: INA Alert.
“My father taught me that you have to seek out and find your customers,” Nick said. “My mom, Catherine Strecker, did her dissertation on brain-based learning. She taught me that we need to teach technology in whatever way is best for the learner.”
Nick’s first major project was creating software that was used by the Kansas Board of Nursing to communicate with nurses. Then, companies with oil drilling rigs in central Kansas also needed communication systems, but they wanted video as well. This led INA Alert to connect surveillance cameras so as to remotely monitor performance and assure safety and security of the workers. The business grew from there.
Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University writes Kansas Profile. The weekly posts highlight individuals or companies in rural Kansas who are making a difference to their community and state.
The Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development is a public / private partnership between Kansas State University and the Huck Boyd Foundation. The mission of the institute is to help rural people help themselves. Learn more at www.huckboydinstitute.org.
