Lights, Camera, Coffee

by SCOTT CASON photography by MEGHAN OLIVER

Alums bring Kansas values to hit TV show

There is a buzz in the air on a crisp, sunny morning in late April in Old Town Lenexa, Kansas. A small, four-propellor drone hovers about 20 feet above the front of Maps coffee shop, the first site of the day for filming the hit home renovation show, Bargain Mansions.

A simple sign on the front door asks those entering to be aware of a video shoot in progress. The production crew doesn’t want to shut down the store; this is, after all, a reality show.

Crouching just inside the large front window of the shop is Kassidy Sell.

Within seconds, it’s evident that this is Sell’s show. She is the field producer of Bargain Mansions. While the crew awaits the arrival of the show’s stars – Tamara Day and her father, Ward Schraeder – Sell is constantly on the move. She stays busy setting up camera angles, props, and background floral arrangements around the small table that Day and Schraeder will occupy for that morning’s production. In show business, time is money, and Sell wants to be ready to shoot as soon as her two stars arrive.

Minutes later, the show’s principal characters are on set, and it’s quickly apparent why the show is such a hit with fans. While the flurry of activity continues around them, Day and Schraeder take their places at the small table and start catching up on family business. The powerful dynamic between a proud father and his confident, intelligent daughter is on full display even when the camera isn’t rolling.

“People will frequently ask me what the secret is to our show,” Schraeder said. “I think it’s mostly based on my daughter’s perseverance, confidence, and tremendous talent as a designer. But what has been expressed to us many times is the father-daughter relationship that endears our show to the public.”

From left: Ward Schraeder, Tamara Day, and Kassidy Sell.

Meet FHSU alum Ward Schraeder

Schraeder grew up on a small central Kansas farm. He credits a loving mom and dad for instilling the work ethic and character that helped him navigate an adult life rich with successes and setbacks. Schraeder’s father was also his high school math and science teacher. One of the most enduring things he took from his father, the teacher, and the parent was a firm belief that anything one can conceive can someday be accomplished. Thus, from his earliest days, Schraeder has never accepted that there was something he couldn’t do if he set his mind to it.

Schraeder didn’t really have a plan as he contemplated life after high school. When he finally decided he wanted to go to college, he picked his father’s alma mater, Fort Hays State University. The elder Schraeder once studied under the renowned paleontologist Dr. Charles Sternberg. Ward remembered his father’s stories about Sternberg, and the educational exploits his dad described intrigued him.

“Looking back at my experience, I don’t think an education from any other institution would have provided me any greater opportunity to succeed in life and business than I received at FHSU,” Schraeder said.

He graduated from FHSU in 1974 with a degree in chemistry and embarked on a career in corporate America.

After 18 years and six relocations, Schraeder decided he’d had enough. He and his wife, Trish, realized what pursuing success on the corporate ladder had cost their family, especially their four children.

Schraeder remembers the day he came home and told his family he’d rather dig ditches than keep working for a corporation. He and Trish decided that they needed to find another way to prosper as a family. The following steps would involve digging some ditches. Still, he would be in complete control of his professional life from that point forward.

“Some wise man once said, ‘You’ll spend the first 20 years of your life building a reputation and the next 20 years living off your reputation.’ I am living proof that it is true,” Schraeder said. “Opportunities tend to come to me much easier than ever before because of the reputation I’ve built.”

Schraeder’s proficiency at building and fixing things – skills he learned as the son of generations of Kansas builders – would serve him well as he launched his second career. Working with bankrupt businesses would have quickly turned him into a quitter if resiliency wasn’t part of his DNA.

During the decade of the 1990s, he purchased 35 different bankrupt businesses. He takes great pride in successfully saving close to one-third of the companies he bought and even more pride in the hundreds of jobs he was able to save.

Today, Schraeder is a successful entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist. He has invested in and built hospitals, banks, assisted living facilities, a dairy farm, a winery in Oregon, and several Freddy’s fast-food franchises.

He also serves on the board of a company in Florida that develops rocket engines and delivery systems for moving payloads to space. Recognizing a critical need in the Kansas City area, Schraeder is also working to connect veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder to vital mental health services.

Meet FHSU alum Kassidy Sell

Sell has always loved being in the spotlight or at the center of a storm. As a youngster, her first ambition was to become a TV game show host – she thought maybe the next Bob Barker. Sell’s parents and teachers saw in her a born entertainer, and they supported her interests as a performer, including her involvement in the kind of high-energy pageants and theater productions that fueled her creative fire.

Like Schraeder, Sell’s Tiger Nation roots were already deep as she began to consider where she would attend college. Her mom was a homecoming queen nominee and a Tiger Deb. Her dad serves as the rodeo team’s alumni director, and her stepdad was the quarterback for the Tiger football team.

While she joined her friends in looking at other colleges in Kansas, Sell also knew she wanted to find a school that offered something akin to broadcast journalism. Several of her friends were pretty set on going to Kansas State University in Manhattan, but the only degree offered there that came close to what she wanted was mass communication.

“That wasn’t really my thing,” she said. “I wanted to focus on television production, but I figured mass communications at K-State would probably work.”

During orientation for new students in Manhattan about a month before school started, she toured the campus and visited several departments. But it didn’t feel right. She was told that her first two years would focus on general education classes only and that she wouldn’t be able to study anything in her “field” until her junior year. She left feeling deflated.

A couple of weeks later, about a week before school started, an article was published in her hometown paper, the Salina Journal, about the new FHSU Media Studies program and Professor Mel Hanks. She immediately thought the article described the perfect fit for her, an environment where she would be able to work at a news station doing live broadcasts.

She asked her dad to drive her to FHSU the next day. They walked into the admissions office thinking they would be told it was too late to enroll for the semester. Instead, they were welcomed and taken on a private tour. On the drive back to Salina, Sell’s dad then asked her a question she says she will never forget. He asked if she would rather be a big fish in a small pond or a little fish in a big pond. While that might be a tough decision to make as an 18-year-old, it was a pretty easy decision for Sell.

Fast-forward to the first week of the semester at FHSU, and Sell found herself in the last residence hall room available in Wiest Hall. By the end of that first week, Professor Hanks also gave Sell her first professional break when he selected her to work as a news anchor on KFHS, the student TV station.

While in college, Sell boldly took on another challenge when she decided to audition for American Idol. Through this experience, she saw firsthand what goes into making a reality TV show. She quickly caught on to the fact that good reality TV combines compelling personalities, the nature of their relationships, and great storytelling.

This experience helped her consider stepping away from broadcast journalism. She began to think that her skills and passion as a performer and a storyteller might find a better outlet in reality TV. Nearing the end of her college career, she participated in an internship in New York City with a reality television production company.

After graduating in 2012, Sell embarked on a career in reality TV production. Early in her career, she worked as a producer and director, creating several episodes of HGTV’s popular “House Hunters International” program.

Sell likes to say that she was born and raised a Kansan but New Yorkgrown. The idea of living and working in New York City had been a dream, and she found all that she hoped for in the Big Apple, where she met and married her husband.

But after a few years, the Sells found that the hectic pace and energy that makes NYC so attractive to high-energy people like her also can wear you down over time. While she and her husband were in the process of buying a house in New Jersey that would get them out of the city, he received a job offer in Kansas City. It was a great career move for him, and it opened the door for Sell to pursue a job back home. Her pursuit of that next opportunity would ultimately lead to producing the Bargain Mansions TV show.

Kansans and Tigers to the core

Nearly four decades of living and life experiences separate Kassidy Sell and Ward Schraeder, but the two actually share quite a bit in common. Schraeder sees parallels in Sell’s life experiences in many ways.

Both grew up in farming families. They share a deep and abiding love for their native state and the distinctive Kansas values and culture that informed their upbringing. Both believe they gained immeasurably from hands-on learning experiences and personal mentorship they found at FHSU.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today – and doing what I love to do – if it wasn’t for the opportunities that I had at FHSU,” Sell said.

Schraeder and Sell both launched their careers with a move to a major city where they learned their trade. And both eventually found personal and professional success on their terms back home in Kansas.

Season Five

Later this summer or early this fall, Season Five of Bargain Mansions will premiere on the Magnolia TV Network. As in previous seasons, all of the home renovations will be done in the Kansas City area. Fans of the show can look forward to seeing more of Day’s busy life as the mother of four children, a small business owner, and a community leader.

We would like to hear what you think about the content in this issue of ROAR Magazine. Contact us at FHSUNews@fhsu.edu.