Missouri Life October/November 2011

[ SALUTE TO VETER ANS

J O U R N E Y T O S T. J A M E S ]

THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

DAVID KOECHNER CO-STAR TO WILL FERRELL COMES HOME TO TIPTON

GREAT GOOSE! A TWIST ON TRADITION

Plus, Recipes for a Feast

OCTOBER 2011 | $4.50

(Display until November 30)

THE MAGIC OF MOONSHINE

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Contents OCTOBER 2011

departments>

Haunted Missouri:

[12] MISSOURI MEMO

[42] PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

Missouri Life moves and honoring our veterans

Follow a group of paranormal investigators in the John Wornall House and go behind the scenes of Kansas City’s

[14] LETTERS

oldest and largest haunted houses (page 46).

“Top 50 Sports Heroes” complaints and Joplin thanks

[18] ZEST FOR LIFE Colorful boots, healing bandages, a Victorian bed and breakfast, art made from nature, and new books

[28] MADE IN MISSOURI Luxurious alpaca rugs, farm fresh cider, and more

[82] DINING DELIGHTS

featured>

[84] MISSOURI BEER AND WINE

We pay tribute to the veterans in our state by sharing their stories—the good, the bad, and the poignant.

[91] MUSINGS

Jailhouse ale, and why chain restaurants are now improving wine selections (page 86)

COVER: PHOTO BY CHRIS ELWELL, PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW BARTON; FORESTER MICHAEL

[34] SALUTE TO VETERANS [52] FINDING FUNNY WITH DAVID KOECHNER This in-depth look at The Office and Anchorman star from Tipton reveals a down-to-earth family man.

On what a wall of corn teaches

[103] ALL AROUND MISSOURI Our listing of 81 events and festivals

[58] COPPER RUN DISTILLERY Visit Missouri’s first legal distillery in the Ozark mountains, where the tradition of moonshine is still alive.

[64] A JOURNEY THROUGH ST. JAMES This road trip finds goodwill and grace in St. James and Rolla.

[70] NATIONAL WORLD WAR I MUSEUM Explore the history at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City.

[114] MISSOURIANA Extra tidbits on Missouri veterans, actors, and more

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Content by Location 28 34

[74] THE HOLIDAY GOOSE Bring back a centuries-old holiday tradition with our recipes for roast goose and stuffing.

28 42, 46, 82, 86

18 18 34 52 96 74 84 24 28, 82

[88] TINY HOME, BIG VIEW A Rogersville woman followed her dream and built a home out of a steel shipping containers.

[96] CIVIL WAR: THE KINGDOM OF CALLAWAY

28 64 64 28 18 88 82 58

82

34

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Colonel Jefferson Franklin Jones led a stand off with Union militia, creating a kingdom and his legacy.

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– THIS ISSUE –

On the Web www.MissouriLife.com

goose recipes>

PUT A SPIN on the traditional goose dish and make Irish Roast Goose with potato stuffing, or feast on grilled goose breast and apple stuffing. Find other recipes, too.

David Koechner>

WE SAT DOWN with Hollywood actor David Koechner as he visited his family in Tipton. See exclusive video of David’s interview and hometown visit.

Top 10 Women>

THERE IS STILL TIME to submit your Missouri history. Help us find the women who changed our state for the better!

bring in the new year>

TAKE A PEEK at Missouri Life’s 2012 calendar, with images by Notley Hawkins depicting the natural beauty, grandeur, and vibrancy of our state. They’ll make perfect holiday gifts!

on the cover> HAUNTED MISSOURI

In this special “Haunted Missouri” issue, we bring you a paranormal investigation in a Civil War mansion, take you behind the scenes of Kansas City’s largest haunted houses, and offer up the state’s best (and most fright-

ANDREW BARTON; COURTESY OF DAVID KOECHNER; ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH HERRERA; NOTLEY HAWKINS

nominations for the most influential women in

ening) haunted homes and tours.

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THE SPIR IT OF DISCOV ERY 501 High Street, Ste. A, Boonville, MO 65233 660-882-9898 Info@MissouriLife.com

Publisher Greg Wood Editor in Chief Danita Allen Wood Executive Office Manager Amy Stapleton EDITORIAL & ART Creative Director Andrew Barton Graphic Designer & Assistant Editor Sarah Herrera Graphic Designer Thomas Sullivan Assistant Editor Lauren Hughes Calendar Editor Amy Stapleton Editorial Assistants Nichole Ballard, Melanie Loth, and Andrew Lovgren Columnists Tom Bradley, Doug Frost, Nina Furstenau, Ron W. Marr, John Robinson Contributing Writers and Editors Amanda J. Barke, Sandy Clark, Vicki Cox, Shelley Gabert, Joe McCune, W. Arthur Mehrhoff, Martin Northway, Barbara Gibbs Ostmann, Jim Winnerman Contributing Photographers Vicki Cox, Nina Furstenau, Joe McCune, Ron McGinnis, Forester Michael, Mark Scheifelbein, Barbara Gibbs Ostmann, Tom Bradley, Jim Winnerman, Evan Wood MARKETING Senior Account Manager Whitney Eicherl, Kansas City Senior Account Manager Brad Keller, St. Louis Show-Me Steal Manager Rebecca Smith DIGITAL MEDIA MissouriLife.com, Missouri Lifelines & Missouri eLife Editor Sarah Herrera

TO SUBSCRIBE OR GIVE A GIFT AND MORE Use your credit card and visit MissouriLife.com or call 877-570-9898, or mail a check for $19.99 (for 6 issues) to: Missouri Life, 501 High Street, Ste. A, Boonville, MO 65233-1211.

Change address: Visit mol.magserv.com/scc.php and enter email address or your label information to access your account, or send both old and new addresses to us.

OTHER INFORMATION Custom Publishing: For your special publications, call 800-492-2593, ext. 106 or email Greg.Wood@MissouriLife.com.

Back Issues: Order from website, call, or send check for $7.50.

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Ellis Fischel Cancer Center

Comprehensive and convenient breast health care A true health care team Ellis Fischel Cancer Center is home to the most comprehensive breast health program in mid-Missouri. From screening and early detection to treatment and patient support, our team of physicians, nurses, radiology professionals and other health experts is here to help you with any type of breast health-related issue or concern.

Patient and family centered care We include our patients in the decision making process. We help women and their families understand what to expect, answer their questions, discuss treatment options, explain procedures and provide support in every way possible.

“Fast, efficient, effective patient-centered care reflects what Ellis Fischel physicians, nurses and staff gave me during my diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer. I owe my life to the competent minds, caring hands and hearts at Ellis Fischel.�

Alison Martin

breast cancer survivor

Prevention and early detection Do you know your cancer risk? Our risk assessment program is designed to help you understand your cancer risk and how you can take steps toward early detection and prevention. Our specialized genetic counselor reviews your medical history to determine the possibility of a genetic condition related to certain cancers and develops a personalized plan to help you understand preventive and early detection strategies.

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Breast cancer screening Between 60 and 80 percent of women will develop breast changes that may require further evaluation, and one out of eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

That is why early detection is the best way to beat breast cancer. Ellis Fischel s breast program team now offers extended hours for mammogram appointments so you can get in even earlier in the morning or after work.

We come to you Ellis Fischel s mobile mammography van staff provides mammograms, clinical breast exams and breast health education to women throughout central and north central Missouri.

Most screenings take less than 30 minutes from check-in to completion. The van is staffed by certified radiology technologists and nurse examiners who provide the same level of care as offered at Ellis Fischel Cancer Center.

For more information or to schedule an appointment for any of our breast health services, please call (573) 882-8511 or visit www.muhealth.org/mammvan to download educational materials.

Visit www.muhealth.org/ mammvan for a complete van schedule and photo tour.

www.muhealth.org/ellisfischel

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Memo

MISSOURI

HONOR FLIGHTS

A ROOM WITH A VIEW

“IT FELT like the whole ocean was going up into the sky,” says

I HAVE LONGED for an office with windows for the 12

Edward Patterson, a World War II veteran from Camden Point, as he watched two drop 26 miles away into the Pacific Ocean in 1946. He was a petty officer first class in the United States Navy, where he served from 1945 to 1967.

“They wanted to measure the effects of an atomic bomb being dropped into the ocean,” Edward says.

“We were near the Bikini Atoll on a ship when the bombs were dropped.”

Of course, World War II was over at that point, but the military needed more answers about the effects of atomic warfare.

“We were all measured with Geiger counters every day and the only ones that tested very high were the men who went GREG WOOD, out to the PUBLISHER to inspect the damage. There were many abandoned ships out there anchored in the test site, and some had animals tied down on them. It’s sad to say, but they had to know what effects atomic bombs could have.”

I met Edward through the Honor Flight Network, a program that sends our veterans on a visit to Washington, D.C. “We’re one of eight hubs in Missouri,” Erin Winstead, president of the Honor Flight Network of Kansas City, says. “Each one works independently, but all have the same goal: to honor our veterans by flying them to Washington, D.C. for one day to see the war memorials and the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery.”

Edward was on the most recent flight with Erin’s group out of Kansas City. “We had 26 veterans, and we are doing four trips this year and next year,” she says. “Our priority is to get as many World War II vets as we can as so many are dying. If we have room, we move to the Korea vets, then Vietnam.”

Edward waited over two years to get his chance to go.

“I was so thrilled to get a chance to see the war memorials. I had no idea that the World War II Memorial was so It left me speechless.”

Edward says his group was greeted by around 200 men, women, and children when they got to D.C. “A little girl came over to me and gave me a star that said, ‘God Bless’ on it. It made me cry.”

Edward’s group left at 4 AM from Kansas City and got back about 10:15 PM the same day. “It was an incredible experience. I’ll remember it forever.”

The other hubs in Missouri are at Columbia, Chesterfield, Hannibal, Lee’s Summit, Sedalia, Springfield, and Union. For more information, visit www.honorflight.org and click on “programs.”

years we’ve been publishing Missouri Life. I’ve always had nice offices: a large one but without windows when I was at a big publishing company (the fashion allowance and traveling in the company’s Learjet made up for that); a nice corner one with windows when I was teaching journalism at the University of Missouri. And even at Missouri Life, I couldn’t complain about an office a block from the Katy Trail and the Missouri River. But who doesn’t appreciate being able to see outdoors, even if you really like your job? So when we needed the extra space (we begin publishing a new magazine, Missouri Business, for the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, in January), we found a suite of offices where everyone— DANITA ALLEN WOOD, including our valued editorial assistants EDITOR from the nearby School of Journalism— would have a window. I am ecstatic.

Our new offices are in the grand and impeccably restored at Boonville, and each of the offices is, in fact, a room with a view. The hotel had a wing of unused rooms that are too small for them to renovate into the luxurious guest rooms they have created in this boutique hotel. But they’re perfect for offices!

We had the offices renovated to our taste. And I helped—I picked the colors. Every office is a color from a historic palette, either salmon mousse, dill pickle, concord ivory, or whipple blue. Just today, I noticed one of our interns posted a sign on her door, “The Dill Pickle Intern.”

But what I’ve discovered are perks I appreciate as much as the windows: 1. > Glenn’s Cafe is just down the hallway and through the lobby.

There are tasty lunch salads and cheesecake.

2. > A patio overlooks the Missouri River on one side of the hotel.

3. > There are beautiful meeting rooms and a lovely sitting room with a relaxing water fountain and a television. I’ve never watched soaps, but I could start! I have already enjoyed a break or two on the overstuffed leather couch there.

4. > There’s a cozy bar for meeting friends after work.

5. > Now, my office is right on the Katy Trail and the Missouri River, instead of a block away. And our suite has a shower if I want to ride my bike at noon or over from my house. No more sink baths!

Please stop by and see us in our gorgeous new home. The hotel has a lovely gift shop, and they will give you a peek into the private rooms, too, if any are open. We are both at 501 High Street, Boonville, right on the corner of Route 5 and High Street, right next to the Missouri River Boonslick Bridge.

Did I mention the view?

atomic bombs

actual test site

Honor Flight

huge.

regional

Hotel Frederick

historic

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OCTOBER 2011

LETTERS from all over You write them. We print them.

FROM A SURVIVOR Thank you for such a great article. I was very, very surprised to find myself quoted so often, and I appreciate the way you told my story and the story

The tornado that struck Joplin on May 22 left 160 people dead. In our August issue, we found signs of hope and new beginnings.

of Joplin. I have been so extraordinarily busy that I hadn’t given our conversation a lot of thought, though I remember how kind and compassionate you were that day. It’s been quite a process to learn to deal with the experience, but as I said when we talked, we are so blessed to have walked away virtually unscathed. And I don’t ever forget the ones who weren’t as lucky. I didn’t find my mother’s jewelry as I had hoped I would, but in the long run, I’ve learned to let go of a lot of things I used to think were important. The rebuilding process has started, and they say we’ll be in our

six different decades. Denny is a 2005 Missouri

their inaugural season in 1969, is crap. No less than

new, improved home in October. Yes, I’ll have a

Sports Hall of Fame selection. How could Denny

five Cardinals announcers were included ... Harry

walk-in closet, and now I’ll have stuff to put in it!

have been left off this list, if any effort had been

Caray? Really? Wasn’t he more famous for being

This was the first issue of Missouri Life I’ve read,

put into even a “little bit” of objective research?

a stuttering drunk fool as the Cubs announcer?

and I enjoyed it very much. Thank you again for the

Thanks for listening.

There’s even a glassy-eyed picture of old Harry

article. You did a very good job of portraying the

—Mike Finley, Overland Park, Kansas

tragedy—and the hope—that Joplin experienced —Cindy Sundy, Joplin

smell the liquor and feel the spittle. And while I’m Look, I know there is and will always be a KC vs. St.

at it, where’s Dick Howser, who led the Royals to

Louis rivalry, but really? The latest edition of the

the ’85 Series Championship? You guys all Cards

magazine claims to list our “favorite 50 Missouri

fans? Is it about Denkinger—again? When I travel

DENNY MATTHEWS FANS

athletes” of all time, and yeah, I get it, the Car-

the country, it amazes me the lack of geographical

This is my first year subscribing to Missouri Life,

dinals consider themselves a “storied franchise”

understanding about Kansas City and its position

which overall seems to be a first-class publication.

and all, but to “allow” one Royal and one Chief to

just east of the Kansas state line—making it Mis-

I do take one big issue with Mr. McCune’s recent

make the list, and to exclude Denny Matthews—

souri’s largest city. But when I find myself working

article, however, acknowledging that I am a life

inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown as

in St. Louis—which, I love St. Louis, by the way—I

long KC-area, not St. Louis-area, resident. My issue

a Ford C. Frick Award winner in 2007—who has

am floored at the number of Missourians who

is with the announcer’s section. Not only are all the

been the voice of the Royals every season since

don’t realize Kansas City is in Missouri. I had hoped

announcers from St. Louis, but Denny Matthews,

that Missouri Life magazine might be a more objec-

KC Royals announcer, is not even acknowledged.

SEND US A LETTER

Surely if Mr. McCune had looked outside of St. Louis for his research, he would have recognized that: Denny Matthews, the 2007 Ford C. Frick Award

tive place, and for the last few years as a home subscriber, it seemed to me it has been. But this ... I want to scream.

—Brian Rutherford, Warrensburg

winner, was honored during the Hall of Fame

Email:

We sympathize. There were 28 athletes, coaches, or

Induction Ceremonies in Cooperstown on July 29,

Fax:

owners who were associated with a St. Louis team or

2007. He became a member of the Royals’ Hall of

Address:

were from St. Louis and seven from Kansas City. We

Fame in August of 2004 and will celebrate his 43rd

are sure that many of our readers were missing sev-

season behind the microphone for the club in 2011.

eral of their favorites on this list. Perhaps we should

The “Voice of the Royals” has broadcast exclu-

have asked the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame to

sively for the same team, without interruption, in

compile a list of 100 sports heroes, not 50! —Editors

SARAH ALBAN; ANDREW BARTON

and continues to experience. God bless you!

on page 58 staring me in the face—I can almost

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Zest FOR LIFE

Springfield >

HEAL FAST, HEAL SMART TROOPS INJURED in battle may have a chance to recover faster and more efficiently thanks to a research project at the Missouri State University Center for Biomedical and Life Sciences (CBLS). Dr. Paul Durham, a biology professor and director of CBLS, and his team of student scientists have been working on what he calls a “smart bandage.” The project is funded by Crosslink, which provided a $1.5 million grant to CBLS for the collaborative project. The smart bandage will have anti-fungal, antibacterial, and pro-healing chemicals in the fabric. The compounds will release directly to the wound during the healing process by small battery-powered electric currents, and will treat different types of wounds, including incisions, burns, abrasions, and punctures. CBLS will test the bandage to see if it works and what concentration of drugs is most effective. The bandage should curb the need for antibiotics and pain medication because the medicine is applied directly to the wound. “If we diminish pain and inflammation at the site of the injury, we won’t have the dependency on the morphine or opiate drugs to actually manage their pain,” Durham says. The research project began in July 2010 and will continue through June 2012. —Melanie Loth

Madison >

Hallsville >

journey through time FROM THE Old West to the Civil War era

A Bevy of Boots

Bed and Breakfast in Hallsville offers a variety of period-style rooms that make for a unique weekend getaway. Apart from offering themed housing and accompanying photography, hosts Barb and

ONE BOOT, two boots, red boots, blue boots. On Highway 24 East, about a

Ray “Buddy” Spencer’s 115-year-old estate is also home to tea parties, various retreats, an all-new

mile past the Monroe County line, boots, boots, and more boots top the fence posts

day spa, and various dinner theaters, including murder mysteries and a flashback to the roaring

along Glenna Smith’s pasture with 60 boots along the highway and 24 more down

’20s with a visit from Bonnie and Clyde. Along with the stylized interest, the Victorian Country Inn of-

the gravel road where the fence turns south. Any kind, any shape, any color or size,

fers country and gourmet breakfasts, using mostly local ingredients such as fresh Amish pastries and

a Seussian array of boots to dazzle your eyes. Kid boots, adult boots, work boots, too;

homemade cheeses. Local artists also have a presence in the home, including several hand-painted

Smith’s been hanging boots since 1992. Smith hated to throw her favorites away so

murals. For hunters who want a private experience, the Victorian Country Inn has a separate

she gave them a second life. Friends and neighbors have added to the collection,

cabin on-site that offers all the modern amenities with a rustic, Wild West theme. In October, the

and Smith makes the rounds at yard sales, looking for additions to her project. Cars

Spencers offer haunted hayrides, bonfires with s’mores, and chuck wagon cookouts to guests and

and trucks and semis fly by, but curious travelers stop and ask, “Why?” “To make you

visitors. —Andrew Lovgren www.victoriancountryinn.com

ask questions,” Smith says, with a twinkle in her eye. —Joe McCune

573-696-8761

COURTESY OF MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHIC SERVICES AND VICTORIAN COUNTRY INN; JOE MCCUNE

to a hunter’s retreat, the Victorian Country Inn

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Upcoming Events OCTOBER 27 VSA Moonlight Madness DOWNTOWN MEXICO 573-581-2765 OCTOBER 29 Photography Competition Gallery Show PRESSER PERFORMING ARTS CENTER www.presserpac.com | 573-581-5592 NOVEMBER 19 VSA Holiday Parade and Chili Cook-off DOWNTOWN MEXICO, 11 AM 573-581-2765 DECEMBER 1-4 “It’s a Wonderful Life” PRESSER PERFORMING ARTS CENTER www.presserpac.com | 573-581-5592

WELCOME TO MEXICO, MISSOURI

Mexico is a perfect combination of small town charm and urban style. Artsy boutiques, jewelry, quilt shops, scrapbooking, antiques and cultural offerings give Mexico a sophisticated air, but with a family-friendly attitude. Come visit us today!

MEXICO AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE We work hard as a Chamber of Commerce to be the pulse of the community, assisting all to provide services that will nurture and encourage our businesses and strengthen our community. www.mexico-chamber.org | 573-581-2765 Tour the AUDRAIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM Tues.-Sat. 10 AM-4 PM and Sun. 1 PM-4 PM www.audrain.org | 573-581-3910

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DECEMBER 15 71st Christmas Evensong MISSOURI MILITARY ACADEMY www.missourimilitaryacademy.org 573-581-1776 OR 800-581-2765 DECEMBER 15 Holiday Express 326 S. JEFFERSON www.mexico-chamber.org | 800-581-2765

PRESSER PERFORMING ARTS CENTER With a 920-seat auditorium Presser Performing Arts Center is active with many arts education programs for the public, such as Dance, Piano, Voice, Film, Writing, Photography, and of course THEATRE! The calendar fills up fast year after year with concerts, ballets, plays, musicals, lectures, gallery shows, special events, and classes. Our summer camps draw students from the surrounding area and many from out of state. We strive to offer the best professional highly qualified instructors in the state of Missouri. Summer 2012 offers a new Film Camp for participants 14 years old and up.

The art of filmmaking includes writing, cinematography, directing, and editing. This holiday season Presser Performing Arts Center, Mexico Area Community Theatre and Mexico Parks & Recreation will once again present the annual Christmas production of “It’s a Wonderful Life” Dec. 1-3 at 7:00 p.m. and Dec. 4 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets available on-line at www.presserpac.com or at the Mexico Area Chamber of Commerce, 100 W. Jackson, City of Mexico, 300 N. Coal St. or at the door. The ARTS, ask for more! Presser Performing Arts Center is centrally located in the state of Missouri, serving mid America with quality cultural performing arts. Dedicated to the promotion and appreciation of the arts. Check out the upcoming events page at www.presserpac.com.

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Zest FOR LIFE

TEMPTING TALES Find these reads at bookstores or amazon.com unless otherwise noted.

BY ANDREW LOVGREN

The Art of the Missouri Capitol: History in Canvas, Bronze, and Stone

By Bob Priddy and Jeffrey Ball, 416 pages, University of Missouri Press, hardcover, nonfiction, $49.95 This beautiful book looks into the historical artwork in the Missouri capitol through vivid imagery and accompanying historical explanations. The book would be a wonderful addition to any coffee table. With stunning photography of everything from the Missouri Veterans Memorial to the Hall of Famous Missourians, the book is visually pleasing page after page. Also included are historical accounts on the origins of the pieces of art and the future of art in the Missouri Capitol.

St. Charles (Then and Now)

By Evan S. Benn, 160 pages, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Books, softcover, nonfiction, $19.95 Nothing beats sitting down with a great book and a good beer. St. Louis Post Dispatch beer columnist Evan S. Benn discusses the beginnings of St. Louis brewing all the way up to today’s booming enterprises. Brew in the Lou is an essential for any beer-lover in St. Louis or anyone planning on visiting anytime soon.

By Vikki Berger Erwin and Jessica Dreyer, 95 pages, Arcadia Publishing, softcover, nonfiction, $21.99 A part of the Then & Now series, St. Charles goes back to the town’s beginning in 1769 and explores the origins of many of St. Charles’s well-preserved historical landmarks. Included is a look at the avoided tragedy of the 1960s when many of the historic buildings were nearly lost. Filled with historic photographs and historical information, readers will be transported back to a different time.

Coming Home Again: A Missouri Journal

God’s Acres

By W. Arthur Mehrhoff, 181 pages, self-published, softcover, nonfiction, $19.99, available at www.MissouriLife.com and University Bookstore in Columbia This book from St. Louis-native and historian W. Arthur Mehrhoff has an uncanny aptitude for explaining what the heritage of our special places means for our future. His personal journal filled with introspective thought and theory will give the reader a new way to view the many well-known historical landmarks in the state.

By David Gerard, 153 pages, PenUltimate Press, softcover, fiction, $15.95 Six-year-old Bud’s family is moving from St. Joseph to a small farm outside the city. Set in the context of the 1950s, including referenced events and historical figures from the time, Bud recounts his family’s endearing story with ample helpings of humor along the way. Much of the story focuses on Bud’s mother, a source of both joy and heartache.

ANDREW BARTON

Brew in the Lou: St. Louis’ Beer Culture, Past, Present & Future

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Scan this to see the PowerVac in Action!

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SILVER DOLLAR

CITY GAZETTE

VOL. I NO. 4

BRANSON, MISSOURI

DAZZLING LIGHTS! The Travel Channel heralds it “The Most Illuminated Park on Earth.”

The Weather Channel calls it “A 4-Million Light Miracle!”

But your kids will just say, “WOW” as they gape at more than 4 MILLION lights twinkling in Silver Dollar City’s Christmas on Main Street light-and-sound show, from Nov. 5 to Dec. 30.

Lights dance on a five-story Special Effects Christmas Tree. Forty-foot trees gleam in rainbows from trunk to treetop, and 250 CHRISTMAS TREES surround the Square alone! You won’t know where to look first!

But why stand still? Ride Tom and Huck’s “RiverBlast” raft ride THROUGH GENERAL INFORMATION: 1-800-831-4FUN (386)

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the holiday lights. (Water blasters are turned off out of seasonal and charitable kindness.) And see the twinkling city below from atop the roller coasters!

THE LIGHT PARADE Catch one of two runs of the nightly Gifts of Christmas Holiday Light Parade (weather permitting), adding another 100,000 lights to illuminated and decorated floats and costumed characters.

And take the kiddies to visit with Santa and his elves at Kringles Krossing.

Tickets, turnstiles, and Main Street open 1 hour prior to the City.

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL Spirits fly through the air. Ghosts vanish. Scenery revolves. And pyrotechnics abound in the City’s acclaimed production of A Dickens’ Christmas Carol.

Hear original music adapted to fit this refreshing telling of the traditional tale by a live band and talented cast in period costumes amidst Victorian scenery.

LONG LIVE

THE TRUE MEANING: Keeping the true meaning of Christmas close, the musical living nativity, draped in wintry decorations, tells the timeless story behind all the season’s festivities.

UNIQUE SHOPPING Bring the kids! Bring the cousins! Bring your shopping list: Silver Dollar City has the most diverse Christmas shopping in Missouri! More than 60 specialty shops demonstrate the City’s dedication to preserving the arts and crafts of another era. You will find handcrafted gifts that will become the heirlooms and collectibles of the future.

•LIKE TO EAT? (Who doesn’t?) Visit the Apple Butter Shop, Honey Heaven,

AN OLD-TIME CHRISTMAS

IS ONE OF AMERICA’S TOP 5 HOLIDAY EVENTS! NOVEMBER 5 - DECEMBER 30 Plan now for what Good Morning America calls one of America’s Top 5 Holiday Events!

Brown’s Candy Factory, Phoebe Snapp Taffy, or Sullivan’s Mill for the largest selection of cookie cutters in the country.

•KIDS WILL LOVE J.J. Fiddlestick’s Toy Store, Dazzle Magic Shop, Greene’s Wagon Train Dolls, or Bears at the Holler, where young ’uns can create teddy bears and other critters as gifts!

•FOR THE MENFOLK, try Outdoor Missouri, the Inventor’s Warehouse, the Mountain Leather shop, Mountain Outfitters Gun and Knife Shop, or Cowboy Jepp’s for great western supplies.

•WOODWORKERS, start measuring twice! Hand-lathed rolling pins, noodle cutters, or biscuit cutters — whewee!

You’ll also be in woodcarvers’ paradise at Valley Road Woodcarvers.

•YET MORE SPECIALTY SHOPS! Visit the blacksmith or Hazel’s Blown & Cut Glass Factory, or the broom shop, or several jewelry shops. See what we mean?

Something HANDMADE for everyone!

HOLIDAY BELLE! The Showboat Branson Belle brings Christmas to the water with its two brand new shows, Encore! and Funny Fiddle. World-renowned aerial violinist Janice Martin and The Showmen feature Christmas songs during Encore!

Newspaper critics from the New York Times and the Miami Herald call Janice a STUNNING TALENT. On comedy cruises, Funny Fiddle’s Chris Pendleton also plays seasonal favorites.

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Zest FOR LIFE

Growing ART

MANY PEOPLE search the dark spots on a full moon’s surface, hoping to catch a glimpse of the legendary Man in the Moon.

One Ashland artist did just that but on a night with a beautiful crescent moon. Instead of looking for a man’s face, Dinise Mustain said: “Why not a lady?” She was inspired by this thought and felt compelled to create a unique collage from white and rare Red Queen Anne’s Lace, assorted papers, and butterfly wings depicting a Lady in the Moon. This was Dinise’s first work of art.

Dinise is not your typical artist. She uses organic materials to create collages representing her ideas about nature and femininity. Pressing flowers and plants started out as a way to organize her garden; she would press the plants in order to track their growing period and health. When she started creating art, she used her collected plants from gardening and formed them into her trademark nature-inspired collages.

Without any knowledge on the subject, Dinise started gardening to grow good, healthy food for her two children. She quickly acquired skills and knowledge from other farmers and learned that she had good instincts when it came to gardening. Her garden quickly grew, and so did her artwork.

A self-proclaimed “tree-hugging dirt worshipper,” Dinise says she can pick up a pressed plant, and an image starts to form in her mind. “Nature is my muse,” she says. She collects leaves, petals, and grasses around her cabin in Ashland where she is surrounded by forest. Her plants start as seeds in her greenhouse before being moved out into one of her three gardens. Dinise aims to draw people to the

everyday items they tend to overlook and show them the beauty in the world around them.

When she is not creating botanical collages, Dinise works as a reading specialist for Columbia Public Schools. As someone who found her passion later in life, Dinise says people are never too old to follow their intuition. “It is not difficult to create, just allow it to happen,” she says.

Her work is difficult to produce because it is such a long process.

She has a variety of presses and a dehydrator for plants, which she stores in air-tight bags according to color and shape. She says creating a picture can take days. To prevent color fading, the picture needs to be framed immediately, which she describes as a “complicated affair.” She also reproduces her work in prints and cards.

One of her pieces, Red Queen Anne’s Lady, appeared on a Les Bourgeois Vineyards wine bottle as a contest winner. Another piece, Saturday in the Park, won Best of Show and was used as the poster for Taste of the Arts in Hermann. She says it is difficult to show her work as a large collection because it is so time-intensive, but some of her work can be seen at Artlandish Gallery in Columbia.

To Dinise, work is the best therapy. “The passion takes me to a place out of this world, to a place where anything is possible,” she says. “I think that place is always in front of us, but we are closed to it. To see the beauty in even the smallest of leaves has taught me not to take things for granted, to really look at what and who is around, to feel grace as I work. It woke me up.” www.bestofmissourihands.com/dinisemustain.htm

COURTESY OF DINISE MUSTAIN

Dinise Mustain creates art from the ground up at Ashland. BY MELANIE LOTH

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Far Left: Lady of the Woods.

Below: Talked into Night.

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Great Missouri Art Fall Art Tour - Nov. 5-6

www.thebenttree.com www.stacyleigh.etsy.com

Bent Tree Gallery

Rustic Furniture & Accents Handcrafted Handbags Fiber Art and Baskets H I S T O R I C C L A R K S V I L L E M I S S O U R I 573-242-3200

The

Natural aNtler-haNdled letter opeNer

features original, hand-etched scrimshaw.

Choose a cardinal, hummingbird, dogwood, or rose. $25, plus $3 shipping/handling Check/Money order/Visa/MasterCard

31 high trail, eureka, Mo 63025 www.stonehollowstudio.com • 636-938-9570

MACAA.net Your connection to Missouri’s community arts agencies, artists and arts events!

Artists: Click on the

icon to list yourself on Missouri’s Creative Artist Resource Directory. It’s FREE!

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MISSOURI STATE SOCIETY DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Roslyn Heights

CHRISTMAS OPEN HOUSE December 3 -10

Tree of Patriotism Lighting Ceremony Friday, Dec. 2 at 5:30 PM on the front lawn. Open to the public. Honoring Veterans, Servicemen, Servicewomen, Firefighters, Police Officers and EMTs, followed by a reception.

Missouri State Society Daughters of the American Revolution are committed to patriotic projects that recognize, honor, and support our United States military members both past and present. Current projects include: • Patriot Of The Month honors living military personnel, active and retired.

Their life story and picture is placed on our website, www.msssdar.org.

• Lights Of Patriotism honors all of our military personnel from the Revolutionary War to present. This year we are also honoring all local first responders in commemoration of 9/11. Any donation will purchase a light for the Lights of Patriotism tree. Tree lights will

Daily tours:10 am to 3 pm $5 Adults, $1 Children Soup Lunch: 11 am to 1 pm daily $5 Adults, $3 Children Music daily at noon.

be turned on Dec. 2 during a tree lighting ceremony at Roslyn Heights. Donations help send our WWII Veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit their memorial. Everyone is welcome to attend the tree lighting ceremony.

• Daughters support Missouri veterans’ homes and hospitals statewide. They volunteer many hours in support of the activities at each facility and make donations to assist in purchasing needed items.

• Honor Flight, the project of State Regent, Donna Nash, provides support to local Honor Flights throughout the state. Kansas City-area Daughters assist with Kansas City Honor Flight Luncheon on the day before the flight, provide coffee and donuts early in the morning on departure day, then conduct Welcome Home ceremonies for veterans upon their return in the evening.

DAR Service for Veterans, State Chairman, Nancy Morris, 103 Oxford Dr., Raymore, MO 64083-9085, (816) 3224570, nmorris@hotmail.com.

• Rosie The Riveter Book preserves an invaluable historic piece of WWII history.

Many women assisted in the war effort, while fathers, brothers, and husbands went overseas to fight. All of these patriotic Missouri women wanted to do their part. They have written and provided their individual stories, which will be published in our Rosie book.

Roslyn Heights 821 Main Street, Boonville, MO

Roslyn Heights was built in 1895 by Wilbur T. and Rhoda Stephens Johnson. This beautiful historic Queen Anne-style home offers visitors a glimpse into a gracious lifestyle of the past and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Roslyn Heights is available for special event rental and tours by appointment. For more information, contact Sandra Comer at 660-882-5320 or bscomer@yahoo.com.

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Riverside >

Made

IN MISSOURI

TASTY, HEALTHY SNACKS THE KANSAS CITY suburb of Riverside is churning out some tasty and, believe it or not, healthy snacks. Sunflower Food & Spice Company creates products based on and inspired by the sunflower’s natural bounty. Sunflower Food & Spice spokesperson Lisa Sobilo says the company aims “to provide unique and delicious snack and treat options for those looking for a satisfying and healthy food experience.” The company started in 1994 with its first snack: Honey Toasted Sunflower Nuts. After 16 years in the business, it has expanded and now sells over 35 snacks and candies. Sunny Seed Drops, which are chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, are the most popular product, followed closely by candycoated sunflower seeds called Silly Seeds, and they come in eight different flavors ranging from Wacky Watermelon to Tangerine Tickle. Sunflower Food products can be found at major retailers such as Cost Plus World Market and Gordmans in addition to local stores throughout the state. —Melanie Loth www.sunflowerfoodcompany.com • 800-377-4693

Canton >

Clean and Crisp of Missouri, Blue Heron Orchard has a variety of apples and apple products unique from anything for miles around. Not

farmers’ market, or shipped directly to your door. Aside from

only can you find 11 different varieties of apples year-round

whole apples, Blue Heron also offers apple products, free of

(while supplies last), but the types of apples range from the

added sugar, including apple sauce, apple butter, apple syrup,

well-known Red Delicious to the Wine Sap, an uncommon an-

apple cider vinegar, and a customer favorite, fresh non-pas-

tique apple that dates back to the 1800s. Though each variety

teurized apple cider that is mixed differently with each batch,

is picked at a different point in the season, a cooler keeps the

offering a new flavor each time. —Andrew Lovgren

apples crisp and fresh, ready to be picked up at the orchard, a

www.blueheronorchard.com • 573-655-4291

COURTESY OF SUNFLOWER FOOD & SPICE COMPANY AND BLUE HERON ORCHARD

AS THE ONLY certified organic orchard in the state

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alpaca rugs Heartfelt Rugs, a Columbia-based business, creates unique rugs from a truly unusual source: alpaca fibers. The company began when a coalition of four midMissouri women, three of whom were alpaca farmers, acquired a felt loom in 2010 and started making rugs and decorative wall art from alpaca fiber. Many of the rug patterns are inspired by Native American designs as well as quilting patterns and custom designs. All four women take part in the creation of the rugs, which includes fiber sorting, dyeing, and felting courtesy of heartfelt rugs, collar craft, and klogs usa

the rugs. Alpacas are domesticated animals in the same family as camels; they come from South America where they were bred for their fiber, which is hypoallergenic and softer, stronger, and warmer than wool. The women learned about felting alpaca rugs from a farmer in Kentucky who invented a special felt loom for alpaca fibers. Heartfelt alpaca farmer Mary Licklider says alpacas are low-maintenance, easy on the land, and relatively peaceful creatures: “It’s good therapy to come home to them.” The rugs can be found at Good Nature in downtown Columbia. —Melanie Loth www.heartfeltrugs.com • 573-442-2911

aunt jemima pancake flour originated in st. joseph.

Columbia >

Mount Vernon >

Collars for Cats and Canines your pets can be decked out in Missouri-made apparel thanks to Mount Vernon-based Collar Craft. The locally owned business features a wide array of dog and cat collars, leashes, and even clothing. Everything is made onsite by a team of 13 employees headed by owner Betty McCullah. The business started in 1958, and when the original owner was ready to retire, Betty and her husband stepped in and bought the business in 1966. At the time, it was based in the state of California, but the McCullahs moved to Mount Vernon three years after buying Collar Craft. The pet accessory company ships their products all over the United States and overseas to Europe and Japan. The two most popular dog collars are the Beverly, which has one row of jewels, and the Fleetwood with two rows. Collars range in size from 6 to 26. —Melanie Loth 417-466-7266

Sullivan >

Not just for the Netherlands Klogs usa is a shoe brand created by the Meramec Group in 1999. The brand makes comfortable, one-piece, polyurethane shoes in Sullivan. The shoes are shock absorbing, flexible, and slip-resistant, which make them popular for people whose jobs require them to stand for long periods of time, such as healthcare, restaurant, or teaching professions. When customers asked for more fashionable footwear, the brand expanded to include leather shoes as well. Klogs can be purchased at Laurie’s Shoes and Scrubs & Beyond in St. Louis. —Melanie Loth www.klogs.com • 888-388-5564

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

All Aboard!

DEPART ON COLUMBIA’S NEWEST CULINARY ADVENTURE

BY LAUREN HUGHES WITH PERFECTLY PLACED SETTINGS, lush décor and exquisite scenery outside of the window, I could be anywhere. I could be in a lavish restaurant or an extravagant cruise ship sailing the blue Aegean Sea. But tonight, I’ve got another dining experience in store—an unexpected treat in the middle of mid-Missouri: The Columbia Star Dinner Train.

The Star Dinner Train is a nostalgic throwback to the train travel of yesteryear. In three hours, I will travel from Columbia to Centralia along the Columbia COLT Railroad through Missouri countryside. But this isn’t just a joy ride—it’s

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a four-course meal, too. Executive Chef Scott Hampton perfectly executes four entrées every weekend. Chef Hampton uses fresh ingredients to create a salmon, chicken, and vegetarian dish for each ride, and for every dinner departure, the Columbia Star Prime Rib is available.

Chef Hampton works out of the kitchen car, a former Chicago Burlington and Quincy baggage car converted into a full kitchen. This car is located in the middle of the train, and meals are served from both ends of the car to eager diners.

Before we board, our car captain for the evening, Amando Garcia, hands out our

boarding passes and confirms our orders.

Guests begin arriving, waiting outside of the train. The train station, located on North Brown Station Road, is a few minutes outside of town. We make our way to the vintage train car, roped off and lined with waiters and waitresses. Amando greets each guest by name.

“Good evening, Lauren and Becca,” he says. My most trusted travel partner, Becca, and I went on a Mediterranean cruise last summer, touring through four countries and taking in more sites and delicious food than we could handle. Tonight I’ve brought her along to take part in this mini excursion.

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Opened in mid-July, the Dinner Train may very well be Columbia’s newest dining hot spot. It has a swanky retro vibe unlike anything else in town. Big band music fills each of the two table cars.

Built in 1938 as part of the Southern Pacific “Daylight” train that ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles, the cars are given distinct names: The Emerald Room and The Silver Room.

We walk through The Emerald Room and into The Silver Room. Between the two there is a fully stocked bar. The Dinner Train offers a nice selection of local and imported wines and beers, cocktails, and sparkling wines.

Our table is right next to a large window, and I just know the view will be worth the evening. When we sit, we are promptly greeted by our waiter, who hands us the drink menu. In the mood to really experience the train as we should, both Becca and I order a glass of white wine.

Two appetizers are served, and though the mini bruschetta bites are quite good, it’s the peach habanero salsa that is the star. Made from freshly picked peaches and spicy habanero, it is impeccably balanced with just the right kick fading just when you need it to. In fact, it is so tasty, when Becca and I run out of the

pita bread it is served with, we take turns sneaking our spoons into the dish and eating it that way—it is that good.

In between courses, we stare out the window looking at blue-green seas of corn and soybean fields and dense trees lining their shores. As the sun starts to set, warm light pours into the train car.

At another table, a couple is celebrating their anniversary. Next to us, another couple laughs. Becca and I converse quietly, sipping our wine and absorbing the experience.

The Dinner Train does that—it puts you at ease, relaxes you, and makes you feel Photo by notley hawkins

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elegant dining by rail

Stop by the Columbia Convention and Vistors Bureau for visitor guides, maps, festival information, and more.

573-875-1231 | www.visitcolumbiamo.com |300 South Providence Road

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pampered. I can’t think of a better way to end the week than relishing the joys of rail dining.

The green garden salad is refreshing and simple, and when I see our waiter bring us a serving dish with a mound of creamy butter, I know what’s next. Even though the train has only been running for a few weekends, I’ve heard of its pretzel rolls. These rolls—dense, fluffy, with a brown chewy crust—live up to the reputation. I am tempted to demolish the whole basket of pretzel rolls, but I remember we still have our entrées.

Tonight, I’ve ordered the chicken, and Becca has ordered the prime rib. The chicken comes with two chicken breasts served with a light cream sauce, rice, and asparagus cooked to perfection. The prime rib is served with a baked potato, green beans, and a zesty horseradish sauce.

Chicken and rice is a comforting dish, and while Chef Hampton has successfully given me just that, it is also elegant. The cream sauce is a decadent touch. The prime rib, pinnacle of retro dining experiences, exceeds expectations. It is tender, cooked perfectly to medium, and the horseradish sauce gives it a nice punch of flavor.

During dinner, the sun fades completely away. The lights are dim aboard the train, and the big band music has slowed to soft crooning. The candles flicker on each table, and guests are happy. Really happy. The couple celebrating their anniversary is smiling.

When we reach Centralia, the train stops for a bit. There are onlookers waving at us, excited to see the Columbia Star Dinner Train in their front yard. Then the train lurches, and we are moving again, only this time in the opposite direction back toward Columbia. On the way back, the train moves faster, but the mood is neither hurried nor rushed.

Meals finished, our servers bring out dessert. Just when I thought Chef Hampton couldn’t top himself, he does with a white

cake filled with lemon cream served with fresh raspberries and whipped cream. It is light, sophisticated, and devilishly good.

Stuffed to the gills with great food, Becca and I find it difficult not to feel sleepy as the train rocks back and forth along the rails. It is dark outside, and we are content. When we approach the train station in Columbia, Amando returns to our table. Amando is one of the highlights of the train ride. He is polite, conversational, and exceptionally organized and personable. He reminds the guests in our car to make reservations for another ride and spread the word.

The Star Dinner Train is also open to the private party market. Businesses and individuals can reserve the train, which holds up to 224 passengers, for private events, receptions, and even weddings. Menus can be customized, as well as departure and arrival times.

Special touches can also be bought—roses on the table, shrimp skewers, a shrimp and avocado cocktail, and also a private table.

Normally, parties of two must sit with another party of two when the train is full, but for a bit more, guests can reserve privacy for special occasions.

The train, which runs Friday and Saturday evenings at 7 PM, also has a Sunday brunch which departs at 11:30 AM. The brunch menu consists of fresh fruit, pastries, and three different menu options—quiche Lorraine, Columbia Star French Toast, and a veggie frittata.

For a memorable evening or a special way to celebrate an occasion, the Columbia Star Dinner Train is unsurpassed in distinction, personality, class, and service. Let the train transport you to a different era all together, where white tablecloths are standard, big band music fills your ears, and worries are left behind at the train station.

For more information, including menu options and details, visit www.dinnertrain.com. To make reservations, please call 573-474-2223.

PHOTOS BY NOTLEY HAWKINS AND ALLISON PASEK

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Salute to

VETERANS We pay tribute and listen to stories of war, peace, and courage.

BY JOE McCUNE PHOTOGRAPHY BY RON McGINNIS

From Lexington and Concord to Baghdad and the Korengal Valley. From Gettysburg to Normandy. From the Thirty-Eighth Parallel to the Tet Offensive. Much of American history is written in the wars it has waged and the battles it has fought, from the Revolutionary War that birthed the nation to the constantly shifting Middle Eastern battle lines that confront our soldiers today. But if we’re defined by war, the men and women who fought in them also define us. Their service. Their struggles. Their sacrifice.

“War is hell,” said Union General William Tecumseh Sherman.

And hell it casts upon those who fought, in battle wounds and fallen friends, in memories remembered and memories lost.

The Fourth of July celebrates the United States’ declaration of independence, when the torch of American liberty was officially lit.

Memorial Day is a time to remember all those who died keeping that flame alive. And on Veterans Day, we honor all those who served, in peacetime and in war.

As of June 1, there were 1,341 veterans living in Missouri’s seven veterans homes, 724 who served during World War II. Another 309 were Korean War veterans; 188 from Vietnam; 107 peacetime; and 13 from the Persian Gulf conflicts. We honor them by listening—by listening as they tell their stories. And we honor them by then preserving those stories. Traveling to Cameron, Cape Girardeau, and Mexico, Missouri, we sat and talked with seven veterans. These are their stories.

“We were serving each other.”

Vietnam For nearly as long as he can remember, 60-year-old Dwight Jennings Hudspeth wanted to be a marine, and five days after he turned 17, he joined the Corps to begin an eight-year enlistment. It was 1968, and he was following in the military footsteps of his World War II veteran father and World War I veteran grandfather.

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Dwight Jennings Hudspeth retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2001, after serving 22 years in the United States National Guard and eight with the United States Marine Corps.

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Salute to VETERANS

Hudspeth, a private first class after finishing basic training in San Diego, was stationed at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California, when the call went out for volunteers, destination Vietnam. Hudspeth volunteered, and in 1969, at 18 years old, he shipped off for Southeast Asia. Vietnam was hot— “unbelievable,” he says. And humid. And rainy. And a whole lot of jungle.

When he got in the country, Hudspeth was stationed at Da Nang Air Base, which sat about 85 miles south of the demilitarized zone at the Seventeenth Parallel. Like nearly all the enlisted men at the base, he had a calendar where he counted down the days remaining in his one-year tour of duty. When he had time off duty, he and his fellow Marines played basketball, performed physical training, and cooked steaks on the grill. The only blood he spilled in Vietnam was running into the basketball goal, he says.

When on duty, Hudspeth often was on perimeter watch around the sprawling base.

On patrol in the jungle, he engaged the enemy in firefights. “I was 18 years old,” he says, “and I thought I was invincible. But … all of a sudden something would break loose, and it could make you feel—you know, you weren’t at home, I’ll put it that way.”

On patrol at night in a nearly pitch-black jungle, Hudspeth’s platoon would keep each man within a few arms’ length as they crept along or hunkered down to wait for morning. As hot as it was during the day, he says, the nights were cold in comparison, leaving him and his comrades shivering in their damp, dank uniforms. Crouched in position, he could hear other patrols engaged in their own firefights off in the distance. Whatever doubts and fears he felt in those moments when the enemy was within sight—rifle pressed against his shoulder, expended brass

Max and Mary Weeks, married 66 years, served in World War II, Mary as a nurse for the Cadet Nurse Corps and Max as a second lieutenant in the Army.

littering the ground around him, tracers lighting up the night, the smell of gunpowder in the air—Hudspeth is keeping them to himself.

Patrol was never a picnic, and among all the cautions that went along with a trek through the jungle, there was one immutable rule: stay off the trails. Booby traps planted by the Viet Cong awaited the careless or unwary. Tiger pits, leg traps, and improvised explosive devices were set to maim or kill Marines and soldiers.

Hudspeth hasn’t been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—The Wall—in Washington, D.C., but he knows some of the more than 58,000 names etched into the polished black granite and how they got there. After his tour was over, he had a chance to go back to Vietnam with the Marine Corps League in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He regrets not going. “I think,” he says, “I could have just said goodbye.”

The closest he came to death, Hudspeth says, wasn’t on patrol but during a mortar and rocket attack on the base.

A mortar detonated near his quarters, and he heard the smack! smack! as shrapnel peppered the hooch.

Simply concerned with life and death, Hudspeth says he never questioned his mission. He believed he was there to help the Vietnamese people become free from Communism. End of story. “The politics of it wasn’t what we were into,” he says. “We were just serving each other. You could trust the person in front of you and in back of you and on both sides of you.”

He returned to the States in 1970, and after rising to the rank of gunnery sergeant, his Marine enlistment was up in 1976. Hudspeth later joined the National Guard, and he

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wound up serving 22 years, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring in 2001. He wishes he never left.

“The military was great for me, and I enjoyed it so much. I didn’t realize I was going to miss it as bad as I do, but I really miss the military. Getting up in the morning, being with my comrades, going to different missions, going to my physical training and things like that,” Hudspeth says. “It was just a great life to live.”

“We didn’t have a chance.”

World War II High school classmates in Topeka, Kansas, Max C. and Mary L. Weeks celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary last September. But the 89-year-olds, parents to three grown children, almost didn’t have a first anniversary, let alone 66.

A member of the Rear Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Kansas State University, Max opted to forego his final year in college and enlisted in the Army in October 1943.

He spent 420 days stateside before being shipped to the war. He landed in England as a second lieutenant and stepped right into the Battle of the Bulge.

Max’s unit was assigned to take up defensive positions and patrol their portion of the Ardennes forest region in Belgium. In December 1944, the Germans began their offensive—and Max’s platoon, taking cover in bunkers, was overrun. They were outnumbered five to one. He took a shell to the helmet, which split it in two. His sergeant told Max they didn’t have a chance; they needed to surrender or be killed. They surrendered and were taken prisoner.

“I’m not sorry for that at all,” Max says, “because we didn’t have a chance of a snowball in hell.” His only objecJohn Bromley was a member of the Army Air Corps during World War II, which became the United States Air Force in 1947.

tive was to make it home alive.

(For the past 18 years, Max has been stricken with Meniere’s disease, which is characterized by a lack of balance and hearing loss. It can strike suddenly, without warning, and head injuries are a risk factor. Max and Mary attribute it to the shell he took to his head.)

To prevent any escapes, the Germans took the prisoners’ uniform pants because taking off without pants in the winter would have been suicide.

Packed into rail cars so tightly that they were forced to stand, Max and scores of other Americans were shipped more than 200 miles to a prisoner of war camp near Hamburg, Germany.

Meanwhile, Mary was a member of the Cadet Nurse Corps. Inducted into the Army in early 1945 at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Mary was sent to Camp Carson, Colorado, before being assigned to Winter General Hospital in Topeka. In both places, she took care of injured soldiers back from the war. One night, a group of new patients arrived. Mary noticed one of the men wearing an Army patch like the one Max had. She asked if the man knew him, and he said the last time he saw Max, “He was standing on a railroad platform without any pants on.”

In the POW camp, Max and more than 5,000 others were fed turnip soup twice a day with the occasional ration of what Max calls “bread made of sawdust.” A fit 160 pounds when he went into the Army, Max was down to 92 pounds when he weighed himself after the Allies liberated the camp in 1945.

Dysentery ravaged the prisoners. Between the pit latrines and chamber pots in the barracks, there was no avoiding it. Toilet paper was nearly nonexistent, contributing to the problem. Sporadic Red Cross boxes contained staples: Spam, crackers, and the occasional roll of toilet paper that never seemed to last long enough.

“War,” Max says, “is an abomination against human beings and humankind.”

One day bled into the next. Early reveille and a head count. Back into the barracks. Day after day. Day after day.

Day after day. The only thing that broke the monotony of POW life was occasional reports about the war and the outside world. In the camp, an American lieutenant colonel and his aides constructed a radio from smuggled parts, with which they gleaned information, Max says. “The bird will sing tonight” was code telling the men that the

“ War,” Max says, “is an abom in against hum ation an beings and humankind.”

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Salute to VETERANS

see Mary. He asked for her hand. She said yes. Three months later, they both said, “I do.”

“In 66 years,” Max says, “I haven’t been able to get along without her.”

“Nothing made me heroic.”

Frank Zeman served in the Philippines during World War II.

information they would receive was accurate. By surreptitious means, the news made its way around camp.

And that’s how they knew a rescue attempt was coming.

Hope soared, Max says, when an American tank column arrived in early 1945, but it plummeted when the American tank commander told the POWs that they had no food, maps, or a way to transport the prisoners.

He suggested they go back to the POW camp and wait, so the prisoners returned. But when the Americans left the area, the Germans retook the camp. Later that year, when General George Patton’s Third Army liberated the camp for good, the American lieutenant colonel ordered his men—who now had trousers—to form columns and begin marching south to Austria. Each column of about 150 men took a different route to prevent everyone from being captured at once, Max says. Despite the long days of marching and hiding when the enemy approached, life on the road was relatively good, Max says, because there was food—real food—to be stolen at night from farm houses that dotted the countryside.

Max and a buddy were hiding in a dairy barn when a column of American 6x6 transport trucks passed nearby.

And on the first (or second; the memory is a blur) day of May, 1945, Max was back in friendly company. The war ended on May 8, and Max made his way to a casualty ship headed to New York City. Despite the war being officially over, the soldiers were worried that German subs still patrolled the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean, making the crossing a nervous endeavor, Max says.

Stationed in Arkansas before his separation papers came through, Max, who made first lieutenant before he mustered out, got leave in June 1945 and went to

World War II The Selective Training and Service Act was enacted in 1940, and six months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, John L. Bromley’s number came up and he was drafted into the Army Air Corps (which became the Air Force after World War II). He took basic training at March Field in Riverside, California, then helped build Edwards Air Base in southern California.

In 1943, he crossed the Atlantic in a 40-ship convoy and was stationed at Base Air Depot No. 1 in Burtonwood, England, one of the largest air bases in Europe. Flight tests and aircraft maintenance were Burtonwood’s bailiwick, and Bromley, who attained the rank of sergeant, helped take care of equipment, check parachutes, and monitor performance standards during test flights.

Like many men who were part of what newsman Tom Brokaw called “The Greatest Generation,” Bromley downplays his service, saying he “did nothing that made me very heroic.” Like many men and women who were part of that generation, Bromley is too modest.

Because the base was vital to the Allied cause, the German Luftwaffe tried several times to attack it, and they targeted it with their V-2 rockets, the precursors to today’s intercontinental ballistic missiles. Bromley, now 93 years old and legally blind, made it through unscathed.

“We did some shooting.”

World War II A St. Louis native, Frank Zeman was drafted in 1943.

Sent to the Philippines in 1945, Zeman was shot in the right shoulder during the Battle of Luzon as the Japanese tried in vain to hold the island nation.

“When they shot at us,” 87-year-old Zeman says, “why, we did some shooting.” In Zeman’s case, adrenaline was a powerful painkiller. “When I got shot,” he says, “I heard the bullet fire off, but … it wasn’t until a half-hour, hour later that it dawned on me. And then at that time, they were hauling me away to get myself repaired.”

Foxholes didn’t protect him or two other buddies who also got shot during the battle, and Zeman was in the hospital for a month.

He was still in the Philippines when the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, bringing an end to the war in the South Pacific.

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“They were dropping fuel tanks.”

Korea & Vietnam A 20-year veteran, Verdell Cato joined the Army in 1949, a year before the United States waded into the war in Korea.

Based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Cato pulled a 13-month assignment in South Korea, from January 5, 1951 to February 5, 1952. During his time in the country, Cato was stationed at Pusan, Masan, Kusan, and Inchon, working in food services. The only time he shot his rifle, he says, was on the firing range.

After leaving Korea, Cato went through airborne training at Fort Benning, Georgia, making leaps into the wild blue yonder to get his jump wings.

On April 16, 1968, he left for Vietnam, where he was stationed in Na Trang and Da Nang. While stationed in Vietnam, an enemy encampment was close enough that Cato and the other soldiers could see it from their camp.

“One day we saw six C-130s go over, and they were dropping fuel tanks, barrels of napalm,” on the enemy base, Cato says. “And then the seventh one torched it. That all went down in the holes. Of course, it fried their rice.”

When he left the Army after his tour was over, Cato was a sergeant first class.

“ You meet people.”

Peacetime Joining the Air Force in 1954, Jack Smithpeter, 76, spent most of his four-year tour of duty with the Air Weather Service in Alaska. Now 76 years old, a spinal cord injury sent Smithpeter, who attained the rank of airman first class, to a nursing home in Carrollton before he secured Below from left: Eighty-year-old Verdell Cato joined the Army in 1949 and served in Korea and Vietnam. Jack Smithpeter spent his tour of duty monitoring weather conditions for Air Force pilots.

a spot in Cameron’s veterans home.

After the Korean War ended and as the Cold War was heating up, Smithpeter and his outfit launched weather balloons to take readings on air speed, temperatures, dew points, humidity—basically anything that might help a pilot fly the easiest, safest, and fastest course. He then briefed pilots, both military and commercial, on the readings, which he says was the best part of his job. “You meet different people,” including celebrities such as television personality Arthur Godfrey, who arrived on a commercial flight.

We honor these men an d women by listening to th eir stories and rememb ering.

Seven veterans, seven stories, all bound by a common thread of service and sacrifice. Unfortunately, almost all of the Missouri veterans home residents are in poor health. They’ll soon leave us, and when they are gone, their stories will die with them. Unless we record them.

All of America’s World War I veterans are gone. The last one, 110-year-old Missouri-native Frank Woodruff Buckles, died in February. In 15 years, it’s likely all World War II veterans will be gone because they are dying at a rate of 900 to 1,100 a day. Korean War and Vietnam War veterans are growing older, too. There’s no escaping the inexorable march of time.

And so we salute our veterans now, while we have a chance. We honor these men and women by telling their stories, making sure that the record of what they did for our country doesn’t go unnoticed.

We remember. We remember and are grateful.

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A group of ghost hunters probe the John Wornall House Museum in Kansas City

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW BARTON BASED ON PHOTO BY RUDOLF HOLNSTEINER

HUNTING THE MY EXPERIENCE with things that go bump in the night has pretty much been limited to reading Stephen King stories with a willful suspension of disbelief. I can get on board with a car that tries to kill people (Christine) or a clown who rips limbs off kids (It) or even a laundry machine that’s possessed by evil spirits (The Mangler). It’s not that I actively disbelieve in the paranormal, but I’ve got a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to the subject. (OK, so I had sort of an out-of-body experience as a kid, lying in bed and watching my other self move around the room, but maybe I just had a fever.) Television shows like Ghost Hunters—so cheesy that it’s camp—haven’t exactly changed my view. But I give King the benefit of the doubt, so it’s the least I can do while watching a real paranormal investigative team in action.

On a recent Thursday evening, I tag along with Kansas City Paranormal Investigations (KCPI) members at the John Wornall House Museum in Kansas City.

Dayna Smith has been actively seeking out the strange and unusual in our world for seven years. Three years ago, she founded KCPI to, as the group’s website states, “use honest documentation, rational reasoning, and research” to investigate and interpret the world of unexplained phenomena. To that end, they record everything during an investigation with voice recorders and often use still cameras and video recorders, too. Alcohol and drugs are strictly prohibited when KCPI is performing an investigation; Dayna is a teetotaler.

The Wornall House was built in 1858, three years before America was torn asunder, three years before the Union and the Confederacy made Missouri one of the most hotly contested states during the four-year Civil War, three years before the house became a battlefield hospital for the North and South during the Battle of Westport. The house stood in the middle of a 500-acre estate when it was built, but today Kansas City surrounds the structure that the Jackson County Historical Society bought in 1964 and restored to its antebellum appearance.

I meet the group at 7 PM at the Wornall House. As the sun slowly sinks and the house fills with shadows, guides Phyllis French and daughter Madeline

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Best give us a tour. They have stories to tell. Phyllis says she once felt a hand going down her back while explaining a dining room feature—but there was no one behind her. Madeline says the front door, which closes tightly, kept blowing open when she was outside. And they both say they were downstairs when they heard someone (something?) walking in an upstairs bedroom. Group members seem intrigued and excited by the stories, asking questions and mapping out a plan of attack.

Before KCPI gets down to business, investigator, linguist, and tech support specialist Jan Schoeler explains why they read a prayer.

“We don’t know for sure what we’re going to encounter when we go into a home or a location,” he says. “And sometimes when you do this, you can actually open a portal. You know, you’re not going to get exactly the spirits that you expect to find. You can bring something else completely different, dangerous or not dangerous, so you have to be careful with that. This is a precaution. Just to make sure.

“So everyone bow your heads or whatever you’d like to do.

“St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, Prince of the heavenly host, by the divine power of God, cast into hell Satan, and all evil spirits who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

“Have fun you guys.”

The first group activity is using a ghost box to listen for spirits, or in paranormal lingo, electronic voice phenomena (EVP). Basically, the ghost box is an aluminum foil-wrapped AM/FM radio that’s been rewired to flip from one station to another in rapid order, sort of like a police scanner for the dead. The theory is, somewhere within the static between stations, the device can pick up and broadcast disembodied voices saying a few words or a phrase.

We sit scattered around in the upstairs hallway while Stephanie Turbiville holds the ghost box. She turns it on, and it starts cycling through

all the AM stations it can pick up.

Dayna begins speaking, entreating the house’s spirits to show up: “John Wornall … Confederate … Union … hospital … home … If there are any spirits in this house that are willing to communicate with us this evening, will you please come forward and speak with us? We might be able to hear you.”

“John Wornall, are you here?” Jan asks.

Sitting there in the near-dark, uncomfortable on the hardwood floor, I want to hear something. And wanting to can make you—well, me—believe you hear it.

About 10 minutes into the session, I think I hear something that sounds like a malevolent character in a horror movie, a guttural noise that is, well, ominous. The others pick up on it, too, and mark the spot in the recording.

Mostly, though, what I catch are pieces of a Royals baseball broadcast. They’re playing Detroit, and Tigers starting pitcher Max Scherzer is in the process of going six and two-thirds innings, giving up one run with two strikeouts in a 3-1 victory. “ — outside on a (garble) pitch that — ” “ — run scores.”

“That’s only the second strikeout for Scherzer.”

After the ghost box session, I follow Chris Johnson and Jan for the next few hours. Group members have left voice recorders running in every room, hoping to pick up EVPs even when the rooms are unoccupied by the living. The lights are off, and the glowing electronic equipment the guys tote around illuminates the rooms. The hardwood floorboards creak and groan as we creep around the upstairs rooms.

“Mr. Wornall, are you up here in this bedroom with us?” Jan asks.

“This was your bedroom after all, was it not?”

Jan asks lots of questions.

Jan carries an electromagnetic field detector (EMF), which has a baseline of 0.0. If it gets a reading of 2.0 or higher, it might mean there is a presence in the room. It also records temperature in degrees Fahrenheit and has an antennae that goes off only when it’s

THE HARDWOOD FLOORBOARDS AND AS WE CREEP AROUND THE UPSTAIRS ROOMS.

groan

JOE MCCUNE

creak

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touched. He also has a sort of full-spectrum device able to pick up wavelengths undetectable by the human eye. Chris carries a small camera that’s turned to the video camera function.

Basically, there’s a lot of standing around, asking questions and waiting for something—anything—to happen. Chris says he sees something falling from the bed. “It looks like rain,” he says. I couldn’t see it.

Chris tries to provoke Wornall: “We heard you were a traitor. Is that true? Were you really a traitor? You harbored the North and the South.”

Jan joins in: “In my opinion, a person that can’t choose a side like that is a coward. Were you a coward, John Wornall?”

If he was, John Wornall isn’t saying.

Jan says he saw a shadow appear and disappear in the hallway: “Look! Look! Look!” he says. “On the right-hand side. Who’s down there, who’s walking across that door?” I’m pretty sure a passing car I see outside the house is the culprit, but I don’t know whether to say anything. After a few minutes of exploring the shadows, Jan and Chris move on to other matters, like white light showing up around Jan’s feet as Chris sees it through the video camera. I couldn’t see it.

Following our room explorations, we move into the hallway and landing where we conducted the ghost box, Chris with his camera, Jan with the EMF and a voice recorder. I’ve got a notebook, pen, and voice recorder. Nothing much happens, so we move down to the kitchen.

In the kitchen’s northeast corner, Chris gets high readings on the EMF: 4.0, 5.0, 6.9, 7.8, higher and higher. “Fourteen?” Jan says. He says high EMF levels can cause nausea, vomiting, and feelings of paranoia and can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

The air conditioning and heating unit is in the cellar below the kitchen, noticeably noisy. The readings fall the closer Chris gets to the floor and the unit below, but they rise as he goes up the wall: 21.0, 24.8, higher and higher, past 45 and 50. The numbers are nearly unprecedented, Jan and Chris tell me.

I figure it’s got to be the AC … but then my pen goes missing. Not just missing as in misplaced, missing as in gone. As in, vanished and can’t be found. I could swear I had it right here—right here in the kitchen—a minute ago, but now it has disappeared. With a penlight Jan loans me, I search the room. It’s not on the kitchen table. It’s not on the floor below the table. It’s not in my pockets. It’s not anywhere. Of

From left: Chris Johnson and Jan Schoeler probe a corner in the kitchen. The ghost box, a modified AM/FM radio, is used to hear voices in the static between radio stations. Jan uses a voice recorder to detect ghosts. The Kansas City Paranormal Investigations team began in 2008.

Front row, left to right: Jan Schoeler, Chris Johnson, Back row, left to right: Josie Harmon-Kemp, Dayna Smith, Stephanie Turbiville, Ronie Lathrop, Robin Burge, Carlina Barrett.

course, I didn’t bring a backup.

Jan keeps asking if someone, some spirit, needs to talk to us. Chris loans me a pen. When my time ends with the guys, I search the porch for my pen and come up empty.

The night’s final activity is another ghost box session in which guides Phyllis and Madeline are invited to join. It lasts nearly 30 minutes, with various KCPI folks throwing out questions and asking the spirits to speak to us. “Mark that,” members say when they hear something that isn’t part of a radio broadcast.

“Did you hear that?” Jan asks.

“That was me breathing,” Stephanie says.

Besides the ungodly static, I mostly hear what seems like a circular saw and the soundtrack to an old-time Looney Tunes cartoon. Or maybe it was just classical music. And although I don’t hear anything paranormal during the final ghost box or throughout the rest of the night, KCPI does a postmortem on its investigation, analyzing the various materials collected throughout the evening. They find several of what the members believe, upon later analysis, to be EVPs. On one, Robin Burge finished speaking in the kitchen, and another female spoke up and said, “Come back home.” Also in the kitchen, Robin is talking and the team detected a voice under hers. They can’t be certain of what it says, but they say it is an EVP. Carlina Barrett, Josie Harmon-Kemp, and Ronie Lathrop are going through the parlor when a male voice says, “Bitch.”

In another EVP, Carlina, Josie, and Ronie are walking through the master bedroom. Carlina announces that it’s 10:30, and there is an EVP that says, “Help me,” “rat,” and “stew.”

And when everyone was gathered in the hospital room, Jan and Josie heard walking or tapping on the staircase. It’s not an EVP, but it was captured on recording. After the final ghost box session ends, it’s nearly midnight and I’ve got a long drive home. The KCPI members pack up their gear and pose for a group picture on the back porch.

And although I looked all over, I never did find that pen.

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ART

Scare THE

of the

FEW BUSINESSES GAUGE success by counting the num-

ber of lost shoes in its buildings. Then again, few businesses are like Full Moon Productions. In the West Bottoms of Kansas City, in old brick mammoth-sized buildings with boarded up windows and dark menacing entrances, you’ll find hell. And medieval torture chambers, werewolves, Jack the Ripper, and the largest python in North America—it’s enough to scare anyone right out of their shoes.

Full Moon Productions doesn’t do haunted houses; they do haunted worlds. They create scenes so elaborate, so finely detailed and perfectly executed, most visitors slip right into these devilish worlds and become prey to phobia, fear, vulnerability, and terror.

But that’s just what Amber Arnett Bequeaith, vice president of Full Moon, wants. In 1975, Amber’s grandmother, mother, and uncle, president Monty Summers, opened the first house in the haunted house complex, Edge of Hell. Since then, three new houses have opened, including The Beast, the Chambers of Edgar Allen Poe, and Macabre Cinema, but the philosophy remains the same: create environments so real visitors can’t separate reality from psychological manipulation.

For Full Moon, this means a lot of work that most of its customers never know about. It means researching the graveyards of Edgar Allen Poe and acquiring real movie sets for Macabre Cinema. It means caring for exotic animals to place within the swamp of The

Beast or in the throes of Edge of Hell. And it means a lot of talented, passionate people with a penchant for scaring people.

A philosophy behind the terror

Each house within the four-block area of the West Bottoms is its own scene, Amber says. “Our goal is to take your mind into a different dimension.” She prides herself on Full Moon’s dedication to elaborate scenes.

“It’s not like other haunted houses where you are walking through one scary room, and then you are in a crazy clown room.”

No, instead it’s as if each house is its own person, with its own special quirks, goals, fears, and charm. No house is the same. And that’s what most customers don’t realize. There is a reason, a philosophy behind each house. It is this philosophy that directs everything, from the actors and makeup, to the set decoration and use of mechanics.

The first house they opened, Edge of Hell, was inspired by Amber’s great-grandfather, a pastor. “That’s how the idea started,” she says. “Every day you make life choices, and most of us walk on the edge. Depending on how many bad choices you make, you encounter demons and fear.”

This is what Edge of Hell, the oldest haunted house in Kansas City, is about—encroaching on those fears and phobias. Edge of Hell is intense and in your face. Visitors encounter snakes, rats, and bats and are in small, dark places, creating a claustrophobic environment. Despite a brief

BY LAUREN HUGHES | PHOTOGRAPHY BY FORESTER MICHAEL

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Full Moon Productions has been terrifying Kansas City since 1975.

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2 1

4

break in a heaven-themed scene, visitors are forced down a five-story spiraling slide straight into the arms of the Devil himself.

While Edge of Hell is a high-impact scare, which means actors are free to jump out and be aggressive with visitors, The Beast is more of a theatrical experience. Its theme—time traveling through eerie periods such as medieval Europe, Jack the Ripper’s London, or the spooky swamps of an old Louisiana plantation—presents the thought that the true beast is the beast that lies within man himself. This house has an open format; visitors are free to wander throughout. Often, this means many visitors get lost, an intentionally created experience. Here at The Beast, getting lost is taken seriously, especially in Werewolf Forest. Actors are to remain silent when customers scream for an exit. If an actor helps a customer out of the Forest, the actor will get fired.

Walking through these haunted houses takes an orchestra of perfectly timed events and just the right combination of live and mechanical elements. How a scare is set up is undeniably important. “It’s got to touch all of your senses in the beginning, with the sounds, the music, the smells, and that’s when we just scare the daylights out of you,” Amber says.

3

As you walk through the swamp in The Beast, you look down and see a live alligator. This by itself is enough of a scare. Yet when you walk past the alligator, you trip a laser beam which sets in motion a series of timed events, including a mechanical alligator that “chomps” down on your leg. The end result? You’ve been manipulated into thinking the live alligator has just made dinner out of your leg.

Maniacal laughs, growls, and howls

The sheer amount of work put into successfully scaring the shoes off people is surprising. For one, even though the houses are only open for 30 nights, Full Moon Productions works year-round to plan and create new ideas. In August, the work really begins. Twelve full-time employees turn into over 300 during the season.

It starts with the auditions. Amber joins Sherri Petz, director of operations, and the managers of each separate house in casting every actor that will be used. Even returning actors must audition again. Hopeful actors are given a myriad of characters and situations to act out: “Show me how you would react if you were buried alive,” Amber asks one actor. He lies on the floor and begins screaming: “No! Get me out of here!”

Another actor played the role of the gypsy last year. Her deep voice and dark hair and eyes complement her perfected Romanian accent.

While the judges love her as the gypsy, they see further potential.

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Left: Connor Goslin is transformed into a mummy for a scene in Macabre Cinema with the help of makeup and a prosthetic mask. Below: Sally, a reticulated python used in Edge of Hell, is thought to be the largest in North America. At 320 pounds, she is 24 feet long and 40 inches wide and is fed live deer, pigs, and racoons.

“I could see her with vampire teeth,” Amber suggests.

Some of the actors have developed characters with maniacal laughs, growls, howls, and contorted faces. It’s clear they love the work and feel at home in the world of the “insanity-challenged,” as one actor puts it.

For two weeks, auditions continue until each actor is given a role and placed in a house. Then training begins. Actors are taught to use their diaphragm when projecting loud noises, or else they will quickly lose their voice. They are taught the most effective ways to scare for the particular house they’ve been assigned.

But no scaring can really happen until actors are transformed into characters with makeup and costumes. Two makeup artists per house must complete this transformation every night. Rod Zirkle is one of these artists. This is his third consecutive season doing makeup for Full Moon, though in total he has worked with the company for six seasons.

Rod and the other makeup artists use a latex base on the actors faces to help apply a prosthetic mask. Once applied, he begins airbrushing the prosthetic into the gruesome creature he is creating, a mummy to be placed in one of the movie sets in Macabre Cinema. Connor Goslin becomes that mummy when Rod is done—sunken eyes give way to protruding facial bones. Though he is leaving to join the Marine Corps soon, Connor will work another season this year, his third yet with Full Moon.

Sticking with the company is common for Full Moon’s employees— they love what they do. Erik Birdsall has been with Full Moon for almost 20 years. Today he works for the company full time, but when he started he was a street performer outside of The Beast. During season, the entire area becomes like a festival, with customers walking from house to house and entertainers meandering about, including a headless horseman. Eventually, Erik worked his way up, playing more elaborate roles inside the houses. He feels getting scared is part of good health: “A good scare in your system every once in a while gets the blood flowing.”

Erik is the master of the silent scare. “He’s so quiet and has perfect timing,” Sherri says. “It’s remarkable.” Indeed, as Amber poses for a photo on the staircase in Edge of Hell, she doesn’t notice Erik sneak up behind her, and she is startled to see him in his red Devil mask. When in costume, Erik often wears black sclera contact lenses, which completely black out and cover the eye. Once, in the middle of a busy night, his lens tore. Instead of breaking character to remove it (contact lens wearers know just how uncomfortable a torn lens can be), he stayed put, torn lens and all.

But that just proves how devoted and passionate Erik is about frightening people: “I love the scream.”

Nod to horror films

Amber is proud to call the West Bottoms home to the haunted houses. “The Bottoms really provide that beautiful architectural structure,” she says. “The atmosphere of the community fits perfectly

with the time period we’re trying to create in people’s minds.”

Being community-focused is important to Amber and the rest of the Full Moon crew, who are busy restoring and preserving buildings in the West Bottoms area. Full Moon’s newest houses, Macabre Cinema and The Chambers of Edgar Allen Poe, are a part of Full Moon’s partnership with Dream Factory, a charity in Kansas City. Except for management, all of the actors in both houses work as volunteers, and proceeds from those houses go to the Dream Factory. Every year, Full Moon throws the Dream Factory party, where terminally and critically ill kids can try on costumes and makeup, go on a behind-the-scenes tour, and walk through the two houses. “It’s the actors’ favorite night of the year,” Amber says.

Macabre Cinema is Full Moon’s nod to classic and contemporary horror films. Movie sets from The Mummy Returns and Hellraiser were donated to charity, and in the past few years, Full Moon acquired them for the Dream Factory house. When visitors walk into the 1939 theatre, they move through the split theatre screen. “Once they pass through that split in the screen, they are the victim,” Amber says. “And it’s up to them.

What kind of victim are you in the movie sets? Are you a Jaime Lee Curtis, or are you just someone who faints and then you are dead?”

In addition to being a Dream Factory partnered house, the Chambers of Edgar Allen Poe is also the site for the Full Moon Ghost Hunt. This private tour allows visitors to roam the house hunting for paranormal activity. The Discovery Channel even filmed the house for the show Ghost Lab because of its haunted past. Some of the coffins used in this house were fished out of the river during the Flood of ’93, Sherri says.

“It’s those coffins where most of the activity is picked up.” And recently, Full Moon began the Ghosts & Gangsters Tour, a ghoulish bus ride around downtown Kansas City. The tour makes stops at haunted hot spots around the city, as well as famed mafia locations.

Angels and devils

The haunted houses are more than a business for Amber. They are her family’s livelihood, passion, and identity. She doesn’t send Christmas cards—she sends out Halloween cards. This year, she and her four children dress up as angels and devils. Amber and her daughter, Savannah, are angels, and her three sons, Beau, Dylan, and Drake, are devils. Amber jokes her husband David is “always the ghost.”

It’s not just Amber’s family that clings closely to the tradition of haunted houses. Sherri and her mother also share a love for the houses. “It’s a rite of passage in Kansas City to go to the haunted house,” Sherri says.

In preparation for the season, Amber’s children pose for promotional photography (see page 46). Savannah and Beau pretend to be hunting for ghosts. Behind the cameras, Amber shouts affirmations: “Great! Now make a face like you’ve just seen a ghost, Beau.” Dylan and Drake watch, excited to be a part of the next scene.

It’s clear Amber is proud to share her life’s passion with her children, the next generation of Full Moon Productions.

“It’s a family business,” Amber says.

“That’s who we are. They’ve got to get used to this.” www.fullmoonprod.com

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MORE

Haunted MISSOURI Kansas City Ghosts and Gangsters Tour

LEMP MANSION, St. Louis

The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis is no longer owned by the Lemp family, but many people believe the mansion is haunted by four of the family members who committed suicide. William J. Lemp, the father, shot himself in 1904 in his office. Three of his children also killed themselves, Elsa in 1920, William Jr. in 1922, and Charles in 1949.

The sad story of the Lemp family gives way to creepy tales and sightings at the wealthy family’s old home. Visitors and employees of the mansion have reported doors opening and closing on their own and candles lighting spontaneously, and some say they have seen apparitions of the family.

The Lemp Mansion is now a restaurant and inn, but it holds ghost tours Monday evenings with a paranormal investigator. The mansion also does a special supernatural hunt called “The Lemp Experience” for $25, which includes food and drinks.

ans after World War II, and the military owned the

saw unexplainable things in the mansion, and some

www.lempmansion.com • 314-664-8024

building until 1993.

report seeing the ghost of Cruikshank. Tours are held

Jefferson City

every day in the house from 10 AM until 4 PM. Dur-

castle and who may have passed away in the castle,

ing the tour, guests are given copper rods to detect if

but many castle staff and visitors say they’ve heard

spirits are nearby. Tours cost $15 for adults.

Since the 175-year-old penitentiary closed its doors

voices of men and women, bumped into an invisible

www.rockcliffemansion.com•573-221-4140

in 2004, there have been numerous reports of ghosts

mass, heard doors shutting, or saw objects moving

at the prison. With its nickname “Bloodiest 47 acres

on their own.

KANSAS CITY GHOSTS AND GANGSTERS TOUR

in America,” it’s no surprise spirits may still roam the

The castle is open for tours the second Friday of

grounds. Accounts tell of apparitions, the sound of

every month at 8:30 and 10:30 PM for $15, with more

Take a bus tour around Kansas City to see its haunted

laughter, and cell doors being slammed shut.

tours in October.

history, including infamous mafia hot spots.

The penitentiary offers three different tours: a ghost tour, a history tour, and a group tour. The twohour ghost tours are available every Saturday for $25 per person, and they start at 8 PM. The prison is also

www.pythiancastle.com •417-865-1464

ROCKCLIFFE MANSION, Hannibal

The tour includes a trip to the Hotel Savoy, the oldest continuously operating hotel west of the Mississippi River, with eerie stories of doors slamming

John Cruikshank wanted to show off his wealth and

and unknown voices. It’s said to be haunted by past

open for overnight tours at $100 per person.

status, so he built a mansion on a hill overlooking

resident Betsy Ward, who died in her hotel room. The

www.missouripentours.com•573-632-2820

the town of Hannibal. Cruikshank, his wife, and four

bus also visits St. Mary’s Church, where parishioners

daughters moved into the house in 1900. He passed

and clergy say they’ve seen the ghost of Father Hen-

away in 1924, at which point the family left the house

ry David Jardine, the church’s leader in the 1800s. His

Yes, there is a castle in Springfield. And yes, people

and it remained empty for 43 years until three local

death was ruled a suicide, and he supposedly roams

believe there are ghosts in the building. The struc-

families saved it from becoming another empty lot.

the church to clear his good name. Tours cost $30.

ture was built in 1913 as an orphanage and senior

Once people started staying in the house again, they

Private tours are available by appointment. Tours are

citizens’ home for members of the Knights of Pythias,

soon came to believe that Cruikshank never actually

held every Friday and Saturday at 6 PM and 9 PM.

a fraternal order started in 1864. In 1942, the building

left the mansion.

www.kcghostsandgangsterstour.com

PYTHIAN CASTLE, Springfield

became an office and service club for injured veter-

Visitors and staff at the house claim they heard or

BY MELANIE LOTH

816-472-GHOST

FORESTER MICHAEL

MISSOURI STATE PENITENTIARY,

There is very little known about who stayed in the

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David is known for his humorous roles in The Office, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and the critically acclaimed Thank You for Smoking.

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Actor David Koechner draws inspiration and humor from his hometown in Tipton.

There are no signs in the tiny town of Tipton honoring David Koechner, the comedian, musician, and film and television actor who got his start at Second City in Chicago and was once a featured player on Saturday Night Live. But most everyone in the tight knit community feels a familial sense of pride in his accomplishments.

And why not, he’s one of their own—the local boy who made good in Hollywood.

Since leaving his hometown, David has carved out a solid career as a talented character actor, known for supporting or cameo roles in films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, starring his friend Steve Carell, or in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy with Will Ferrell. Whether it’s the obnoxious Todd Packer on NBC’s hit comedy The Office, or the characters he’s created for his stage acts, like Gerald Tibbons, based on a real-life drifter in Tipton, David has made them his own, wholly original through his perspective of growing up in small town America.

“I am a boy from Tipton. It’s who I am,” he says. “My work and my life have always been informed by my experiences here in my hometown.”

On this muggy summer day he and his wife, Leigh, who hails from Overland Park, Kansas, and their five children spill out of a large rented van in the driveway of David’s childhood home on Morgan Street.

His parents, Margaret Ann and Cecil, have been waiting on the front porch in a scene right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. (This visit would be the last time that David would see his father, who passed away on August 3, 2011.) This is the first time they’ve seen their newest grandchild, Eve,

who was born in January of this year, and there are hugs and kisses all around. Then Charlie, 12, Margot, 9, and 5-yearold twins Sargent and Audrey swing on a playground that Cecil built.

In person, David, 48, is much taller than he seems on film. He’s a bit over six feet two, and as he sits by his father, you see a strong resemblance between them, one that hasn’t gone unnoticed, even by his own children.

“There’s a photo in my home in Los Angeles of my parents on their wedding day, and my wedding portrait hangs next to it. One day my daughter Audrey asked who I married before her mom,” he says.

He and his father also share a distinct sense of humor. So perhaps he didn’t fall that far from the proverbial family tree.

“Just the other day I made a joke, and I told my assistant, ‘That was a Cecil Koechner joke,’ ” says David.

Although he and his family have called Los Angeles home for many years, his connections to Tipton run deep, and he and his family visit at least twice a year.

A few days earlier, David participated in the Big Slick Celebrity Poker Tournament and Party at Harrah’s North in Kansas City, which benefited Children’s Mercy Hospital and Clinics. Actors and Kansas City-natives Rob Riggle, Paul Rudd, and Jason Sudeikis headlined the annual event, which David says raised $200,000 for the hospital. He and Jon Hamm, a native of St. Louis and star of Mad Men, sang during the seventh inning stretch at a Royal’s baseball game, too.

“It’s quite costly to fly seven people home, so any opportunity like this allows my kids a chance to get to know their

B y S h e l l e y G a b e r t | P HO T OGRA P HY B Y E V AN W OO D

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cousins,” he says.

“They also like hanging out with my parents and soaking up the different quality of life here and seeing where I grew up.”

One of six siblings (Mark, Mary Rose, Cecilia, Joan, and Joe), David grew up in a large, loving Catholic family surrounded by an extended family that included 19 aunts and uncles and dozens and dozens of cousins.

“My parents have been married for 52 years, but I don’t remember seeing them fight. I’m sure they did, but they were smart enough to do it in another room,” he says. “My father had only an eighth-grade education, but he has always worked hard. So did my mom. It blows my mind that she raised six children without any help and also did the books for the family business.”

Founded in 1960, Koechner Manufacturing started out as a small business on David’s grandfather’s farm west of Tipton, where Cecil woke up every morning and milked 40 cows.

In June of 1967, Cecil moved the business to its present location on Highway 50 East, where the company makes turkey coops for a select group of customers throughout the United States. The young David swept the office and later counted out bolts and nuts and also cleaned the bathroom in the break room.

“My father’s business was really the center of my universe growing up and played a large part in my life,” says David. “It was how we identified ourselves.”

David’s father definitely knew that his middle son, an auburn-haired boy with freckles, was his own person. He was a solid C student at St. Andrews, the Catholic school he attended through eighth grade, and his teachers remember him as the class clown.

“I know I was a disruption in class, but with five siblings, making people laugh was my way of seeking attention,” he says.

“The first time I recognized that I might be funny was in the third grade. It was wintertime on a Friday, and we were all wearing our coats and waiting for the bell to ring. The teacher asked if anyone wanted to get up and talk, and I raised my hand,” he says. “Bob Bestgen had the loudest laugh in the class, so I had him sit on a chair and I hid my hat in his coat. My bit was trying to find it, and my classmates all laughed.”

With the nearest movie theater more than 30 miles away and only three broadcast network television channels, the young David had to provide his own entertainment. Often that was playing with his friend and classmate John Brandt, who he has known since he was two.

As John, an American Family insurance agent who has lived in Tipton all his life, points out, “Back then there were no PlayStations, so getting out of the house and riding bikes around town was big fun.”

When he was 15, David went to work for his Uncle Emil’s gas station and café at the Intersection of Highways 50 and 5, which today is the site of the only stoplight in the town of Tipton.

“I washed dishes, cooked, waited tables, and pumped gas, and my Uncle gave me a raise after two weeks because I was such a hard worker,” David says.

The colorful clientele included the locals and farmers as well as the travelers passing through. It was a rich environment that expanded his horizons.

“Looking back, I realize that seeing all those new people had a huge effect on me, and I started absorbing their character traits that later would become part of my act,” he says.

A lineman on the football team, he also participated in speech competitions and was the lead in the high school production of Neil Simon’s play, Barefoot in the Park.

“I loved being on stage,” David says. “I had no sense then of acting as a possible career, but I had whet my appetite.”

After graduation, he and John took an RV to Bennett Spring State Park on the Niangua River in Lebanon for a week to celebrate and go trout fishing.

“By the second or third day we ran out of beer,” John recalls.

David headed off to Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, mostly, he says, because it was expected.

“There are two nuns and two priests on my mother’s side of the family, and she definitely wanted me to go to a Catholic college,” he says.

After two years he wanted a bigger environment so he transferred to the University of Missouri in Columbia where he studied political science, something he’d been interested in since the seventh grade.

“I wanted to help people, but I soon realized I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I was never going to be a senator. How could I when I’d never set foot on a country club? They don’t give hillbillies money to run, although others may argue that they did with Clinton. But I think he’s brilliant,” says the lifelong Democrat.

Uninspired and at a crossroads, he quit going to classes and became academically ineligible. But a chance trip to Chicago one weekend would prove fateful.

“We saw a show at Second City, and I knew what I wanted to do.

And when I learned that you could take classes in improvisation, I had chosen my path,” he says. “My father was a bit puzzled at the time, but when something really speaks to you like that, you have to do it.”

David returned to Columbia and worked at three restaurants, including Harpo’s, the longtime college hangout. By 1986 he had saved up enough money to move to Chicago. He trained under Del Close, the

the first time i recognized that i might be funny was in the third grade.

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David’s family from left: Charlie, 12, Audrey, 5, his wife Leigh, Margot, 9, Sargent, 5, David, and Eve, born this past January.

guru of improvisation, at the Improv Olympic before joining The Second City comedy troupe, which would become his creative home.

“In Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell talks about the more access you have to a thing, the better you’re going to be,” he says. “Bill Gates lived within walking distance to the University of Washington and had access to their computer lab. Being in Chicago, I was on stage from the very first night and would do shows four nights a week and be in class the other nights. But it was all fun. The study was the playing and the joy.”

He spent nine years performing and learning, working alongside a confluence of who’s who in comedy talent, including Steve Carell, Nancy Walls (now married to Steve Carell), Tina Fey, Mike Myers, Tim Meadows, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, and the late Chris Farley.

After graduating in 1994, he auditioned and landed a spot on the Northwest Second City touring company. A talent scout saw him perform and soon he was hired by the legendary Lorne Michaels to be a player on Saturday Night Live’s 1995-1996 season.

“I remember watching the first episode of SNL in 1975. I was 13 years old and I was hooked. I just knew somehow I was going to be on that show someday,” he says.

At the time, it was the pinnacle of his career and an amazing experience to know that most of his friends and family were watching that first night.

“Maybe not the third of the population in the Correctional Facility,” jokes his father. “But there were many viewing parties going on to celebrate.”

A heady time, his family and friends, including John and another

childhood friend, Bruce Barbour, visited the set in New York. “We had limo service the whole weekend, and David took really good care of us,” John says. “We definitely saw the sun come up on two mornings.”

Although David’s creativity blossomed at SNL, his time on the show was cut short when he wasn’t asked to return for another season. “I didn’t play the petty politics well and put off a couple of producers, and that hurt me,” he speculates.

He quickly was hired as part of the sketch cast on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and later moved to Los Angeles where he won parts on then popular comedies such as Mad About You and Dharma & Greg.

His big break came when he was cast as sports reporter Champ Kind in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which was written and directed by Adam McKay and starred a then much lesser-known Ferrell, both of whom he had befriended at SNL. “This was Adam’s first film and both he and Ferrell, who was not as big a star as he is now, wanted me for the role. But they didn’t tell the studio that because the executives would say, ‘definitely not him’ so they played the waiting game, and two days after my audition I got the call,” he says.

Other roles followed in films such as The Dukes of Hazzard, Snakes on a Plane, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, again with the McKay-Ferrell team and executive producer Judd Apatow.

At a time when many actors were begging to be on the hit NBC comedy The Office, the star of the show Steve Carell personally chose David for a guest starring role as his obnoxious friend Todd Packer.

That was 2005, and since then David has appeared on 10 episodes of the long-running comedy.

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David’s parents, Margaret Ann and Cecil, were married for 52 years. Cecil passed away at the age of 80 in August 2011.

the time shooting Snakes on a Plane when they called. I’ve found that luck is when preparation and opportunity collide, and you have to get out of your own way,” he says.

His small part as a gun lobbyist in the critically acclaimed Thank You for Smoking earned him notice, and he got the starring role in The Comebacks, where he played a football coach with a losing record.

While he makes the most of the parts he plays in films written by others, it’s the characters he’s created on his own that really stand out and speak to his improvisational roots. Like Gerald Tibbons, who he introduced on SNL. “Every night in the summer, this bushy red-haired guy who worked as a roofer would sit on the southwest corner of the four-way stop at Highways 50 and 5. I called him Four-Way George and incorporated some of his mannerisms,” he says.

Marked by his slicked comb-over, mutton chop sideburns and an underbite, Tibbons showed up again when David joined SNL friend David “Gruber” Allen’s improvisational stage act. A mix of stand-up comedy and song, “The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show” became popular at clubs in Los Angeles. He and Allen were featured acts on Real Time with Bill Maher, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and went on tour with Tenacious D. In 2007, they brought their act to television for a series on Comedy Central, but it didn’t translate well to the small screen, and reviews were mixed.

“There were definitely compromises made for television, and it didn’t work,” he says. “Since I was an executive producer, I can’t blame anyone but myself, but it was definitely a disappointment.”

David, who has experienced the highs and the lows, remains resilient, focused on moving forward to new opportunities.

“Being an actor in Hollywood is like being a shark in the

ocean. If you stand still, you die,” he says.

Whether it’s an anthropology professor who believes in Bigfoot in Tenure, where he co-starred with Luke Wilson, Final Destination 5 3D, a horror film and sequel released in August, or Piranha 3DD with stars like Ving Rhames and David Hasselhoff, he gives the part his all.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re yelling at someone in your car in traffic or you’re doing a play, if your intention is to make art, then that’s what you’re doing,” he said at The Theater School at DePaul University’s annual fundraising dinner where he was honored earlier this year.

Certainly the economic downturn of the past two or three years has affected the entertainment industry and him personally, so last year he went on the road as a stand-up comedian.

“Parts that I would normally get are going to A-listers who need the work. So with seven mouths to feed, I decided I needed to be employed in between my film and television roles,” he says.

He describes his stand-up act as storytelling through various characters, costumes, and jokes with occasional music from himself and friends. The spark for one of his riffs came from his experiences attending the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia in the ’70s.

“My dad would give me a dollar at the beginning of the day and say, ‘Don’t come back until you’ve gotten lost.’ I could go to the cattle barns, anywhere, but not the carnival midway,” he says. “Of course I snuck through the mile-long midway anyway. It was like the wild, wild west, the magical trailers all painted in what I call ‘carny art,’ the scantily clad ladies, and the world’s fattest man.”

While he’s quite outspoken about his political opinions, he doesn’t voice them in his act.

“We’re a nation divided and I’m not known as a political stand-up comic,” he says. But the current state of our government is brought up easily and frequently in conversation.

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being an actor in Hollywood is like being a shark in the ocean. If you stand still, you die. easily and frequently in conversation.

“There’s not two parties in this country, there’s only one and it’s money,” he quips. “It’s all about helping yourself, and the people have nothing to do with it. The power structure is one large corporation serving its needs.”

He also doesn’t talk politics as host of “Always Open,” an Internet talk show produced by Will Arnett and Jason Bateman through their media company Dumb Dumb. It is a free flowing conversation with other actors over a meal at a Denny’s restaurant; so far the show has received positive press and featured celebrities such as Sarah Silverman, Amy Poehler, Kristen Bell, and Will Forte.

In the March premiere, he interviewed Bateman, who he worked with in the 2009 movie Extract. Seeing David, Bateman said, he can always count on a great hat, a minivan, and a hug.

“I do wear a lot of hats. Got to keep the sun off that head,” says David. “The minivan reference is probably because our children go to the same school, and he sees me drop them off.

“I’m very blessed with a great family and a circle of friends who are like my Los Angeles cousins. Many of them go back 25 years to Chicago, and now we’re raising our kids together,” he says. “Family is the world I know and where I’m secure. So creating my own family has always been a natural inclination.”

Both the product of large Irish Catholic families, he and his wife knew they wanted their own brood, and they were so committed that three of their children were born with a surrogate, an experience Leigh has detailed on her blog, Absolute Leigh, www.absoluteleigh.com.

The two met in the Kansas City International Airport in 1996, in late December.

“I’d flown in to visit my family for the holidays and was returning to Los Angeles, and her brother, Pat, was a SNL fan. She was very attractive, and we started talking,” he says.

The conversation continued on the plane, and she invited David to her New Year’s Eve party in Los Angeles. They began dating, and they were married at the Immaculate Conception Church in Kansas City in June of 1998.

Leigh was a recreation and leisure major at Kansas State University and master dive instructor who once worked at a Club Med in Tahiti.

With her own aspirations in show business, she was chosen as one of 10 contestants (out of an initial 18,000) to compete for their own talk show on Oprah Winfrey’s new cable network OWN. “There’s more rejection here in show business than any other place in the world, but David works hard and keeps at it,” says Leigh. “He’s super talented, and everyone who does work with him loves him.”

Despite the stresses of parenthood and Hollywood, they’ve survived more than a decade of marriage.

“We were destined to be together,” Leigh says. “Every summer when I was a kid and on the way to camp at Lake of the Ozarks, we would stop in this small town and get ice cream at the 5 & 50 Drive-In … and that little town was Tipton, and the place is still there.”

They celebrated their 13-year wedding anniversary during this visit, over a meal of his mother’s fried chicken, one of his favorite foods.

“David definitely knows where he comes from, and he hasn’t forgotten me or what he’s learned from growing up here,” says John, who was there for the celebration along with Bruce and both of their wives.

“He wanted to be a comedian and be in Hollywood, and he chased his childhood dream and succeeded. I really admire him for that.”

David has definitely enjoyed the ride and adjusted to the life of an actor. While he participated in the Stand Up for Joplin comedy show and fundraiser that was held on July 19 and had stand-up dates booked in cities in Iowa and New York, he lives with the uncertainty of where his next acting work will come from.

Right now, though, a million miles away from Los Angeles, where he says the “anxiety level is palpable,” David enjoys the small town tranquility, where nothing much changes.

“We all enjoy the slower pace and recharge a bit when we come here,” says David.

He had a chance to publicly show his gratitude for his hometown during its sesquicentennial celebration in July of 2008. Taking the makeshift stage, a 40-foot flatbed trailer, with his son Charlie, he received a standing ovation from the crowd gathered on the high school football field with Koechner Manufacturing looming in the background directly across the highway.

“Anything I’ve ever done or ever will do is because of you. Thank you for making me who I am,” said an emotional David.

He would later sign autographs for a long line of fans, including his high school drama teacher who brought the playbills from the two theater productions he acted in during his junior and senior year. There were also many awestruck young girls who had seen him as Uncle Earl on Hannah Montana, a popular show on The Disney Channel, a part he took because his daughter was a huge fan of the show.

“When I come home people here do seem happy to see me, and I think they do feel some sense of ownership,” says David. “And that’s great. It would bother me a lot more if they were pointing at me and saying, ‘Who’s that?’ or ‘What happened to that Koechner boy who went to Los Angeles?’ ” To keep up to date on David’s movies, TV shows, and live appear-

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SIPPIN’ HISTORY at

Copper Run

M

oonshine evokes a romantic image. In the Ozarks, it is an image of mountain men, hillbillies, and prohibition-era car chases, but its roots run deeper than that. Elizabethan technology and geographic necessities came together in a trade mastered by Scotsmen, the Irish, and their descendants.

At Copper Run Distillery in Walnut Shade near Branson, the owners get that history. Jim Blansit has an urge born of that Missouri thrift to “make it himself.” He has distilled the long history of spirits into his craft. All the traditions apply, but if you talk with Jim and try a sip, you get an idea that there is something else at work. Making whiskey is fun.

On the day I visit, there is a strong smell of fermentation. Fruity and rich when rum is being made, yet yeasty and bakery-like when corn whiskey is fermenting, your nose knows something is going on here—something very special. Jim’s nose is also becoming a trustworthy source of quality. Copper Run’s Moonshine and Aged Corn Whiskey won the silver medal from the American Distillers Institute in 2010.

Copper Run prides itself on creating products with sources straight from the Ozarks.

Ozarkian water, which doesn’t contain iron and has an ideal mineral balance, provides Jim with a perfect starting point. He jokes that other distilleries really have to work at getting

their water to the place where Copper Run’s water starts. Even the whiskey barrels come from local timber. You simply won’t find a more locally sourced whiskey.

Copper Run offers up three kinds of liquor: moonshine, whiskey, and rum, each with its own distillation process and handcrafted character, the sum of ingredients and conditions at the distillery. Copper Run rum starts with the smell of cooking molasses and ends up being aged in used sherry casks made of white oak. Here, the rum picks up its rich vanilla, caramel, and butterscotch flavors.

Moonshine, the distillery’s flagship product, has strong grassy notes straight from the still, very much a product of the corn that spawned

it. In comparison, the whiskey is aged in white oak sourced from the Ozarks, which gives the corn a mellow character and maturity. If, however, the whiskey ages for two years in a charred white oak barrel, it becomes bourbon.

Craft and Currency of the Coil Jim and Copper Run Distillery are part of a long tradition. An act of necessity and rebellion, the craft of moonshine moved through hill cultures at the frontier line of American settlement. It went wherever the Scotch-Irish went. Scrounge through the wooded and weathered hillsides in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, or the Ozarks, and you find the stills. When the 59,000-acre Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee was cleared for the Manhattan Project in the early ’40s, 22 stills were found. Even today, it is not uncommon for back-country Missouri hikers to come across the remains of a still up some secluded branch of a creek.

It was a craft perfected in secret, yet a cooperative art practiced through hand-me-down

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Since he was 13, Jim Blansit has been fascinated with fermentation. When he turned 19, he began brewing his own beer, and in the ’90s, Jim worked at several wineries and microbreweries perfecting his knowledge of fermentation.

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Copper Run Distillery makes three different products: whiskey, rum, and moonshine, with plans to age its whiskey into bourbon for sale as well.

Owner Jim and his crew use fermentation techniques dating back to 5,000 years ago and century-old tools. At the heart of Copper Run’s operation is its 140-gallon, direct fire, copper pot still, where the corn whiskey is distilled twice. After this process, the whiskey products are aged in white oak casks made from white oak trees in the Ozarks. Rum products are aged in used cream sherry casks, which gives the rum a distinct butterscotch and caramel flavor, different from the grassy flavor of moonshine and whiskey.

culture. Jim still finds elements of that culture and bits of the lore inspiring. “It was a currency,” Jim says. “A sack of corn equaled a gallon jug, and it was easy to trade and easy to transport. It would be like digging gold out of the backyard. Corn was their gold.”

Moonshining evolved its methods out of necessity. Simple utility and ease of transport were practical reasons for making moonshine.

Farmers faced a problem transporting bulky crops, especially through rugged, broken hill country. But distilled, it was another story.

Sacks and sacks of low-value corn became liquid gold. It takes some tinkering to extract that gold, evidence of which is at work here at Copper Run. It is not just a showroom. The work floor is part chemistry lab and part machine shop. A large copper still dominates the room, with vats surrounding its perimeter. Aging barrels line one wall, while a workbench, covered in hoses, fittings, and pumps in various stages of repair, lines another.

While modern equipment has made making moonshine easier, Jim says it used to be difficult labor; you started by carrying everything up a creek branch some place, a far cry from the comic image of the lazy moonshiner napping with his jug.

“When you see this moonshiner half-drunk and asleep, the fact is he was working,” Jim says. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. I know how much work it is with electricity and pumps. One old moonshiner I talked to—his job was to carry water up a hill and pour it on that coil for eight hours.”

Romance, Prohibition, and Accounting When the age of the revenuer came and the demands of prohibition increased production, the process changed again. Moonshining became an enterprise. Clandestine methods took on new twists. Technology and enterprise found investors and collaborators.

In the Ozarks, it nestled up to ranchers and bakers. These legitimate businesses could acquire the corn, sugar, and yeast in quantity without raising suspicions. Often they got paid in moonshine for their trouble.

This is the era that lingers in our cultural memory. These are the stories swapped by old-timers, who still wander into his shop, wondering what Jim is up to and willing to share their tales.

“I’ve always been fascinated by it, and I always listen,” Jim says. “They want to see if I’m

doing it right. They want to taste mine, and I want to hear their stories.”

Today everything is legal, resulting in a mountain of paperwork. Because of varying alcohol content within the spirits, the accounting can be a bit of a hassle. Now they use a hydrometer to check the strength of the spirit. In the old days though, they used fire.

The term “100 Proof” refers to the fact that at 50 percent alcohol content, the liquid would sustain a combustion of gunpowder, offering assurance that the alcohol was there.

Expansion, Entertaining, and Opportunity Even at Copper Run, the romantic notion and whiff of the historic illicit activity lingers and draws people from miles away. Dino Neis, a tour-bus driver from Minnesota, made a side trip while transporting a tour group. When he heard there was a place to get genuine Ozarks Moonshine, he left a load of ladies at a theater in Branson and scooted back up the road for a visit.

Dino has toured all the big distilleries, but Copper Run offers a connection to spirits that a large distillery just can’t match. “For one thing, the barrel room here is nine barrels,”

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THE SHINER’s LEXICON

A Few Choice Words Distilled from the Lore of the Still ALKY, 1. n. Term for cheap liquor used by bootleggers. 2. n. Prohibition term for inferior moonshine.

BACKINGS, n. Leftover, low-proof liquid usually collected in the thump keg.

BOILER, n. Anything to make steam for the still from an old oil drum to a custom built professional boiler.

BOX, 1. n. The vat holding the mash. Sometimes collected in “sets.”

2. v. To sift scalded meal through a screen for re-mashing.

BULL DOG, v. To heat used barrels to sweat out the liquor they have absorbed.

CHARGE, n. A single filling of the still.

COIL, n. The copper pipe wound into loops and used as a condenser. Also called the Worm or Snake. In Moonshine lore, the heads, heart, and tails of the snake, meaning what comes out of the coil first, second, and third, have different strengths and properties.

Dino says. “You have a much more hands-on experience. When you have millions of barrels going, you can’t test all of them. I like the craftsmanship of it.”

The popularity of the product has created something of a production bottleneck.

When people hear about Copper Run, they stop. When they stop, they buy. Jim’s plans to age his whiskey into bourbon have been hampered by the fact that he can sell the moonshine and whiskey a lot faster than he was expecting, and expansion is under way.

A new deck and shop are planned, as well as space for increased production. A vodka product is on the horizon for Copper Run as well as a fruit-flavored moonshine using local fruit.

You can also age your own spirits with the Copper Run Barrel Guild. You can purchase one-gallon, three-gallon, five-gallon, and 10-gallon barrels to start aging your own bourbon directly from Copper Run. The tasting room at Copper Run is opened daily 10 am to 7 pm. www.copperrundistillery.com 417-587-3456 1901 Day Road, Walnut Shade

CORN LIQUOR, n. Spirits made from corn.

FIRST SHOTS, n. The head of the snake. The first harsh, strong drips from the coil.

MASHING IN, 1.v. To put ingredients together for the mash. 2.v. To start the whiskey making process.

PUKE, v. To cause the still to boil over and foul its connections, as in “Don’t do that, you’ll puke the still.”

PULL OUT, v. To end operations quickly, taking only the still and copper as in, “We don’t pull out tonight, those revenuers be all over us by mornin’.”

RUN IT OUT, v. To end operations and move as in, “We gots to run it out and drag her up the crick a piece.”

SINGLINGS, n. Condensation and tails of production with low alcohol content.

TEMPING BOTTLE, n. A sample bottle for checking the strength of spirits.

THUMPER, n. A steam keg, also known as a doubler, that increased production while making a low thump-thumping sound like far-off thunder.

WATER MASH, n. First mash of the operation.

WEED MONKEY, n. Sometimes “Weed Mule,” this old car or truck was used to haul supplies. Definitely not up to runnin’ from the law.

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PROMOADVERTISEMENT

AWAKEN to Fulton’s rich history with exciting sights and sounds all wrapped up in the warmth of small-town charm, with brick streets, elegant architecture, and 67 buildings on the historic register.

UNWIND at two of Missouri’s Top 10 Inns, the historic Loganberry Inn where Margaret Thatcher stayed or Romancing the Past B&B in the historic Jameson home.

CONNECT to our history at the newly renovated National Churchill Museum.

This four-million-dollar museum inside a priceless piece of architecture will give you a look back at living history.

IMMERSE yourself in the arts and music at Kemper Center for the Arts or Westminster gallery.

MARVEL at the impressive collection of 84 historic automobiles displayed in Hollywood-style sets for their era at the new Backer Auto World Museum.

SAMPLE some distinctive Missouri wines and a creative bistro menu at Summit Lake Winery.

SAVOR scrumptious dining at one of our great restaurants, like Beks, for a unique blend of old and new where Internet and espresso meet 1902 architecture.

CAPTURE a sense of local history at the Historical Society Museum, or pay your respects at the Missouri Firefighters Memorial.

Beks, in historic downtown, features local seasonal fare for lunch or dinner and an extensive beer selection and hand-selected wine list.

SMILE at the offbeat collection at Crane’s Museum in Williamsburg, and before you head out, stop by Marlene’s Restaurant. A pulled-pork sandwich and warm slice of pie will leave you grinning.

Savor a Brown Cow at Sault’s authentic soda fountain.

REVISIT the 1930s by sharing a shake made with locally made premium ice cream at Sault’s authentic soda fountain.

Backer Auto World Museum displays an impressive collection of 84 historic automobiles in Hollywood-style sets.

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Calendar of Events 36th Annual Hatton Craft Festival

October 1, 9  - 4  Throughout Hatton 175+ exhibitors with handmade items for sale - dolls, hand-painted china, paintings, pillows, wooden toys, florals, seasonal items, and much more. A country atmosphere with three buildings of crafts. Free wagon rides. Lunch Served.

573-529-1541

Girlfriend Getaway Loganberry Inn B&B offers award-winning food and accommodations.

All November Weekends Loganberry Inn Bed and Breakfast Spa Packages and “Chocolate for Chicks” 573-642-9229 www.loganberryinn.com

28th Annual Victorian Christmas Sale

November 11 - December 31 National Churchill Museum 501 Westminster Ave., Fulton November 11 -Kettledrum Tea 10 2 , Cocktails 5-8, All-day shopping.

573-592-5234

Holiday Open House

November 18 and 19, 10  to 5  Downtown Fulton Enjoy extended shopping hours at participating stores. Merchants will unveil their holiday windows.

573-642-3055

Victorian Christmas House Tour The National Churchill Museum features interactive displays that engage and educate visitors of all ages.

Crane’s 4,000-square-foot museum is a one-of-a-kind viewing experience featuring rural Missouri history dating back to the 1800s.

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December 3, 5-8:30  For tickets call 573-642-3055

For your next getaway or family vacation, visit Fulton and Callaway County.

For more information and calendar of events, visit www.visitfulton.com or call 573-642-3055.

8/30/11 3:45:39 PM

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KING OF THE

Road SAINTS

and

ANGELS

and

MULES

GREG WOOD

All around St. James BY JOHN ROBINSON EAST OF ROLLA is a unique apparition seen only in the Ozarks. Beside the Mule Trading Post along I-44 and Historic Route 66, a giant hillbilly flails in the air like a windmill. He’s a caricature of Ozark culture, standing 20 feet tall, painted on both sides with a hillbilly beard and a hillbilly hat and hillbilly overalls and a corn cob pipe. Motorized arms rotate backward in the wind like an airplane propeller. This giant Bunyan-sized wooden Ichabod looks as aerodynamic as any windmill, and his arms pinwheel in perpetuity, making him seem like he’s logrolling or roller skating, always about to fall down.

He never falls, of course, but if he were smashed to bits by a windstorm or an errant 18-wheeler, I’d call in the Attack-O-Matic vacuum cleaner, a proud possession of the area’s foremost cleanup crew, the Vacuum Cleaner Museum in St. James. Okay, the museum probably doesn’t make house calls. It’s the world’s only vacuum cleaner museum and factory outlet, hiding just behind the St. James Soldiers Home. Just like Left: On average, 100 million gallons of water rush out of the Maramec Spring daily, and the daily temperature of the spring water is 56 degrees Fahrenheit.

your old Electrolux, you have to do a little digging to find this pay dirt, but the museum is a hoot.

Before you enter, get over the suck jokes that spring to mind. They’ve heard them all. The displays include a vacuum from Air Force One and some ancient models with headlights and power cords that screw into the light bulb socket—the way your great-grandmother had to do it. Many of the residents of the St. James State Veterans Home remember those old sweepers. Sadly, not enough visitors to the vacuum museum stop to say thanks to the old vets sitting on the porch.

The veterans home isn’t the only saint in St. James. If you’re a kid in need of shelter and direction and purpose and a place to make a new start, you might find a bed at the Missouri Boys and Girls Town. This place has saved thousands of at-risk children by offering support and guidance, education and therapy, love and opportunity.

Along the tree-lined main boulevard through town, yellow bicycles adorn the street lights, defying gravity, poised riderless halfway up the light poles. Around here, the saints have fun.

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KING OF THE

Road

St. James competes for the world’s greatest small town. One of the most endearing traits of the Forest City of the Ozarks is that it’s not in a hurry. As evidence, an old school building sits just a block off the main drag.

Its dark halls and classroom walls no longer absorb childhood chatter, and it probably would have been torn down decades ago in many towns to make way for a parking lot or a Piggly Wiggly. St. James allows the proud, old red brick monster to stand until somebody comes up with a way to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast or museum. That’s my impression, anyway.

I was also impressed by the number of recommendations to try Sybill’s. It sits on the north edge of town, behind an old farmhouse that will remember its hundredth year as a rebirth. Sybill Scheffer and her parents built a monument to dining, drawing clientele from hundreds of miles away.

In a country-estate setting with a store reminiscent of Cracker Barrel, the service is relaxed and unhurried, the meals detailed. In a quiet corner of the restaurant, I immersed myself in maple Dijon scallops and a beet and goat cheese salad.

On the other side of town at the bottom of a steep Ozark valley lies the Maramec Spring Park. It cost me five bucks to enter the park, and I invoked some saint’s name, muttering an inane comment about the fee.

Sybill’s is a monument to dining, drawing clientele from hundreds of miles away to its country estate setting.

I only showed my ignorance. This visit was enlightenment, a lesson in ecology, a primer in restoring Mother Nature to a position of respect.

As a kid I’d visited Maramec Spring Park, not really understanding the significance of the spot. Oh, I knew they smelted iron ore there almost two centuries ago in a big furnace the size of a modest Mayan pyramid.

But closer inspection revealed layers of love for this land and a privately funded effort to

Above: Since 1949, the Boys and Girls Town has been offering its services to Missouri, including outreach and therapy programs for at-risk youth.

keep the park’s nearly 2,000 acres a pristine example of Ozarks topography and culture.

It wasn’t always pristine. The ironworks operated for 50 years, burning a billion local trees to feed the smelter’s roaring fire.

The nearby open pit mine is a scar tissue reminder of the conflagration.

The James Foundation, which owns the park, operates two museums, one dedicated to farm implements, hundreds of reapers and sowers, anvils and blowers, growers and planters and shuckers and such. Another museum offers hands-on scale models explaining how the old ironworks operated. Or you can visualize it yourself as you walk through the remnant stone chimneys and drop towers, almost medieval in their distance from our modern perceptions.

The park’s centerpiece is Maramec Spring, which pumps enough liquid out of the ground daily to fill 1.1 billion little plastic water bottles, if it was so inclined.

But the spring doesn’t bottle its water, mer-

COURTESY OF BOYS AND GIRLS TOWN

ML

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GREG WOOD; COURTESY OF MARAMEC SPRING PARK

Above: There are 300 different vacuums on display at the Vacuum Cleaner Museum. Below: Iron from the ironworks was used to make kettles, plows, and other tools.

cifully allowing it to flow as the headwaters of the Meramec River. The spring is the reason the ironworks sprang up, absorbing and transforming the daily power of a hundred million gallons of gushing water into kettles and plows and hoe blades, and pig iron ingots for the railroads.

But the remoteness of this Ozark spring was the downfall of the business when transportation costs ate into the profits, and the ironworks went belly up in 1876. The granddaughter of the ironworks founder bought up the land, and when she died, her will instructed: “As this is considered to be the most beautiful spot in Missouri, it is my great hope that you will arrange that it may ever be in private, considerate control, and ever open to the enjoyment of the people.”

It’s a refreshing sentiment. Lucy James is an angel.

The fish hatchery is a system of waterworks that produces enough trout to feed the habit of thousands of anglers. Its suc-

cessive pools fatten fry into future filets.

Shortly after the spring water surfaces from the depths, the stream smacks into a crude boulder dam, forming a pool which overflows into a millstream channel that used to operate the machinery at the ironworks.

Now the millstream moves through the hatchery powerhouse, a tiny brick building that looks like a child’s playhouse, or one of those old, pointy Phillips 66 stations that was only big enough for an attendant and his cash register. The cold spring water moves swiftly through successive trout pools, each pool holding a school of fish.

For a quarter, you can buy a handful of fish food from a dispenser and make the trout whip into a frenzy like a crowd getting new cars from Oprah.

I drove through the park, along a path called Stringtown Road, one of the oldest preserved roads in the Ozarks. It’s an ancient appendage to the Wire Road, the trail that eventually became Route 66. Of course, before the Wire Road, these pathways felt the moccasins of Native American tribes, and the boots of Bill Hickok and Jesse and Frank James. In its 200-year recorded history, the road saw houses spring up then vanish when the smelters stopped. Today, the road is nothing more than a path through thick wooded hills, curving around an open mining pit that struggles to heal. Thanks to the saints at the James Foundation, the healing has begun.

More than a few saints know about the fruit of the vine, and they smile upon the wineries scattered through the hills and valleys around St. James, one even bearing the name, St. James Winery. On this trip, I took a rain check, vowing to return to these delightful oases, one at a time. Instead, I

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KING OF THE

Road

opted for a sugar buzz at Ruby’s Ice Cream, a parlor of homemade goodness that rivals any ice cream in the state.

I left Route 66 for Highway 68 and motored north, waving goodbye to the legacy of Ruby and Sybill and Lucy and the soldiers and the students and the saints. Veering right at the fork in the road at tiny Vichy, I passed three familiar friends, three old angels that stood in the darkness almost a mile away. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew they were there because their giant wings have graced the same spot for three decades. There used to be four of them.

They’re Douglas DC-3s, the closest thing to flying mules as you can get, for no other reason than they’ve been the world’s airborne workhorses for 75 years. The old planes are parked in an open field in a far corner of Rolla National Airport, a former Army airfield where glider pilots trained during World War II. The gliders were pulled aloft by DC3s, maybe even these same birds.

Indeed, for years DC-3s were the angels of the skies. From their ranks came the first presidential airplane. They were the pack mules of the Berlin Airlift, the forest green goddesses of Ozark Air Lines, and the first airplane I ever flew in, back in 1961, from Paris to Rome.

DC-3s used to fill the skies. Now, most of the remaining air-worthy survivors cut through the airways of third-world countries or holiday air shows. My three silver friends have long been grounded. They finished their service in the 1970s as cargo planes. Oh, they flew briefly back in 2008 when a tornado lifted and moved them 200 feet. But now they’re organ donors, keeping other birds airborne, offering parts from their powerful radial engines and bricksolid bodies. Still, from a distance they look ready to fly, these celestial meteors.

I drove north through the late night dark.

Good luck filled my windshield as a shooting star blazed diagonally through the sky and split into two burning bottle rockets.

It was a good day among the saints and angels.

WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO The Mule Trading Post

Vacuum Cleaner Museum and Factory Outlet

Sybill’s Saint James Restaurant & Gift Shop

Maramec Spring Park

Wineries to Visit

Ruby’s Ice Cream

Above: At the hatchery, thousands of trout are fed three times a day and will grow almost one inch each month.

COURTESY OF MARAMEC SPRING HATCHERY

ML

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KING OF THE

Road

opted for a sugar buzz at Ruby’s Ice Cream, a parlor of homemade goodness that rivals any ice cream in the state.

I left Route 66 for Highway 68 and motored north, waving goodbye to the legacy of Ruby and Sybill and Lucy and the soldiers and the students and the saints. Veering right at the fork in the road at tiny Vichy, I passed three familiar friends, three old angels that stood in the darkness almost a mile away. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew they were there because their giant wings have graced the same spot for three decades. There used to be four of them.

They’re Douglas DC-3s, the closest thing to flying mules as you can get, for no other reason than they’ve been the world’s airborne workhorses for 75 years. The old planes are parked in an open field in a far corner of Rolla National Airport, a former Army airfield where glider pilots trained during World War II. The gliders were pulled aloft by DC3s, maybe even these same birds.

Indeed, for years DC-3s were the angels of the skies. From their ranks came the first presidential airplane. They were the pack mules of the Berlin Airlift, the forest green goddesses of Ozark Air Lines, and the first airplane I ever flew in, back in 1961, from Paris to Rome.

DC-3s used to fill the skies. Now, most of the remaining air-worthy survivors cut through the airways of third-world countries or holiday air shows. My three silver friends have long been grounded. They finished their service in the 1970s as cargo planes. Oh, they flew briefly back in 2008 when a tornado lifted and moved them 200 feet. But now they’re organ donors, keeping other birds airborne, offering parts from their powerful radial engines and bricksolid bodies. Still, from a distance they look ready to fly, these celestial meteors.

I drove north through the late night dark.

Good luck filled my windshield as a shooting star blazed diagonally through the sky and split into two burning bottle rockets.

It was a good day among the saints and angels.

WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO The Mule Trading Post

Vacuum Cleaner Museum and Factory Outlet

Sybill’s Saint James Restaurant & Gift Shop

Maramec Spring Park

Wineries to Visit

Ruby’s Ice Cream

Above: At the hatchery, thousands of trout are fed three times a day and will grow almost one inch each month.

COURTESY OF MARAMEC SPRING HATCHERY

ML

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MISSOURI’S

Memories NATIONAL WORLD WAR I

Museum

See the striking displays at the Liberty Memorial.

LIKE THE ACROPOLIS Acclaimed architect Edward Durrell Stone hailed the Liberty Memorial, the nation’s tallest monument to the “war to end all wars,” as “one of the country’s great memorials, in a class with the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. It is like the Acropolis in Athens with its great wall setting or like the monumental planning of Paris.”

Towering above the city from its hillside location at Main and Pershing, Liberty Memorial quickly became a Kansas City icon.

Construction began in 1921, marked by a dedication ceremony attended by Gen. John J. Pershing and other principal Allied military commanders. Today, the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial still plays an important role in Kansas City.

A Veterans Day ceremony will feature the American Legion Band, speeches, and the laying of a wreath at 11 AM. Other events bring thousands onto the grassy esplanade between the memorial and Union Station to commemorate our military history with music and memories.

The National World War I Museum fit-

BY W. ARTHUR MEHRHOFF

tingly rests below the Memorial’s eternal flame. World War I saw at least nine million combatants killed, destroyed the Old World order, and vaulted the United States to international prominence. But the following tragedy of World War II has largely overshadowed the conflict’s mindless, endless trench warfare. Perhaps it’s the distance in time, the war’s naïve promise

Jay Winter, a professor of history at Yale University, whose Emmy-winning television documentary, The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century, supplemented newsreels with staged scenes. For mediasaturated modern America, that condition diminishes the war’s status as reality.

“to make the world safe for democracy”

The National World War I Museum helps us re-imagine the war’s reality: Striking photo essays depict elegant European capitals at the war’s onset versus the forest of New York City skyscrapers at its conclusion.

A wall-size timeline and two exceptional documentaries explain the onset of the war in Europe and America’s entry into the global conflict. A simulated no-man’s land oozes mud and poison gas. Archival footage shows the collision of military strategy, tactics, and the astonishing new weaponry of the time. A glass bridge crosses a field of 9,000 artificial poppy blooms, each one signifying a thousand mortalities.

These striking images create a big picture of The Great War, but a museum vistor can

“to make the world safe for democracy,” or maybe just the absence of video footage that makes the first World War remote. There are virtually no film reels, battle photographs, or reliable frontline news reports, and much of what exists was censored or deemed propaganda. “It’s all fake. Nobody filmed a single battle,” says

NO-MAN’S LAND

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also discover (or lose) oneself in fascinating details. Highly interactive museum displays allow visitors to participate in wartime activities such as dogfighting or propaganda-making.

The museum also has the nation’s largest collection of World War I artifacts: a massive cannon, tiny Christmas boxes, hand grenades, and postcards.

COURTESY OF W. ARTHUR MEHRHOFF

A DISTANT MIRROR World War I may seem a distant mirror, but we can see ourselves in its reflections if we look closely enough.

Most directly, World War II flared out of its smoldering ashes as German resentment about the Treaty of Versailles, which assigned it all blame for the war, created the tinder for Hitler’s inferno.

Historians also regard World War I as the source of today’s seemingly eternal Middle East conflicts. “Most of the problems we’re grappling with in the Middle East are legacies of … 1914–1918,” writes British historian Niall Ferguson. Ferguson notes that British guerilla leader T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) rallied the divided Arab tribes against the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s ally. He did so by assuring the Arabs they were fighting for their own independence, but Great Britain then set the stage for today’s issues in Palestine by also agreeing in 1917 to the creation of Israel, a Jewish homeland in the region.

In addition, Great Britain and France strategically carved up the defeated Ottoman (Turkish) Empire to their liking, creating oil-rich desert kingdoms such as Kuwait (which Iraq historically claimed as its own) while leaving more developed, educated, and populated regions, such as Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, impoverished and bitterly resentful of the West.

Like America nearly a century later, the British faced fierce resistance when they invaded Baghdad and declared themselves liberators in 1917, Ferguson noted.

The Great War may have been “Over There,” but the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial shows us why it’s still right here. www.theworldwar.org

President Calvin Coolidge gave his dedication address three years after construction began on Liberty Memorial. In 1998, after years of deterioration, the people of Kansas City showed support by enacting a sales tax to support the restoration and expansion of the memorial. Six years later in 2004, Congress designated the newly built museum as the nation’s official World War I museum.

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Fall Fun

Saxon Lutheran Memorial Annual Fall Festival 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION & “WALTHER” MOVIE PREMIERE

er 8 Octob m , y a d Satur 9 am - 4 p from or Shine Rain

ACTIVITIES FOR THE DAY Musical entertainment on stage • Period clothing seminar • Period clothing fashion show • Attendance prizes • Specialized Crafters • Delicious Food • Guest speakers • Movie Premiere of “Walther” • Book signing by Mary Beth Dillon, author of the “Altenburg” and “Wiltenberg” books.

1800’S DEMONSTRATIONS Blacksmith • apple butter cooking • quilting • butchering • cross-cut sawing • shingle making • spinning • horse & buggy rides • cider pressing • broom making • soap making • bread baking 573-824-5405 • www.saxonlutheranmemorial.com Saxon Lutheran Memorial • 296 Saxon Memorial Dr. • Frohna, MO

Savor the hand-crafted wines Take in the vistas of the vineyards Relax in the winery or by the pond with its fun fountain Find that “just-right something” in the Faßpfropfen Tasting Room & Gift Shop Thursday & Sunday 12-6 Friday & Saturday 12-7 Find us on Facebook!

10769 Hwy A Altenburg 573-824-5479 www.towerrockwine.com

Books Make Great Gifts Find these and more at www.missourilife.com/store or call 800-492-2593 ext. 101 Reflections of Missouri, Drawings and Watercolors from Artist John Stoeckley ($39.95), Coming Home Again, A Missouri Journal by W. Arthur Mehrhoff ($19.99), Lewis and Clark’s Journey Across Missouri ($24.95). Tax shipping and handling $7.50 each.

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Concert Series 2011

Little River Band Sep. 30-Oct.1

Fischer Farms

Michael Martin Murphey Oct. 7-8 Los Lobos Oct. 14-15

Beginning Friday, September 30, open Fridays 4pm-9pm, Saturdays Noon-9pm, Sundays Noon-6pm. Call 573-636-0450 to make appointments for field trips during the week.

America Oct. 21-22 Marshall Tucker Band Oct. 28-29 Ozark Mountain Daredevils Nov. 4-5

Pick your own Pumpkin Patch, 10-acre Corn Maze, Animals, Corn Box, and Wagon Rides!

www.wildwoodspringslodge.com

1905 Mokane Road, Jefferson City, MO 65101 573-636-0450

Photo Courtesy of White-Klump Photography

discover

We invite you to spend a weekend strolling in our downtown historic district, where you’ll discover unique, 18th Century French colonial architecture, charming shops, museum homes, fine food and wines, and outstanding bed & breakfast inns.

800.373.7007 | www.VisitSteGen.com

Heirloom-quality

100% wool blankets, socks & more!

Heirloom-quality

100% wool blankets, socks & more!

unrisePastures Swww.sunrisepastures.com 660-963-2685*Laclede, Mo

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SHOW-ME

Flavor A Goose FOR EVERY TABLE A family near Morrison supplies the holiday tradition. BY NINA FURSTENAU

CONNIE CUNNINGHAM

pondered her traditional roast goose Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago: the bird had been hard to find. She was at her mother’s place, Sassafras Valley Farm near Morrison, when inspiration struck her and her brother, Robert.

To sustain the family farm, they would raise geese.

And so Connie began raising geese the next spring on her family’s farm, and Robert, who lives in St. Louis, took on managing the marketing, website, and finance end of farm operations, which are critical, Connie says. “Very little of our product is sold locally. It’s all through our website and directly to several chefs.”

Many people, it seems, have lost the taste for goose. The aver average yearly consumption of goose in the United States is less than one-third of a pound, compared to nearly 87 pounds of chicken, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association. Though goose does not taste like chicken or turkey, it does have history and tradition on its side.

Goose was celebrated in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, is a favored dish for many generations of eastern European Jews at Hanukkah, and is the symbol for St. Martin as well as the Egyptian god Amen, who represented the hidden and unknown power of creation. Aesop’s fabled goose lays a golden egg. Mother Goose and her tales are a frequent childhood staple. In Missouri, it’s what German and French settlers raised and ate, especially at holidays. The Cunninghams are banking on this tradition.

The Cunninghams decided on German Embden and French Toulouse geese because they like the tie to Missouri’s roots. It was French traders and trappers from Gascony that originally settled

Gasconade County, and German immigrants settled nearby Her Hermann. “That’s what they did: they found a place that looked like where they came from, settled it, and raised geese and ducks and other traditional foods from Europe. The old timers here remember a big roast goose for Christmas.”

The rich tradition of roast goose for the table, the lack of sources for consumers to find the bird, and the fact that Connie could handle their size, as opposed to larger livestock, tipped the balance for geese. Today, the farm offers freshly frozen whole dressed geese, as well as whole smoked geese, for about $10 per pound plus shipping.

“European geese are usually 12, 14, or 15 pounds per bird,” Connie says. “Our average is about nine to 10 pounds. They’re leaner because they are free range, not confined, and get to choose when to eat.”

Sassafras Valley is the only commercial goose farm in Missouri and one of the few in the country. Customers ordering from New York, Connecticut, and other areas, have a hard time believing they are calling an actual working farm, Connie says. “I open a window so they can hear the guineas and geese.”

When someone says they’re going to cook your goose, it doesn’t sound good. But have you tried cooking one? Geese are built with a layer of fat just under the skin because they like water and need to stay warm. There is no fat marbling the meat. “It’s a rich, dark meat, like duck,” Carlene Cullimore, Fayette-area chef, says. “I would serve a Merlot or Cabernet with it, something you would serve with beef. It’s that kind of richness.” Carlene served marinated grilled goose breast at an Outdoor Writer’s Conference with rave reviews.

nina furstenau

“I was skeptical at first, but it was absolutely wonderful, especially with that little bit of marinating.”

Sassafras Valley Farm also offers other specialty products: pastured Angus veal, a private label line of Cliff and Kathy Rost’s harvested Missouri caviar, and for the first time this year, duck. The Cunninghams do all this in traditional beef-and-crop country. “I’m known as the goose lady,” Connie says.

What does a goose farm look like in Missouri? Not many people see 250 domesticated geese together at one time. You might see a flock of wild geese overhead, but most Missouri farms, if they have geese at all, only have a handful. But here geese gather routinely,

Above: Sassafras Valley Farm’s 40 sprawling acres of pasture are a prime location for its flock of 250 geese. With a population density of less than 36 geese per acre, geese are raised from goslings to mature adults in a pesticide-, hormone-, and chemical-free environment.

Below: Connie Cunningham’s roast goose recipe uses a red wine honey glaze.

curious and honking, around the wheels of Connie’s Gator.

“There’s Gustav,” Connie says, indicating one of the snowy white geese. “See, he’s the one looking at the sky now. That’s his honk.”

Gustav’s blue eyes lock onto Connie, and he turns slightly toward her voice, out of step with the rest. Connie could pick him out of a lineup.

As the surprisingly calm flock smoothly parts around the vehicle, Connie talks about Gustav’s protective instinct. “He always has his eye out for everyone. He goes insane when he sees baby geese and pinches all of them. Geese will just adopt and adopt and adopt all the goslings they can. I don’t see how anything could get to a baby goose.”

Yet the flock, feathers brightly white against the green pasture, seems vulnerable on the rolling, lush hillside: a bit like sitting ducks, to mix bird species. But Gustav shares protective bragging rights to this year’s flock with Maximus and Angel, two Great Pyrenees rescue dogs, which guard them. The Pyrenees gently greet Connie, yet are fierce protectors, working in tandem to go after any threat. A bark signals a warning, Connie says. Then one Pyrenees stays with the flock, and the other locks on the predator with the force of its incredibly strong jaw. “I’ve never lost a goose to a hawk or any predator.”

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Connie runs the daily operations at the farm and also manages to produce landscape designs, her original profession, for clients in Chicago when she is not out working on the farm. The family practices Low Impact Sustainable Agriculture to raise the geese traditionally and with an eye to the environment. The grass-to-geese ratio is 36 birds to each acre of chemical- and pesticide-free pasture.

To help with the many jobs around the farm, Connie accepts volunteers from Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), and two young Wwoofers, as they are called, are getting Connie’s outbuildings ready to paint. Moreo Rivera and Andrea Mazzotta, both 23 and from Brewster, New York, stop for lunch when the roast goose is ready. Connie brings out the bird and explains how she scored the skin so her seasonings and the honeywine baste would be better absorbed. She serves the goose with a savory reduction sauce. She brings out corn muffins and coleslaw, and she recommends German red cabbage (see recipe on page 78) as an accompaniment for the deep flavor of the goose.

Moreo and Andrea fall into routine, setting the table even though they have only worked on Sassafras Valley Farm for four days. Their

NINA FURSTENAU

Above: Maximus is one of two Great Pyrenees rescue dogs that guard Connie’s flock.

Left: Goslings are protected by other geese, which have a tendency to adopt the baby geese.

Right: Connie chose the German Embden (pictured) and French Toulouse geese varieties to raise. Below right: Connie no longer uses this barn, built before her family bought the land.

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COURTESY OF KYLE WAYNE STEWART

plan is to work here nearly a month before moving on to a farm in Montana. Both men joined WWOOF because they wanted to see the United States after graduating from college, and they will work farms in Missouri, Montana, and California before finishing in late fall. Though from a small town of about 2,000 people and familiar with farming, there are surprises.

“The intensity of the work,” Moreo says, is more than expected.

“Seeing what goes into the day-to-day lifestyle is interesting.”

Then, there are the geese. “Everyone has the concept that geese are just mean, but they’ve been great,” Andrea says. “They have such personalities.”

Just before the meal, Connie stopped her Gator under a large persimmon tree. She points out a row of 40 pear trees growing in the terraced pasture. “Geese are crazy about pears,” she says. There are plans in the works for melons and pumpkins as well. “We take a look at what supplemental feed we can produce and what the geese will eat and try to do that.”

The costs of keeping geese are due in part to their food preferences and the length of time they stay on the farm. The birds drink a lot, too. “Our flock of 250 drinks about 200 gallons of water per day. We bring in the goslings in mid-March and they graze here until the first weekend in November. Compare that to what, 70 days for chickens?”

This length of time also affords Connie the time to get to know her birds. There’s Gustav, of course, who keeps a keen eye on the young ones, and young Gunther in the barn who Connie visits daily while he’s under the weather. She cuddles him and he turns his beak into her neck, nudging softly. “I know why all the old grandmothers had a goose. They are wonderful.”

[77] October 2011

www.sassafrasvalleyfarm.com • 866-684-2188

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Apple Stuffing

From “Going Wild in the Kitchen” Ingredients >

12 tart apples, peeled, cored, and cut up 2⁄3 cup water 4 cups bread crumbs, dry

2 tablespoons sugar 4 tablespoons butter, melted Salt to taste

Directions >

1. Simmer the apples gently in water until soft but not overcooked. Cool.

2. Add other ingredients and mix lightly. Serves 4.

Chestnut Stuffing for Wild Goose From “Going Wild in the Kitchen”

2 quarts chestnuts, shelled Chicken bouillon cubes 2 tablespoons butter 3 shallots, chopped ½ pound sausage 2 teaspoons parsley, minced 1 teaspoon chives, chopped

1 teaspoon oregano, chopped 1 teaspoon thyme, chopped Salt and pepper, freshly ground 1 cup soft bread crumbs ½ cup brandy

Directions >

1. Boil chestnuts in water to cover. Add one bouillon cube per cup of water. Cook until tender. Chop coarsely and set aside.

2. Melt the butter, add the shallots, and sauté until tender but not brown.

3. Add sausage and herbs, and cook for a few more minutes, mixing with a fork.

4. Season with salt and pepper. Add bread crumbs, brandy, and chestnuts, and toss together to mix. Stuff the bird lightly. Serves 6.

Black Walnut Stuffing From “Going Wild in the Kitchen”

Ingredients >

2 cups bread cubes, dry 2 cups potatoes, mashed 3 tablespoons butter

Directions >

1 cup celery, diced 1 cup black walnuts Salt and pepper, freshly ground

1. Brown bread in the butter, and mix with potatoes.

2. Add the celery and nuts. (Decrease the amount of celery and increase the nuts if you are fond of the flavor of black walnuts.)

3. Mix all ingredients together and season with salt and pepper. Stuff the bird loosely. Serves 4.

GERMAN SWEET AND SOUR RED CABBAGE

German Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage From Cooks.com

Ingredients >

¼ cup butter 4 medium apples, peeled and sliced ½ red onion, chopped 1 head red cabbage, finely shredded 1 cup red wine

4 whole cloves 1⁄3 cup brown sugar 2 bay leaves ¼ cup vinegar ¼ cup butter Juice one-half of a lemon

Directions >

1. Melt ¼ cup butter in a four-quart Dutch oven.

Add apples and onion; sauté slightly.

2. Add cabbage, red wine, cloves, sugar, and bay leaves.

3. Simmer, covered for one hour, then add the remaining ingredients. Heat to melt the remaining butter, and serve immediately. Serves 6.

Can be made a day ahead of time and reheated for better flavor. Variation: Substitute 1⁄3 cup red currant, black cherry, or strawberry jam and a stick of cinnamon instead of brown sugar.

BLACK WALNUT STUFFING

Visit www.MissouriLife.com for more goose recipes.

ANDREW BARTON

Ingredients >

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Connie Cunningham’s Roast Goose From Sassafras Valley Farm

Ingredients >

1 (7-pound) goose Oranges and lemons for stuffing, quartered SPICE RUB 1 orange peel, grated 1 tablespoon salt 1 tablespoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons allspice 2 tablespoons ground poultry seasonings

GLAZE 1 cup red wine

½ cup honey

Directions >

1. The night before you roast the goose, mix all ingredients for the spice rub together. Score the skin of the goose breast just through the skin and fat (do not score the flesh) using a razor knife in a one-inch criss-cross pattern. Rub the spices into the scored skin. As you massage spices in, you will begin to see a diamond pattern emerge.

2. On the day of roasting, preheat the oven to 350° F. Lightly stuff the goose with oranges and lemons. Do not tie legs together.

3. Make the glaze by combining the red wine and honey.

Brush the goose with the glaze a half hour after putting the goose into the oven. Continue brushing glaze over the goose throughout the roasting time. You will have a dark walnut-colored glazed bird in the end.

4. Continue roasting the goose until a thermometer reads 180 to 185° F at the thickest part of the bird, usually the thigh.

(A good rule of thumb is 30 minutes for every pound.)

5. When the goose is finished cooking, remove from oven and siphon off fat from the bottom of pan. Lightly cover goose with tin foil and let sit for 15 to 20 minutes. Serves 4-5.

Carving a Goose >

Remove wings by breaking off at the joints, then remove legs in the same manner, leaving the prime part of the goose, the breast, accessible to slicing. Slice thinly as goose is rich.

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QUILT APPRAISALS Sat. Oct. 29 Ann Hazelwood, certified quilt appraiser and author, presents “Secrets, Eats, and Finds of Missouri” and autographs at lunch ($12). Quilt appraisals ($40) from 2-4 pm. Free appetizers and meet the author at 4:30.

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Kansas City >

THE UPPER CRUST BURROWED IN the basement of Pryde’s Old Westport, Kansas City’s three-level kitchenware wonderland, is a compact bakery that serves up extraordinary slices of pie and complimentary coffee. The Upper Crust is a dessert delight year-round rooted in the family tradition of well-made pies. Owners and sisters Jan

Knobel and Elaine van Buskirk attribute their skills and recipes to their mother and grandmother. They make a variety of fruit, cream, specialty pies, and even lesscommon ones such as Sour Cream Raisin, their father’s favorite, which Elaine says is a traditional pie hardly anyone makes or has heard of nowadays. Other quirky pies include Gooseberry Cherry and German Chocolate. The bakery is open Friday and Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM, serving pies whole or by the slice, quiche of the day for a more savory pie, and cookies the size of saucers. Selection varies weekly, but you’ll find nothing less than 100 percent homemade pie. —Sarah Herrera www.uppercrustpiebakery.com 115 Westport Rd. • 816-561-4990

Van Buren >

food for your float trip WHETHER YOU’RE floating by on the Current River or driving around the Carter County courthouse square, you can smell the steaks searing on the grill at Mercantile

Monett >

Restaurant in Van Buren. The aroma lures diners

Denali Dreams

to this home-style restaurant in a historic red

LOCATED ON Broadway Avenue,

and other sandwiches, plus a dessert selection

brick building that has housed a mercantile, saloon, and antique shop during its more than 100 years. The menu features steaks, fish, poultry, salads, pastas with homemade sauces, burgers, of pies, cheesecakes, and ice cream. The menu

Denali Dreams Café and Art Gallery

winter. “If my kitchen has the ingredients, then

adds a touch of culture to the town of

soundstage for musicians is nestled in

Monett. Owner Shaun Bennett was

the back of the room. Art classes are

fascinated with the tallest mountain in

available as well. With over 500 possible

North America, Denali, and was inspired

drink combinations, homemade soups,

to create his shop around the high

sandwiches, and pastries, this Alaskan-

peak. Denali offers 10 types of coffee

themed coffee shop is a cool experience.

with 27 flavors. It also has lattes, tea,

—Amanda J. Barke

—Barbara Gibbs Ostmann

Facebook: Denali Dreams

Facebook: The Mercantile

316 E. Broadway • 417-772-7092

202 W. Johns St. • 573-323-8518

I will do my best to provide any craving you may have,” states owner and cook Mary Godsy on the menu. The restaurant is open year-round, thanks to a loyal local client base. During the summer, business surges with floaters and fishermen from the Current River. In the fall, diners relax on the back deck of the restaurant. Guests can view a black-and-white photograph on the dining room wall and read the letter posted alongside, which includes details about the early 1900s photograph of the former mercantile store that occupied the building.

Italian sodas, and smoothies. A small

SARAH HERRERA; BARBARA GIBBS OSTMANN; COURTESY OF DENALI DREAMS

is a bit lighter in the summer and heartier in the

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Creve Coeur >

Seafood done right Gulf Shores Restaurant in Creve Coeur could be a few feet from a pier in Louisiana. The recipes have been perfected for years by owner Harry Parker’s 86-year-old mother and late father, natives of Gulf Shores, Alabama. Cajun and Creole flavors abound in every dish, the result of sauces, spices, and salad dressings made daily from scratch. Try the marinated fried “gator bites” (as in real alligator), served with a homemade dipping sauce. A favorite dinner entrée is the dump dinner: a traditional seafood boil with shrimp, crab legs, mussels, and Andouille sausage, all served on a bed of fresh red potatoes and seasoned with Creole spices. Other dinner favorites include ga-

jim winnerman; lauren hughes

tor tacos, beignets, and crawfish étouffée. Homemade pies (peach cobbler, key lime, and chocolate pecan) and bread pudding are waiting for dessert. Welcome

Missouri life finds tempting treats worth the travel.

Columbia >

British Gastropub It turns out divulging their weight to the world may have been a good thing for Mark Sulltrop and Dave Faron, owners of 44 Stone Public House in Columbia. The casual yet classy gastropub is named after Mark and Dave’s combined weight—in stone. This nod to Britain is just the start at 44 Stone, which has one foot in the British pub scene and another in high-end dining.

No pub is complete without beer, and the beer offerings at 44 Stone prove impressive. Look at the wall-sized chalkboard listing the roughly 70 beers available. Brews from Scotland and England to Ireland and Colorado make the list. The chalkboard continues with a wide variety of American and Irish Whiskey and Single Malt Scotch. The menu is a pleasant mix of British favorites and creative specials that change daily. The Welsh rarebit is true delight—toasted pretzel bread smothered in a white cheddar ale sauce and served with caramelized onions and fresh thyme. For dinner, try the Fish ’n’ Chips, perfectly battered wild North Atlantic Haddock served with hand-cut fries and house-made ketchup. Or, dig into a spin on the classic bangers and mash with a “Bangers & Mash” pasty, a pork and apple sausage meat pie with golden flaky crust on top of mushy pea puree. Also authentic is 44 Stone’s tribute to Indian food, a lesser known staple of British cuisine. Order the vegetable curry or tandoori chicken sandwich. The Irish cream bread pudding with toffee sauce is sweet with a hint of saltiness giving a perfect finish to the ultimate British meal.

—Lauren Hughes www.44stonepub.com 3910 Peachtree Dr. • 573-443-2726

to N’Awlins in Missouri! —Jim Winnerman www.gulfshoresrestaurantandgrill.com 12528 Olive Blvd. • 314-878-3306

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JAIL ALE

ABOVE THE BANKS of the Missouri River in Jefferson City, you’ll see the 13 towers of the now-closed Missouri State Penitentiary. These walls housed the likes of Sonny Liston, Stagger Lee, James Earl Ray, and Pretty Boy Floyd. A short walk away from the dark halls and the ghosts of prisoners past, you’ll find the friendlier confines of Prison Brews, a brew pub with craft ales, wood-fired pizza, and bocce ball games. Hey, if this is what being sent up the river to the Big House is all about, count me in.

Interestingly, on the afternoon I visited Prison Brews, a few thousand people were around the corner celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Missouri State Penitentiary. Tours are available at the Pen to give visitors an up-close feel of history. Sure, that sounds interesting. But I was much more concerned that day with sampling Prison Brews’ creations in a relaxed environment.

Owner Deb Brown didn’t waste any opportunity in taking advantage of the prison theme. First off, this bar has bars. Prison bars mark the entrance and individual booths. The Prison Brews menu features the “Warden’s Favorite Buffalo Dip” and the “Shawshank Redemption Pie,” while a sign reading “Gas Chambers” leads you to the restrooms.

Then, there are the beers: Go To Jail Ale, Prison Town Brown, and I Ain’t Your Honey Wheat to name a few. Typically Prison Brews has about seven handcrafted ales on tap with a couple of slots reserved for rotating seasonal favorites. You might be able to catch the Big Yard Belgian Blonde, the Deathrow Oat-

meal Stout, or the Pretty Boy Floyd Peach Wheat. My sampler included the seasonal Misdemeanor Maibock and the Holding Cell Hefeweizen.

All prison references aside, there are some important things to tell you about Prison Brews.

Number one: The beer is very good. My favorite was the Prison Town Brown, smooth yet hearty. Those who like their beer with less of the hoppy, bitter flavor will really like the mild Go To Jail Ale, which is made for easy drinking.

Number two: You have to try the wood-fire pizza. ’Nuff said.

Number three: They not only have bocce ball, but bocce ball leagues. Who does that?

And finally, Prison Brews is not a pretentious, nose-in-the-air brewery. Deb and her manager Steve Whitener work with one of the friendliest groups of “guards” you can imagine and create a spot where you really feel at home the moment you walk in. Obviously, locals in Jeff City visit often and folks TOM BRADLEY from out of town are likely to enjoy doing time behind its bars.

Now, if I can just find a judge to make it official and sentence me to more time at Prison Brews for good behavior. www.prisonbrews.com•573-696-8761

TOM BRADLEY

A brew pub in Jefferson City plays up the jail theme. BY TOM BRADLEY

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CLEVER CHAINS IT’S A COMMON prejudice in my

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business that chain restaurants’ wine programs are less interesting than independent restaurants. And once upon a time, it was true. In the past, independent restaurants were seen as closer to customers, more likely to know what was being said about them. As a result, independent restaurants tried new things. The last five to 10 years have seen an abrupt rise in available information to chain restaurants though, and now they are more likely to know what is happening on the restaurant floor (who is buying what and how often) than an independent restaurant.

One prominent chain, the Capital Grille (found in Kansas City) ran a summer wine and food program called the Generous Pour. For a bit less than the price of a standard entrée, diners can have as many as nine wines with their courses. Capital Grille offers a broad selection, not just the usual California names, though there are prestigious American names, including Freemark Abbey’s Bosche Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2003.

Showing cabernets with some age to them, like this, is exactly what chains ought to be able to accomplish with their buying power, but many restaurants of any size or ilk too often settle for current releases. The

remaining wines are notable for breadth: Marquis de la Tour Loire Brut, Tarima Hill Monastrell 2009, R.L. Buller Portly Gentleman (a delicious port-like Aussie sticky).

About the only arena in which the chains lag behind is in the matter of regional Missouri wines. Usually, it’s the independents who understand the importance of supporting local wines, if only weakly. Perhaps this too will change.

National buyer George Miliotes (a fellow Master Sommelier) is to be applauded for promoting wine diversity in chain steakhouses like Capital Grille, where California and Bordeaux often dominate. His wine list for another Kansas City restaurant, Seasons 52, is even more adventurous, and this is what we are beginning to expect from national restaurant chains.

None of this is intended to denigrate independent restaurateurs; for decades, they created the DOUG FROST trends. It’s just that now they have some honest competition from the chains, and we diners will benefit.

©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

Chain restaurants offer wine diversity. BY DOUG FROST

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FOR MARTI

VICKI COX

Montgomery, paradise narrows to the clear water of the James River outside of Rogersville. There, she pushes her red kayak into the James, hunts for rocks along the bank, and invites friends to picnic on a gravel bar that appears in low waters.

“This place has been my therapy, my entertainment, and my dream for where I wanted to live,” says Marti of the stream that flows on her 40-acre property.

She lives in a 1,300-square-foot lowmaintenance home nestled in the woods above the river. A freestanding fireplace and modern sculptures adorn the interior while large windows offer a panorama of the outdoors.

Marti approached two Springfield architects to custom design her dream home in 2007, having collected house plans from the Internet for years.

“My plan from the beginning was to make this house simple, inexpensive, and low maintenance,” she says. “It needed to do the least damage to the land and do the site justice. I wanted something unique but not out of place.”

The architects said building what she wanted would exceed her $150,000 budget by $30,000, so Marti dug through the plans she had saved for a house plan built from shipping containers.

Made of steel, about 100 million shipping containers crisscross the oceans to

move 90 percent of the world’s trade. After 10 to 12 years of use, most end up in major ports like Seattle, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Newark, and Miami until someone scraps them for the steel, a church or school or military group acquires them as a cheap storage container, or a containerrepurposing company purchases them.

“Even if it doesn’t meet shipping container standards anymore, it can still be a good wind-and-water type of container,” John Arnerich, owner of Container Outlet, says.

The containers can be used as underground shelters—or as the building blocks for a new home. For Marti, the savings and speed in acquiring them put her dream back on track. She saved 40 percent off the conventional construction cost of her home by using the recycled containers instead, according to Workshop 380 architect Jason Mitchell.

The architects ordered four containers from Memphis: three for Marti’s house and one for an outside carport. Each container is 40 by 8 by 9 feet in volume. Within 24 hours of ordering, Jason and project designer Michael Mardis were cutting doors and windows into the containers. Then it took just three hours for a crane to place the containers on the foundation pilings.

This was the architects’ first container house, and they ran into some unexpected situations. Architects discovered cutting

windows into corrugated steel meant they would also have to reinforce the container to keep the roof stable.

Michael coached his general contractors through the learning process. “They had to wrap their heads around the fact these were just pre-made boxes for making a house, not containers,” Michael says. “We had to convince them once there was insulation, studs, and sheet rock, it was just like a normal house.”

Marti insisted on making her new home environmentally responsible. Architects used salvaged parts from a local cedarcloset factory to frame the house, ceilings for two porches, and the interior. They also turned what used to be the containers’ sliding doors into bathroom doors and used concrete plus radiant heat pipes to create the floors. Marti added a heat pump and energy-efficient appliances, reducing her electricity bill by a third compared to her previous home—even through two especially brutal Missouri winters. “To call it a regular house is misleading,” Jason says.

“But it doesn’t look like a container either.”

From her two porches and the large living room picture window, Marti can watch ice float down the river while eagles and cranes drift over it. “The decoration comes from the outside,” she says. “There’s not a place in the house that you can’t see the woods or the river. That’s the best thing about it.”

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Musings ON MISSOURI

THE GREAT WALL OF CORN

BY RON MARR

ILLUSTRATION BY TOM SULLIVAN

MY HOUSE is surrounded on three sides by what I like to call “The Great Wall of Corn.” It’s roughly seven feet high and about 100 acres deep at the time of this writing. Though some folks might find the idea of living on the promontory of a corn peninsula a trifle unsettling, perhaps hit with a wave of agricultural claustrophobia, I like it just fine. After many years spent deep in the woods, residing far away from the normal sights and sounds of modern society, The Great Wall of Corn is a comfort. It makes the move from the wayback of the Ozarks to the rolling prairies near the Kansas border seem a little more familiar and peaceful. It’s the sort of privacy that puts an aging former hermit at ease.

It makes no difference that my impenetrable maze of maize will be long gone by the time this column sees print. The field will have been harvested, the crop sold, those tall stalks cut to the ground and plowed under. The vistas will stretch long and deep, preparing for a winter nap. I like to think I’ve learned a few lessons during my (nearly) 52 years on this planet. The fact that nothing lasts forever, and that some things last but for a very short while, might be the most important.

Immerse yourself in the joy of what you have on those days when you have it; do not succumb to a regretful “what if” attitude or view missed opportunities with 20/20 hindsight. I’ve absorbed this inescapable rule in regard to people, dogs, places, attitudes, beliefs . . . and just about everything else. Appreciation of that which you cherish deeply—heck, even an appreciation of those things you find mildly pretty, funny, smart, or amusing—should never take a backseat to matters of less importance. Life is far too short for the type of self-recriminations that accompany the knowledge that you didn’t act, that you didn’t speak, that you didn’t feel, that you put off till tomorrow the gratitude for RON MARR a simple wonder that might very likely vanish

with the sunrise. A small miracle is still a miracle, after all. It is not something to be ignored, overlooked or taken lightly.

Don’t just smell the roses. Plant them, water them, sit yourself on the picnic bench with a glass of pink lemonade, and watch them grow. There is always time for such things, and a person is well served to ignore friends, family, employers, or social pressures that insist otherwise. Those who state that work and worry must always come first, that life must be primarily dour and serious, don’t really have a life. Those who believe that peace and happiness are luxuries, a treat to be sampled only after every task has been completed and double-checked, have it all backward.

Time is not of the essence. Time is the essence. It’s a limited currency, an account that cannot be replenished. You’re going to lose it whether you use it or not.

The secret lies in using it in a manner that produces the most laughs, the most smiles, the most kindness, and the most joy. I imagine such a philosophy is anathema to those whose lives revolve around racing rats, acquiring position, status, and wealth. It is likely seen as misguided and wrong, an insult to the frantic subset of conventional wisdom that convinces many to seek far more than they need. It runs counter to the assumption that humble bliss will bend to our schedule, that it will wait, that it arrives on demand.

The sight of the Great Wall of Corn, here but for a moment but wise in its swaying silence, tells me something completely different.

It tells me that humble bliss travels with the wind, that it has no schedule, that it reserves its touch for those who seek it. It whispers that all can be gone in a flash, that even the most reasonable expectations are a denial of reality. It imparts the message that when tempted to run, we must strive to walk.

Night falls, and I am surrounded by 100 acres of green ears that hear nothing but symbolize all. They grow, they thrive, they weather whatever storms might come their way. And then, they are gone.

They’re not so different from us.

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Celebrate in Hannibal, MO Mark Twain’s Boyhood Home, nestled in the bluffs of the Mississippi river banks in Northeast Missouri, certainly does not sit back and rest on its laurels of being the place where Twain drew inspiration. Events abound and the fall is no exception. Mark your calendar for these upcoming events and for more information call the Hannibal Convention & Visitors Bureau toll free at 1-866-263-4825 or explore VisitHannibal.com.

3rd Annual Hannibal Uncorked Fall Wine Pub Crawl: October 8th “A celebration of wine, the arts, food and music”, will feature 10 plus wine tasting venues from 5 - 8 pm; music in several pubs from 8 - 11 pm. Purchase tickets online at www.showclix.com/event/57215 or by calling Jack Moore Promotions at 573.822.5782.

Autumn Historic Folklife Festival: October 15th & 16th - Stroll the streets among artists and artisans demonstrating lifestyles and folk arts of the mid 1800s. Enjoy storytellers, musicians and the smell of food prepared over wood fires.

573.221.6545.

50 Miles of Art Studio Tour: November 5th & 6th - Artisians open

their studios from Hannibal to Clarksville for a unique view into the creative process.

573.221.6545.

Christmas Extravaganza: November 12th - Purchase your tickets to fun

with Historic Downtown Hannibal’s Christmas Extravaganza. Your passport includes 5 tickets for special items - choose from a list of over 20 items; from gifts to goodies to cheery cocktails! Your passport is also full of special savings coupons, making your christmas shopping easy! Reserve yours by calling the Dubach Inn 573.355.1167.

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Come Find your Adventure! at Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, MO

Largest selection of Civil War Art in the Midwest

Mark Twain Cave now featuring Cave Hollow West Winery! Enjoy a bottle of Mark Twain Reserve or An Innocent Broad, part of our Mark Twain Exclusive Series.

• Make the fall drive to Historic Hannibal and enjoy the world famous Mark Twain Cave Complex.

• Beautiful 99 site campground (stay 3 nights and fourth night is free) • Fall Decor and Christmas Gift headquarters with three world class gift shops!

Corner of Main and Broadway Downtown Hannibal 888-749-7373 Monday-Saturday 10 am to 5 pm www.pixperf.com

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Historic Hannibal 35th Annual

Autumn Historic Folklife Festival

Holiday Shopping in

Historic Hannibal

November 12 Christmas Extravaganza Coupon Book: Noon to 8 p.m. Purchase your coupon book and use at a variety of merchants for all sorts of holiday goods, treats, and drinks. Vote for your favorite merchant window display, all decked out for the season. Watch Main Street come alive with light, one storefront at a time. Holiday gift giving awaits you at our fine galleries during the 2nd Saturday Artwalk.

December 10 Festivities begin at 5 p.m. wtih Living Windows where storefronts come alive! See the Christmas parade and Lighting Ceremony, visit Santa at the Hannibal History Museum, 2nd Saturday Artwalk.

573-221-2477 • visithannibal.com

October 15-16 Historic Downtown Hannibal Saturday 10 am - 5 pm & Sunday 10 am - 4pm 573-221-6545 • www.hannibalarts.com festivals@hannibalarts.com

Missouri Life 2012 Calendar Missouri Moments

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Prince

IT IS SOMETIMES SAID that Missouri has 113 counties but only one kingdom—the Kingdom of Callaway. That enduring nickname dates back 150 years, to when ragtag Callaway County volunteers stared down Union militia and exacted a non-invasion “treaty.” The rebels were led by a local political figure, Col. Jefferson Franklin Jones.

That prince who seized the day to create a kingdom was more than legend. He was “one of the most picturesque characters who has ever lived in Callaway County,” wrote local historian Ovid Bell.

Like most of Callaway’s early settlers, Jones was from the Upper South, born in Kentucky in 1817. Fortune marked him as a fairhaired boy in county politics. Arriving in 1840, he excelled in his studies and read law under John Jameson, the foremost attorney in Fulton, the county seat. Jameson served three terms in Congress from 1839 to 1849, and Jones often stumped the county for his mentor.

Jones was admitted to the bar in 1843 and in 1844 married Sally Ann Jameson, Jameson’s niece. They set up housekeeping in a large log cabin on Court Street in Fulton, ultimately producing 16 children; 11 survived childhood. Highly successful, Jones is remembered as the first witness for the prosecution in the case of Celia, a slave tried and convicted of the 1855 murder of her master, the subject of Melton A. McLaurin’s book, Celia, A Slave.

Before the Civil War, Jones was a captain of militia. Regular musters to hone citizen volunteers were also occasions for eating and drinking, wrestling matches, cock and dog fights—and politicking. In 1856, Jones was elected to a term as Callaway County’s state representative.

He did not stand for reelection, seemingly preoccupied with improving a large farm and constructing a Southern-style manor in northern Callaway County, just south of the Audrain County line.

He and his family moved into their home in 1859. The two-story structure with a cupola on top, from which he could survey an es-

tate including perhaps 20 slaves, reflected the owner: somewhat pretentious, substantial, stout. A period photograph shows a wellgroomed, clean-shaven man of broad countenance. On the eve of war, he was a well-fed 250 plus pounds, exuding confidence, competence, and success.

Local politics took a back seat in 1860, when Callaway County overwhelmingly rejected the anti-slavery campaign of Republican Abraham Lincoln, who received only 15 of 2,632 votes cast for the four presidential candidates. But like most of Missouri, Callaway seemed inclined to reject secession when other slave states withdrew from the Union, even though Callaway leaned Southern in political views. Jones ran for the state’s special convention as a forthright secessionist but was rejected, and the convention voted against secession.

Escalating events in the spring of 1861 quickly realigned Missouri loyalties. When secessionist Gov. Claiborne Fox Jackson asked for volunteers to oppose possible Union invasion, Callaway quickly enrolled several companies into Gen. Sterling Price’s Missouri State Guard. The first unit, the Callaway Guards, included a half dozen Westminster College students; Capt. Daniel H. McIntyre later became Missouri attorney general from 1881 to 1885.

While these men were away fighting at Carthage and elsewhere, on July 17, local volunteers and elements of Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Harris’s recruiting brigade of Missouri State Guard cavalry clashed just outside Fulton with a battalion of German Home Guard (U.S. Reserve Corps) infantry. The Unionists claimed victory but failed to prevent the transit of Harris’s force. Briefly, Fulton was occupied by Union troops.

Callaway watched with alarm in September as thousands of Union troops arrived across the river at Jefferson City to defend the provisional Union government there and to pursue Gen. Price’s much smaller force.

In late October, a local minuteman group, the A to Z’s, alerted Jones

COURTESY OF THE KINGDOM OF CALLAWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

THE BEHIND THE KINGDOM OF CALLAWAY

BY MARTIN NORTHWAY

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Frank Stack’s watercolor depicts Col. Jones’s volunteers on the march. Left: Jefferson Franklin Jones led these volunteers in an effort to hold off Union troops.

COURTESY OF THE CALLAWAY BANK

Missouri Life is commemorating the Civil War sesquicentennial by including stories of the war here in every issue. that 400 to 500 Union militia from Pike County were ransacking homes and intending to invade northern Callaway. Volunteers were to assemble at Brown’s Spring on Auxvasse Creek, northwest of presentday Kingdom City.

The Missouri Republican reported 600 to 700 “secessionists” but that Lt. Col. T.J.C. Fagg’s Union militia, uniting with soldiers marching north from the Missouri River under Brig. Gen. Chester Harding, would be “a great overmatch for Jones’ men … we shall soon hear of their rout and dispersion.” The Republican underestimated the mettle of Jones’s little army. Though not formally organized, many were extensively drilled at Brown’s Spring. Variously armed with squirrel rifles and shotguns, most were adept with firearms and well mounted.

To magnify their apparent strength, they reportedly fashioned two or three Quaker guns (logs painted to resemble a cannon) and one handmade oak cannon, of wonderful design and construction, reinforced with iron bands. “It was indeed a fearful instrument of carnage,

equally dangerous at muzzle, breech or side,” one veteran jocularly recalled in 1905.

“It was Indian Summer time—usually a gorgeous season in Callaway County,” writes historian Bell. “Crops had been harvested and farm folk were able to relax after a summer of toil.” Solomon P. Gilbert, later a judge, recalled that volunteers slept under blankets without tents in warm weather. “There was no rain during the time we were out. There was no discipline and the whole experience was really a good lark.” Others were quartered in houses or farm buildings, and men in several camps were well fed by local farm women.

Nudging his volunteers eastward, Jones established headquarters at Stringfield’s Store in northeastern Callaway County. The force made a ferocious appearance with campfires and their bristling Quaker cannon. Under a flag of truce, Jones sent a letter to the Union headquarters at Wellsville in neighboring Montgomery County. He made his best lawyer’s case for withdrawal of the militia, accusing them of

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rebellion against the government. In this view perfect security will be accorded to them. If they remain under arms they must abide the consequences.”

Thunderation! On October 26, Jones replied that “Your assurances of protection of life, liberty, and the quiet tranquility of home, and that you will suffer no disquietude to those under me who peaceably return to their homes, have determined me to disband the forces under my command, early in the morning.”

On October 27, Jones did so, and Henderson’s men did not enter Callaway County.

Meanwhile, Gen. Harding, in transit to Fulton with troops from Hermann, learned that Jones’s men had been permitted to disperse and “were exempted from arrest or punishment for their treasonable proceedings.” He decided to honor the agreement by withdrawing his troops, but also declared “That whole region is thoroughly disloyal. …

There are not 200 Union men in the county of Callaway.” Union troops were in Fulton briefly and then retired.

Coincidentally, the day after Jones’s men returned to their homes, Gov. Jackson’s General Assembly in Neosho passed an ordinance of

From top: John Brooks Henderson clashed with Colonel Jones after Jones accused the Union of illegally occupying Callaway County. Jones and his family moved into this Southern-style manor finished in 1859 in northern Callaway County. Right: Sally Ann Jameson, the niece of Jones’s mentor John Jameson, a respected attorney in Fulton, married Jones in 1844.

COURTESY OF THE KINGDOM OF CALLAWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

illegal acts against local citizens. “Your presence on our border, your arrest of our citizens, and your searchings of private dwellings have produced here the uprising of our people,” Jones wrote.

The reply came from Fagg’s superior, Brig. Gen. John Brooks Henderson, a lawyer and prominent Unionist Democrat who had taken the field. His brusque reply took a tone, rejecting Jones’s authority to make any demands whatsoever. He said that Union forces had not improperly interfered with any Callaway citizen and would not do so; in fact, Henderson claimed local Union men had been driven from their homes, their houses ransacked, and these offenses had been falsely attributed to his command.

Jones had asserted that his command was “not assembled in the interest of the Southern Confederacy,” but he insisted that the Union commander explain his “designs and purposes.” Henderson replied, “Without intending to be harsh … you have no right to know. I now, sir, advise you and those under your command to return to your respective homes and abandon what at least seems to be an effort to sustain this

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COURTESY OF THE KINGDOM OF CALLAWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

secession. A month later, the Confederate Congress would accept Missouri as the 12th Confederate state, and Missouri would be represented in both the U.S. and Confederate Congresses. Some young Callaway men who had helped broker the compromise with the Union would see service as Confederate soldiers. As for Jones’s truce, Fulton would be occupied by Union troops off and on from December 1861 forward, throughout the war.

Meanwhile, Gen. Henderson denied the embarrassing reports he had compromised with rebels.

In a postwar letter, Jones said that soon after the compromise, Gen. Henderson “wanted the terms of our compromise so changed as to relieve him. I told him I had no power then to make any changes and declined doing so.”

He added that Henderson used reports of the tearing up of the North Missouri Railroad by rebels in December as a pretext to arrest Jones and thereby get revenge. Jones said cavalry “came to my house, arrested me, searched my premises, took my arms and ammunition, an extra carriage and span of horses, and everything else they wanted.”

Jones was held under horrid conditions in Mexico, Missouri, Danville, and then St. Charles before he and others were to be tried by a Union military commission for railroad destruction, an offense for which the penalty was execution. Jones said that in his absence, Union cavalry (including a German regiment, referred to by the locals as “Dutch”) pilfered his property and livestock.

A letter of complaint to Union Brig. Gen. John M. Schofield produced little sympathy. Schofield promised Jones a fair hearing but added archly, “I should be gratified if you are found less guilty than I believe you to be.” But Jones was found not guilty, released “upon taking the oath of allegiance and giving bonds for future good conduct.”

He objected to the oath on principle but provided $10,000 bond and agreed to travel restrictions.

Jones was dispirited upon discovering the condition of his estate.

Union officers repeatedly claimed he had violated his bond and therefore forfeited his property, resulting in numerous requisitions: “It seemed as if I was to be the sport of every upstart and vandal who could muster a force.” Absent from Jones’s own loud objections was any hint that he may have been clandestinely providing local guerrillas food, provender, and sympathy, as local lore has long indicated.

Finally, in May 1863, “without charges, or a moment’s notice,” wrote Jones, “my entire family and self were seized, under an order of banishment South, and without money, clothing, bedding, or any thing else, or an opportunity to secure such, we were forced off to St. Louis, where my wife, nine children, and a governess, were taken to one prison, and myself and eldest son to another.” With friends’ help, all but Jones were released. He was held through July 1865, confined without charge at Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis. He estimated harsh treatment slashed his weight from 265 to 152 pounds.

Meanwhile, the word “kingdom” was being used to describe the

county of Callaway. Jones himself may have coined the term. Another story is that in 1862, a House committee questioned John Sampson’s fitness to serve as Callaway’s legislator because he had supported secession. He thundered at them, “I am from the Kingdom of Callaway, six feet, four and one-half inches tall, and all South, by God!” Repressed by radical Republican rule and the oppressive 1865 Drake Constitution, former Confederates and sympathizers were re-enfranchised by the 1872 election, their full citizenship assured by the 1875 constitution. After helping pioneer construction of the Chicago and Alton Railroad, in 1874 Jones was returned to the Missouri House of Representatives by Callaway voters.

On March 17, 1875, Jones introduced a joint and concurrent General Assembly resolution declaring amnesty for outlaws Frank and Jesse James and others who had served as Confederate partisans. The resolution proposed pardoning them for wartime offenses but assured a fair trial for alleged postwar crimes. An amended version passed but failed to attain a necessary two-thirds majority.

Jones’s health may never have recovered from his wartime incarceration. During a November 1876 speech, he suffered a stroke. After two years as an invalid, he died from a heart attack on January 24, 1879, perhaps one more casualty of war.

His great house fell into ruins decades ago, but a nine-foot obelisk nearby marks his remains in a once-tumbled cemetery reclaimed and restored 15 years ago by the Elijah P. Gates Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A soldier’s stone attests to Jones’s brief wartime service. Lying nearby are his wife Sally, who died in 1888, and several children, some with rare names like Octave and North East.

The small plot, marked by a grove of trees and ancient yucca plants, sits amid fields once tended by slaves. An oasis for local wildlife, it remains a quiet but enduring testament to human history.

“Kingdom’s” 150th

Celebrate the Kingdom of Callaway’s 150th anniv ersary! A bluegray muster unveiling special displays—such as a replica of Col. Jones’s house—at Fulton’s Kingdom of Callaw ay Historical Museum, September 30, at 5 PM, will initiate a mont h’s worth of “Kingdom of Callaway” 150th anniversary event s, including: ▪ October 8, Fall Muster of the Elijah Gates Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Fulton.

▪ October 9, 1 PM, rededication ceremony for Col. Jones’ cemetery, Heart of Missouri Tourism Center, Kingdom City.

▪ October 22, 11 AM, dedication of a new Civil War interpretive panel on the Gray Ghosts Trail, Crane’s Museum, Williamsburg.

▪ October 27, Historical Society annual meeting, Fulton.

Information: www.callawaycivilwar.org or Kingd om of Callaway Historical Society, 573-642-0570; travel & accom modations, www.visitfulton.com

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HISTORY. BRING THE TROOPS.

Pulaski County offers many exceptional museums and historic places to explore.

Frisco Railroad Museum-Crocker

Representing the history of the railroad

Tourism Bureau & Visitor Center 137 St. Robert Blvd., Ste. A St. Robert, MO 65584

Pulaski County Courthouse Museum- Waynesville

Built in 1903,features original courtroom Old Stagecoach Stop- Waynesville Listed in National Register of Historic Places

Order your FREE Visitor Guide!

877 858.8687 573 336.6355 www.VisitPulaskiCounty.org

Mahaffey Museum Complex- Ft. Leonard Wood Military museums- 3 in one complex

Salute veterans on a visit to Pulaski County Pulaski County exudes patriotism and offers an entertaining and educational escape for you and your family. Enjoy the rich history of Fort Leonard Wood, the largest Army training post in the U.S. Driving tours offer an opportunity to reflect on the service and sacrifice of our military as you are led by historic sites, with plenty of opportunity for outdoor recreation. Take a break from the tour to walk the trails to the refreshing spring and great trout fishing of Spring Mill, a perfect

place to stop for a picnic lunch.

Immerse yourself in Pulaski County’s military museums at the Mahaffey Museum Complex, which highlights the history of the Engineer and Chemical Corps, as well as the Military Police. A WWII Building Complex and an outdoor military vehicle museum are also on-site for visitors’ enjoyment. The Museums of Fort Leonard Wood are open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 8 am to 4 pm and Saturdays, 10 am to 4 pm , and

admission is free, making it a great choice for families and youth groups.

While in Pulaski County, tour the Veterans Memorials including the Missouri State Veterans Cemetery Memorial in Waynesville, which was dedicated in September 2010. The cemetery echoes with the selflessness of our service men and women, and features a fountain providing a soothing backdrop for reflection. The tour also features monuments located west of Waynesville, in Crocker, Richland, and Memorial Grove Park at Fort Leonard Wood, which honors the Engineer and Chemical Corps and the Military Police.

Walk through a chronological narrative of the Civil War and experience displays highlighting this era. The Old Stagecoach Stop Museum, which served as a hospital during this time, offers 12 rooms of Civil War history. The Pulaski County Courthouse Museum features the “War Room,” as well as a detailed diorama of Waynesville in 1860. Both museums are open Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm, April to September. The Courthouse Museum requests visitors give a donation, and the Old Stagecoach Stop is $2.

To help plan your getaway, contact the Pulaski County Tourism Bureau and Visitors Center at 877-858-8687 to request your free Visitors Guide and driving tour brochure.

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Columbia has great festivals,

BuT There’s AlwAys loTs To do!

10 Things to

Always!

do in Columbia:

u Explore Mizzou Botanic Garden on campus. u Ride, walk or run on one of Columbia’s scenic trails. u Enjoy a meal prepared with fresh, local ingredients. u Discover paintings, pottery and more at a local art gallery. u Watch an independent film at Ragtag Cinema. u Show your Tiger spirit and buy some Black and Gold. u Taste locally brewed beer at Flat Branch Pub or Broadway Brewery. u Be

entertained by a play, concert or comedy show. u Find the perfect gift at one of the dozens of shops in The District. u Devour a chocolate Katy from the Candy Factory.

& Visitors Bu tion rea ven u n o C

Columbia Missouri CVB @ColumbiaMOCVB

www.VisitColumbiaMO.com 300 S. Providence Road | Columbia, MO 65203 | (573) 875-1231

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ALL AROUND

Missouri OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011

featured event >

NORTHEAST ST. LOUIS AREA

50 MILES OF ART

This arts corridor connnibal, and Louisiana > Ha , ille sv rk Cla 6, 5v. artisans No ists, craftspersons, and art ne fi ere wh is 79 e nected by Rout nic highway to their work. Drive the sce ate cre d an e liv to en have chos fine arts and crafts trating how they make ns mo de rk wo at s ist ghsee art elry, and furniture. Throu jew , art r be fi y, ph gra oto such as pottery, ph ofart.com 972-6535, www.50miles 861 e.

Fre .

PM -5 AM 10 out each town.

QUILT NATIONAL Oct. 2-Nov. 4, St. Charles > Juried exhibition of more than 80 works showcasing artists whose work is different from traditional quilts.

Foundry Art Centre. 10 AM-8 PM Tues.-Thurs., 10 AM-5 PM Fri.-Sat.; noon-4 PM Sun. $3. 314646-7500, www.dairybarn.org/quilt

FALL FESTIVAL AND BAZAAR Oct. 7-8, O’Fallon > Crafters, artisans, dance, Bob Hamm’s Wild West Show, Field of Fun for kids, puppet shows, and live acoustic bands.

Civic Park. 5-10 PM Fri.; 9 AM-4 PM Sat. Free. 636379-5614, www.ofallon.mo.us/FallFest

ARTS AND CRAFTS FESTIVAL Oct. 8-9, Hermann > Exhibit and sale of art and handcrafted items. Middle School. 9 AM-5 PM Sat.; 10 AM-4 PM Sun. $1 donation. 573-486-2633, www.brushandpaletteclub.org

FALL HARVEST FESTIVAL Oct. 15, De Soto > Crafts, concert, hay rides, Halloween program, campground decoration contest, and trick-or-treating at the campgrounds. Washington State Park. 10 AM-10 PM. Free. 636-586-5768, www.mostateparks.com/ park/washington-state-park

FALL CRAFT FAIR COURTESY OF KEVIN MASSIGILA

Oct. 15-16, Washington > Handcrafted items and pork sausage dinner. St. Francis Borgia Parish. 9 AM-4 PM Sat.; 10 AM-6 PM Sun. Free (except dinner). 636-239-4246, www.sfbparish.org

MISSOURI DAY

Visit MissouriLife.com for more events!

Oct. 19, St. Charles > Learn about famous Missourians with displays, traveling trunks, and hands-on crafts. First Missouri State Capitol State Historic Site. 10 AM-4 PM. Free. 636-9403322, www.mostateparks.com/park/firstmissouri-state-capitol-state-historic-site These listings are chosen by our editors and are not paid by sponsors.

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Missouri

ALL AROUND

VETERAN’S CONCERT Nov. 1, Moberly > The Fort Leonard Wood 399th Army Band performs. Municipal Auditorium.

7 PM. Free (must have a ticket; call to pick one up). 660-263-6070, www.moberlyarts.org

ARTS, CRAFTS, AND GIFTS Nov. 11-12, Moberly > More than 100 vendors with a wide variety of items for sale. Moberly Area Community College Activity Center.

11 AM-6 PM Fri.; 9 AM-3 PM Sat. $1 donation.

660-263-6070, www.moberlychamber.com

MARK TWAIN BIRTHDAY Nov. 27, Florida > Celebrate the 176th birthday of Mark Twain with cake, punch, displays, and watch the movie versions of some of his most famous works. Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site. 10 AM-4:30 PM. Free. 573-565-3440, www.mostateparks.com/park/mark-twainbirthplace-state-historic-site

NORTHWEST KANSAS CITY AREA

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

PUMPKINFEST Oct. 7-9, St. Joseph > Fine arts festival, crafts, costumed children’s parade, and the lighting of the Great Pumpkin Mountain. Grounds of the Pony Express Museum. 5-9 PM Fri.; 10 AM-9 PM Sat.; noon-5 PM Sun. Free. 816-279-5059, www. ponyexpress.org

GHOST TOURS Oct. 7, 14, 21, and 28, Independence > Tour the 1859 Jail, Marshal’s Home and Museum, take a narrated covered wagon tour of haunted places, and hear ghost stories. Independence Square.

7, 8, and 9 PM. $12-$18. Reservations. 816-4610065, www.theindependencesquare.com

Nov. 25-Dec. 24, St. Charles > Strolling carolers, roasted chestnuts, 25 Santas from around the world wear handcrafted clothing to represent their heritage, Santa keepsake trading cards, and the Lewis and Clark Fife and Drum Corps.

Main Street. 11 AM-5 PM. Free. 800-366-2427, www.stcharleschristmas.com

APPLEFEST Oct. 1-2, Weston > Lost arts demonstrations including candle and soap making and wood turning, arts, crafts, parade, Garden Harvest Market, pony rides, and pumpkin painting. Historic Downtown. 10 AM-6 PM Sat.; 11 AM-5 PM Sun. Free. 816-640-2909, www.westonmo.com

FALL ON THE FARM

ART SIDEWALK SALE

OKTOBERFEST CRAFT SHOW

QUILT SHOW

Nov. 26-27, St. Louis > Works from students, faculty, and each studio for sale including pottery, jewelry, glass, and textiles. Craft Alliance.

10 AM-6 PM Sat.; 11 AM-5 PM Sun. Free. 314-7251177, www.craftalliance.org

Oct. 7-8, Lee’s Summit > More than 100 crafters from across the region show and sell their works. The Pavilion at John Knox Village. 11 AM7 PM Fri.; 10 AM-4 PM Sat. Free. 816-509-8019, www.craftpatchshow.com

Oct. 15, Lawson > Demonstrations of rural life from the 1870s. Watkins Woolen Mill State Historic Site. 11 AM-4 PM. Free (except tour). 816580-3387, www.mostateparks.com/park/watkins-woolen-mill-state-historic-site

Oct. 15-16, Marshall > Award-winning quilts from Mildred Sorrells, miniature quilts, silent auction, bazaar, and AQS appraiser. Salt Fork YMCA. 9 AM-5 PM Sat.; 10 AM-5 PM Sun. $3 donation. 660886-5162, www.countrypatchworkquilters.com

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ANTIQUE SHOW Oct. 15-16, Platte City > Variety of antiques and collectibles. Platte County High School. 9 AM4 PM Sat.; 11 AM-3 PM Sun. $5 for both days. 816858-2822, www.plattecitymo.com

MISSOURI DAYS Oct. 15-16, Trenton > Marching band festival, crafts village, car show, fall color tours at Crowder State Park, displays of state symbols, and best decorated pumpkin contest. Rock Barn. 8 AM-5 PM Sat.; 8 AM-3:30 PM Sun. Free.

660-359-4324, www.trentonmochamber.com

COURTESY DOWNTOWN LEE’S SUMMIT MAIN STREET

VOICES FROM THE PAST Oct. 27-28, St. Joseph > Costumed interpreters portray the citizens with Civil War connections and tell their stories. Meet at Wyeth-Tootle Mansion for bus ride to Mount Mora Cemetery. 6:30 PM Thurs.; 7:30 PM Fri. $15. Reservations. 816-232-8471, www. stjosephmuseum.org

trick or treat! >

SPIRITS FROM THE PAST

BOOS AND BARKS PARADE Oct. 29, Lee’s Summit > Children and small dogs put on costumes and join in a parade, then are invited to trick-or-treat at participating businesses. City Hall Plaza and Howard Station Park. 10 AM-noon. Free. 816-246-6598, www.downtownls.org

Oct. 28-29, Lee’s Summit > Walk through the moonlit town and hear spine-tingling tales more than a century old, enjoy children’s games, a bonfire, trick-or-treating, and a haunted hayride. Missouri Town 1855. 6-9 PM. $9. Reservations. 816-503-4860, www.jacksongov.org

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WALK WITH THE SPIRITS Oct. 31, Lone Jack > Meet at the museum for a guided tour of the Civil War battlefield and soldier’s cemetery where costumed interpreters tell the ghostly stories from the war. Lone Jack Battlefield Park. 6:30-9 PM. Free. 816-805-1815, www.historiclonejack.org

SANTA’S WONDERLAND Nov. 5-Dec. 24, Independence > Children can make crafts, have their picture taken with Santa, and watch running train sets. Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World. 9 AM-7 PM Mon.-Sat.; 10 AM-7 PM Sun. Free. 816-795-4300, www.basspro.com

BEST LITTLE CRAFTS SHOW Nov. 18-19, Independence > More than 120 booths with original crafts, candies, candles, and Christmas decor. Sermon Community Center.

10 AM-7 PM Fri.; 10 AM-6 PM Sat. Free. 816-3257370, www.ci.independence.mo.us

CHRISTMAS IN THE SKY Nov. 23, Lee’s Summit > Holiday stage productions, local celebrities, and an amazing fireworks display synchronized to holiday music. Longview Lake Beach. 6 PM. Donations. 816-503-4800, www.jacksongov.org

RECYCLED ART IN THE PARK

SOUTHEAST CREATION STATION Oct. 1, Poplar Bluff > Hands-on art activities for children. Margaret Harwell Art Museum. 10 AM3 PM. Free. 573-686-8002, www.mham.org

GHOST TOURS Oct. 7-8, 14-15, and 21-22, New Madrid > Walking tour and stories of spirits. Start at the Chamber office. 7 and 9 PM. $10. Reservations required. 877-748-5300, www.wix.com/newmadrid/hauntedtour

FALL FESTIVAL

Oct. 8, Leasburg > Local artists and groups display works that use nature as part of their art and instruction on designing art from materials found in nature and from recycled products.

Onondaga Cave State Park. 11 AM-4 PM. Free.

573-245-6576, www.mostateparks.com/park/ onondaga-cave-state-park

THREE Oct. 12-14, Park Hills > Exhibit of three female painters who worked together to create stunning arts. Mineral Area College Foyer Gallery. 8 AM-7 PM. Reception Wed. 6-7:30 PM. Free. 573-518-2125, www.mineralarea.edu

GHOST STORYTELLING

Oct. 8, Dexter > Crafters, artistic demonstrations, carved pumpkin contest, quilt show, gospel music performances, and Dexter Has Talent Contest. Historic downtown. 9 AM-4 PM. Free.

573-624-7458, www.dexterchamber.com

Oct. 14, Cape Girardeau > Join national storyteller Regina Carpenter for a spooky mix of family-friendly and scary stories. Old Beech Tree on the East Lawn of the River Campus. 7-9:30 PM. $10 (ages 12 and under are free). 573-335-1631, www.capestorytelling.com

SAXON FALL FESTIVAL

CUBA FEST

Oct. 8, Frohna > Apple butter cooking, arts, crafts, and stage performances. Saxon Lutheran Memorial. 9 AM-4 PM. Free. 573-824-5404, www.saxonlutheranmemorial.com

Oct. 15-16, Cuba > Arts, crafts, live music, oldfashioned apple butter cooking over an open fire, chili cook-off, Taste of Cuba, wine tasting tent, trolley rides with a narrated mural and

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cemetery tour, and children’s activities. Recklein Historical District. 9 AM-4 PM. Free. 573-8852988, www.cubamomurals.com

HAUNTING OF MONTAUK MILL Oct. 22, Salem > See bats, hear spooky voices and ghost stories, and see images of ghosts at the Old Grist Mill. Montauk State Park. 8 PM. Free. 573-548-2434, www.mostateparks.com/ park/montauk-state-park

FRIDAY ART WALK Oct. 22 and Nov. 18, Ste. Genevieve > Meet artists, tour galleries and studios, and see new exhibits. Historic Downtown. 6-9 PM. Free. 573883-7097, www.visitstegen.com

COURTESTY OF ONANDAGA STATE PARK

DEJA VU SPIRIT REUNION Oct. 22, Ste. Genevieve > Join the costumed spirits of early pioneers on a lantern tour. Memorial Cemetery. 6-8 PM. $2.50-$5. 573-8837097, www.visitstegen.com

CIVIL WAR MUSIC AND ART Oct. 23, Ironton > Concerts of Civil War-era music by Open Range and the Pilot Knob Mountain Boys and demonstrations by period artisans.

Court House Square. 1-5 PM. Free. 573-518-2125, www.mountainmusicfestival.net

cave tours! > HISTORICAL LANTERN TOUR Oct. 8, Leasburg > Take a guided theatrical tour led by a knowledgeable association member.

Be enchanted by characters from Onondaga’s past and learn about the people and their history with the cave. Onondaga Cave State Park. 7-9 PM. $12-$22. Reservations. 573-245-6576, ext. 230, www.mostateparks.com/park/onondaga-cave-state-park

Centrally Located, Just 30 Miles North of Columbia at the Junction of Highways 63 & 24

For more information on all of these events:

www.MoberlyChamber.com

October 1st - Oktoberfest, Coopers Oak Winery, Enjoy great wine and entertainment with Stroker Ace playing at 8pm October 29th - Downtown Moberly Haunted Tour, Hear history of several historic buildings and stories of ghostly sightings November 1st - Veteran’s Tribute Concert, Municipal Auditorium, 7pm, with the Fort Leonard Wood 399th Army Band November 4th-6th - Holiday Open House, Over 15 gift, home décor, floral, and antique businesses will be participating November 5th - Ben Franklin Alive,, MACC Auditorium, 7pm, Alan J. Prewitt brings the wit and charm of Ben Franklin to life in this one-man interactive performance November 11th & 12th - Annual Arts and Craft Show, MACC Activity Center, over 100 arts & crafts vendors in one building December 1st - Living Windows, Downtown Moberly, Live window displays and entertainment plus the ever-popular Stubbins Cookie Fest December 4th - Altrusa Holiday Home Tour, Tour five beautiful Randolph County homes decorated for the Holidays December 5th - Annual Moberly Christmas Parade, Join the fun along Reed Street in Downtown Moberly, this Santa-approved parade starts at 5:30pm December 9th - Frosty 5K Run, A night-time 5K fun-run through beautifully decorated Rothwell Park

Call 660-263-6070 to request a copy of the new Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Guide

Paid for by the Moberly Tourism Committee

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CHILI COOK-OFF

REGIONAL ART EXHIBIT Nov. 5-27, Poplar Bluff > Art exhibit featuring regional artists’ works. Margaret Harwell Art Museum. Noon-4 PM Tues.-Fri.; 1-4 PM Sun. Free. 573686-8002, www.mham.org

SINATRA SONGBOOK

SOUTHWEST HARVEST MOON FESTIVAL Oct. 1, Forsyth > Car show with more than 100 cars, chili cook-off, and crafts. Shoals Bend Park.

8 AM-4 PM. Free. 417-546-2741, www.forsythmissouri.net

PROJECT PUPPY

Nov. 19, Farmington > Evening of Frank Sinatra music. Centene Center for the Performing Arts. 7 PM. $15. 573-518-2125, www.farmingtonciviccenter.com

Oct. 1, Springfield > Dinner, dance, silent auction, puppy fashion show, and rescued dogs available for adoption. University Plaza Convention Center. 6 PM. $35. 417-827-0160, www.projectpuppy.org

ARTS AND CRAFTS FESTIVALS

ROGER BROWN EXHIBIT

Nov. 19-20, Cape Girardeau > Crafts and handmade products. Arena and 4H buildings at Arena Park, Osage Center, and Show Me Center. 10 AM-5 PM Sat.; 10 AM-4 PM Sun. $3-$5. 573-3349233, www.capearts.org

PARADE OF LIGHTS Nov. 27, Cape Girardeau > Lighted floats and Santa. Capaha Park through downtown. 5:15 PM. Free. 573-334-8085, www.oldtowncape.org

Oct. 1-Nov. 13, Springfield > Exhibit of 12 paintings that reflect the artist’s interest in urban and natural landscapes and the often tragic intersection of the two. Springfield Art Museum.

9 AM-5 PM Tues.-Sat. (8 PM Thurs.); 1-5 PM Sun. Free. 417-837-5700, www.springfieldmo.gov/art

APPLE BUTTER MAKIN’ DAYS Oct. 7-9, Mount Vernon > Crafts, games, parade, car show, and apple butter made in copper

and the winner is? >

COURTESY OF CARTHAGE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Oct. 29, Perryville > Entertainment, chili cooking competition, and samples of chili, salsa, and hot wings ($2). Downtown square. 10 AM-3 PM. Free. 573-547-6062, www.perryvillemo.com

MAPLE LEAF FESTIVAL Oct. 8-16, Carthage > High heel race, queen pageant, wine and beer tasting, car show, crafts, Kid’s Corner, parade, Celtic Wine Fest, marching band festival, Marching Cobras, and Maple Leaf circus. Throughout town. Times vary.

Free (except special events). 417-3582373, www.carthagechamber.com

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Come explore the spacious homes, the abundance of leisurestyled features and services, and enjoy our small town charm.

Call 660-584-4416 to begin your new adventure.

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pots over a fire. Town Square. 9 AM-6 PM Fri.Sat.; 10 AM-4 PM Sun. Free. 417-466-7654, www. mtvernonchamber.com

OZARK FALL FARMFEST Oct. 7-9, Springfield > More than 750 farmrelated exhibits and more than 500 registered livestock. Ozark Empire Fairgrounds. 9 AM-5 PM. Free. 800-356-8255, www.ozarkempirefair.com

ART IN THE PARK Oct. 8-9, Springfield > Fine art, crafts, and meet the artists. Sequiota Park. 10 AM-4:30 PM. Free. 417-689-4536, www.artcraftguild.org

PLEIN AIR PAINT OUT Oct. 13-15, Ridgedale > Competition consisting of painting in the beauty of the Ozarks, during which works can be sold to visitors. Big Cedar Lodge and Dogwood Canyon Nature Park. All day. $40-$50 to compete; free to visitors. 417339-5029, www.bigcedar.com

FLAMING FALL REVUE Oct. 16, Ava > Live music, pumpkin painting, breathtaking views, scarecrow making contest, and food. Caney Mountain picnic area on Glade Top Trail. 10:30 AM-3 PM. Free (except food). 417683-4594, www.avachamber.org

WILD AREA HIKE Oct. 22, Cassville > Take a four-mile guided hike to see the height of fall colors and tour the Hardwood Natural Area. Bring a sack lunch and water. Roaring River State Park. 9 AM-2 PM. Free.

417-847-3742, www.mostateparks.com/park/ roaring-river-state-park

PETS AND PUMPKINS Oct. 22, Springfield > Costume contests for pets and owners, games, hay maze, cupcake/ pupcake walk, trick or treating at local shops, giant inflatables, children’s games, and pumpkin bowling. Historic Commercial Street. 1-5 PM. $2 for children and pets; adults free. 417-830-8121, www.petsandpumpkins.com

OZARK PIECEMAKERS Oct. 25, Springfield > Auction of quilt-related items, bake sale, and quilt guild meeting. The Village Shopping Center. 10 AM-6 PM. $5 for guests.

417-882-5989, www.ozarkpiecemakers.com

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS Nov. 19-Dec. 31, Springfield > Holiday celebration featuring musical performances, activities for children and adults, and shopping. Downtown. Times vary. Free (except special events).

417-831-6200, www.itsalldowntown.com

CENTRAL HAUNTED HAYRIDE Oct. 1 and 7-8, Blackwater > Wagon ride through the woods with costumed creatures and spooky and scary surprises. Wild Cliff Woods. 7 and 8 PM. $10. Reservations. 660-8882300, www.blackwater-mo.com

GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH Oct. 1-Dec. 15, Columbia > Fashion show with Caged Animals and Le Cirque theme. Historic Costume Gallery at Stephens College. Noon3 PM Sat.-Sun.; 5:30-8:30 PM Thurs. Free. 573876-7220, www.stephens.edu/cmrl

CRAFT FAIR Oct. 1, Hatton > Handmade crafts such as dolls, hand-painted china, wooden toys, pillows, and seasonal items. Community Center. 9 AM-4 PM. Free. 573-220-1367, www.hatton.mo.org

FROG FEST Oct. 1, Waynesville > Vendors, entertainment, food, and frog race. City Park. 9 AM-5 PM. Free.

573-774-3050, www.visitpulaskicounty.org

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FALL FESTIVAL Oct. 7-8, Camdenton > Crafts, demonstrations, quilt raffle, chili supper, and apple butter and apple pies for sale. Camden County Museum.

9 AM-5 PM. Free (except food). 573-346-7191, www.camdencountymuseum.com

OKTOBERFEST Oct. 8, Cole Camp > Antique bicycle show, guided tour, live polka music, traditional German food, and Prairie Days. Throughout town.

9 AM-8 PM. Free (except special events and food).

660-668-2295, www.colecampmo.com

FALL HARVEST FESTIVAL

harvest time! > HARVESTFEST Oct. 15, Jefferson City > Come dressed in costume for this family-friendly event with tours of the Governor’s Mansion, kettle corn, cider press, Halloween decorations, and bluegrass music. Governor’s Mansion. 10 AM-2 PM. Free. 573-751-0526, www.visitjeffersoncity.com

Oct. 8, Holts Summit > Crafts, live music, and cup stacking tournament. Greenway Park. 10 AM-4 PM. Free. 573-896-4790, www.hscba.net

PUMPKIN FESTIVAL Oct. 8-9, Hartsburg > 150 craft vendors, petting zoo, pumpkin activities, and pumpkins galore.

Throughout town. 9 AM-5 PM. Free. 573-8641886, www.hartsburgpumpkinfest.com

ART AT THE CAPITOL Oct. 13, Jefferson City > Author Bob Priddy speaks about the Thomas Hart Benton murals at the State Capitol. House Lounge at the Mis-

Con n ec tin

souri State Capitol. 5:30 PM. $30. 573-635-8355, www.capitalarts.posterous.com

HERITAGE DAYS Oct. 15-16, Warsaw > 19th-century crafts, replica of 1850 pioneer homestead, and modern crafters. Harry S. Truman Visitor Center and Drake Harbor. Shuttle $4. 9 AM-5 PM. Free. 800927-7294, www.warsawmochamber.com

HA HA HAUNT Oct. 28, Camdenton > Trail lined with jack-olanterns, s’mores, Halloween crafts, bean bag toss, and decorations. Ha Ha Tonka State Park.

5-8 PM. Free. 573-346-2986, www.mostateparks.com/park/ha-ha-tonka-state-park

HARVEST FESTIVAL Oct. 29, Lincoln > Crafts, pumpkin carving, and silent auction. Heit’s Point Ministries on the Lake of the Ozarks. 10 AM-4 PM. Free. 660-668-2363, www.heitspoint.com

FALL INTO ART Oct. 29-30, Columbia > More than 30 artists and craftsmen exhibit jewelry, pottery, mixed media, photography, wood carving, and watercolors. Parkade Center. 10 AM-5 PM. Free. 573489-3292, www.parkadecenter.com

COURTESY OF JEFFERSON CITY CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU

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Connecting mid-Missouri travelers to the world.

www.flymidmo.com 573-874-7508

Free parking near the terminal.

The Southern Hotel 146 S. 3rd St., Ste. Genevieve 800-275-1412 • www.southernhotelbb.com

Here the past is carefully blended with modern comforts to make your stay a very special experience. • A Historic Bed & Breakfast

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BOOK OF DAYS

AN EVENING WITH GROUCHO

LIGHTED CHRISTMAS PARADE

Nov. 3-6, 10-13, and 17-20, Columbia > Performance by Missouri playwright Lanford Wilson is a murder mystery and comedy. Columbia Entertainment Company Community Theatre.

7:30 PM Thurs.-Sat.; 2 PM Sun. $7-$10. 573-4743699, www.cectheatre.org

Nov. 11, Warrensburg > Awarding-winning actor Frank Ferrante recreates the fast-paced comedy of Groucho Marx. Hendricks Hall. 7:30 PM. $8-$25.

660-543-4263, www.ucmo.edu/pas

Nov. 25, Clinton > Lighting of the square, parade with Santa and his helpers, refreshments, entertainment, and Living History exhibits and displays at the Henry County Museum. Downtown Historic Square. 6 PM. Free. 660-885-2121, www.clintonmo.com

RIGHTS IN THE CIVIL WAR Nov. 10, Jefferson City > Expert discusses the difficulties that President Lincoln and the military had while trying to defeat Missouri’s guerrillas. Missouri State Archives. 7-8 PM. Free. 573526-5296, www.sos.mo.gov/archives/

VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS Nov. 10-Dec. 31, Fulton > Shop for baked goods, handbags, ornaments, and children’s items. On Nov. 10 enjoy the Kettledrum Tea with tea, cookies, and finger sandwiches from 10 AM-2 PM and cocktails from 5-8 PM. Winston Churchill Museum. 10 AM-4:30. Free. 573-592-5263, www. churchillmemorial.org

VETERAN’S DAY CELEBRATION Nov. 11, St. Robert > Parade, memorial service, and ceremony honoring our country’s veterans. Downtown. 11 AM-1 PM. Free. 573-336-5121, www.waynesville-strobertchamber.com

GIRLFRIENDS WEEKEND Nov. 11-12, Boonville > Wine and cheese reception, balloon drop, spa treatments, specials, and shopping. Hotel Frederick and downtown. 7 PM Fri.; 8 AM-3 PM Sat. $25 (hotel and meals extra).

660-882-4003, www.goboonville.com

KING’S DAUGHTERS FESTIVAL Nov. 11-13, Columbia > Holiday shopping with more than 120 vendors and Retro Wingding on Friday features holiday shopping, bands, belly dancers, jugglers, hors d’oeuvres, a retro beverage, and cash bar. Holiday Inn Expo Center.

5:30-8:30 PM Fri.; 8 AM-5 PM Sat.; 11 AM-4 PM Sun. $30-$50 Fri.; $3-$6 Sat.-Sun. 573-8742273, www.kdholidayfestival.com

FREE LISTING & MORE EVENTS www.MissouriLife.com PLEASE NOTE:

CROSS COUNTRY XTREME Nov. 19, Columbia > Four mile walk/run including obstacle course, zombies, chain saw wielding madmen, and post race party. Midway Sandbar. 9 AM-noon. $25-$35 (free for spectators).

573-228-7476, www.xcxtreme.com

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Missouriana Trivia THROUGH THE YEARS

Final thoughts on Missouri veterans, actors, and ghoulish fun.

ANDREW LOVGREN

We couldnthave said it better!

MORE THAN 156,000 Missourians served in the armed forces in WWI. Of those, 11,172 gave their lives. FIVE Missouri soldiers received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

In WWII, 1,806 MISSOURI soldiers died in combat and 2,167 were wounded. media.nara.gov

This year marks the 50TH anniversary of AMERICA’S FIRST foray into the Vietnam conflict.

More than 500,000 VETERANS live in Missouri; 171,000 are from the VIETNAM era. http://va.gov/vetdata/Veteran_Population.asp

Did you know this?

Last year, THE BEAST in Kansas City and The Darkness in St. Louis were named in USA Today’s TOP 13 BEST Haunted House attractions.

THE OFFICE stars Jenna Fischer (Pam) and Phyllis Smith (Phyllis). Both grew up in St. Louis County.

—Dick Gregory, a comedian and activist from St. Louis

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM SULLIVAN

“And we love to dance, especially that new one called the Civil War Twist. The Northern part of you stands still while the Southern part tries to secede.”

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ION. T A C A V A F O S S E DON’T TAKE L s in M is s o u ri . T o fi n d ti o n fo r le s way, Take a vaca u r n e x t g e ta o y r fo s a e ip id -5 4 0 0 a ff o rd a b le tr c a ll 8 0 0 -8 1 0 r o m o .c O M g o to V is it G u id e .

2 0 1 1 T ra v e l e e fr r u o y r fo

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Gather your friends

for great Golf at The Cove or The Ridge A R o b e r t Tr e n t J o n e s S r Signature Course

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Horseshoe Bend Parkway | Four Seasons, MO | On The Lake of the Ozarks Te e t i m e s 5 7 3 - 3 6 5 - 8 5 3 2 | w w w . 4 s e a s o n s r e s o r t . c o m [116] MissouriLife

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