Engage and uplift
Adonica Coleman elevates local voices. p. 14
HALAL DINING PAGE 29 THE HONEY DOVES TAKE FLIGHT PAGE 12 A PIONEERING 1930S AUTHOR PAGE 22 COUNTY ON A (COM)MISSION PAGE 33
NOT SO LITTLE WOMEN
As a woman, I know it can be difficult to navigate your passions outside the little box curated for you. Growing up, I was surrounded by women who made it look easy.
My mom primarily was a single mother. She would work all day, have a meal ready at the end of the day, help me with my homework late at night and have fun with me on the weekends – whether that was spending all day at the mall or staying home watching our favorite movies.
My grandmother also operated as a single, working woman for most of her life. And my three older sisters are all working women who navigate their careers and family lives seamlessly.
It was inherently ingrained in me that I can do it all too. However, my idea of what that looks like has evolved. There is no one-sizefits-all way to be a successful woman. There are so many ways that women can leave a lasting impact on the community.
In this issue of Vox, both of our feature stories highlight women who have left their mark on Columbia. One of these women is Adonica Coleman (p.14), a local entrepreneur and host
of The Daily Blend with AC. As she navigates her job as a lively media personality, she also juggles nonprofit work and event planning, all while caring for her husband and four daughters.
We also take an in-depth look at Frances Rummell (p.22), a former Columbia teacher who wrote the 1930s book Diana, a groundbreaking novel and one of the first lesbian autobiographies. The book was popular worldwide and told an important story of what it was like to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community during a time that was far from accepting.
I love seeing the women in this issue who bring something special to the local community from around the world. Mahalet Tesfaye is actively dishing out culture with her Ethiopian cuisine (p.5), and Elcin Ulker contributes to the halal scene (p.29) as co-owner of Dada Döner.
It’s so important to take a step back and acknowledge the women who have contributed to our lives. The beauty isn’t in a long resume or checking off particular accomplishments – it’s in the diversity of all it means to be a strong woman. Hopefully these stories encourage us to consciously show a little more love to the women who make us who we are.
MICAH BARNES Editor-in-Chief
Behind the issue
When Frances Rummell died, her book, Diana: A Strange Autobiography, which was written under a pseudonym, was so secret that even some of her closest family members didn’t know about it. Investigating Frances’ story felt like delving into a mystery novel, with jaw-dropping revelations as I traced connections between her and notables like author Rose Wilder Lane and literary agent George Bye. Frances’ niece, Jo Markwyn, brought candid memories and sharp intellectual vigor to our hourslong phone calls. Those conversations, combined with news clippings and previously unpublished letters, were crucial in completing this biographical narrative (p. 22). The article is a tribute to a journalist, novelist and educator from our city who wrote with passion and tremendous bravery. That legacy still matters, not just in Columbia but across the world. —Mercy Austin
Frances Rummell, 22, as shown in the 1930 Stephens College yearbook. Rummell taught French at the college.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MICAH BARNES
MANAGING EDITORS GRACE BURWELL, CAYLI YANAGIDA
DEPUTY EDITOR ABIGAIL RAMIREZ
DIGITAL MANAGING EDITOR MJ MONTGOMERY
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT EDITOR DAVID TALLANT
ART DIRECTOR VALERIE TISCARENO
PHOTO DIRECTOR ASHLEE KLOTZBEUCHER
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR OLIVIA MAILLET
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORS LILY CARROLL, SHIRIN REKABDAR-XAVIER
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
CULTURE LILY CARROLL, BRIANNA DAVIS, OLIVIA MAHL, OLIVIA MAILLET, KATE RAMSEYER
EAT + DRINK SAM BARRETT, SARAH GASSEL, SHIRIN REKABDAR-XAVIER, KEVIN UTZ, ELENA WILSON
CITY LIFE BAILEY BECKER, ETHAN DAVIS, LAUREN GREEN, SOPHIA KOCH
STAFF WRITERS AUSTIN GARZA, ALEX GOLDSTEIN, SARAH GOODSON, SYD MINOR, MJ MONTGOMERY, SARAH MOURA, ASHLYNN PEREZ, ALLY SCHNIEPP, EMMA ZAWACKI
SOCIAL & AUDIENCE KALYN LAIRE, ALEX XU
DIGITAL PRODUCERS HAVEN DAGER, ASHLEY DICKEY, PRAJI GHOSH, NAOMI M. KLEIN, KENZIE RIPE, OLIVIA RODRIGUEZ, NATALIE TAN
DESIGN ASSISTANT SOPHIA LINDBERG
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS SOFIA AVILA, MADY CARRUTH, KEARA CONNOLLY, MAYA DAWSON, AUDREY ELLIS, CAMI FOWLER, CHARLIE WARNER
CONTRIBUTING PRODUCERS ARABELLA COSGROVE, CHARLIE DAHLGREN, JAKE MARSZEWSKI
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR HEATHER ISHERWOOD
EXECUTIVE EDITOR LAURA HECK
WRITING COACHES CARY LITTLEJOHN, JENNIFER ROWE
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884-6432
NOVEMBER 2024
VOLUME 26, ISSUE 8
PUBLISHED BY THE COLUMBIA MISSOURIAN LEE HILLS HALL, COLUMBIA MO 65211
Cover design: Valerie Tiscareno
Cover photography: Alex Buchanan
Through Mahi’s Kitchen, Mahalet Tesfaye spreads Ethiopian culture and food.
Get cozy this fall with movies, pies, puzzles and Missouri-based recipes.
Losing a furry friend is hard. Pet grief support groups are here to help.
Turning over a new leaf Vendors helped revitalize the Orr Street Farm & Art Market this season.
Out with the new Revamp your style with the latest vintage fashion at Deco to Retro.
seasoned songbird Childhood dreams tend to fade away — but not for Rochara Knight.
the AC! Adonica Coleman uses passion, love and her voice to uplift those around her.
in the pages Frances Rummell authored the groundbreaking1930s book, Diana
Photography by Alex Buchanan, Monica Dennis, Kyle Maki, Olivia Myska and Claire Nguyen
Mahalet Tesfaye plates siga alicha onto injera bread. In Ethiopian cuisine, the traditional flatbread is often used to scoop up food.
Spices meant for sharing
Mahi’s Ethiopian Kitchen introduces Columbia to its culture and cuisine.
BY ALEX GOLDSTEIN
Mahalet Tesfaye’s journey into food began in her mother’s kitchens. Her mother owned two Ethiopian restaurants in Kenya, where Tesfaye’s family relocated in 1990 to escape the Ethiopian Civil War. They then moved back and forth between the Kenyan cities of Kakuma and Nairobi, but they eventually settled in Kakuma.
The most memorable moments from living in Kenya, Tesfaye says, were from occasions that brought the community together — including New Year’s festivities and parties with friends and family to celebrate a student’s academic achievements.
Kakuma had multiple Ethiopian restaurants, but her mother’s restaurant thrived regardless. People loved the food, Tesfaye says, and her mother made sure everyone in the community had some. “If somebody was hungry, they would eat, no matter what,” she says.
That mission lives on today at Mahi’s Ethiopian Kitchen, which settled into its brick-and-mortar space at 905 Alley A in August. Every part of the restaurant, from the recipes to the wall art, takes inspiration from her mother and growing up around Ethiopian cuisine in Kenya.
Running in the family
Last year, Abbey Mitchell, the owner and chef behind Abbey’s Swahili Delights, helped connect Tesfaye with CoMo Cooks: the shared kitchen where Abbey’s Swahili Delights has operated since April 2023. Tesfaye ran pop-ups
out of CoMo Cooks on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Customers often waited in long lines for their chance to order food at Tesfaye’s pop-ups, and she worked to find the sweet spot each week to ensure nothing went to waste and no one left hungry.
Finding the right amount of menu items to make a restaurant feasible and create a distinct brand were her main challenges, she says.
“That’s part of the test, is going from family to people coming in and ordering and making sure you have enough,” says Carrie Gartner, the executive director of The Loop, where CoMo Cooks is located. Gartner helped both Tesfaye and Mitchell adjust to the shared kitchen environment at CoMo Cooks and witnessed Tesfaye’s graduation to a brickand-mortar restaurant.
Once Columbia residents discovered that the distinctive Ethiopian cuisine was close by, Gartner says they were ecstatic. There weren’t any other Ethiopian restaurants in mid-Missouri, so Tesfaye had “a wide open market,” she says.
Making the menu
The base of an Ethiopian meal is the injera, a traditional flatbread. It’s also the most versatile component. Used in place
of a fork and knife to scoop up meats, veggies and rice, it adds a spongy yet savory dimension to the plate. Ideally, one injera feeds one person.
When someone who’s never tried Ethiopian food comes into Mahi’s, Tesfaye usually points them to the sample platter, featuring two meat options and four vegan options alongside injera.
Doro wot is a spicy chicken and egg stew. Atakilt wot is cabbage and carrots. Dinich alicha wot is potato and carrots. All three are popular choices for beginners. The yemisir wot, a red lentil stew simmered in red pepper sauce, and atakilt wot are two of Tesfaye’s favorites. The yemisir wot, atakilt wot and dinich alicha wot are vegan.
Coming to CoMo
Tesfaye and her family sought asylum in San Jose, California, in 2011. After her mother moved to Columbia in 2014, Tesfaye followed five years later.
Mahalet Tesfaye prepares injera flatbread. Dishes like doro wot, atakilt wot, and dinich alicha wot are popular choices.
CUISINE IS CULTURE
Feeling hungry yet? Add these stops to your list.
Mahi’s Ethiopian Kitchen
905 Alley A #1, open 12:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, mahiethiopian kitchen.com
Abbey’s Swahili Delights 14 Business Loop 70 E., 5-7 p.m. Fridays, @abbey_mitchell on Instagram
But she noticed the ingredients used in Ethiopian cooking were limited in Missouri. Spices are central to the depth of flavor in Ethiopian cuisine. What she tried here was “watered down,” she says. “I wanted something better for people to experience,” Tesfaye says.
In Columbia, she met a Kenyan friend who introduced her to the Kenyans in CoMo WhatsApp group, including Mitchell. Tesfaye was able to fit in with the group because she understood the culture.
The group would organize potluck cookouts whenever they could, usually featuring traditional Kenyan foods. Ethi-
opian cuisine, though, was out of their culinary and geographic reach.“I was like, ‘I miss Ethiopian food,’ because I used to go to Ethiopian restaurants back in Kenya,” Mitchell says.
Tesfaye, the first person of Ethiopian descent to join the group, introduced them to preparing a new realm of tastes.
“They (would) always tell me, ‘Why are you not opening more? Why are you not serving this? People would love this,’” Tesfaye says. “I was trying so hard to avoid it, but in the end, I couldn’t.”
Holding each other’s hands
In general, Mitchell says Ethiopian cuisine uses a variety of spices, whereas Kenyan cuisine mix spices together to create something new.
In the environment of the CoMo Cooks kitchen, Tesfaye and Mitchell could uplift each other’s cuisines by collaborating however they could — when pop-ups got busy or the trial and error process of mixing spices got treacherous.
“We’ve been working through this journey from last year together,” Mitchell says. “I would say we were holding each other’s hand.”
Overall, Tesfaye says she wants Mahi’s to serve as a gathering place where all of Columbia can enjoy food, company and culture, regardless of how seasoned a foodie that person is.
“My objective is just to make people love the food, and introduce the culture and the cuisine to Columbia,” Tesfaye says. “If it makes people happy, why not do it?”
Photography by Olivia Myska
Menu items like doro wot and yemisir sit on top of injera flatbread in a sample platter.
Vox Picks for NOVEMBER
reads and experiences. We find the new, trending or underrated to help you enjoy the best our city has to offer.
BY OLIVIA MAILLET AND SAM BARRETT
COMPETE
puzzle competition and race to be the first team to finish. It’s $30 to play, and while only the fastest team gets a gift card, every team gets to keep their puz zle. This is one of the many contests Hexagon Alley hosts, along with oth er weekly events like Dungeons & Dragons, pinball tournaments and trivia nights. You’ll need a team of up to four people, so bring your family and friends to enjoy some food and drinks while assembling your puzzle. Nov. 17, noon, Hexagon Alley, 111 S. Ninth St., $30, hexagonalley.com
EXPERIENCE
GRAB your hat and broomstick to watch an outdoor showing of the 1993 movie Hocus Pocus at Lakeside Ashland. The outdoor screen at the amphitheater is about 35 feet tall, perfect for bringing this family-friendly classic to life. Watch as a group of kids accidentally free a coven of three evil witches, and have to use magic to stop them from becoming immortal. Nov. 1, 6:30 p.m., Lakeside Ashland, 5900 E. Log Providence Road, lakesideashland. com, $11.63 per ticket
days in advance. The two locations of Peggy Jean’s Pies also offer seasonal pies like pumpkin chiffon and butterscotch bourbon pecan to preorder. Broadway Diner, 22 S. Fourth St., broadwaydinercomo.com; Peggy Jean’s Pies, 503 E. Nifong Blvd. Suite C and 421 N. Stadium Blvd. Suite 103, peggyjeanspies.com
the revitalization of Orr Street Studios at the Stroking Our Creative Fire fundraiser. Orr Street artists are excited to return for the annual gala after the fire that heavily damaged the studios in July. The studios’ south wing experienced repairs through mid-October. There will be free drink tickets from Six-Mile Ordinary distillery, music from DJ Ian Chang, a silent auction and a raffle. Nov. 16, 7-10 p.m., 106 Orr St., $35 general admission, orrstreetstudios.com
READ Missouri Comfort by Mathew Unger and Porcshe Moran-Murphy. The new recipe book was published this September, bringing attention to Missouri’s delicious, homestyle food. Flip through the pages as chef Unger and University of Missouri alumna and food writer Moran-Murphy share how to cook soulful dishes like cashew chicken from Springfield, gooey butter cake from St. Louis and a variety of barbecue dishes from across the ShowMe State. Order a copy from the St. Louis-based Reedy Press, reedypress.com or Skylark Bookshop, skylarkbookshop.com, $32.50
Grieving a pet is a process
Kaleigh Feldkamp runs a pet grief support group and answers some frequently asked questions.
BY SYD MINOR
Loss and grief are natural parts of living. It’s something many people experience after the death of a beloved pet.
Jeff and Jennifer Clouse got their dog, Raisin, a black Labrador mix, in 2011. Clouse says they named her Raisin because she had distinct brown eyelids and black eyes as a puppy that together looked like raisins. Nearly 13 years later, Raisin died after her struggle with abdominal cancer.
“(You) feel kind of silly for struggling with it because it’s just an animal; it’s not your parent or your spouse,” Clouse says.
While looking for local support groups online, Clouse found a pet loss support group led by Kaleigh Feldkamp. Feldkamp is a licensed veterinary social worker at the University of Missouri’s Veterinary Health Center with a master’s degree in social work.
“It was nice to have that environment where you could just talk and listen and share and be with people going through the same thing,” Clouse says. Feldkamp provides individual and group grief counseling for MU vet center clients. Vox spoke with Feldkamp to further understand pet loss and how to work through it.
Why is it important to process pet grief?
It’s a loss just as much as human grief is. If you don’t work to process it in the moment and you don’t work to allow yourself to breathe, those feelings don’t just go away; they’re going to come back up eventually.
How does society view pet loss?
I think pet loss as a whole does fall under the umbrella of disenfranchised grief, which is grief that may not be as societally recognized. I think a lot of people are under the mindset of “Oh, it’s just a pet,” when for a lot of people these pets are members of their family. So, a lot of
people go through sort of a similar grief pattern when they lose their pet as they would if they lost a family member.
How should pet owners approach grieving a pet?
A lot of times, we’re in a place where we don’t allow ourselves to fully experience the true feelings of grief. We either have to work, or plan the funeral, or figure out what we’re going to do with the remains. So, we’re able to distract ourselves a lot in those first few days of the loss. I think just allowing yourself to sit down, and fully allow it all to wash over you, and come to terms with it, and stare at it face-to-face, is pretty important. We shouldn’t expect ourselves to rush through grief. I think we need to be really, really patient with ourselves when it comes to grief, and not hold ourselves to this internal timetable.
What about approaching this grief with children?
I don’t think you should shy away from it. There’s research that shows kids are aware and understand death at an earlier age than we think. I prefer to meet kids where they’re at while also recognizing their intelligence on the subject. There’s also research that shows using words such as “death” and “dying” versus “passed away” or “in a better place” — that using those stronger words actually helps people accept the loss quicker and easier. I think kids are the exact same way. If parents are intimidated by the
GOING ALONE
When asking pet owners how they found comfort after a loss, a 2020 study published in Veterinary Sciences found 74.7% of pet owners who had their pets euthanized chose to mourn privately. Only 0.9% attended a support group.
Kaleigh Feldkamp is a grief counselor who works with people experiencing grief after the death of a pet.
idea of talking to their kids about grief, there are a lot of great children’s books about pet grief specifically that can be really, really helpful tools.
How do you suggest talking to someone who is dealing with a pet’s death?
I think a lot of people are intimidated to talk to someone who is grieving, but a lot of times you don’t really need to say anything at all. You kind of just need to listen and allow yourself to bear witness to their grief. A lot of times they just need someone to sit with them and walk through it with them. They may not need you to give them advice or say anything at all.
by
Photography
Benjamin Zweig
Turning over a new leaf
With revitalized roots, the Orr Street Farm & Art Market looks forward to its next season.
BY AUSTIN GARZA
Since 2011, the Orr Street Farm & Art Market has offered the Columbia community a way to close the weekend with local food and art.
Each Sunday from April to October, it offers live music and a variety of vendors from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. But after the pandemic, the market struggled to maintain a consistent lineup of vendors and lacked the structure to keep business steady.
However, that changed as the market returned for its 2024 season. The market, commonly known as OrrFam, rebranded itself with a refreshed look and expanded social media presence. The lineup doubled, going from 10 businesses to consistently hosting 20. Now, vendors are excited to take that progress into next season.
Growing the market
A crucial player in the market’s recent growth is Laura Cristina. When Cristina moved to Columbia last summer, she started selling baked goods at the market with her business, Dough x Batter. Cristina says she recognized the market’s untapped potential.
“When the time came to start planning for the season in early 2024, the organizers needed a little more help since they were unable to give the market the time it needed to get it out of the rut it was in,” Cristina says.
Cristina took on the responsibili-
Different kinds of peppers, squash and other Missouri-grown vegetables are sold at Orr Street Farm & Art Market.
ty of OrrFam’s market organizer and spearheaded its rebrand. “The roots were already there and we just needed to water and nurture them to produce something amazing,” Cristina says.
OrrFam gives Columbia residents opportunities to connect with local farmers and artists. Lisa Bartlett, owner of Artlandish Gallery, is a prime example and has been involved with the market since its establishment. “We wanted to start a market downtown that students could walk to,” Bartlett says. “It has grown, and people recognize it as an easy, comfortable market.”
A team effort
From fresh produce to live music, the collective effort of each OrrFam contributor helps craft a unique experience for the community.
The 2024 vending season saw new small businesses participating in the market. Vendors say they share the same goal of delivering an accessible marketplace that unites Columbia’s commercial and residential areas.
“I’ve met some great people,”
SEE YOU AT THE MARKET
Meet some of the people who help the market thrive.
DOUGH X BATTER
Cookies, cupcakes and baked items; find Laura Cristina (right) at doughxbatter.com, doughxbatter on Instagram
LITTLE JOLIE’S HOMESTEAD
Flowers and jams; jolieshomestead@ gmail.com, Little Jolie’s Homestead on Facebook
N’SPIRED SCENTS
Body butter, fragrances and room sprays; nspiredscents.com, Nspired_scents on Instagram
says Tonya Kemp, a lifelong Columbia resident and owner of N’spired Scents. “I feel like it’s a group of people I don’t normally encounter vending at other locations. They stop and talk to us about our products.”
Jolie Russell, owner of Little Jolie’s Homestead, says she appreciates OrrFam’s relaxed environment where she can build relationships with the other vendors. “I like that you’re never next to the same booth,” Russell says. “It really gives you a chance to
connect with other vendors.”
Russell travels from Centralia to Columbia for the market, selling homegrown flowers and jams. She plans to sell produce during the 2025 market season.
Looking forward, five vendors will join Cristina as organizers next year.
“The goal is to intertwine what we have built into the North Village Arts District in any way we can,” Christina says. Together, they hope to build on this year’s success.
SHOPPING LOCAL JUST GOT EASIER!
Photography courtesy of Laura Cristina
In with the old, out with the new
Deco to Retro has been a vintage fashion staple in Columbia for 20 years. Meet the mind behind it all: Alinge Laursen.
BY EMMA ZAWACKI
Turning into the parking lot of Deco to Retro, your car jolts in the gravel. You’ll have to eyeball a parking space: the lines have faded. Alinge Laursen has housed her store there for 20 years, after all.
The store itself is in a state of renovation. Parts of the outside have been painted pink, and a new sign is set to go in.
While the store’s exterior gets an update, its contents are aged to perfection. Some of the clothing spills into the yard when Laursen’s collection outgrows the walls of her vintage shop — she’s been collecting vintage items for about 60 years. Laursen tries not to buy anything made after 1999.
Her favorite items to buy are women’s suits from the 1940s. “They made you look like you had an hourglass
Photography by Olivia Myska
figure,” Laursen says. “They added shoulders—very, very detailed—and the material was just beautiful.”
Hunting for vintage
Laursen started shopping for vintage items in Chicago when she was 12. She’d tag along with her grandmother, who was hunting for picture frames, and sort through the clothing racks. She started buying vintage items for resale in 1972.
Four years later, Laursen opened her first vintage shop in Iowa City, Iowa, called How Sweet It Was.
In 1989, Laursen closed down that shop to move to Columbia with her mother. They waitressed together at the Holiday Inn Executive Center.
Meanwhile, Laursen worked part time at her new vintage shop, located in
the Midway Antique Mall. This is where she met her boyfriend of 30 years, Dudley Roth, a fellow vintage collector. He would come in to negotiate for better deals on coveted items.
Roth helped Laursen open Deco to Retro on the Business Loop in a building his mom owned. Laursen was more than happy to move her collection to a building that was more vintage. She has always seen potential in secondhand treasures.
All over the map
When Laursen first started selling vintage items in Iowa, she put an ad in the weekly paper asking for people to sell vintage clothing to her. “People called me all day long and they would just think it was weird that somebody would buy these old things that they had kept for many years,” Laursen says.
Laursen now shops at garage sales, estate sales and auctions for trinkets and clothes to add to her collection.
She has also acquired help over the years. Dutch Coke is a local high schooler who has worked at the store for almost three years.
He sticks around because of his relationship with Laursen. “I love her personality,” Coke says. “She’s always got a fun story to tell. It’s kind of like working for a friend.”
Alinge Laursen sorts through her vintage clothing, accessories and other collectables at Deco to Retro. Laursen has been in the vintage resale business for over 60 years.
WANT TO VISIT?
Find Deco to Retro at 212 Business Loop 70 E. It’s open Monday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Contact the shop at 573-268-8819 or @deco2retro on Instagram.
Throughout her time selling vintage, Laursen gained recognition in the vintage community on a national scale.
“Her shop is known from California to New York and Chicago,” Roth says.
“And everyone loves it.”
In 2011, Laursen had some of her pieces featured in Ralph Lauren’s Double RL store in New York. The buyers who acquired these pieces have returned to her shop each year since.
Laursen has also built local connections through her brand, directing customers to similar businesses nearby.
Being part of the community for 20 years isn’t what makes Deco to Retro a pillar: it’s Laursen’s near-lifelong dedication to procuring vintage clothing, her allegiance to vintage sellers, collectors and shop owners, her contagious, wholehearted love for all things vintage and the 60 years of experience she has to pass along.
Singing from a seasoned soul
Rochara Knight learned how to sing vibrato when she was 4 years old. Three decades later, she formed Rochara Knight and the Honey Doves.
BY EMMA ZAWACKI
For most people, childhood dreams of becoming a pop star, the president or an Olympic gold medalist fade in adulthood. But not for Rochara Knight.
Knight is living out her dream as the lead singer for her band, Rochara Knight and The Honey Doves. The band has been together for five years, but it took a bit of peer pressure from her bandmate, Audra Sergel, for Knight to drum up those childhood ambitions.
“Who’s starting a band in their late 30s, almost 40 years old?” Knight says. “Ain’t nobody starting no band. That’s stuff that you think in your early 20s.”
Luckily, the opportunity was too tempting for Knight to resist.
The band is a melting pot of sound, says Kelli Neale, drummer and an origi-
nal member of the band. Motown, doowop, funk and rock collide to give the band its unique sound. Knight is one of the songwriters, so she understands the band’s sound better than anyone.
“She definitely adds soul,” Neale says. “There’s a specialness to her, just in her energy, in her light. You can’t have (that) kind of magic in a band with just anybody.”
Hitting the high notes
When Neale and Sergel were talking about forming the band, they wanted it to be a vehicle for Knight to get in front of an audience.
“If we could facilitate being the backing band for her, that’s what we wanted to do because she deserves to be heard and seen and in front of as many
eyes as possible,” Neale says.
Once Knight agreed, the band needed to choose a name. Sergel, the band’s pianist, invited some of the members over for a barbecue where they started brainstorming and using an online band name generator. “(Sergel) pulls up her laptop and she’s like, ‘All right Rochara, what’s your favorite color? Who’s your favorite artist? What’s your favorite drink?’ ” Knight says.
Purple, Prince and tea with honey, if you were wondering.
After all the questions were asked and answered, Rochara Knight and The Honey Doves was born.
”Chara sauce”
Rochara Knight and The Honey Doves’ self-titled album came out in October 2023. Due to the pandemic, Knight says completing the first album took longer than expected. A year after its release, they’re ready to work on a second album.
Knight says she will take a snippet of music the band was playing in rehearsal and come back with a fully finished song — other times, it just comes to her while she writes. “ ‘Broken Record’ was written right after George Floyd happened,” Knight says. “That whole situation was really heart-wrenching for me. I remember very clearly. I cried myself to sleep, woke up and the song was there.”
Rochara Knight and The Honey Doves perform for First Fridays in October. The band formed in 2019 as a quartet.
GET INTO THE MUSIC
The band’s selftitled album is out on all streaming platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify. Follow Rochara Knight and The Honey Doves on Instagram and Facebook at @rkhdband.
Knight always has a song in her head, whether it’s a collaboration among her bandmates — who she calls the “music mafia” — or thinking of tunes in her sleep and humming them while she’s at work. She says if she can hear the song in her head, she can play it on the piano at rehersal.
“We as a rhythm section lay a pretty foundational groove down for her to what some of us band members refer to as the ‘Chara sauce,’ and let her just vocally float on top of us,” says Caleb Alexander, the band’s guitar player.
Setting the stage
The band has evolved since its creation, but music has been a common thread in Knight’s life, long before The Honey Doves. “There was always music in our house,” says Knight’s mom, Charlena Yancey. “We listened to music more than
Photography by Claire Nguyen
we watched television.”
Being a singer and previously in a band herself, Yancey often played music in the background — there was never a time without it. She passed down her love of Motown, jazz, rock and Aretha Franklin. Knight’s musical muses also include the sounds of The Supremes, Chaka Khan and Diana Ross.
The drummer for Yancey’s band, TNT (Tons of Nothing but Talent), taught Knight how to sing vibrato in the family bathroom when she was 4 years old. “I don’t remember a time when I
didn’t sing,” Knight says.
When Knight was young, her mom got her a microphone with different pedals that lit up. “You could basically make up your own stage show with these lights and this microphone,” Knight says. “I would put together an entire set list, and I would bring my microphone out with my little boombox and I would perform a whole show for my parents. God bless ’em, they would endure it.”
Yancey didn’t see it as a something to endure. As a mom and music lover, she was in awe. “She is a God-gifted so-
Rochara Knight has been singing since she was a child and used to perform for her parents. Now, she sings in front of crowds as the frontwoman of a band.
From left, background vocalists Kona Asi and Enola White and lead vocalist Rochara Knight practice for a performance at Rose Music Hall.
loist,” Yancey says. “She is awesome. She really is, and she’s so much better than I.”
Before starting her band, Knight found a way to use her gift in other ways. She acted in musical theater locally for 15 years in productions of Rent, Little Shop of Horrors and Jesus Christ Superstar. She’d sing at weddings and funerals, or perform the national anthem for events. Knight graced the stage in The Jane Doe Revue, an all-female orchestra, in 2018 and 2019 at The Blue Note. Sergel and Nancy Dietz, the bassist in the band, were also in the orchestra. Other notable venues have been the recordBar and Uptown Theater, both in Kansas City.
“When it’s something that’s always in your heart you can’t let it go,” Knight says. “It’s always something that you just want to do and love to do and it’s just always a part of you.”
Music, for Knight, has always been what speaks to her soul, and Rochara Knight and The Honey Doves is the outlet for those thoughts. She dreams of songs and thinks in lyrics, using her lifetime of musical experience to make her childhood fantasies a reality.
AC !
BY SAVVY
Known across Columbia for her ability to create a more connected community, Adonica Coleman is embedded in local culture. Full of passion, curiosity and boundless love for those around her, Coleman is using her voice to uplift friends and strangers alike.
When Adonica Coleman’s sleek high heels carried her into Shortwave Coffee on Ninth Street one afternoon, heads quickly turned. As more and more people — both patrons and folks behind the counter — recognized the local entrepreneur and The Daily Blend with AC host, Coleman was greeted with grins and quick conversations before she took her seat at a coffee-ringed table.
With keen expertise in public service, nonprofit work, event planning and, according to her friends, some top-notch mixology, Coleman is a pro at building connections. “I’m just about the community,” Coleman says. “I get my energy from people.”
Coleman’s mile-long resume, her contagious love for local culture and a voice that makes you feel right at home all combine to form her signature radiance, both on KBIA airwaves and among waves of people at bustling events. And when someone like Coleman gives so much of her time, energy, encouragement and love to Columbia, you’re compelled to wonder: what inspires her passion for our city? What ignites her fire?
Coleman’s metamorphosis into a ubiquitous community leader began nearly two decades ago, and with her friends, faith and family by her side, she’s been flourishing ever since.
SLEEVAR PHOTOS BY ALEX BUCHANAN DESIGN BY LIN CHOI EDITING BY SAM BARRETT
Adonica Coleman wears many hats, from a leader at the Day FoundationDreams to chair of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce to host of The Daily Blend.
Columbia, Maryland Columbia, Missouri ➡️
Almost every day, Coleman’s schedule is ultra-booked. Her morning alarm, set for 6:30 a.m., goes off in unison with her daughters’ alarms, urging Coleman’s whole house to get ready for the day. After her kids head off to school, Coleman settles into one meeting or another by 9 a.m. Some days, it’s a team meeting for COMO 411, a digital platform Coleman founded to showcase Columbia’s vibrant culture through events, local partnerships and a community talk show.
Other days, Coleman attends one-onone sessions with mentees, meetings as the executive director for the Day Dreams Foundation or meetings for the Columbia Chamber of Commerce. In July, she became the chamber chair, making her the first person of color to serve in this role in the chamber’s century-plus-long history.
On top of that, Coleman spends every other Tuesday recording episodes of The Daily
Blend with AC, which airs on KBIA five days a week from 8:50-9 a.m. The Daily Blend was born out of Coleman’s original COMO 411 talk show, and given a prime morning time slot that local radio and television legend Paul Pepper stewarded for years. Coleman uses these 10 minutes to feature Columbia’s artists, chefs, change makers, nonprofit leaders, small business owners and more.
Celebrating Columbia through public service and community involvement has been Coleman’s style for over a decade now. However, this isn’t the first Columbia she’s called home. Before moving to mid-Missouri in 2007, Coleman’s family lived nearly 1,000 miles away in Columbia, Maryland. “You can imagine that the post office was super confused about forwarding our mail because they thought we had made a mistake,” Coleman says.
“I’m just about the community, I get my energy from people.”
~Adonica Coleman
During her first few years in Columbia, Missouri, Coleman spent time at home raising her first two daughters. “We didn’t have any roots in Columbia,” Coleman says. She and her husband are both St. Louis natives.
“So I really didn’t know anybody. When you’re staying home with kids, it’s kind of a lonely life.” But her husband, DeMarko Coleman, came home one day in 2009 and told her about an organization called Granny’s House, a youth outreach program serving children in public housing. “I think that was really my jumping off point into community involvement in Columbia,” Coleman says.
In addition to her early volunteering, Coleman sought out another enterprise that engaged her creative mind: event planning. What started out as a request to plan a friend’s surprise birthday party in 2011 — “I got to plan a party on somebody else’s money,” Coleman says — soon transformed into A2D (attention to detail) Events. Not only did this allow Coleman to learn more about the ins and outs of event organization, it also enabled her to marry her nonprofit work with her savvy planning skills. “I took that knowledge and used it to help Granny’s House create an annual fundraiser,” Coleman says. Once you work with one, she explains, a sort of snowball effect begins to take shape. “And I started working with lots of other nonprofits,” She says. Soon enough, Coleman was picking up steam. Coleman remembers exactly where she was when COVID-19 rocked the world in March 2020: Sin City.
As a Stephens College adjunct professor
for event and convention management at the time, Coleman accompanied a group of students to a 7,000-person international event planning conference in Las Vegas — just in time for the U.S. to effectively shut down.
“I got a chance to see in real time really large event planning companies, like multimillion-dollar companies, who were losing contracts,” Coleman recalls. “To me, it felt like something bigger was happening than what the news was saying at the time.”
In response, she was determined to stay ahead of the curve, spearheading virtual event planning before many of her clients even thought to ask her for it. Coleman says the pandemic years were some of her busiest. They were also some of her most enlightening. As she hosted more and more virtual events, she often found herself acting as the mouthpiece for the organizations she worked with — after all, not all executive directors love being in front of the camera.
Coleman, on the other hand, thrived in the spotlight, planting the seed for yet another business idea. Casey Twidwell, a friend in Columbia’s nonprofit scene who now manages community engagement at Heart of Missouri CASA, was one of the first people to help her unearth it.
“What is going on with your face?” Twidwell texted her one day in September 2022. The two were in a Broadway Christian Church staff meeting, with
What’s the 411, hun?
Twidwell attending in-person and Coleman via Zoom. “I could just tell on her face that something was going on,” Twidwell says. “I could tell that there was something that she wasn’t saying.”
Coleman told Twidwell what she’d been mulling over. “In just a few sentences, (she) laid out her idea for COMO 411,” Twidwell says. “I’d read all that, and my response was, ‘Oh, you’re gonna need me.’ And she said, ‘I definitely do.’”
Over the next year, Twidwell, alongside Jill Leet, Sunitha Bosecker and Jazmyn Drake, helped Coleman build COMO 411. When people ask Coleman what inspired the name, her answer is part dial-era history lesson, part music recommendation. Back when she was young, you could pick up a phone and dial 4-1-1 for information — the temperature, the time, all the basics — about the city you were in. As a result, “What’s the 411?” became another way for folks to say “What’s the word?” In 1992, Mary J. Blige released an album called What’s the 411?, which 20-yearold Coleman listened to with religious intensity. “So, for me, the name was easy: The COMO 411,” she says. “It just made sense to me.”
As COMO 411 gained traction, Coleman and her friends, like many others in the community, admired another Columbia talk show host, Paul Pepper. For a time, Coleman’s show and Pepper’s developed an informal synergy; his Radio Friends was often booked up
The Daily Blend with AC features community leaders like Eryca Neville (middle) and Nikki Carter (right), with host Adonica Coleman (left).
Adonica-nize it!
with guests months in advance, so Coleman’s emerging show became another option for nonprofits that were looking to promote their work.
The question of Pepper’s retirement soon became this ongoing mystery at COMO 411. Coleman found out through a phone call with her mother when Pepper, a cornerstone in the broadcast community for decades, decided to wrap up Radio Friends in late 2023. The next thing she knew, she and her team were in the midst of transition, gearing up to put their own unique touch on Pepper’s well-loved time slot, rebranding Coleman’s show for the KBIA airwaves.
When the time came to record the first episode of The Daily Blend, Coleman had no doubt in her mind about who she wanted as her first guest. After a crossed-fingered phone call and a little convincing, she got him; Pepper agreed
to star in Coleman’s KBIA premiere.
Everybody who retires should get a retirement cake, Coleman told him at the end of the episode, handing him an iced bundt cake draped in shiny cellophane. To pay homage to Pepper’s love for Hawaii (hence his signature Hawaiian shirts), I had them make it look like a pineapple.
Since Pepper’s appearance on the show in February, over 100 episodes have followed.
For all the events Coleman has planned for local nonprofits and corporate clients over the years, there is one she’s always avoided: “Weddings have never been my jam,” Coleman says. “That’s a whole different ball game.” For longtime friend Nikki Carter, though, Coleman made an exception, planning what Carter describes as a
“fairytale-esque” wedding at The Atrium on Tenth in June 2022. “Everything about it was absolutely perfect,” Carter says. Carter works as the director of Belonging and Community Impact at MU Health Care, creating opportunities for upward mobility among employees and cultivating an inclusive work culture. She first crossed paths with Coleman in the nonprofit world. Carter was a guest speaker at The BOLD Academy. When they found themselves sitting next to each other at lunch that day, the pair instantly clicked. They chatted about life, motherhood, you name it. “I remember leaving that interaction being like, ‘she gets me,’” Carter says. “When you know you found a sister and a friend, it was that kind of thing.”
Eryca Neville (left) and Nikki Carter (right) both find support and encouragement in their friendships with Adonica Coleman (middle).
That sisterhood is what allowed Carter to put her faith in Coleman ahead of her wedding — even in the midst of unexpected grief. As plans for the wedding began to take shape, Carter’s grandmother contracted COVID-19 and died in 2021. “I just kind of shut down,” Carter says. In the wake of her beloved grandmother’s passing, a large wedding just didn’t seem fitting anymore. We’ll do something small, Carter thought. I don’t have it in me to do something grand
Coleman understood. Not long before Carter lost her grandmother, Coleman had lost both of her own. She acted as a pillar of support for Carter as she grieved, helping her brainstorm what a more intimate wedding at a smaller venue could look like. But months later, the unexpected came calling yet again. After an ownership change at The Atrium, Carter got a phone call letting her know that her name was somehow still on the books. Although Carter was still grieving, she says it felt like the stars had aligned. Ask them if they’d still honor your original pricing, Coleman told her. They would. Let’s go for it.
The grand wedding was back on, and Coleman put her personal touch on near-
Adonica Coleman and her husband, DeMarko Coleman, sometimes collaborate through Adonica’s business, A2D Events, with DeMarko DJing.
Adonica Coleman keeps her four daughters in mind when working to elevate Black women in the community.
CoMo’s most badass women
ly every aspect of the event. “She rode that roller coaster with me,” Carter says. “From the floral arrangements to the ambiance to the bridal suite to prepping the food — to literally everything — I would communicate what I’ve liked, and she ‘Adonica-nized’ it and just made it the most amazing day.”
Even though her grandmother wasn’t there to see it, Carter still thinks of her wedding — and Coleman’s role in making it happen — fondly. Having someone there to plan it all, right down to the charming little details, after such a difficult loss felt like a gift, Carter says. Perhaps Coleman’s ability to pull it all together didn’t surprise her, though. After all, she’d watched her friend run businesses, plan fabulous events and dazzle rooms throughout their friendship.
“To see her with an idea or a thought or something she thinks she can do and then just go for it — she’s my She-Ra in that regard,” Carter says. In the public eye and behind closed doors, Twidwell notes how Coleman’s passion and genuine care of those around her remains steadfast. “She’s the same person,” Twidwell says of her friend’s extroverted persona. “But she chooses very carefully who she allows to see all of her.”
Twidwell says many of the people Coleman chooses are “some of our community’s most badass women,” and
these friendships are about as tight-knit as they come. Twidwell says she wouldn’t know what to do without the four-person group chat she and Coleman message in every day.
And for Frederick Douglass High School principal Eryca Neville, her friendship with Coleman and other women of color helps sustain her as they work to leave positive legacies in the community, she says. As Neville describes it, she and Coleman run real tight behind closed doors. “That is the blossoming friendship that a lot of people don’t realize is happening behind the scenes that keeps that professional push going,” Neville says. “It is phenomenal to have that type of camaraderie and support.”
Social work care coordinator and University of Missouri researcher Suzette Mizutani Bacon says she finds solace and safety in the everlastingly active group chat she’s in with Coleman. “I can vent, I can cry, I can just talk about myself, or, on the other hand, everyone else does that, too,” Bacon says. “We’re supporting one another through words because we don’t have a lot of time to get together.”
Bacon, who used to live just up the street from Coleman, made a lasting first impression with the help of an R&B music station. “Adonica tells the story that she came to my house for the first time, and Marvin Gaye was playing,”
Bacon says. “And I think she was like, ‘this girl has good taste in music.’ So, I think music and just this energy that we both had brought us together.”
Alongside her network of dedicated friends, Coleman’s drive to contribute to the community is also sustained by her faith, Bacon says. “I think (it’s) her belief in a higher power and how we’re called to do more” she says.
As her friends can attest, Coleman is also a fiercely loving mother; her husband and four daughters are her backbone. In Twidwell’s eyes, that’s part of why Coleman puts so much of herself into the community. “She does it for her girls,” Twidwell says. “She does it so that she can be a part of creating a community that is ready and willing and has the ability to elevate Black women.”
Neville concurs, noting Coleman’s commitment to bridging gaps in the community and her talent for bringing people together, whether it’s the public or a hand-picked group. “She has cultivated relationships with so many other female entrepreneurial creatives that she just figures out how to pull a team together and get the work done,” Neville says. “She’s got the vision, though. I work in multiple spaces that reinforce the fact every day that if there is no vision, the people perish — she is not short of vision.”
Adonica Coleman (left) uses her 10-minute slot at KBIA to feature small business owners, nonprofits, artisans, chefs and community leaders like Eryca Neville (middle) and Nikki Carter (right).
WHERE’S ADONICA COLEMAN?
• From 8:50-9 a.m., listen to Coleman host The Daily Blend with AC Monday through Friday on the KBIA airwaves or at kbia.org.
• The show was born out of Coleman’s orginal platform, COMO 441, which still operates today to highlight Columbia’s culture through events, outreach and more. Informatin and episodes of The Daily Blend can be found at como411.com.
• In the afternoon, Coleman can normally be found in meetings at the Day Dreams Foundation, an organization that works to eliminate barriers to participation in extracurricular activities for children ages 5 to 18. Learn more at daydreamsfoundation.org or visit them at 1 E Broadway Suite C.
• Any other times of the day Coleman can probably be found planning an event through her business A2D Events, which orchestrates anything from corporate holiday parties to baby showers. Find out more at a2deventdecor.com.
Hidden in the Pages
Frances Rummell was a writer and teacher in Columbia in the 1930s. She also — unbeknownst to most who knew her — wrote an influential lesbian autobiography in 1939 that was distributed around the world. Vox went searching to uncover the woman behind the pen, and discovered her inspiring story.
Our designer imagined a rendition of Diana, the main character in Frances Rummell’s book.
It was the summer of 1939, just weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland that launched World War II. Frances Rummell, a Hickman High School teacher, spent her days in New York City, working away at a manuscript that many of her close friends and family members didn’t even know existed.
She stayed in the apartment of a famous author, worked with a respected publisher and was represented by one of the most high-profile literary agents in the country. What she created would be scandalous for its time and groundbreaking in its exploration of a genre that barely existed until decades later. But a team of people stood willing to support her and disguise her identity.
Her book was the culmination of a life marked by depression, exploration and eventually joy: her experience as a lesbian growing up in the Midwest.
When Diana: A Strange Autobiography was published in September 1939 under the pseudonym Diana Frederics, its rapid popularity led to publication in countries across the world. Within a genre of novels that typically ended in tragic deaths, it was one of the only explicitly lesbian stories where two women ended up happy together at the end.
For over 70 years after its publication, no one knew about Rummell’s accomplishment. But in 2010, a team of PBS researchers on the show History Detectives launched an investigation into the real author of the book, using a Library of Congress copyright message as their guide. The truth behind the author’s life was astonishing.
Rummell graduated from Hickman High School and the University of Missouri. She taught as an assistant professor of French at Stephens College before teaching French and creative writing at Hickman. She was an accomplished journalist, author and educator from Columbia who interacted with a litany of well-known historical figures. And she, like the main character of Diana, was a lesbian who had several long-term relationships with women throughout the 20th century.
Much of Rummell’s memory has been lost to time. Yet, Vox tracked down substantial information about her life — not just from archived letters and newspaper clippings, but also through stories by someone who knew her.
Rummell’s niece, Jo Markwyn, was born in Columbia and is, by her own account, one of the last living people who still remembers Rummell.
Markwyn didn’t know Rummell was a lesbian until after she died, and she didn’t know about Diana until she was contacted for the PBS episode. But she remembers her aunt as a firm Democrat who traveled often, loved The Beatles and wrote articles about celebrities of the time. Markwyn admired Rummell for her independence and the way she redefined ideas about women’s roles.
“She was a different form of womanhood, and that’s ignoring the sexual aspect,” Markwyn says. “I suppose it made me realize that not everybody married and had kids, which was exactly what I wanted to do — and did. But she also encouraged me that I could go to graduate school and do things like that.”
So, who was the author of Diana? Here’s what we know.
The ‘strange’ life of Frances Rummell
Frances Rummell was born in Brookfield, Missouri, in 1907, and her family moved to Columbia after her older brother began studying at MU.
Shortly after the move, when Rummell was 10 years old, her father died by suicide. He had suffered a serious financial reversal from an oil stock failure, after which he’d been “despondent for several days,” according to a Columbia Missourian article from the time. The loss affected Rummell for the rest of her life. Markwyn remembers Rummell telling her that suicide was “the most selfish thing anyone could do.”
Rummell graduated from Columbia High School in 1924, four years before it became Hickman. At MU, she completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees studying French and received a teaching certificate. She taught at Stephens while finishing her graduate degree, according to a Stephens College catalog provided by instruction librarian Anne Cox.
At 23, Rummell moved to France to study for six months at the Sorbonne. There are few records about her time there, but Markwyn says that when Rummell returned in 1931,
she smuggled a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses into Columbia — then one of the most notorious banned books in the country.
After the trip, Rummell returned to Columbia and lived at home with her mother, grandmother and sister. She was hired at Hickman in 1933, where she taught for six years. On top of teaching, she developed a passion for writing about education. She began contributing articles to a variety of publications, sometimes using pseudonyms when tackling controversial topics.
During her time at Hickman, Rummell met someone who Markwyn says became both a writing mentor and a close friend: Rose Wilder Lane.
Lane was known because along with her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, she contributed to and secured publication for the Little House series, which chronicled Ingalls Wilder’s pioneer childhood. Lane was an accomplished writer herself who wrote multiple commercially successful novels and biographies.
Lane stayed at the Tiger Hotel in Columbia for several months in the mid-1930s while working on a book about Missouri’s history, which never ended up getting published. Markwyn believes this was when the two first met. Four years after that stay, Rummell traveled to New York and spent the summer in a vacant apartment belonging to Lane.
Thus began the summer of 1939 — just months before Diana was published by Dial Press, a New York publisher. Markwyn saved a Missourian clipping from shortly after Rummell’s return to Columbia, which includes stories Rummell shared about the city during homeroom at Hickman.
“Her friend, Rose Wilder Lane, invited her to spend the summer in her apartment in New York, where she could write freely and without interruption,” the article reads. “Famous authors often like to have a hideaway where no one can find them, and this was such a place.”
Rummell’s literary agent, George Bye, was a prominent figure in the literary world, agenting books for a number of high-profile authors. He represented Ingalls Wilder and Lane and helped publish Charles Lindbergh’s The Spirit of St. Louis
Almost 60 pages worth of letters still exist between Rummell and Bye, which were donated to Columbia University after Rummell’s death. Intriguingly, almost
no letters were preserved from the period when Rummell was writing Diana, even though she was already working with Bye at that time.
It was through Bye that his most famous client reached out to Rummell — Eleanor Roosevelt.
“Miss Rummell’s literary agent was also the agent of Mrs. Roosevelt, and Mrs. Roosevelt was so interested in an article by Miss Rummell that she wrote and invited Miss Rummell to tea,” the 1939 Missourian article continues.
In Roosevelt’s daily newspaper column, “My Day,” she wrote about meeting Rummell on Aug. 25, 1939. “I was very much impressed by Miss Rummell, a teacher from Missouri,” she wrote. “She has sold an article on education to one of the magazines with a wide circulation and her ideas on education are interesting.”
The day before Diana was published, Rummell wrote to Bye that she was resigning from Hickman to become a full-time writer. She moved to a suburb of Washington, D.C. in 1940 and worked in journalism and public relations for multiple federal and educational agencies during the war.
When Rummell was about 33, Markwyn says she started a relationship with Isabelle “Belle” Lynn, who moved in with Rummell at her mother’s Columbia house and then lived with her in D.C. Markwyn was a kid, but remembers Lynn as a fun person who had complicated relationships with Rummell’s family members. Markwyn didn’t know why that was at the time, but in retrospect, she understands it was because of their lesbian relationship.
Rummell moved to Berkeley, California over 10 years later, Markwyn says, and wrote stories for Reader’s Digest. She stopped living with Lynn and began living with another woman, Ruth Morgan, later that decade.
Throughout this time, Rummell began working on another book. At 52, she published a novel about the stock market under her own name called Aunt Jane McPhipps and her Baby Blue Chips. It tells the story of a widow exploring the “profits and pitfalls of money and love against the colorful background of San Francisco,” according to the dust jacket.
“Women are natural-born investors, once they get over the fear of stepping into a man’s world,” Rummell said in a Missourian article about the book.
Markwyn says Rummell was frustrated with her
Spring 1931
Rummell travels to Paris and spends six months studying at the
Frances Rummell lived an extraordinary life. Here she is in her 1924 Columbia High School yearbook photo and as a young child (top photos). In 1947, Rummell (below, second from left) represented the U.S. Office of Education to help honor a retired teacher. There were many covers of her Diana: A Strange , including the original 1939 edition (left) and the 1952 edition (far left).
publisher’s promotion of the novel, calling the title and cover too “cutesy.” Nonetheless, the book went on to become a bestseller after its publication, and Rummell was named one of MU’s 100 most distinguished women graduates in 1968.
Rummell was visiting UCLA in 1969 when she suffered from a stroke and later died in the UCLA Medical Center. Obituaries from the Missourian and the San Francisco Inquirer hailed her as a prolific writer and nationally known journalist. She was 61 years old.
Hidden lesbian identity
That’s a glimpse of Rummell’s story, or at least the clues toward it revealed through Markwyn and documents from the time. But there’s a whole other side of the picture — the emotional side of her experience as a lesbian that is only told through the story of Diana.
The book tells the story of the author, under the pseudonym Diana Frederics, finding out she’s a lesbian in high school by reading one of her father’s books about sex. Following a battle with shame and depression, Diana has a heterosexual “trial marriage” with a man to whom she later confesses her lesbian identity. It launches her on a journey to discover that relationships with women can be emotionally fulfilling. The story ends with a happy relationship between the author and a woman the book calls Leslie.
“This is the autobiography of a woman who tries to be normal,” reads a publisher’s note in the first edition. “The publishers wish it to be expressly understood that this is not a work of fiction. It is a true story, the first of its kind ever offered to the general reading public.”
There are many similarities between Rummell’s story and Diana’s. Like Diana, Rummell had a boyfriend in college whom she later broke up with, after which she only lived with women. Both women lost their fathers at a young age, attended a sorority, spent a period of time at the Sorbonne in Paris, were prolific writers, owned a cocker spaniel and taught as language professors at a women’s college.
But important details were changed. Diana had three older brothers; Rummell had two older brothers and a younger sister. And unlike Diana, who got her master’s degree from a women’s college and came
Hickman High School and writes for a variety
back from France to teach there, Rummell taught at Stephens before leaving for France and taught at Hickman upon her return.
Markwyn says she believes the book is “an emo tional autobiography, but it’s not one that is an accurate portrayal of the details of her life.”
Lillian Faderman brings insight on the genre of lesbian autobiographies. She’s an internationally ac claimed lesbian historian who has studied written 12 books on LGBTQ+ history. She’s also the author of her own memoir, Naked in the Promised Land
“Having written an autobiography myself, I know what it’s like to try to reconstruct your life,” Fader man says. “There’s so much I didn’t say, not because I wanted to censor it but because I had to find some main themes and carry them out, and that’s what I did. I didn’t invent any characters, but I certainly dropped a lot of people in my life because they didn’t fit the main themes. So, I imagine (Rummell) did the same thing, but since she didn’t use her own name, she might not have felt as obliged as I did to stick to reality.”
Diana is not an entirely positive depiction of lesbian identity, Faderman says. It makes a point of lesbian promiscuity, at one point featuring a love tri angle where one of Diana’s love interests begins an affair with a married woman. Nonetheless, the book is extraordinary in both its explicit identification of lesbianism and its happy ending between two women.
Prior to the mid-20th century, LGBTQ+ identity was known but rarely talked about, discussed in whis pers and behind closed doors. But during what’s now known as the Lavender Scare in the 1950s, it became highly politicized. The American government began an intense crackdown on homosexuality in public jobs, and in 1952, it was added as a mental illness to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In Columbia, MU launched a crackdown on suspected homosexuals that led to two decades of arrests, expulsions and forced resignations among faculty and students.
Ironically, this period gave rise to a surge in lesbian art and literature, including Diana. A surprisingly erot ic genre of books emerged using motifs surrounding forbidden love and darkness. A foreword of Rummell’s book credited her with “lighting a little lamp on the hidden altar of lesbianism.”
Sept. 29, 1939
published by the New
Throughout this period, Diana was reprinted multiple times. Two French editions were released in the late 1940s and at least three others were released in the U.S. in the ’50s and early ’60s. Faderman didn’t discover Diana until the 1960s when she purchased it in a used bookstore as a graduate student. But she wishes she’d discovered the book earlier.
“(The genre) was just such a gift to lesbians,” Faderman says. “I came out as a teenager in 1956, and of course, I devoured those paperback novels. It was one of the few places that you could read about love between women. You could read about eroticism between women, although it couldn’t get too sexy for obvious reasons.”
While the novels were in frequent circulation at this point, there was one stipulation that almost all publishers followed to avoid getting in trouble: the books needed a “redeeming social purpose.” In other words, they needed to end badly.
“What I learned was it was best to stop reading before the last 20 pages or so,” Faderman says. “I, and I’m sure a lot of other lesbians, devoured those love scenes, but it was depressing to read to the end. ‘Redeeming social purpose’ — to show that we could never end happily.”
Protagonists in these books usually had lives that ended in suicide, were forced into heterosexual marriage or resided in permanent loneliness. So, how did Diana survive publication and mass circulation?
Matt Fetterly, a research associate at the Boone County History and Culture Center, points to a reason for the success of Diana: It was published at the perfect time.
“We’re coming out of the roaring ’20s, a period of wide social acceptance for things,” Fetterly says. “And you know, (Rummell) just got the timing right. I feel like she must have had some sense of that, too, the way she writes it. She’s clearly a woman of remarkable will.”
The book was written while awareness of lesbian identity was growing but before the major political crackdown censoring lesbian books. The time was ripe for a salacious story. And thus, Diana took flight.
A Columbia legacy
In her writings, Rummell reckons with Columbia and her complicated feelings about her upbringing in the
After moving to Berkeley, California, she works as an education consultant with
Midwest. At various points throughout her letters, she rails against both Hickman and Stephens, referring to her “terrible teaching job” at Hickman and “that horrendous Stephens College,” a place where “the three R’s,” reading, writing and arithmetic, “have been shelved for the three P’s: Poise, Polish and Personality.”
Reading her letters in retrospect offers a glimpse into the mind of a woman in a gridlock between her passion, ambition, political intensity and the institutions she feels aren’t ready to change.
But Diana offers a candid and even tender look at Missouri life, under the guise of being set in Kentucky — “the part of Kentucky which the South calls midwestern and the Midwest calls south,” Rummell writes.
“In spite of my fondness for northern Kentucky, it has always annoyed me that it had to be located in such an equivocal latitude,” she wrote. “Since I must question which sex I belong to, it would be satisfying to be able to think of myself as positively something, as positively midwestern or southern. But I straddle the question of geography even as I do that of gender.”
“You know, that just hits a Missouri person right over the head,” Fetterly says. “Because you know she’s not talking about Kentucky. It doesn’t make any sense.”
The depictions only become more complex. Rummell’s descriptions of Stephens College in Diana show
a world that is surprisingly receptive to lesbian identity. She describes the school as “the elysian fields of the lesbian,” where “segregation of the sexes tended to make practicing lesbians out of girls who have potentialities.”
That contradiction — between social stigma and progressivism, between loathing and affection — sits at the heart of Rummell’s portrayal of Missouri. Columbia was on the leading edge of many political controversies throughout Rummell’s lifetime, as the city has historically been centered in what Fetterly calls a “clutch spot” for a lot of cultural issues.
“North and south, east and west, they all come together here in Columbia and we have this little pressure cooker of minds — people that like to think about ideas and talk about ideas,” Fetterly says.
It would be 45 years after Rummell’s death before anyone apart from her closest confidants would know her secret. But her name, her identity and her accomplishments are known today. Rummell’s story is sitting in archives, a Library of Congress copyright card and the memories of those who knew her — waiting to be requested, to be known.
“Don’t you think,” the character Leslie asks at the end of the book, “there is such a thing as vows meaning more just because they are secret?”
Her book, Aunt Jane McPhipps and her Baby Blue Chips, a guide for women to invest in the stock market, is published.
MU names Rummell one of its 100 most distinguished graduates, and she travels to Columbia for the ceremony.
A guide to halal in Columbia
Learn what halal is, and the best places to find it.
BY SARAH MOURA
In a small city like Columbia, finding halal food options can be difficult — or expensive. Halal is also often misunderstood by non-Muslims. But as the Muslim population grows across the U.S., more restaurants and markets are emerging to serve this community.
Shadid Shakhawat, the education chair for the University of Missouri’s Muslim Student Organization, defines halal this way: “It’s essentially what
God has made permissible to Muslims,” Shakhawat says. “Like certain actions, certain attributes, certain things that we do are considered halal or haram, which is impermissible.”
The American Halal Foundation defines halal, also spelled halaal, as lawful or permitted in Arabic, whereas haram is unlawful or forbidden. These words inform the life practices of people who follow Islam.
Elcin Ulker puts curry sauce on a chicken plate at Dada Döner. The Turkish restaurant has a menu of hand-prepared halal dishes.
Zabiha halal is specific to consuming meats that follow Muslim practices, including giving the animal the respect it deserves as God’s creation. This entails a healthy life and a death that’s as painless as possible, Shakhawat says. Additionally, before slaughtering the animal, one must call it out in God’s name. Some common meats that are considered fit for Muslim consumption are beef, lamb, chicken, fish, venison and game bird. Carnivorous
Photography by Kyle Maki
animals, swine and meat not butchered by Islamic slaughtering rites are haram.
“I’ve had the experience of struggling to find sources to eat,” Shakhawat says. “The problem with halal meat is it’s pretty expensive because it’s rare to find.”
Shakhawat grew up following zabiha halal. She says the biggest misconception of zabiha halal is that they don’t eat meat. “I’ve had the experience of when I was in elementary school and I had some friends of mine who would say, ‘Oh, that’s meat, you can’t eat it,’ and I’m just like, ‘Actually, I kind of can,’ ” she says.
A growing community
According to research by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, the American Muslim population is projected to become the second largest religious group in the United States by 2040, contributing to halal eating becoming more mainstream. Not all Muslims practice halal, however.
Regardless of the national growth in Muslim communities and halal food accessibility, following a halal diet in non-metropolitan cities such as Columbia can still be difficult.
The A&Y Global Market was the only zabiha-friendly market in Columbia until Kabul Market was established
earlier this year. The newer market has reported it’s already serving over a dozen families in Columbia and that customers have shown interest in eateries that accommodate their halal guidelines.
Local options
Those seeking halal food are in luck. Including the storefront opening of Dada Döner’s kebab shop in May, Columbia now has four permanent locations with fully halal menus. Additionally, one non-permanent location worth mentioning is Abbey’s Swahili Delights, a CoMo Cooks participant, which serves halal-friendly dishes. Included in the list, The Syrian Kitchen, a Middle Eastern
by Kyle Maki
Photography
Yaser Al Rawi (from left), Wacim Benyouref and Adnaan Raza chat after a meal at Dada Döner. The Turkish street food restaurant opened in late May. It started as a food truck the prior year.
Lamb kebab with rice (below) and cashew fingers (bottom) are two dishes at The Syrian Kitchen.
restaurant, is a local favorite that made it a mission to offer halal options to the Muslim community in town.
“We know that there is a lack of halal food here in Columbia, and us, being Muslim, we notice this lack,” says Laila Solemen, a worker at The Syrian Kitchen. “So, it’s important to cater to people that need and can go out and enjoy their families while eating out comfortably.”
It’s rare to find products in Columbia that are stamped with a halal certification (similar to the one above, with halal written in Arabic).
But these restaurants and markets are good options for those looking for zabiha halal options without needing to squint at ingredient lists or ask a lot of questions.
RESTAURANTS
Dada Döner
Dada Döner is a Turkish street food restaurant that transitioned from its food truck beginnings to opening a brick-and-
mortar space in May. With its nine-item menu of fresh, hand-prepared selections, the restaurant serves its namesake döner wraps and plates as well as dishes like lentil soup and baklava. 1201 E. Broadway || Tuesday through Saturday, 12-7 p.m.
Med Mex Cafe
This fusion Mexican and Mediterranean restaurant is a good stop for diverse options, such as a gyro meat taco or quesadillas with a side of falafel. 2609 E. Broadway || Monday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
WHAT’S NOT HALAL?
Pork is a wellknown haram — or impermissible food, and it’s found in more dishes than you think. Marshmallows, pie crust and Jell-O are examples of foods with gelatin or pig fat in them. So before picking a snack to share, be mindful of who you’re eating with.
The
Syrian Kitchen
This Middle Eastern restaurant serves a variety of authentic Syrian food, giving customers a wide range of starters, wraps and plates alongside traditional desserts. 600 W. Business Loop 70 || Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Wingin Out
This chicken wing establishment offers halal followers quick meals. All dishes are halal-safe, including its authentic Himalayan Nepalese style momo, which is a steamed dumpling. Its late night hours also make it a great option for those post-midnight cravings. 916 E. Broadway || Daily, 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.
MARKETS
A&Y Global Market
The A&Y Global Market is the oldest go-to stop for halal meat in Columbia. It sells various products, including goat, beef, chicken and lamb meat, along with a range of pantry items from across the globe. The store opened in 1984 at a different location, and has since relocated to a larger space. 400 W. Business Loop 70 || Daily, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Kabul Market
This vegetarian combo plate is an appetizer from The Syrian Kitchen. With or without meat, its menu is all halal.
As a small business with a focus on offering halal-safe options, Kabul Market currently has goat, chicken and lamb meat available for sale in its store. 420 E. Broadway || Daily, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Khaled Challar handles tickets at the register for customers’ orders at The Syrian Kitchen.
Dinner and a show
Find the right energy level for your next night of wining and dining.
BY SARAH MOURA
Eating out isn’t as simple as choosing the place with the best food. Atmosphere plays a huge role in the dining experience, and nothing builds better ambiance than good tunes. Whether it’s for a first date or a night with friends or family, restaurants with live music offer a shared group experience — and something to talk about besides the food.
Here are a few places in Columbia where you can have a night out that feeds both the stomach and the soul.
FOR ECLECTIC TASTES
Dive Bar
Dive Bar is the place to go if you’re looking for a casual meal and a way to diversify your musical palette. On the weekly Wednesday Steak and Tunes Night, customers can typically find solo or duo acts, whereas Fridays and Saturdays traditionally host multiple bands. Dive Bar hosts bands both inside and on its patio.
The local hangout features different
vast, and often includes touring acts on the weekends.
220 N. Tenth St., cafeberlincomo.com
Live music hours: For upcoming performances, check its Facebook, @cafeberlincomo
Dish to try: BBQ pulled pork
Noise level: Varies, and louder as the night goes on
FOR A JAZZY GOOD TIME
Murry’s
A Columbia fixture, Murry’s has been around for almost 40 years and is known for its vibrant food and atmosphere, highlighted through live jazz almost every night. Monday through Wednesday, patrons are treated to piano, while Thursday they hear guitar. Then, on Saturday, house band the Tom Andes Trio puts on a truly entertaining night. 3107 Green Meadows Way, murrysrestaurant.net
Live music hours: 7-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 9 p.m. to midnight Saturday
Michele Curry (left) and EJ Wagner watch Hurtsickle Fade perform at the outside patio of Dive Bar. The restaurant includes musical acts ranging from country, hard rock and blues.
acts and genres of music, from country to hard rock to blues. “We want to bring a wide variety (of artists) because all of it is music,” says Karen Geotz, the owner of Dive Bar.
1116 Business Loop 70 E., divebarcomo.com
Live music hours: 6-8 p.m. Wednesday; 5-11 p.m. Friday and 8-11 p.m. Saturday Dish to try: Gonzo bread, a dish with Gorgonzola cheese, sliced meatballs, Dive sauce and Swiss cheese Noise level: Varies, but able to talk at table
Cafe Berlin
Well-known for its bustling brunch, Cafe Berlin also boasts a lively nighttime entertainment lineup alongside its evening pub menu.
One of its most popular nights is Monday when the restaurant holds a community showcase. “That’s really locally driven,” says Adrienne Luther Johnson, the marketing and events director for Cafe Berlin. “I think it’s 60% Americana, I would say. It represents a lot of what the scene is in Columbia.”
However, the variety of genres is
UPCOMING SHOWS
CAFE BERLIN
Oct. 28
Community showcase featuring William Russell Wallace
6 p.m.
DIVE BAR
Nov. 1
Blake Gardner & The Farmers 8-11 p.m.
JAZZ, A LOUISIANA KITCHEN
Nov. 2
The Diddy Wah Daddies 6-9 p.m.
MURRY’S
Nov. 12
Alexa Tarantino Quartet
3:30-7 p.m.
Dish to try: Steak sandwich
Noise level: Monday through Thursday allows for chatting; Saturday is all about the music
Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen
In true New Orleans fashion, Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, lets the good times roll. Its menu captures the spirit of a French Quarter cafe with Cajun cuisine, while the sweet sounds of saxophones and trombones from jazz and bluegrass music fill the air. Acts range from soloists to bands, but all consistently bring the rhythm of the soul.
217 N. Stadium Blvd., jazzkitchen.com
Live music hours: 6-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Dish to try: Fried pickles
Noise level: Loud but allows for conversations; restaurant accommodates if it’s too loud to talk
FOR A FAMILY-FRIENDLY TREAT Love Coffee
The open mic night at Love Coffee is perfect for those who like their dinner with a side of decaf and up-and-coming talent. The music for this monthly event is mainly alternative and Americana folk, with some original tunes. While you discover new and local artists, you can enjoy bites from its cafe-style menu.
15 Business Loop 70 E., columbialovecoffee.org
Live music hours: 6-8 p.m. last Friday of the month
Dish to try: Pecan sticky bun
Noise level: Loud and music centric
Photography by Michael Baniewicz
What does the county commission do?
Two seats are up for grabs on the Boone County Commission. This FAQ unpacks what that means.
BY ALLY SCHNIEPP
Bet you’ve been reading up on your county commissioner candidates, right? Maybe, maybe not. County races can get lost amid the flashier national or statewide campaigns. But voters in Boone County will be casting ballots to elect their associate county commissioner in the upcoming Nov. 5 general election. Vox talked to members of the Boone County Commission to find out what these vital local representatives do.
Who are the commissioners?
In Boone County, there are just three commissioners: District I, District II and the presiding commissioner. District I includes southern Boone County and western Columbia; District II encompasses northern Boone County and eastern Columbia. The presiding com-
missioner represents the whole county. In District I, incumbent Justin Aldred, a Democrat, faces Republican challenger Sam Turner. Aldred was elected in 2020. Current District II representative, Democrat Janet Thompson, faces Republican Cheri Toalson Reisch, state representative for Missouri District 44. Thompson was first elected to the position in 2012.
Commissioners serve four-year terms and are paid county government officials. The two associate county commissioners are paid an annual salary of approximately $125,000.
Who’s the presiding commissioner?
Kip Kendrick is the current presiding commissioner, and while he has a different title, there are not many differ-
Eligible residents of Boone County will be voting for one of two district county commissioner races in the upcoming election on Nov. 5.
ences between his position and district commissioners.
The main difference isn’t their duties, but how they are elected. Presiding commissioners are voted in by all Boone County voters, whereas district commissioners are elected by a district. Kendrick was elected in 2022 and will serve until 2026. The terms are staggered, so the presiding commissioner does not appear on the same ballot as district commissioners.
So, what exactly does the county commission do?
While the photo ops of county commissioners often include events like ribbon cuttings and attendance of community functions, they have a lot of responsibility on their hands. Together, the three
representatives have obligations that range from emergency management to approving the county budget to serving on county, state and national boards.
Commissioners supervise and approve the expenditures for 10 county departments. A few of these include community services, emergency management, facilities management, resource management and road and bridge.
That means if you’ve heard a tornado siren, driven on a county road or voted in a Boone County election, that’s part of the work overseen by the commission.
One example of the work they’re doing for the community is the gravel road conversion Aldred spearheaded.
“We’re taking gravel road and converting it into a more asphalt blacktop at a reduced cost to the taxpayer,” Aldred says. “We were able to get a project that would normally be well over a million dollars a mile and get that down to anywhere from $358,000 a mile to $450,000 per mile.”
NEW VOTER?
Unsure what to expect for your first election? Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon gave Vox the 411 on all things voting so you can be prepared at the ballot box. Scan the QR code for our first-time voters guide — from what to bring on Election Day to what to expect at the polls.
How does the budget work?
Commissioners communicate and work with the elected officials in county departments to review and approve each of their budgets. In 2024, the total county budget was about $125 million.
That’s also where Jenna Redel, the Boone County treasurer, comes in. “They communicate with me about what they’re planning and what they’re working on, so I can adjust what I’m doing to make sure I give them the resources they need,” Redel says.
Redel is one of the elected officials the commissioners work with, and part of her duties include managing outgoing and incoming money for county government offices and related entities.
But why do county elections even matter?
The county commission decides where the county’s money goes and manages all county property. County government also collaborates with other local entities, such as working with the city of
Columbia on parking or the amount of flights at the Columbia Regional Airport.
If that’s not enough of a reason, remember that local government is what affects our everyday lives. “The stuff that takes place locally, even though it might not be obvious, is much more impactful on your life,” Terry Smith says, a professor of political science at Columbia College.
“Go beyond the party label,” Smith says as a recommendation to first-time voters. “It’s the details that matter. Where do you stand on certain policies that might affect schools? Where do you stand on emergency preparedness? Where do you stand on something as mundane as sewers?”
Knowing what stances the candidates take on specific issues is key when voting local, he says.
To learn more about what county elections are on the ballot Nov. 5 and hear from candidates, see the Missourian voters guide, columbia missourian.com/news/elections.
No dirty dogs here
Muddy dog? Need a nail trim? These mobile and DIY services make keeping your pooch spiffy and clean less “ruff.”
BY EMMA ZAWACKI
If the thought of bringing your dog to the groomer fills you (and your dog) with dread, you’re not alone. Columbia’s pet-focused business owners understand the nail-biting experience of dropping off a nervous dog at a new groomer. So, they’ve gotten creative, offering unique grooming experiences to set everyone at ease.
Creekside Pet Center
Perfect for early risers, night owls or middle-of-the-night grooming emergencies, Creekside Pet Center offers a 24-hour self-service dog wash. Cost covers supplies including shampoo, conditioner, a blow dryer and vacuum to clean up after yourself.
You can find the entrance down the sidewalk to the left of the lobby entrance. Creekside Pet Center also offers pet boarding, dog daycare and grooming.
5820 East Highway 163 || Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.; self-service wash station is open 24 hours || Cost: $2 for 5 minutes, accepts bills and quarters || 573-256-7387 or creeksidepetcenter.com
Lizzi & Rocco’s
Looking to wash your dog but don’t have the necessary equipment and supplies? Lizzi & Rocco’s self-service wash stations are an option. The shop offers do-it-yourself wash stations at two Columbia locations, as well as ear cleaning supplies, nail trimming tools and brushes for all coat types. It even offers aprons for human customers.
Additionally, Lizzi & Rocco’s provides full-service grooming. These visits include services like natural teeth and ear cleaning, haircuts and even a blueberry facial scrub.
1610 I-70 Drive S.W. and 550 East Green Mead-
ows Road Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; self-service stations close one hour before store closing || Cost: $15 || 573445-8249 (north), 573-875-2288 (south) or lizziandroccos.com
Pedigree Pawdicure
Nail care can be one of the more stressful aspects of pet ownership and grooming. Brie Boessen, owner of Pedigree Pawdicure, works to make the process as convenient and stressfree as possible.
Its services include pedicures with add-ons such as paw pad shaving and paw balm application, all of which can be done at home visits or at pop-up events.
Boessen, a former pet groomer, started the business three years ago after she noticed a need for at-home nail care. She aims to create a positive, comfortable and trusting environment with her clients and their pets. “I feel like I ask permission of the dog,” Boessen says. “I don’t just come in with a forceful ‘we have to get this done’ approach.”
The easiest way to track down Pedigree Pawdicure is through Facebook, where Boessen posts events for the month.
Mobile || Hours vary, service takes 15 to 30 minutes || Cost: $35 for at home, $25 at pop-ups || 573-409-7637 (text), Pedigree Pawdicure on Facebook or pedigreepawdicure.groomore.com
Treats Unleashed
Treats Unleashed offers self-service wash stations stocked with shampoo, conditioner, brushes, cologne and aprons. You can also bring your own shampoo.
The service is available by booking an appointment online and is limited to 45 minutes. This gives them time to clean up before the next pooch arrives.
Treats Unleashed also houses a bakery and offers additional services such as grooming, personal feeding plans and same day delivery of your pets favorite food, treats and toys. 1400 Forum Blvd. || Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; self-service stations close an hour before store closing || Cost: $16 || 573-234-2275 or treatsunleashed.com
At Treats Unleashed, dog owners can wash their pets in a private room fully stocked with supplies.
Brie Boessen hosts pop-up events at various locations around Columbia for convenient pet nail care.
TO-DO LIST
Your curated guide of what to do in Columbia this month.
ARTS
Creepy Crafts
Round up your creative friends for a spooky Halloween-themed arts and crafts night at the Columbia Public Library. Patrons can bond over zombie Barbies and free snacks while crafting your own spooky diorama. The event is aimed at adults and teens. Oct. 28, 6-7:30 p.m., Friends Room, free, 573-443-3161
LIZZIE the Musical
Experience this rock musical about a series of events leading up to the axe murders of Andrew Borden and his wife. Lizzie Borden, stepdaughter of the victims, was famously tried and acquitted for the murders. Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 7 p.m.; Nov. 3, 2 p.m.; Nov. 7-10, 7:30 p.m., Columbia Entertainment Company, $15-$20, 573474-3699
Urinetown: the Musical
Follow the evolution of a hero who had enough of a big corporation monopolizing one of humanity’s basic needs — going to the bathroom. This Tony Award-winning musical is a playful satire of the legal system. Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 3, 2 p.m.; Nov. 6-9, 7:30 p.m., Rhynsburger Theatre, $22, 573-882-2021
Kinetic Visions
Experience a blur of reality and imagination at this Mareck Center for Dance performance. This dance explore the dynamic between movement and the human spirit. It will feature choreography by Karen Mareck Grundy, Kristopher Estes-Brown and Noelle Kayser. Nov. 15, 7 p.m., Nov. 16, 7 p.m., Missouri Theatre, $32-48, 573-219-7134
Theresa Caputo Live! The Experience
Theresa Caputo, aka the Long Island Medium, is known for her reality TV personality. This is your chance to be part of the audience as she communicates
with spirits. Nov. 23, 7:30 p.m., Jesse Auditorium, $70 and up, 573-882-3781
Elf The Musical JR.
Get into the holiday spirit early with the TRYPS production of a Christmas classic. Buddy, a young orphan, accidentally ends up in the North Pole and as an adult travels to New York City to find his birth father. Nov. 23, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.; Nov. 24, 2 p.m., Launer Auditorium at Columbia College, $8-$15, 573-449-4536
Holiday Art Shoppe
Looking for the perfect gift? Find oneof-a-kind giftable works of art at this Sager Reeves Gallery event. It includes free gift wrapping, a candy buffet and complimentary hot drinks. Nov. 23, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., free, Sager Reeves Gallery, 573-442-4831
CIVIC
Hanging of the Greens
Residents of the historic village of Arrow Rock will sing alongside sleigh bells as they
Unbutton those jeans and strap on your running shoes. The Turkey Trax 5K returns this Thanksgiving. The race will start bright and early near Flat Branch Park at Fourth and Cherry streets and loop back. Register by Nov. 8 to get a Fleet Feet Columbia Turkey Trax T-shirt. Nov. 28, 7-8:15 a.m., Fourth and Cherry streets, $35, runsignup. com/race/mo/ columbia/ turkeytraxcomo
hang evergreens and wait for Santa’s arrival at 2 p.m. You can get your picture with Santa and enjoy scenery, while drinking some hot cocoa from J. Hustin Tavern. Nov. 23, 2 p.m., The Village of Arrow Rock, free, 660-837-3700
Partnership Against Hunger
You can help The Food Bank for Central & Northeast Missouri with its final, annual push for donations. This all-day drive supports families struggling with food insecurity. Donations can be dropped at local Hyvee and Schnucks locations, starting at 6 a.m. — drop-offs start at 8 a.m. at the Broadway Schnucks. Sign up to volunteer at sharefoodbringhope.org. Nov. 26, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Hyvee and Schnucks locations, 573474-1020
FOOD
Cake Decorating 101
If you want to indulge your inner Cake Boss, here’s your chance. This beginnerfriendly class, offered by Back2Basics
Cooking, has all the trappings of a fancy commercial kitchen, but none of the high stakes. The small class size guarantees personalized guidance from your instructor. Get ready to create your frosted magnum opus. Nov. 9, 2-4 p.m., 14 Business Loop 70 E., $80, back2basicscooking.net/ cakedecorating101
Dining in the Alley with Nclusion Plus
Get fed and watch drag queens serve. Nclusion Plus and Hexagon Alley are partnering to bring you a night of fun, flair and food. Add hostess Artemis Grey, drag performers and a couple cocktails — you’re guaranteed to have a blast. Nov. 17, 5 p.m., Hexagon Alley, 111 S. Ninth St #10, $12, nclusionplus.com
Wassail Walk
Take a stroll in a winter wonderland with the quaint holiday spirit of Rocheport while sipping some (free!) hot, homemade wassail — a hot drink made from mulled cider, ale, wind and spices — from
Decorate your own two-layered cake with a10step system by Back2Basics.
participating shops. A hot chocolate truck will make cocoa to keep your hands warm while you catch the first twinklings of lights at Barth Garden’s Christmas tree lighting. Nov. 28, noon to 5 p.m., downtown Rocheport, free, rocheportmo.com/events
MUSIC
Jam Fest
Southern Provisions in Rocheport hosts the Fourth Friday Jam Fest. Grab a lawn
chair and your acoustic guitars and get ready to rock out with musicians in your community. Oct. 24, 5:30 p.m., Southern Provisions, free, 573-993-3101.
Name That Tune: Rap Edition
Holding on to random rap lyrics and love to compete? The Blue Note is hosting its second annual Name That Tune competition where you can show off your rap knowledge and reminisce on past music. Even if you lose, it’s still a win-win! Oct. 24, 7 p.m., The Blue Note, $25-$50, 573-874-1944
It’s A 2000s (Halloween) Party
Party like it’s 2000. Style some lowwaisted jeans and a beret while dancing to nostalgic 2000s jams. Allow iconic tunes by Eminem, Britney Spears and others to sweep you onto the dance floor and keep you there all night. Oct. 25, 9 p.m., The Blue Note, 18+, $15-$35, 573- 874-1944
University Philharmonic and Civic Orchestra Concert
Engage in a musical evening showcasing
two orchestras performing three pieces spanning three generations of composers. The groups will start off with Jennifer Higdon’s “Blue Cathedral,” move on to Stefan Freund’s “No Apologies” and finish with Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2, “Romantic.” Oct. 27, 7 p.m., Jesse Auditorium, $5, free for MU employees and students with ID, worstells@ missouri.edu
Hotel Fiction
Look your best on Halloween because Hotel Fiction plays at Rose Music Hall as part of it’s first headline tour in more than a year. Openers Elephant Foot and The Park join the indie rock group. Oct. 31, 8 p.m., Rose Music Hall, $13 in advance, $16 at the door, 573-874-1944
Post Sex Nachos Double Feature
Local rock favorites Post Sex Nachos return to Columbia for not one, but two nights. After the group played at Lollapalooza, you’re in for a set you’ll never forget. And if you do, just go to night two. Nov. 1, 8 p.m.; Nov. 2, 8 p.m., Rose Music Hall, $20, 573-874-1944
Mozart in Prague
Get lost in an evening of Mozart as The Missouri Symphony’s chamber ensemble performs his work while you enjoy food and drink inspired by the composer’s time in Prague. Nov. 7, 6 p.m., Kimball Ballroom at Stephens College, $70-$700, 573- 875-0600
Honoring Seattle Rock ‘n’ Roll
Rock out like it’s the 1990s as local bands pay homage to Seattle classics at the Seattle Royale. The Hipnecks take on the music of Alice in Chains, The Many Colored Death plays Soundgarden, Decadent Nation honors Pearl Jam and Down Side Up performs Nirvana. Nov. 23, 7 p.m., The Blue Note, $8 in advance, $10 at the door, 573-874-1944
OUTDOORS
Girls on the Run 5K
Get a 5K under your belt for a good cause. Show your support to Heart of Missouri Girls on the Run, a local organization blending exercise with life skills for young girls. General registration opens Nov. 1. Nov. 23, activities begin 9 a.m., run starts at 10 a.m., Bear Creek Trail at Albert Oakland Park, $35 registration, $40 day of, heartofmissourigirlsontherun. org/5k, 573-356-5657
AGAINST THE WIND
An American flag waves in the wind during the April 2 election at the polling station located at Knights of Columbus Council #1529. “That photo came from looking for ways to depict the concept of voting — without it being a literal photo of voting,” photographer Jacob Luebbert says. “Which way will America choose to go? Left or right?” As the country prepares for the Nov. 5 election, that question is once again on the minds of voters.
photo finish
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACOB LUEBBERT
