Vox Magazine January/February 2021 Issue by Vox Magazine

FOUR BANDS, ONE GROOVE PAGE 9

WHERE DID ALL THE GOBBLERS GO? PAGE 18

PERFECT FRIDAY NIGHT PAIRINGS PAGE 23

BABY, IT’S LESS COLD OUTSIDE PAGE 29

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 • THE VOICE OF COLUMBIA

THE PAPER THAT TIME

ONE MAN, ONE NEWSPAPER, ENDLESS QUESTIONS: THE ORIGINS OF THE BLACK PRESS IN COLUMBIA. P 12

FROM THE EDITOR

HERE’S TO 2021

E DI T OR I N CHI E F SARAH EVERETT DE PUT Y E DI T OR JARED GENDRON M AN AGI N G E DI T OR CIANNA MORALES

ello and happy New Year (finally). The January/February issue is my last as an editor at Vox, and it’s also the first edition of a new year — a perfect time for reflection. There are so many parts of my 2020 that were challenging that I hope to leave behind forever. I hope to never again have a cotton swab shoved deep into my nose, for example. But 2020 was also a year of resilience, of learning to be OK with change, of starting difficult and worthwhile conversations, of reconnecting with old friends and finding new ways to connect. This summer, as we documented in Vox, was one of protest and demand for equality and of putting actions behind words. For me, 2020 was a year of being a student and an editor remotely, of starting a new job, of driving through Andy’s Frozen Custard every week, of finishing a master’s degree, of feeling

DI GI TAL M AN A G ING E D IT O R

thankful to be healthy and of thinking critically about matters of health and race. It seems fitting that our first issue of this semester (from September) captured moments and images of the Black Lives Matter movement in Columbia, recapping a summer of protest, and one of our final features (in this issue) about a newspaper called The Professional World (p. 12) also focuses on Black change-makers in Columbia, some who have been erased by the passage of time. But it is my hope that these stories do not serve as bookends, that Vox continues to amplify BIPOC voices, to explore social justice issues and to do a good job representing our entire community through the lens of food, music and people. I’m looking forward to flipping through the future pages of Vox as a reader, and I hope you are, too.

GABY MORERA DI NÚBILA ON L I N E E DI T OR GRACE COOPER ART DI R E CT OR S HOPE JOHNSON, MADISON WISSE PHOT O E DI T OR COURTNEY PERRETT M ULT I M E DI A E DI T O R SAM MOSHER AS S I S TAN T E D IT O RS CULT UR E JESSE BAALMAN, CLAUDIA KHAW, SADIE LEA E AT + DR I N K HANNAH BRITTON, MADELYN ODEN CI T Y L I F E CHRISTINA LONG, EMMY LUCAS, ALEXANDRA SHARP CON T R I B UT I N G W R I T E RS MARIA DEBELLIS, MADELINE EWING, AUZZIE GONZALEZ, ANNA KUTZ, AIMAN JAVED, EVAN MUSIL, RASHI SHRIVASTAVA, STEPHI SMITH, LAUREN STONE, MARISA WHITAKER DI GI TAL E DI T OR S ELIZABETH BENSON, ALLISON BROWN, MIKAYLA EASLEY, GRACE GLANDER, FRANCESCA HECKER, ANNA KUTZ, TYLER MESSNER, LAUREN POLANSKI, LAUREN TRONSTAD M ULT I M E DI A E DI T O RS REID BAYLISS, NOAH CRIDER, ABBY ORF E DI T OR I AL DI R E CT O R HEATHER LAMB DI GI TAL DI R E CT OR SARA SHIPLEY HILES

SARAH EVERETT Editor in Chief

E XE CUT I V E E DI T O R JENNIFER ROWE OF F I CE M AN AGE R KIM TOWNLAIN

Behind the issue

Vox Magazine

@VoxMag

In writing this feature, researching Rufus L. Logan was one of the most challenging parts. The starting point was Debra Foster Greene, who’d given a lecture at the State Historical Society of Missouri about four Black newspaper editors, including Logan. She told me a bit about him, but I needed more. And so, with no idea what I was getting into, I jumped headfirst into the 1900s. Certain facts about Logan cropped up within the pages of The Professional World, the paper he published, or through other papers that mentioned his career. A city directory showed where he taught after graduation. A book footnote told me how Logan’s character was attacked by political rivals. To go further back, I started with a brief mention of a father named Anderson Logan who was a New Bloomfield farmer. Census records then showed where Logan lived as a child. Ithaca Bryant, assistant to the archivist at Lincoln University, sent me what he could find, including the alumni record, which confirmed Logan was a real estate agent in 1930. Eventually, I found Logan’s death certificate. I also learned countless facts about Logan that weren’t relevant to the story. For example, he lived at 305 N. Fifth St. in Columbia; he once found a dead body at a train station; and he lived in the Kansas City Streets Hotel in the same year as Theron Watkins, stepfather of noted activist Bruce Watkins. Yet, I’m sure there’s much more out there about Logan and The Professional World that I’ve been unable to uncover. Someday, I hope other curious minds continue the search. – Aiman Javed

@VoxMagazine

Photography by Derek Rieke and courtesy of Aiman Javed

ADVERTISING 882- 5714 CIRCULATION 882- 5700 EDITORIAL 884- 6432 vox@mi s s o u ri . e d u CALENDAR send to vox@m i s s o u ri . e d u o r submi t vi a onl i ne form a t v o x m a g a zi n e . c o m TO RECEIVE VOX IN YOUR INBOX sign up for email newsletter at voxmagazine.com JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 VOLUME 23, ISSUE 1 PUB L I S HE D BY T H E COL UM B I A M IS S O U RIA N 320 L E E H IL L S H A L L COL UM B I A , M O 6 5 2 1 1

MAGAZINE Cover Design: Madison Wisse

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

23 IN THE LOOP

School’s out forever Set to retire in June, Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Peter Stiepleman reflects on a career full of change, challenges and accomplishments.

EAT + DRINK 23

Wining and dining

Rockin’ rolls

Make dessert twice as nice with these after-entree pairings.

Amanda Rainey discusses her various ventures, including Goldie’s Bagels and a rock camp for teens.

Vox Picks This January and February, Vox recommends reading, thrifting, journaling and, last but not least, doughnuts.

Since September, mid-Missouri has gained 20 new mini-pantries for those in need of food and other necessities.

CITY LIFE 27

CULTURE

Bedroom boom What’s behind the thriving adult toy industry? The pandemic, mostly.

Band together Finding power in unity, four local musical acts, including Ruby Lane and Elephant Foot, work collectively as COVID-19 upends their industry.

Feed your neighbors

Facing the heat Take a deep dive into the science behind Missouri’s changing winter weather patterns.

Dance to a different tune

The Missouri Contemporary Ballet and Columbia Dance Academy face the pandemic head-on and unchoreographed.

Columbia entrepreneurs find new ways to get their businesses off the ground as the country sees an increase in startups.

Virtual ventures

FEATURES 12

A paper lost in time Take a trip back to the early 1900s, and discover the forgotten history of Columbia’s first Black newspaper. BY AIMAN JAVED

Tracking the turkeys Missouri’s turkey population is dwindling, and two MU researchers plan to investigate. BY RASHI SHRIVASTAVA

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Photography by Adam Vogler/Archive and courtesy of the Missouri Department of Conservation and Tavair Tapp, illustrations by Hope Johnson, Madison Wisse and courtesy of RawPixel

BAKING A BUSINESS P. 7

YOUR WINTER TO-DO LIST P. 8

School’s out forever CPS Superintendent Peter Stiepleman’s impact on local schools can’t be enumerated, but Vox tried anyway. BY RASHI SHRIVASTAVA For more than six years, Superintendent Peter Stiepleman has overseen the Columbia Public Schools system, which is comprised of 36 buildings, 19,000 students and 3,000 employees. It is the fifth largest school district in Missouri. In late October 2020, Stiepleman announced he would retire at the end of this school year after more than 20 years as an educator. Vox takes a look at this super senior’s career by the numbers as he prepares to walk across the metaphorical graduation stage. 46. That’s how old Stiepleman will be when he retires on June 30, 2021, which is also his birthday and the date of his wedding anniversary. 2004. Stiepleman started in CPS as a volunteer in a third-grade classroom in 2004 after leaving Oakland, California, where he was an assistant principal and teacher. In CPS, Stiepleman also served as assistant principal and principal at West Boulevard for four years and assistant superintendent for elementary education for four years. 2021. This is the year Stiepleman was named Missouri Superintendent of the Year by the Missouri Association of School Administrators. The accolade, awarded in September 2020, commends Stiepleman for his work, particularly with Photography by Erin Quinn/Archive, Gwendolyn Girsdansky/Archive, Pamela A. Houser/Archive, courtesy of Peter Stiepleman, WikiCommons and Maude Vintage, collage by Hope Johnson

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

IN TH E LOOP EDUCATION

the district’s COMOEd Grow Our Own Teacher Development Program, which he helped create in 2019. The program provides full-ride scholarships to local universities for at least six future educators of color each year. Recipients are then employed by the district as a teacher for four years. One. The number of sick days Stiepleman took during his superintendency. That means he is eligible to receive $50,000 in accrued sick leave. He plans to donate the money back to the district. Two. Stiepleman is part of the second generation of his family in the United States. He takes pride in his family history. His grandfather came to the U.S. from Odessa, Ukraine, when it was part of the U.S.S.R. Like his father, Stiepleman was born in New York City. Three. Stiepleman and his wife, Elizabeth Chang, an MU English professor, have three sons: Isaac, Ezra and Jacob. His eldest, Isaac, will graduate from Hickman High School this year. Stiepleman promised Isaac he wouldn’t leave before Isaac graduated from high school. “He’s so connected to his peers and his school, and he’s very involved in music, debate, math and Science Olympiad,” Stiepleman says. The couple named their eldest after a student, who was a student of Stiepleman’s in California and immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico.

One. The number of U.S. Supreme Court justices who are related to Stiepleman. His aunt, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, often video-chatted with CPS students thanks to Stiepleman. RBG even officiated his wedding. 34. The number of countries Stiepleman has traveled to outside of the U.S. He and his family have been to Iceland, Turkey and Argentina, to name a few. Stiepleman spent a year working for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid in 1996. He is bilingual in Spanish and English. 160. This is how many students are enrolled in an early college program at Moberly Area Community College, which Stiepleman helped create and launch in 2020. The program allows high school juniors and seniors to attend the community college and complete an associate degree and high school diploma at the same time. “We pay for it all, we pay for their tuition, we pay for their books, and then the children can then enroll in any state school, having had two years of all their prerequisites done,” Stiepleman says. “They can just go right into their major, debt-free.”

CPS HISTORY As the fifth largest school district in the state, Columbia Public Schools includes 27 preschool programs, 21 elementary schools, seven middle schools, four high schools and the Columbia Area Career Center. The district started with just one building when the city voted to establish a city school on Dec. 22, 1872. The district has had 29 superintendents total, including Superintendent Peter Stiepleman. Curiously, two of them each served less than 20 days, Stiepleman says.

32. That’s how many years Columbia has been a sister city with Hakusan, Japan. In 2019, Stiepleman helped create a deal between the district and Hakusan’s International College of Technology to send students to study abroad for two weeks CPS Superintendent Peter Stiepleman talks with Jan Mees and Christine King, former school board members, in 2014. Stiepleman has been with the district since 2004.

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

every summer. Students work on science, technology, engineering and math projects through the program. Two. The number of equity trainings CPS requires faculty members to take each year. Working toward diversity, equity and inclusion became a focus of the district under Stiepleman’s superintendency. “That’s for us as a school district to really try to dismantle systemic racism, and institutionalized racism,” he says. 20. The district’s Montessori program, a public-private partnership Stiepleman helped create, enrolls this many preschoolers. The Montessori program at Grant Elementary School is one of 27 preschool programs within the school district. Stiepleman’s children are a product of Montessori schooling, he says. “I still have one who can’t put the shoes on correctly because, you know, they don’t intervene. And so, he’s just quite happy to have them on the wrong feet.” 45. The number of minutes in the special morning block at Jefferson STEAM Middle School, a middle school that transitioned to a science, technology, engineering, arts and math school in 2019 — and idea that Stiepleman introduced. The morning time allows Jefferson students to enroll in enrichment courses. Students choose from 14 different electives, including classes such as mural painting, beekeeping, candle making and post-apocalyptic survival. Three. As he prepares to sign off from his post as superintendent, Stiepleman says the school system continues to tackle three major obstacles: a growing student population, safety and security against a backdrop of school shootings across the U.S., and building accessibility for students and family members with disabilities. When he became the superintendent, the schools lacked cohesion and a centralized system to ensure consistency across classrooms in terms of material students studied, Stiepleman says. “I love this community, and I think one should leave when they’ve left things in good places, not when they’ve maybe overstayed their welcome.” Photography by Chris Jasper/Archive

I N T HE LO O P Q&A

Rockin’ rolls Goldie’s Bagels co-founder Amanda Rainey has a “DIY spirit.” She talks community, music and baked (and boiled) goods in Columbia. BY AIMAN JAVED

ou might already know Amanda Rainey. She helps out at Pizza Tree, leads a local rock camp for teens and played in local band Dubb Nubb. She always seems to be working on a passion project in the community, and her latest venture is bagels. During the pandemic, Rainey felt a creative itch and began baking bagels. She soon took that project beyond her kitchen and into a pop-up shop at Pizza Tree, which she co-owns with husband John Gilbreth. She teamed up with Sarah Medcalf, former bar manager of Top Ten Wines, and Goldie’s Bagels was born. “She’s a community-maker,” Medcalf says of Rainey. “She thinks about things that bring people together.” Rainey first came to Columbia from St. Louis to attend MU in 2003. After graduating, she moved to Mississippi for a fellowship with the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life and then returned to Columbia in 2010 to pursue an MBA. Although that fell through, she stuck around and became a part of Columbia’s creative community. “I kind of became a townie,” Rainey says. She talks with Vox about how she finds ways to bring new projects to life, be they in music, food or the community. What led you to the food industry? Jewish people are just obsessed with food. You always talk about what you’re going to eat next, or else people feel anxious. My grandma is this great cook. A lot of her recipes are from the ’50s when packaged things were new and exciting. My generation, the millennial foodies, are trying to play with those recipes but also look back a little further. It’s a way for me to connect to my history. I make gefilte fish from scratch every year for Passover, and my grandma opens a jar. Photography courtesy of Alexandria Wells

How did you get into music? I have three sisters and a lot of cousins; we just love to spend time together. We also like to do projects and be creative. I played in a band with my sisters, and we made all of our own merchandise. We burned our CDs and hand-stitched CD covers and learned how to screen print and screen-printed shirts to sell on tour, that kind of thing. Then I played in my first [official] band when I was 23 and living in Mississippi. We called it The Bachelorettes. And we weren’t very good, but we had a lot of energy, and we had this DIY spirit. I’m not a solo musician. It’s always been about being in a band with other people and collaborating and making something together that we never could have made on our own. I don’t have another word for it besides just magic.

GOLDIE’S BAGELS Grab a bagel during breakfast hours at Pizza Tree, 909 Cherry St., 7–11 a.m., Tues.–Sun.

How did you cook up the bagel idea? I’ve always wanted a more Jewish bagel option in Columbia. From day one, I told John: “I’m all in it for this pizza thing, but someday we’re gonna make bagels.” Goldie’s is my life dream coming together: to own a business with one of my best friends and have it be women-centered, mom-centered and have a feminist worldview, and to create that community that we want. What excites you about new projects? I love to just brainstorm ideas. My dream job would be to help people brainstorm all the ideas and then never have to execute. I do like organizing them a little bit, making spreadsheets and Google Docs and coming up with the best way to do something. When I come up with that perfect way to do something, it’s really satisfying. Whether music or food, making somebody’s life a little bit more special is really rewarding. Being able to do that with people you love, it’s just what I like to do.

What is your food philosophy? It’s about the community connection. Being able to tell a story through your food, to enjoy your food that much more when you know the story and traditions behind it, when you know the people that are making it and then being able to share it with other people. I think there’s so much room in Columbia for more locally owned businesses. Of all your projects, what’s been your favorite and why? YAAL Rock! camp, which stands for Young Artists, Activists and Leaders. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done because everybody is a passionate volunteer, and trying to make everybody’s voices heard is really hard. But getting to that showcase and knowing what the campers felt on the first day when they didn’t know anybody, had never played a guitar before and were just terrified, and then seeing them at The Blue Note, just rocking out about being a teenager, it’s so cool.

IN TH E LOOP VOX PICKS

Vox Picks for

JAN/FEB

Each month, Vox curates a list of can’t-miss shops, eats, reads and experiences. We find the new, trending or underrated to help you enjoy the best our city has to offer.

Explore…

BY CLAUDIA KHAW

Some of Columbia’s newest restaurants. For breakfast, swing by Ellianna’s Donut Shop for doughnuts, croissants and more. For lunch or dinner, visit Delia’s, a new Mexican grill at 201 N. Tenth St. If you want to stay in, check out Coley’s new virtual restaurant, Brassy Bird, which offers delivery only through GrubHub. Ellianna’s, 1105 Grindstone Parkway, Mon.–Fri., 5 a.m. to 2 p.m., Sat.–Sun., 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., 777-0442; Delia’s, Fri.–Wed., 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Thurs., 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., 499-1010; Brassy Bird, thebrassybird.com

Read… Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. This title was featured on Skylark’s December 2020 Indie Next List, and it explores the transformative power of rest and retreat. Starting your year off with a book about rest might seem counterintuitive as you’re making resolutions, but the rest will prepare you for a longer journey. Skylark Bookshop, 22 S. Ninth St., Mon.–Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., 777-6990

Write… Your New Year’s resolutions in a journal. 2020 has been a challenging year for most, but jotting down aspirations while reflecting on past experiences can be a great way to prepare for a new chapter. Poppy has a selection of notebooks and journals to choose from. Poppy Made by Hand, 920 E. Broadway, Mon.–Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sun. noon–5 p.m., 442-3223

Stretch… With virtual yoga classes from AlleyCat Yoga or in-person yoga at Moon Yoga and Yoga Sol, where classes are limited to eight students at a time. The cold temperatures can lead to an aching body, so limber up those muscles through some deep stretches. You also can look up simple yoga routines on YouTube to follow. AlleyCat Yoga, alleycatyoga.com for times; Moon Yoga, 23 S. Fourth St., class times vary, 449-8137; Yoga Sol, 210 St. James St., 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., 999-0627

Thrift… For new clothes at stores such as Maude Vintage Clothing or Daisychain Consignment (previously New Beginnings). Shopping secondhand helps avoid contributing to textile waste, and it’s often cheaper. The average American throws away 70 pounds of clothing and textiles each year, according to the Council for Textile Recycling. Maude Vintage, 818 E. Broadway, Mon. noon–5 p.m., Tues.–Fri. 12–7 p.m., Fri.–Sat. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sun. 1–5 p.m., 449-3320; Daisychain, 7 S. Tenth St., Tues.–Sat. noon–5 p.m., 449-5722

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Photography courtesy of Unsplash, Maude Vintage, OnCanoeTwo.com and WikiCommons

DANCING IN THE ZOOMLIGHT P. 11

Band together Four local acts stay afloat by performing as a collective group of artists (and friends). BY EVAN MUSIL

Guitarist Forrest Wilson, drummer Drew Anderson and singers Angie Busby (left) and Stella Peters of Mel·an·cho·li·a perform a set at Eastside Tavern in October.

“The start of every great movement is a shared passion,” says Angie Busby, one of the lead singers of the band Mel·an·cho·li·a. “And being surrounded by like-minded people can challenge you and help you grow at the same time.” That’s exactly what happened when a bond between friends grew into a musical collective consisting of Ruby Lane, Mel·an·cho·li·a, Elephant Foot and solo project Always Out of It. They support one another by sharing band members and often booking shows together.

Photography by Tavair Tapp

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

CULTURE MUSIC

Members of the bands had already crossed paths in Columbia’s music scene prior to the pandemic. Busby formed Ruby Lane before the band’s shift to psychedelic music and sang with Elephant Foot before they took a funk direction. She recently formed Mel·an·cho·li·a with childhood friend Stella Peters. Forrest Wilson has been a guitarist for every band in the collective at some point, but right now he’s with Mel·an·cho·li·a and Ruby Lane. “Since we saw each other three times a week at rehearsals, we could always be around each other,” Busby says. “We’re just finding a way to keep music alive in the pandemic.” United bands of Columbia “We’re all in the same friend group,” says Tavair Tapp, the manager for all bands in the collective. Tapp usually books concerts for the groups, and the combined billing helps to get venues on board. Nick Villhardt, the singer-songwriter who performs as solo act Always Out of It, shares Tapp’s reasoning. “It’s easier for me to get a show if I have a pool of people who want

to play with me,” Villhardt says. Sharing bandmates means sharing fanbases as well, so booking shows together keeps audiences around for the whole show. “If we’re all in these different bands, we might as well play together a bunch,” says Dylan Riggs, bassist for Ruby Lane. “The benefit lies in that we all typically draw the same crowd.” In November, the bands put a pause on playing in-person shows due to the uptick in local COVID-19 cases. Riggs says that though bigger concert opportunities fell apart during the pandemic, it allowed them to hunker down and write music. Ruby Lane members used to spend more time writing and practicing sets, but now they can tinker and fine-tune songs for the band’s upcoming EP, Riggs says. The tunes, they are a-changin’ Elephant Foot has taken advantage of the spare time to improve its sound. “When we have the opportunity to play a lot of shows again, the sets are going to be tighter, and everything’s going to gel a lot more,” says

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

MIC CHECK Elephant Foot released its selftitled EP Oct. 14 and celebrated with a socially distant concert at Eastside Tavern on Oct. 28. Ruby Lane is touching up an eight-track album that it will release by early January. On Dec. 10, Mel·an·cho·li·a released its debut EP, One Day.

Tyler Gerstheimer, rhythm guitarist for Elephant Foot. The pandemic has also changed how members of the collective approach songwriting. Villhardt says he’s gone from writing about real-life experiences to more introspective thoughts. “There’s a lot of activities that I used to draw inspiration from,” he says. “And now I have to draw the inspiration from whatever’s going on in my head.” Without audience applause, the band members depend on one another’s feedback. They exchange advice on lyrics and harmonies and bounce ideas around. “I think the collective has given all of us a lot of shared confidence,” Busby says. “We’re creating something together. Every single individual brings their own heart and soul into it.” In an age of separation, these acts have come together in support of their respective artistic endeavors. “It’s more of a reminder that we can’t rely on ourselves to do everything,” Tapp says. “We always need the help of other people.”

C U LT U RE DANCE

Dance to a different tune Columbia dancers and instructors are getting into a new groove as classes and performances went virtual amid the pandemic. BY RASHI SHRIVASTAVA

eanne Szkolka, owner of Columbia Dance Academy, knows what it’s like to lose her nearest and dearest. Her father, her best friend and a woman who was like her second mother all died within the past few years. But Szkolka says she’s learning to deal with grief by channeling it into teaching and choreographing. “I am even more aware of the moments that I have with my [students],” she says. “Especially because they grow older, and they leave me, and that’s always happened, and I need to get as many things said and as many things done as I possibly can before it’s too late.” Szkolka founded CDA in 1996. Typically, the academy has 185 to 200 students at any given time. But when classes moved to Zoom in March, that number dropped

below 100. CDA offered online-only classes until it reopened with limited enrollment in June. The disruption meant Szkolka needed a loan from the Small Business Administration. It was the first time in 25 years she had to apply for financial help. Events called off, performers laid off The Missouri Contemporary Ballet also needed financial assistance through a payment protection program loan. Its revenue and student enrollment has plummeted during the pandemic, says Karen Maverick Grundy, executive and artistic director. MCB has nine professional dancers, some of whom teach part-time at the company’s dance school. The dancers were laid off as performances, events and fundraisers got nixed. Grundy says the hardest part

INTERESTED IN DANCE? The Columbia Dance Academy teaches a plethora of genres, from hip hop to ballet. You can reach the dance school at 489-4809. The School of Missouri Contemporary Ballet is the only not-for-profit ballet school in midMissouri. It offers classes to dancers of all ages. You can reach them at 219-7134.

The Columbia Dance Academy reopened with limited enrollment in June. Photography courtesy of Columbia Dance Academy

was breaking the news to the performers. Elise Mosbacher has been working as a dancer with MCB for 11 years. Dancers don’t do it for the money, she says. Their unwavering perseverance stems from their ardent passion for dance.“Financially, emotionally and physically, you know, kind of just everything got taken away from us,” she says. “Unfortunately, it’s hard for us to just get other jobs.” Mosbacher and others are still teaching classes at the company school, which has helped them earn side income, but they have not been paid as dancers since March, Mosbacher says. Try to Zoom with 3-year-olds When the lockdown began in March, students and dance instructors had to pirouette to virtual classes. Szkolka remembers her first Zoom class: being alone in the studio, leaning into a screen and squinting to see if students were following. Some students had bad lighting; others had screens tilted down. “I felt like I just did not do what I wanted to do,” Szkolka says. “And I cried so hard that day because I didn’t have my kids in my studio with me.” There were also plenty of distractions. Some kids would want to show their cats or disappear from the screen to get a snack. But a positive aspect is that the smaller classes allowed Szkolka and the other three teachers to give each child more attention. New opportunities Although the annual Dancing with Missouri Stars event was canceled, MCB livestreamed a virtual event in July that was also shown on a big screen at Logboat Brewery. And Grundy choreographed a piece for a short film, Nascence. It premiered at Logboat and can be purchased online. “I took each of my dancers out in seven locations throughout Columbia and videoed them doing the movements I created,” she says. MCB and CDA have begun in-person, socially distant classes and are eager to have their dancers perform in theaters again. MCB dancers are now preparing for performances scheduled in April. Szkolka is planning a trip to Disneyland with her students in 2022, where they will be able to showcase their dance. “I think that that will give my kiddos something to look forward to,” Szkolka says.

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

A PAPER LOST IN TIME Written by Aiman Javed

1901 - 1921?

UNRAVELING THE STORY OF THE PROFESSIONAL WORLD, A COLUMBIA NEWSPAPER

Design by Madison Wisse

P. 13

VOX MAGAZINE

JAN/FEB 2021

f you walk into 360 Star Styling Studio on Business Loop 70, you can grab the November issue of The Community Voice. On the front page is a story about the presidential election, and inside are a profile about Kentrell Minton, executive director of the Almeta Crayton’s Community Programs, opinion pieces about Black Lives Matter and COVID-19, and advice about how to invest $1,000. Publisher and editor Timm Hudspeth puts together this eightpage monthly paper. Whether Hudspeth knows it or not, he has been walking in the shoes of a Black newspaper editor from 120 years ago. That paper was The Professional World, an African-American newspaper published in the early 1900s by a man named Rufus L. Logan. The newspaper — and the man — are shrouded in a fog of time and lack of records, with even scholars and Black publishers today unclear about the history of the publication and its publisher. Logan’s story tells a tale about the early Black press and its evolution into today, with a hint of mystery, too.

RUFUS L. LOGAN

Rufus L. Logan was born in 1875 to his mother, Eliza Logan, and his father, Anderson Logan, a farmer. At 5 years old, he lived in Cedar Township in Callaway County, but later his family moved to New Bloomfield. In 1898, Logan graduated as valedictorian of his college class at Lincoln Institute (changed to Lincoln University in 1921), a historically Black university in Jefferson City. At Lincoln, Logan wrote and served as the literary editor for the Lincoln Institute Record, a newspaper he founded. In 1900, after graduation, Logan continued living in Jefferson City and became a teacher at Washington School, a segregated public school. On Nov. 1, 1901, Logan published the first edition of the four-page newspa-

per The Professional World. Residents of Columbia and Jefferson City could pay a yearly subscription of $1.50 to receive the paper weekly. “The columns of The Professional World will be open to all for the discussion of all subjects pertaining to the education and elevation of the negro,” Logan wrote in the first issue. In Chronicling America, the Library of Congress digitized archives of newspapers, anyone can browse through two years and two months of The Professional World, after which the record abruptly stops on Dec. 25, 1903. However, the paper did not stop publishing at this point. A single microfilm of the April 23, 1909, issue exists in the State Historical Society of Missouri archives. And clippings from other newspapers around the U.S. and Columbia reveal the paper existed until at least 1920 or 1921.

Rufus L. Logan remains an elusive figure, as there are very few, if any, photos of him in historical archives.

Illustration by Madison Wisse and photography courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri

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THE NEED FOR A BLACK NEWSPAPER Logan understood the importance of the Black press in the early 20th century. Although parts of his publication are missing from academic records, there is plenty of research about the development of the industry. Fred Sweets, a current contributing editor of the weekly St. Louis American, describes the need for Black press this way: “White newspapers would not cover the Black community unless there was a murder or a gang story. You wouldn’t know that Black people were born, died, got married, worked well, unless you read it in the Black press.” According to census information, in 1900, Columbia’s population was nearly 34% Black. Like any other community, readers wanted news that directly affected them. Such news was rarely covered by the white newspapers in town, which in 1901 included the Columbia Herald, Columbia Statesman, and Commercial, all of which were weeklies, and the single daily newspaper, the Columbia Daily Tribune. Many around the country tried to publish

Black dailies, but most lasted less than a decade, particularly in small cities. Missouri’s Black press was active during the early 1900s. Between 1875 and 1920, 55 Black newspapers were founded in Missouri, George Slavens writes in The Black Press in the South, 1865-1979. One of the major Black newspapers in Missouri at the time was the St. Louis Palladium, published by John Wheeler. The Professional World had a rivalry with the Palladium over which paper was the official publication of two Black fraternities. “Wherever you could find Black people in numbers, who were prospering or not, the Black press was there to serve,” Sweets says of the common mission of the Black press. In 1919, another prominent Black newspaper, The Kansas City Call, was founded by Chester Arthur Franklin and later led by Lucile Harris Bluford, a civil rights activist who was denied entry to the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism based on her race. The Call gained national prominence and was one of 22 newspapers present at the first conference of the National News-

paper Publishers Association, a collective of Black newspapers, in 1940. Throughout the country, the Black press reported specifically to the Black community. Freedom’s Journal, which lasted from 1827 to 1829, is the first known Black-owned newspaper in the U.S. In the first issue, editors and publishers John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish wrote, “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.” The Chicago Defender began in 1905 as a leading voice of the Black community. It is credited with encouraging the so-called Great Migration, which was the mass movement of Black people from the South to the rest of the country. Today, Timm Hudspeth provides his newspaper, The Community Voice, with its tagline of “Columbia’s voice of diversity,” to the local community for free. “All I really want to do is to give people the opportunity to get their voice heard,” he says. Hudspeth, a former host of Straight Talk on KOPN/89.5 FM, has been publishing the paper off and on for about 30 years, according to 2011 reporting by the Missourian.

JAN/FEB 2021

THE CHICAG

BALTIMORE AFRO-AMERICAN

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without pe

MORE THAN CAN BE NAMED The Baltimore Afro-American was founded by former slave John Henry Murphy Sr., and circulated regional issues around the country. The St. Louis American was founded in 1928 and taken over by Nathaniel Sweets, a Lincoln University graduate, in 1933. It is still published today.

Photography courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri

NNPA LEADERS

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JAN/FEB 2021

ANNIE FISHER

JOHN WILLIAM “BLIND” BOONE

E CHICAGO DEFENDER

bited without permission.

HENRY KIRKLIN

FLIPPING THROUGH THE PROFESSIONAL WORLD What we know about the contents of The Professional World is based on scholarly research and the few clippings that have been uncovered, but there are years’ worth of issues that remain missing from archives. Logan frequently published news about the who’s who of the Columbia Black community, such as horticulturist Henry Kirklin, businesswoman and cook Annie Fisher and musician John William “Blind” Boone. The paper also printed guest columns from personalities such as Dr. J. E. Perry, an

African-American physician who set up a hospital for the Black community in Kansas City. “In the pages of The Professional World, Columbia’s Blacks did not appear as a problem to be solved but rather as a group ready for greater success,” writes Patricia L. Roberts in A Lynching in Little Dixie: The Life and Death of James T. Scott. Large chunks of the newspaper were reprints of news items from around the country, a typical practice for the time. On multiple occasions, the paper published a large advertisement for a face-whitening bleach cream, face powder and hair straightener. But Logan’s approach evolved with time, and in 1902, he

vowed to never again publish such advertisements. He also often wrote editorials condemning lynching and encouraging Black community members to exercise their voting rights. Although The Professional World covered racial issues, it was with a conservative bent. Its approach was what Debra Foster Greene, a former Lincoln University history professor, calls “to educate and elevate.” For instance, in the first issue, Logan lauds President Theodore Roosevelt’s decision to invite Booker T. Washington to dinner. Washington was a prominent Black activist whose ideas were hotly contested by other Black leaders. They challenged his approach of

Photography courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri

including white perspectives in the discourses on equality. In the 1903 Christmas issue of The Professional World, Logan included an image of Washington, as well as offered free life-size portraits of him to new subscribers. The conservative approach meant that Logan advocated for the community to build Black businesses and frequently printed advertisements for them. He also called for Black empowerment through education. As James Whitt, chairman of the Sharp End Heritage Committee in Columbia, says, “It was not a newspaper that advocated agitation.” Logan also took interest in his alma mater, Lincoln University. He covered the university news in great detail and encouraged others to study there. In the Christmas 1903 issue of The Professional World, he published columns by Black educators from around the state. In 2002, Jason Jindrich wrote in Our Black Children: The Evolution of Black Space in Columbia, Missouri that The Professional World was the most important record of the Black space in Columbia at the turn of the century. Jindrich writes that it’s regrettable that records of the paper beyond 1903 don’t exist because it’s a loss of an authentic Black voice. The MU Department of Sociology began to study Columbia’s Black community in 1903 and is the primary record from that time. However, this research was whitewashed and “paternalistic” in tone, Jindrich writes.

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THE MURKY END OF THE PROFESSIONAL WORLD Logan continued to publish The Professional World even as he entered new career paths. He became a principal at the segregated school in Huntsville in 1902. He also became a recording secretary for the Colored State Teachers Association and was one of only three Black men at the Republican State Convention in 1908. John Lay Thompson, editor of the Black newspaper the Iowa State Bystander, described Logan as “full of work and ambition” in 1907. Logan’s reason for shutting down the newspaper remains a mystery. In August 1921, the Columbia Evening Missourian reported that Logan had been appointed as secretary for the board of curators for Lincoln University. Logan was one of three Black people chosen. But this seemed to spell the end of his newspaper career, as the Missourian notes that he “until recently published a newspaper” when announcing his appointment to the board. In October 1921, The Topeka Plaindealer also called Logan an “ex-newspaper man.” Perhaps Logan found himself unable to juggle two important responsibilities. It’s also possible that financial difficulties led to him shutting down the paper, as many papers of the time ended this way, writes George Slavens in The Black Press in the South, 1865-1979. By 1930, Logan had long

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left behind his newspaper career. Instead, Logan worked in real estate while living in Kansas City, according to alumni records of Lincoln University. In Antonio Frederick Holland’s book, Nathan B. Young and the Struggle Over Black Higher Education, he writes that Logan was also a Standard Life Insurance Company agent. Logan died on May 15, 1937, at the age of 62. Despite its longevity, The Professional World is not often cited as a resource for research because individuals cannot access the entire record. For a long time, researchers believed the paper lasted only a few years. For instance, late librarian Charles A. O’Dell put together a book about the paper in the 1980s called Professional World, 1901-1903, A Columbia, Missouri, Black Newspaper. Many other references to the newspaper say that it lasted just two to three years. Complete archives of the paper could provide Columbia historians with a fuller picture of the Black community at the time. Mary Beth Brown, a postdoctoral MU history candidate who has researched local history for 15 years, says newspapers have been particularly useful in her research. A former archivist at The State Historical Society of Missouri, Brown focuses on Columbia’s civil rights era and sought out The Professional World when researching prominent historical figures like Annie Fisher and John William “Blind” Boone.

Photography courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri

JAN/FEB 2021

1901 ISSUE

1902 ISSUE

1903 ISSUE

1909? FINAL ISSUE DATE: UNKNOWN

The digitization of newspaper records, in the form of websites like newspapers.com or the Chronicling America project, is a recent phenomenon. “It takes time and energy and money and people to digitize things,” Brown says. “That’s why there’s not a lot available.” In reality, she says, physical microfilm records will last longer than digitization, though digitization helps researchers. Tatyana Shinn, assistant director of reference at the State Historical Society of Missouri, says actual copies of historic newspapers like The Professional World usually come from individuals. So, no one can be certain that the records of a particular newspaper are lost. Physical copies could be in private collections or dusty attics. “Somebody could have it somewhere,” Brown says. “Which would be really cool, if they did.”

1920?

1921?

MICROFILM MADE EASY Tatyana Shinn, assistant director of reference at the State Historical Society of Missouri, says that until 2020, the State Historical Society used to send newsprint for microfilming to an outside vendor. Due to the shrinking microfilm market, the cost has increased, so it has invested in its own system to reduce the cost and time taken in processing.

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STATE OF THE BLACK PRESS TO DAY As far as can be established, The Professional World remains the first-known Black newspaper in Columbia. Others have since been published, but they have faced their own challenges. The Trumpet was a monthly paper published from 2007 to 2010 by William E. “Gene” Robertson, an MU emeritus professor of community development. “My philosophy is generally what happens to Black folks happens to underprivileged and disenfranchised people of any color,” Rob-

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ertson says. Unsatisfied by the public response and difficulties in producing the paper, he stopped publication after three years. The Black press continues to grapple with a lack of recognition beyond the Black community. Leigh Lockhart, the white owner of the cafe Main Squeeze, has advertised in The Community Voice for the past year. She also stocks it at her eatery. “How do we live so apart?” she says. “How have I lived here 20-something years and never known about The Community Voice? We’re just so separate, and that saddens me.” She found

JAN/FEB 2021

the paper after a recommendation from friend Verna Laboy, a local Black health educator. In 2003, reporter Larry Muhammad wrote for Neiman Reports that while some say the Black press lost influence after the civil rights era of the ’60s, others argue that the data does not support this claim. Fewer readers might reflect a national trend. Afternoon newspapers have disappeared, and the growth of television has led to a drop in readership. In a 2020 article for Neiman Reports, Deborah Douglas, a journalism professor at DePauw University, notes that Black legacy news outlets have lost influence. But she

TIMM HUDSPETH

NOW YOU SEE THEM... Reports indicate that in 1920, 42.6% of U.S. cities had two or more newspapers. In 2000, that number dropped to 1.4%. Black newspapers are being published less frequently overall, as there are only about 200 in the U.S. as of 2019.

outlines the several emerging Black media outlets that are covering subjects like COVID-19’s impact on the community and the Black Lives Matter movement. At present, there are about 200 Black-owned newspapers being published in the U.S., according to the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Of these, four from Missouri are registered with the NNPA. While Hudspeth had to pause publication briefly due to the pandemic, he is back at work now and says he hopes more people will send letters to The Community Voice. (He can be reached at timmhuds-

Photography courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri and Timm Hudspeth

peth@yahoo.com.) Roy Lovelady, owner of 360 Star Style Studio, is very familiar with the paper and has stocked it at his salon for nearly 15 years. “It’s one of those papers where [Hudspeth] literally goes around, and he drops it into every Blackowned business,” Lovelady says. “It just has a lot of information that may not get out in any other media. It’s a very big asset to the Black community.” Although the full history of Rufus L. Logan and The Professional World continues to be uncertain, its legacy remains, reflected in the works of Black newspapers today.

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A dozen turkey eggs might hatch on a nest but often only one of the young poults survives.

Jacob Williams, a turkey hunter in eastern Missouri, mimics the call of a wild turkey hen in the early hours of a spring morning to lure his target. It is common practice to imitate the sounds of a hen to attract a gobbler, a full-grown male turkey, during mating season. But over the past two decades, the excited yelps of gobblers behind the cover of trees have been fading, Williams says. Earlier this year, a turkey hen laid a nest of 15 eggs at Williams’ family farm in Jefferson County in eastern Missouri. Dwindling from 15 to 13 to 10, Williams watched the baby turkeys die over the span of a few weeks until only one was left. “The problem with poults is that everything in the world wants to eat them,” he says. The survival rate of poults, or baby turkeys, is dangerously low, he says. On average, only 23% of poults survive the first month of their lives, according to preliminary data the Missouri Department of Conservation collected from 2014 to 2019. The declining wild turkey population has caused concern among conservation agencies and hunters across Missouri, where turkey hunting is an economic and cultural resource.

Turkeys wearing backpacks MU researchers Mitch D. Weegman and Michael Byrne have partnered with the Missouri Department of Conservation to find out exactly why poult survival rates are so low. Their research aims to answer questions raised by the previous MDC study, which found that wild turkeys were dying at an early life stage.

Photography courtesy of the Missouri Department of Conservation

Hens are smaller and less colorful than males. A flock is usually one dominant male (called a gobbler) and many hens.

A turkey’s ability to nest successfully depends on the presence or absence of a wide gamut of factors: predators like raccoons, harsh weather conditions, the type of vegetation in the landscape and the abundance of insects that poults feed upon, Byrne says. In spring 2021, the two MU researchers plan to track wild turkey movements by attaching GPS backpacks to 45 hens and their poults in Putnam County in northern Missouri. The backpacks, which are fitted with radio transmitters and accelerometers that sense motion and velocity, will help them gather behavioral information. Trail cameras also will take images of poult predators in the landscape. With the help of technicians and two doctoral students, the team plans to tag 150 turkey hens with GPS transmitters over the next four years. Byrne and Weegman received $1.3 million in funding from the National Wild Turkey Federation and the MDC to fund the research, spread over the course of 5 1/2 years. “Any time you can develop large partnerships between organizations like MDC, MU and NWTF, it really promotes what we’re trying to do at Mizzou, which is build large teams, produce really impactful science that impacts decision making,” Weegman says. Founded in 1973, the National Wild Turkey Federation is a nonprofit organization committed to enhancing wild turkey populations across the nation. John Burk, a district biologist for Missouri at the NWTF, says northern Missouri, has seen a 60% decline in the turkey population since 2004. “This past spring was the fifth year in a row of a poult to hen ratio of one or less,” Burk says. “When you get five years in a row where you’re not replacing what you’re losing, there’s reason for concern.”

Rocket nets and corn Attaching GPS transmitters to animals to track brood movement is not a novel

technique, and it does not harm the bird, says Reina Tyl, a wild turkey biologist at MDC. The process of tagging turkeys involves three items: black powder, corn and a 40-by-60-foot rocket net, which launches over and captures the turkeys as they eat the corn bait. Once the flock is under the net, the team is able to grab the turkeys and place the trackers on them. The explosive net ensures a quick capture so the turkeys can’t escape. The GPS transmitters cost $2,000 apiece, Byrne says. For the whole project that’s $55,000. Tyl, who has been capturing turkeys since 2014, says there were instances when she was waiting to shoot off the net when a deer or feral cats joined the turkeys feeding on the bait. She had to wait until the other animals moved away from the turkeys before setting off the net.

Alisha Mosloff, a first-year doctoral student in the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, will be field tagging for the project and monitoring the turkeys. Mosloff is studying to be an upland game bird research scientist. Upland game birds are non-waterfowl birds such as quail, pheasant and grouse. “I grew up raising many different types of upland game birds with my dad, and then when I went to undergrad for natural resources, I was dead set against working on birds because I had spent my whole life with birds already,” she says. Now coming full circle, she says tagging turkeys will be time-consuming but fascinating fieldwork. She anticipates the most challenging task will be catching poults when they are 1 day old, she says. “Oh, I might be there catching hens and poults, maybe 12 hours a day, every

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day of the week,” Mosloff says. “But I’m happy to be here.” Researchers plan to gather turkey movements and behaviors, weather conditions, predators and habitats to promote specific changes to help increase Missouri’s turkey population. Back on his Jefferson County farm, Williams says he is looking forward to learning the results of this study. “What’s interesting about this study is that it will tell us farmers about the impact we are having on the habitat and resources available to turkey poults,” Williams says. This would include the herbicides they use on the plants that the poults feed on.

Down and up and down again By the early 1900s, wild turkeys in Missouri were almost completely wiped out, due to overhunting and habitat loss, Tyl says. Restoration efforts began in the 1950s and 1970s after wildlife manage-

ment agencies began reintroducing the birds to establish a healthy population. After peaking in the early 2000s when Missouri had around 600,000 turkeys, the numbers started falling again. At present, it’s estimated the state has 350,000 to 400,000 turkeys. MDC and NWTF biologists based this estimate on the assumption that the number of turkeys killed in the spring wild turkey hunting season account for 10% of the total turkey population. There is no way to determine the exact turkey population, Burk, of the wild turkey federation, says. In 1998, when the Missouri wild turkey population was robust, the MDC raised the limit of turkeys a permit holder can harvest from one to two, Tyl says. That limit continues today. Spring 2020 permit holders could take up to two male turkeys, according to season-specific limits imposed by the agency. Still, “Missouri has a really abundant turkey population, especially com-

The researchers plan to catch the poults when they are 1 day old to tag them.

ly 2000s

pared to other states in the nation,” Tyl says. “A lot of folks come here to engage with the resource.” Williams has been hunting turkeys near his eastern Missouri farm since he was 5 years old. Born and raised in De Soto, he says he remembers going on hunts with his uncle, father and grandfather. His family also participated in turkey calling competitions, in which hunters are judged on their imitation of various turkey vocalizations. Turkeys have complex communication systems, Williams says, and gobblers respond to hunters’ calls. Harvesting turkeys has not only been a cultural tradition for families since the 1970s, but it is also an important revenue source for rural towns, Williams says. “People would be paying hotel expenses, buying licenses, shopping groceries, going to restaurants, having camps in these little small towns in Missouri, which was pretty important because they may only get most of [their] business during turkey season,” Williams says. Spring turkey hunting permits cost $17 for residents and $224 for non-residents, according to the MDC. If hunters notice lower turkey populations in Missouri, they might turn to bordering states.

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Photography courtesy of Reina Tyl

Photography courtesy of Jacob Williams

Memorable firsts The declining turkey population hasn’t changed Williams’ memories of hunting. He distinctly remembers shooting his first spring gobbler in the Lake of the Ozarks area, he says. It was during the early 1990s when the woods were teeming with gobblers. As the morning sun hit the trees, a jake, a young male turkey with a short beard, came waddling out. “Do you see him?” his uncle, Gary Williams, whispered. Jacob nodded. “That’s a juvenile turkey, but that turkey is legal if you want to shoot it, or you can wait till we have another chance of killing an adult gobbler,” Gary said. Jacob Williams didn’t want to kill a young turkey, so they waited. Later that morning, he and his uncle found an adult gobbler and shot the bird. It was a hunt that he will never forget, he says. “Sitting on that power line in the woods, I remember what [the bird] sounded like, what it looked like; I remember everything about it,” he says. Now, when Williams takes his children for turkey hunts, he cannot make the same promise his uncle had made to him in the ’90s. With the turkey population declining across Missouri, if Williams and the children spot a jake, that might be the only turkey around. “If they decided tomorrow that there’d be no more shooting turkeys in Missouri or anywhere in the country, I’d be OK with it. I am very, very compassionate for them, and I want to see a healthy population,” he says.

Turkey hunting has cultural and financial significance in Missouri. Hunters often imitate gobbler calls to attract them.

The GPS backpacks will be similar to this one. They will have radio transmitters and motion sensors to help the researchers gather behavioral information on the turkeys.

An adult male turkey with a fully grown beard, which hangs from mid-breast and only males possess. The birds can weigh about 25 pounds.

A young female turkey that is less than one year old.

A baby turkey. Photography courtesy of Reina Tyl

An adult female turkey. During the mating season, the gobbler uses specific sounds to attract the hen.

What hunters call the wild turkeys they get.

An immature male turkey. Jakes don’t gobble as much as adults due to their age, and they have short beards.

COUNTING THEIR BLESSING BOXES P. 25

A good rule for finding the perfect pairing is the darker the dessert, the darker the wine.

Wining and dining With a little know-how, pairing wine and dessert can be easy. BY MARISA WHITAKER AND LAUREN STONE Peanut butter and jelly. Bacon and eggs. These are classic food duos. So, too, is wine and dessert, though finding the right pairing intimidates many diners. But with a little know-how, matching wine to dessert can be simple. When it comes to dessert and wine pairing, much of it depends on a person’s individual tastes, says Katie Miller, the wine and spirits manager at Hy-Vee. And she should know. Miller spends 40 hours a week with wine to understand the compatibility of each flavor profile. Her passion for wine led her to become a self-taught sommelier. A delicate balance One key to perfect pairings is the lighter the dessert, the lighter the wine, and the darker the dessert, the darker the wine, Miller says. It’s also important to make sure the flavors don’t compete. “So if a wine is really intense in a specific area, you want to get a dessert that’s less intense in that specific area, or vice versa,” Miller says. More acidic wines, such as riesling, match best with softer, more savory desserts, she says. But if you’re having a rich chocolate cake, stay away from equally sweet wines like moscato. Jim Anderson, executive director of the Missouri Wine and Grape Board, says your wine and dessert should share a similar density and boldness. One should not outshine the other. “You don’t want this big food and light wine or this big, heavy wine with this very, very light

Photography by Marisa Whitaker

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

E AT & DRINK WINE

A crisp and fruity riesling complements a citrusy lemon pound cake.

Winter — Cabernet and chocolate mousse ganache A dry cabernet often carries aromas of black cherries and hints of cedar. The notes of dark chocolate and berries in the wine pair well with a rich chocolate mousse ganache. The dark colors and deep flavors complement each other for a warm and cozy dining experience. Two to try: Joel Gott California cabernet and chocolate mousse ganache from U Knead Sweets.

Spring — Riesling and lemon pound cake A riesling’s high acidity contributes to its crisp, fruity finish. Aromatic hints of green apple and fresh cut grass complement the sweet, citrusy flavor of lemon pound cake. This combo is perfect for a bright spring afternoon. Two to try: Boundary Breaks riesling and lemon pound cake from Starbucks.

item,” Anderson says. His personal favorite pairing is a port red wine and chocolate cake. DIY wine pairing Stores that sell wine and websites like Wine Folly are good resources to improve knowledge of wine and pairings, Miller says. Customers often ask her what wine goes best with desserts. Creating your own pairings can be exciting, Anderson says. You can do this when ordering at a restaurant. For instance, look at a restaurant’s port list and pair that up with their chocolate. If you like fruity desserts, Anderson recommends looking at a restaurant’s sweet, late-harvest wines, such as riesling or moscato. The grapes for these wines are picked one to two months after the regular harvest time, which produces grapes that are sweeter and fruitier. You also could have a taste test party, Miller says. “You want to get a

couple different desserts and a couple different wines, and just play around,” Miller says. But it all comes down to your own tastes — not what experts might or might not recommend. “You could like the wine separately from the dessert, but maybe not together,” Miller says. “If you don’t like dry wine and your dessert pairs with the dry wine, you might not like the pairing. You’ll be able to tell that it just doesn’t blend well.” The best duos also vary with the seasons. Anderson says he tends to pair different items together depending on the time of year. When it’s warm out, he prefers a late-harvest wine because it’s served chilled. “When it’s very, very cold out, I tend to lean to a port because it’s going to warm me up,” he says. Following advice from Miller and Anderson, Vox played around with wine and dessert pairings until we landed on a suggestion for each season.

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Summer — Prosecco and raspberry sorbet A light and crisp prosecco is refreshing to the taste buds. It perfectly complements the similar notes embodied by a raspberry sorbet. The wine’s bubbly finish and the sorbet’s tartness make for a lively combination on a warm summer day. Two to try: Josh prosecco and Talenti raspberry sorbet from most major grocers.

Fall — Cream sherry and pumpkin pie The rich, caramelized flavor of a cream sherry is the perfect beverage to accompany a classic pumpkin pie. The nuttiness of the cream sherry brings out the nutmeg and cinnamon flavors in the pumpkin pie and creates a delightful course for fall dining. Two to try: Stonehill cream sherry and pumpkin pie from Peggy Jean’s Pies.

Photography by Marisa Whitaker and illustrations by Hope Johnson

E AT & DRI N K FOOD PANTRIES

Won’t you feed your neighbors? With 20 locations across mid-Missouri and more people in need than ever before, Blessing Boxes help curb food insecurity in Columbia. BY ALLISON BROWN

ou might have seen Blessing Boxes, large white outdoor cupboards stocked with food and hygiene products, popping up around Columbia. There are now 20 locations in mid-Missouri, and the Rev. James Gray, co-founder of Blessing Boxes, plans for more. Gray says the program started when he noticed that nobody was filling a Columbia church’s food box, so he began to fill it with food several times a week. He soon realized the impact of the food box and that having more collection points

would fulfill a need. So Gray got to work setting up Blessing Boxes, a mid-Missouri initiative, in September. “It just laid on my heart to put 10 to 15 Blessing Boxes up in our community in areas where people would definitely need a little extra support, and that’s what we’re doing,” Gray says. The boxes have brought the community together, Gray says, and many individuals and corporations have reached out to help, such as the COMO Men’s Christian Conference. “We just want to make our community about do-

Renee Taylor, co-founder of the Blessing Boxes, unveils the organization’s 1509 Hinkson Ave. location.

ing what’s right,” Gray says. Renee Taylor, co-founder of Blessing Boxes, and her husband, Wayland Taylor, plan to add three more boxes by the end of 2020. “Food is something that everyone should have a right to, and we’re trying to find ways to make that possible,” Renee Taylor says. Each box is strategically placed

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E AT & DRINK FOOD PANTRIES

around the community based on need and accessibility of the location. Renee Taylor says a box on Hinkson Avenue is in a family-oriented area, so it’s often filled with snacks for kids. The box on Ash Street is filled with more readily available items and blankets for the homeless individuals in the area. Joining together “These Blessing Boxes have been a symbol of rising up because everyone is coming together from different economic classes, backgrounds and heritages,” Wayland Taylor says. “We’re just seeing people who are in need and people who are able to meet that need all come together to provide and bring some unity during these times.” Sue Riley is the executive director of Do Something Right Now, a nonprofit in Columbia. The organization owns the house that is near the Hogan Drive box and plans to turn its garage into a food pantry. In addition, the organization will transform the house into a

resource center where kids and parents can take cooking classes, use computers, get tutoring and learn other skills. Gray had the idea to partner with the organization and put a Blessing Box on the property. Riley says she hopes this will associate the home with food security when they establish the pantry. Rachel McCarthy, assistant principal at Battle High School, says she supports the neighborhood that the Hogan Drive Blessing Box is in because it helps Battle’s student population. “We naturally wanted to support [the box] because these are our families, so we feel a connection here,” McCarthy says. McCarthy also says the pandemic has created an even larger disparity between those struggling and those not. “So to be able to have something tangible where we can tell our teachers, ‘Hey, let’s have a goal of everyone stopping by the Blessing Box on the way to work and putting two items in it,’ or having a team or club sponsor it allows them to give back to the neighborhoods they

FIGHTING HUNGER Between 14.2% and 15.5% of individuals (roughly 25,000 to 27,000 people) in Boone County face food insecurity, according to the 2019 Missouri Hunger Atlas. Food insecurity rates have decreased since 2017, but that has not been remeasured since COVID-19.

Diverse programming you can’t find anywhere else. It’s community radio!

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VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

live in and that their friends live in, and that’s really powerful,” McCarthy says. How you can help Amy Remlap, co-administrator for the Mid-Mo Blessings Boxes and Free Little Pantries Facebook page, recommends donating shelf-stable food or hygiene items like beans, rice, granola, cereal, toothbrushes, toothpaste and warm hats and gloves. “Pop-top cans are preferred as not everyone has access to a can opener,” Remlap writes in an email to Vox. “Ready-to-eat items are also great in the boxes that mostly serve the homeless as they generally don’t have access to a means of cooking. In the neighborhood boxes, pantry staples such as pastas and canned veggies are great.” Remlap also suggests contacting its Facebook page if you know of a location that could use a box. To see where all 20 Blessing Boxes are located in mid-Missouri, go to voxmagazine.com or the boxes’ Facebook page.

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Since reopening its store in April, Passions Adult Boutique has seen a spike in sales.

Bedroom boom The adult toy industry is thriving during COVID-19. BY ANNA KUTZ Even as the pandemic slows business worldwide, enterprises focused on virtual connection or finding amusement in isolation are thriving, including Zoom, drive-in theaters, streaming services and, apparently, sex toys. Sales are up at adult boutiques nationwide. Large companies such as Adam and Eve reported a 30% increase in online sales during March and April 2020 compared to those same months in 2019, as reported in a June 2020 story in The New York Times. Such a trend is apparent in Columbia as well, with family-owned local business Passions Adult Boutique reporting that sales are growing. Passions general manager James Roark-Gruender says sales increased 30% to 40% over the prior year when the store reopened in April 2020. Numbers game Although sales are thriving now, it wasn’t so at the start of the pandemic for Passions. During late March and early April, Roark-Gruender temporarily closed both store locations in Columbia and Boonville. “Immediately, I tried to promote the website more,” Roark-Gruender says. “But [on] Facebook, you can’t promote adult websites. So, you know, there’s a lot of logistical issues with that.” Social media platforms deem promotional content of sex toys too explicit, and online sales don’t replace the boutique’s usual income. Business suffered when both locations were forced to close. “When COVID hit, we were hoping to be able to make enough money

Photography by Madeline Ewing

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

IN TH E LO OP BUSINESS

Passions Adult Boutique has two locations: one on Business Loop 70 East in Columbia and an outlet store in Boonville.

COOLING OFF In a survey by Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, 44% of respondents reported a decline in the quality of their sex lives during the pandemic. Only 14% said their sex lives had improved.

online, and I will tell you it was minuscule,” Roark-Gruender says. “I mean, it was maybe 1/20th of what we were doing in store.” Access to Passions’ educational resources also diminished with the move to online. Roark-Gruender says adult stores such as Passions have become resources for sexual health and wellness information. In the store, display cases and shelves present health and toy-use tips to customers. Employees participate in mandatory sexual health trainings to better assist customers in finding the right products. Early May reopenings for both Passions stores were successful, making up for lost sales — and then some. The increase hasn’t slowed. Roark-Gruender says business is still on the rise. Fall sales were up 46% at the Columbia location and 60% at Boonville. What’s the buzz about? Licensed professional counselor and sex therapist Katie Harrison hypothesizes that the increase in sex toy sales could be a biological response to a life-threatening situation such as COVID-19. She owns a private practice in Springfield

called Queen City Counseling. “Human behavior is such that it seems people are wanting to have more sex right now,” Harrison says. “And so that might be with themselves, or that might be with another person. That would explain the sex toy sales going up.” Roark-Gruender says the spike could be the result of more downtime and excess entertainment budget. “They’re not going out to eat, they’re not going to the movies, they’re not going to see concerts,” he says. “The adult business is recouping a lot of that, because they’re buying toys for home.” That’s what Columbia resident and MU student Leeza Vasko decided to do. While quarantined, Vasko and her partner have had more free time to explore their sex lives, so they wanted to try something new. Difficulty with online ordering led them to search for products in person. Vasko visited Passions Adult Boutique in Columbia once it reopened. She says she enjoyed being able to shop without hassle or shame. That hasn’t always been the case. Vasko says she finds stigmas around female self-pleasure are rampant in American culture.

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

Leeza Vasko says while shopping at Passions, she was able to explore products without feeling embarrassed by stigmas surrounding sex.

“It’s very, very focused around male pleasure and not necessarily female pleasure whenever it does come to heterosexual partnerships,” Vasko says. “There also have been issues before that I’ve experienced with male partners feeling uncomfortable with me purchasing certain toys just for masturbation or something like that.” Stopping stigma Harrison says the discomfort around discussions of female pleasure is common. Most of her clients take time to become comfortable with open conversations about topics such as masturbation and sexuality. “Mainly they have this connection and this tie that sex is bad, sex is wrong,” Harrison says. “We start by dispelling that shame, which is [handled] through empathy, through understanding, and talking through it.” By encouraging clients to speak openly about what they want out of sex, it’s easier for Harrison to help them overcome the shame associated with it, she says. With the pandemic boosting sales of sex toys both locally and nationally, such conversations surrounding self-pleasure and its associated stigmas are more relevant than ever. Additional reporting by Madeline Ewing, Maria DeBellis and Auzzie Gonzalez.

Photography by Madeline Ewing

Facing the heat Columbia might not get tsunamis or wildfires, but it isn’t immune to the impact of climate change. BY MADELYN ODEN

issouri winters are known for being unpredictable. In Columbia, it can go from a foot of snow one week to sunny and 60s the next. But why is our weather this way? Vox asked professionals to look back on how Missouri winters have shifted and what that means for our future. One clear answer is that winters have become warmer. Two of the three hottest years in Missouri since 1895 have been in the past decade. “Winter in Columbia is about 4 degrees warmer than it was 50 years ago,” says Sean Sublette, a meteorologist for Climate Central, a national organization that partners scientists and journalists to report on climate change. Experts predict that by 2050, average temperatures in Columbia will regularly exceed the area’s normal temperature range since 1970. “We’re all headed in the same direction of warming,” says Pat Guinan, an MU Extension state climatologist. “Four out of the top five warmest winters on record for Missouri have all occurred since 1991,” he says. “Winter” means meteorological winter, which is December, January and February. Overall, experts say that climate change is the primary driver of higher temperatures and precipitation in the region in the past few decades. Here’s what that looks like in CoMo and the mid-Missouri region. Goodbye, white winters The average snowfall in Columbia is about 18 to 20 inches. However, from the 1960s to ’80s, that average was 2 feet. Having lived in Missouri for 30 years, KOMU meteorologist Tim Schmidt is accustomed to Missouri winters. He says he

has noticed an increase in rain compared to snow or ice in recent years. Throughout the winter season, it’s typical for Missouri to experience rain, ice and snow, “and the warming climate has definitely affected which one we get more of,” Schmidt says. Rain boots on, umbrellas up The state has also experienced an increase in heavy rainfall events throughout the year, Guinan says, which has caused increased flooding. “We’re seeing a 35% increase of those 3-inch events,” he says. Warmer temperatures create more water content in the atmosphere, and this leads to increased precipitation. “Ultimately, I think we’re going to be dealing with more stretches of really heavy weather, especially heavy rainfall rates in general,” Schmidt says. Fighting frosts Warming temperatures are also negatively affecting the agriculture industry. Columbia’s growing season has lengthened by about a week, Sublette says. This can be problematic when it results in unexpected freezes in spring. For example, fruit trees need a certain amount of chilling time before the spring comes. When the weather starts to warm up, that’s the trees’ signal to start flowering and produce fruit. Warmer winters don’t allow fruit trees to get the proper chilling time to go dormant. “They might flower very early, like in February or March, and then if you do get just one quick freeze, maybe in late March — which generally isn’t unusual

Information from RCC.ACIS.org and Climate Central and graphics by Madison Wisse

LET IT SNOW Winter temperatures have increased by an average of 4 degrees over the past 50 years, according to Climate Central, causing snowfall rates to decrease. Scientists predict this will be detrimental to crop production, costing local communities billions of dollars.

— [it can cause] a lot of damage to your tree crop,” Sublette says. A great migration Warming temperatures have also affected wildlife. Take, for instance, the armadillo, which has moved north from its typical range in the southeastern United States. In the mid-’90s it was news that armadillos had made it as far north as Springfield, says Patrick Market, director of MU’s School of Natural Resources. “Now, they do seem to be appearing much further [north],” he says. Armadillos often move into Illinois, Kansas and Missouri, where the species isn’t able to make it through winter. Other animals facing abnormal migrations are bird species, monarch butterflies and green sea turtles. These forced migrations hurt these animals’ abilities to find food and survive as they are thrown into new territories.

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

CITY LIFE BUSINESS

Virtual ventures Coffee meetings and networking pivot online as entrepreneurs navigate the pandemic. BY STEPHI SMITH

espite a pandemic-induced recession, the U.S. is experiencing a surge in startup companies, with some even calling the increase a “startup boom.” Case in point: the U.S. Census Bureau reported a 37.5% increase in year-to-year new business applications across the country as of Nov. 28. Many Columbia entrepreneurs are part of that trend — finding new ways to network and get their business ventures off the ground. MU student Drew Patel grew his startup, Pollinate, out of a desire to tackle unreliable international delivery systems. When Patel visits his family in India, he packs more items for his family than he does for himself because packages and gifts sent by mail can get lost or stolen, he says. Pollinate aims to address this problem and improve delivery in developing countries. Patel, a computer science major, has been developing his startup since 2018, after he noticed how scattered the delivery systems are in other countries. To help grow his business, Patel presented Pollinate to judges at the UM System’s annual Entrepreneur Quest Student Accelerator competition in spring 2020. He placed first and received $15,000. Patel also took second place at MU’s individual competition and won $25,000. Pollinate has employees from several different countries, such as Kenya and the U.S., and much of the work has been remote from the start. Patel says this made it easier to shift to a fully remote business when the shutdown occurred. Others haven’t found it to be as simple amid the pandemic. Startups and

local entrepreneurs are getting off the ground with the help of collaboration and community as they also face new shifts and virtual pivots along the way. Tom Trabue has been CEO of his company, theNextStep, since 2011. He also works as an engineering consultant at Trabue Engineering as a personal coach and is head organizer of the Columbia chapter of 1 Million Cups. The latter holds events every Wednesday that allow new and experienced entrepreneurs to share presentations about their businesses and provide feedback to others. The organization was created “based on the notion that great ideas are discussed over a million cups of coffee,” according to its website. Trabue says a lot of great ideas arise in open conversation. Before the pandemic, the Columbia chapter met at the Regional Economic Development Inc. building, with 20 to 30 participants every week. In-person meetings allowed personal, individual interaction, Trabue says.

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

1 MILLION CUPS The organization provides entrepreneurs the opportunity to present startups and ideas to a peer network. Created by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2012, it has expanded to more than 160 communities, including its Columbia chapter. Coffee is highly encouraged at the weekly meetings. Join the Columbia chapter’s virtual event every Wednesday at 9 a.m. via Zoom or Facebook.

Now, the group meets via Zoom and Facebook Live. There are about 15 people who join on Zoom and another 10 who watch on Facebook, Trabue says. “We miss that one-on-one networking,” he says. However, Trabue points out the silver linings to the virtual meetings. The Columbia chapter has been able to host virtual presenters from around the country, which leaves a larger budget available for guest travel in the future. The virtual format also has allowed increased access to training opportunities on entrepreneurial skills such as how to pitch to investors and how to hire employees. Katie Swanson presented at 1 Million Cups in October 2020 about her new business, Change Collaborative. It provides virtual accounting advice and consulting for small to midsize companies. She assists other entrepreneurs with day-to-day accounting operations, technology and finance and oversees financial and managerial reports. She began this company in July in the midst of the pandemic. She says she doesn’t know what it’s like to run a business without a pandemic. Because her position requires a lot of networking, Swanson says she has had to get creative and come up with ways beyond coffee to meet for casual business talks. The online 1 Million Cups meetings also mean there’s also no chance to stop someone after an event to have those follow-up conversations. With an industry that already requires trust between her and clients, Swanson says that’s more important than ever. “There’s a lot of trust and likability that goes into these meetings that probably gets lost over the internet and would probably be better received in person,” she says. Like Trabue, Swanson says she’s able to attend more trainings and networking events because they’re virtual. And as a parent, Swanson says the ability to attend these events from her own home has been convenient. She says she imagines many businesses and organizations will continue streaming as well as hosting in-person events once the pandemic is over.

Illustration by Madison Wisse and courtesy of RawPixel

photo finish

S’no more snow days PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARCO STOREL A student walked downtown as snow fell on the streets of Columbia this past February. Meteorologists have said that Missouri will see more rain than snowfall this winter, but even if there is a big snow event, MU announced in December that it will eliminate snow days for the remainder of the academic year. The university will shift to remote working and learning on days with inclement weather. Columbia Public Schools hasn’t announced how it would approach weather related cancellations in a year when students and teachers have become accustomed to remote classwork.

VOX MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

300 miles

>> How a silver lining forms >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>

It starts at sea. Tropical waters heat up. Warm air soars skyward. Cold air rushes to the void. Cold air warms up. Cycle repeats. Faster and faster—a 50,000 foot engine of air. At seventy four miles per hour it earns a name. Harvey, Irma, Katrina. Then landfall. Roads rendered useless. Buildings destroyed. Families stranded. But for a brief moment, A silver lining appears. People see neighbors instead of strangers. And labels that divide are forgotten.

>> But when rains ease, >> when clouds part, >> silver linings need not fade.

>> >> >> >>

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