Vox Magazine March 2021

GET READY TO SIT OUTSIDE AT T/F PAGE 11

THE THREE STORIES BEHIND YOUR COFFEE PAGE 15

DIVE DEEP INTO MISSOURI’S WINE PAGE 18

THE VOICE OF COLUMBIA  MARCH 2021

Black pride outside People of color make spaces for their outdoor adventures, exercise and joy in places white people have dominated. PAGE 24

WHAT’S BUZZING WITH BEES & THERAPY PAGE 33

SURE, AT FIRST I WAS A LITTLE TAKEN ABACK

BY THE WHOLE PEEING STANDING UP THING. BUT I TAUGHT HIM TO THROW A STICK AND NOW HANGING OUT WITH HIM IS THE BEST PART OF MY DAY. — EINSTEIN adopted 12-09-10

HITTING HOME

FROM THE EDITOR

E DI T OR -I N -CHI E F CHRISTINA LONG M AN AGI N G E DI T O R EMMY LUCAS DI GI TAL M AN AGI N G E DI T O R LAUREN POLANSKI

I

have always found it odd when people say, “When COVID hit…”

The pandemic didn’t “hit.” It crept across the globe, slowly but surely conquering more territory than any empire in human history could’ve hoped to claim.

The idea that COVID-19’s spread was sudden and swift for the entire world is a prime example of the exceptionalism Americans so often buy into, and that exceptionalism further influenced the country’s response to the virus. Read our essay that explores this idea and its consequences (p. 8). The pandemic “hit” Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The first case outside of China “hit” Thailand in January 2020. But I do remember exactly where I was when it “hit” for me.

It was the night of part two of the finale of season 24 of The Bachelor. My roommate had been at work when she found out she might have been exposed to someone at a conference who had COVID-19. She was sent

ON L I N E E DI T OR GRACE COOPER

home immediately, and she came through the door as Hannah Ann Sluss and Peter Weber were hashing out their breakup with Chris Harrison in a studio.

The next day, on March 11, the World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic.

We all have our own versions of when the pandemic “hit” us and what has happened in the days, weeks, months and now roughly one year since. And although we don’t know when a COVID-free world will be a reality, we’re still striving. New restaurants are opening (p. 5). Music is being made (p. 13). Not even Columbia’s favorite festival, True/False, can be shuttered (p. 11).

The way we view this pandemic has changed over the course of its spread. In late March of last year, as we sat in our homes and baked bread and stowed our hordes of toilet paper, we couldn’t have imagined that the above activities could be happening. Now, we’re all the more grateful that they are.

CR E AT I V E DI R E CT OR MADISON WISSE ART DI R E CT OR S GABRIELLE FALETTO, MAKALAH HARDY PHOT O E DI T OR C OURT N E Y P E R R E T T M ULT I M E DI A E DI T OR MARGO WAGNER

AS S I S TAN T E D IT O RS CULT UR E FRANCESCA HECKER, TYLER MESSNER, MATTHEW RIOS E AT + DR I N K L I Z Z I E B E N S O N , VIVIAN HERZOG, ALYSSA SHIKLES CI T Y L I F E DAVID KITCHIN, SARAH STRAUGHN, LAUREN TRONSTAD, COLLEEN WOUTERS DI GI TAL E DI T OR S ARI ANZELMO, BRENNA ERWIN, WALTER FIELDS, HANNAH GALLANT, ROSHAE HEMMINGS, TOM KAVANAUGH, HANNAH KIRCHWEHM, EVAN MUSIL, ALEX NEASE, OLIVIA SHEEHY, LAUREN STONE, ALEX WANG, COLIN WILLARD, SARA WILLIAMS, MARISA WHITAKER M ULT I M E DI A E DI T OR S VICTORIA COX, CONNOR LYFORD, ZIYE TANG CON T R I B UT I N G W R I T E R S CLAUDIA KHAW, MCKENNA NEEF, ABBY ORF, MADDY RYLEY, RASHI SHRIVASTAVA, EMMA VEIDT, LIA WALDRUM

E DI T OR I AL DI R E CT OR HEATHER LAMB DI GI TAL DI R E CT OR SARA SHIPLEY HILES OF F I CE M AN AGE R KIM TOWNLAIN

CHRISTINA LONG Editor-in-Chief

Behind the issue

I remember the first time I truly considered race and power dynamics in our country.

My family road-tripped through Tennessee when I was in elementary school, and we stopped at the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Since then, I have been very aware of the privileges I have as a white person in America. Our country’s racist history is still prevalent today, even in the outdoors.

I love to hike, but I have noticed a lack of diversity on my favorite trails. I decided to write “Hiking while Black” because nature belongs to everybody, and we must work to increase inclusivity and accessibility in all spaces. –Emma Veidt MU medical student Brittany Carson was one of only a few nonwhite runners in the Mizzou Running Club.

Photography courtesy of Christina Long and Brittany Carson

Vox Magazine

@VoxMag

@VoxMagazine

Voxcomo

ADVERTISING 8 82- 5714 CIRCULATION 882- 5700 EDITORIAL 88 4- 6432 vox@m i ssou ri . e d u CALENDAR send to vox@mi ss o u ri . e d u o r subm i 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 MA RC H 2021 V OL UME 2 3 , IS S U E 2 PUB L I S HE D B Y T H E COL UM B I A M I S S O U RIA N 320 L E E HI L L S H A L L COL UM B I A, M O 6 5 2 1 1

MAGAZINE Cover Design: Madison Wisse Cover Photo: Lia Waldrum VOX MAGAZINE •MARCH 2021

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

18

FEATURES 18

Better with age Take a deep dive into Missouri’s wine history and the makers who are still keeping traditions alive.

24

Hiking while Black Outdoor recreational activities consistently exclude people of color.

IN THE LOOP

15

05

15

Time for something deli-cious

Coffee that connects Three Story Coffee takes its name literally by telling the stories of its coffee-bean farmers.

A new dining option will open its window downtown and is going to serve up soups and sandwiches.

17

Compost 101: breaking it down

07

One bagel happy family B&B Bagel Company owner Brad Newkirk gives Vox the secret to a brilliant bagel and thoughtful customer service.

Everything you need to know to start your composting journey.

11

08

EAT + DRINK

CITY LIFE

America, you are not exceptional

33

MU alumna Claudia Khaw had an ideal image of what living in the U.S. would be — until she moved here.

Bees make the perfect companions when it comes to helping veterans adjust to life after their service.

10

35

Therapy that sticks

Vox Picks

Let’s talk about food insecurity

Shake up quarantine monotony with a (virtual) book festival, a basketball tournament and a Logboat beer.

More and more people experience food insecurity every year. What is it, and how does it affect Columbia?

CULTURE

13

11

33

New/False Here’s everything you need to know about changes coming to the True/ False Film Fest this year.

13

Stronger together How part of Columbia’s rap scene took off from a fraternity basement and became something that’s constantly evolving.

4

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Photography by Trenton Almgren-Davis and courtesy of Stone Hill Winery and Unsplash, Illustrations by Moy Zhong and Madison Wisse

BOILED, BAKED AND MAYBE TOASTED P. 7

AMERICA WAS A DREAM P. 8

Time for something deli-cious Soups, salads and sandwiches with a special twist await at new addition The Strollway Market.

BY ALEX WANG If artisanal and locally sourced soups and sandwiches get your mouth watering, be on the lookout for The Strollway Market coming to downtown Columbia early this spring. This new collaboration comes from the brilliant minds behind Beet Box and Harold’s Doughnuts and promises new, inventive takes on beloved classics.

The inspiration behind the Market Michael Urban and Melissa Poelling, co-owners of Harold’s Doughnuts, and Ben Hamrah and Amanda Elliott, co-owners of Beet Box, arrived at the idea for Strollway after sensing a certain absence in Columbia.

“All of us have noticed a void of sandwiches, soups and that kind of market feel you get in other big cities,” Hamrah says.

“We pulled inspiration from our experiences in bigger cities, and that market vibe is something we saw a lot of potential in.”

Casey Callans, the head chef chosen to lead this venture, echoed the sentiment.

“Columbia really needs a deli that serves classics that everyone knows and understands. Everyone loves soups, salads and sandwiches. That’s something that Columbia doesn’t have right now,” they said.

The takeout window will be a Strollway staple during the pandemic.

From left, Amanda Elliott, Jody Schomaker, Melissa Poelling, Casey Callans are ready to serve.

Photography by Tanner Bubeck

An innovative twist on food Although the menu at Strollway will be in flux constantly, the initial offerings will include a classic Italian sandwich with cured meats, local greens, broccoli pickle and provolone, as well VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

5

IN TH E LOOP RESTAURANTS

as a homestyle version of broccoli cheddar potato soup.

Yes, Strollway’s menu will be clean and classic, but Callans will still have a chance to showcase their own style in the kitchen — a style that blends different cultures and traditions into something unique and undoubtedly delicious.

“This was a great opportunity for me to grow as an aspiring chef and do my own thing,” Callans says. “I have a little bit of experience cooking lots of different food, so I feel like I’m ready to stretch my legs and explore a lot of different realms. I want to look at masters of different cuisines and see how I can adapt that and meld it with other techniques.” Previously, Callans worked at Nourish and Cafe Berlin.

Hamrah says the menu will be ever-evolving to keep things fresh for customers. “Our menu will change monthly but will also include staples that we anticipate being offered year-round,” Hamrah says. “The daily specials are something we’re really excited about.

6

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Pandemic plans Despite the team’s eagerness to open, Strollway is still taking precautionary measures in regards to the pandemic.

“Now that we’ve had a year of experience running a food business in the middle of a pandemic, it’s all about trying to structure ourselves on how to move ahead in this time,” Hamrah says. “Phase one of The Strollway Market consists of online ordering, only allowing service through the delivery window, no dine-in seating

Amanda Elliott and the Strollway team bring a playful approach to their new venture.

THE STROLLWAY MARKET 114 S. Ninth St. Tues.–Sat. 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. opening in spring

and limiting contact between staff and customers. Once things start loosening up and people start receiving the vaccine, we’ll be able to open the dining room.”

In spite of the challenges facing the new venture, Callans says they can’t wait to get cooking.

“I’m excited about collaborating with local farmers and producers and making some great stuff. I’m excited to learn and try new things. There’s a lot of potential here, and I’m excited to see where it goes.”

Photography by Tanner Bubeck

I N T HE LO O P Q&A

One bagel happy family B&B Bagel Company owner Brad Newkirk keeps the customer in mind and the chocolate milk stocked.

BY MADDY RYLEY

O

ver the past 20 years, Brad Newkirk fulfilled his dream of owning a restaurant and turned an East Coast staple into one of Columbia’s favorite food stops. B&B Bagel Company is among a few places in mid-Missouri that boils and bakes its bagels. The menu is filled with food made from scratch that is inspired by customers’ ideas.

The addition of the downtown location in August 2019 allowed for more outdoor seating and improved the drive-thru experience at the southside location, which opened in 2000 as a Chesapeake Bagel Bakery, Newkirk says. His passion for treating people right — his secret to success — has led to generations of families working at B&B. This includes Teresa Wright, who has worked for Newkirk for more than 20 years and has had sisters and daughters work at B&B too.

“Brad and I just clicked like brother and sister,” Wright says. “He is very determined and driven and wants to be successful.”

Vox sat down with Newkirk to chat about what makes B&B special to its regular following of customers.

You used to work evening hours at Applebee’s and Garfield’s before B&B; why do you prefer the early hours of a bagel shop?

It was the idea that I could be home for family dinner. I found myself working 8 to 8 when my daughter was born. I wouldn’t see her awake some days; I would leave the house before she’d wake up and then get home after she was in bed. That was just unacceptable to me. When else are you going to get the chance to actually sit down, everybody together, and have a family conversation?

yeast, so that’s why they’re more dense.

And then you boil them, which finishes off the proofing process so that the holes don’t close up and they don’t blow up really big. It also gives it a crunch on the outside and the chewiness on the inside. Then you bake it like any other bread. If you don’t boil it, it’s not going to have the same texture.

What are some of your most popular menu items?

The eggwich is sausage, egg and cheese on everything. We like to joke that that’s the hangover cure — get a Gatorade with that. Eggwiches and veggie melts, pizza bagels. And then it’s the chocolate milk. I mean we go through so much chocolate milk.

B&B BAGEL COMPANY South 124 E. Nifong Blvd.

Mon.–Fri., 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Weekends, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Downtown 904 Elm St. Tues.–Sun., 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

What is the most important lesson you have learned?

Treat people right — whether it’s staff or customers. If you treat people right and your heart is in the right place, you’re going to be successful.

How is B&B unique?

We treat people like family. I’ve been to funerals of customers. I’ve been invited to weddings of customers. I’ve had three sisters from one family all work for me. You build up a lot of integrity with people.

What changes have you seen with the addition of the downtown location?

We get a lot of college kids here. It is probably 90% college kids, and we do have some business people. When you’re downtown, and you’re a hangout, everybody goes there.

Brad Newkirk also mentors MU students with interests in business and marketing.

B&B boils and bakes its bagels. What difference does that make?

We’ll use an ounce and a quarter of Photography by Danielle Pycior

7

IN TH E LOOP ESSAY

As a young girl in Malaysia, she admired the U.S. from afar. Then she met reality.

BY CLAUDIA KHAW

I

f you were to take a look at my tax documents or a Social Security form it would say,“legal alien allowed to work.”

And that’s literally what I am. An alien.

A lawful one, sure, but an alien nonetheless.

It might not be an objective term, but often I feel it’s accurate.

I grew up in Malaysia watching American sitcoms such as Friends and developed an American-adjacent accent while using words such as “like,” “basically” and “literally” in, like, basically every other sentence. Literally.

As a digital native, I existed on social media platforms that were dominated by Western influencers. I can recite viral Vine videos and memes as well as any young American. I play off my persona so well that people have assumed I’m American or have lived in the United States for more than two years.

But no, I’m not American. I’m an alien.

A voyeur, really.

I didn’t know it then, but I truly wor-

8

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

shipped the Western world growing up.

Westerners were cooler, prettier, smarter.

That’s why the media I consumed was so saturated with them, right? I wrote stories that had characters with the last name of Smith and Rogers, and they had light blue or green eyes. I even gave myself a pen name: Claudia White. In hindsight, the internalized racism is not lost on me.

It’s not like I thought the United States was perfect, but in my heart I still romanticized it. It wasn’t easy to realize that all the coming-of-age movies, young adult fiction and YouTube vlogs weren’t the reality. You know what they say: Never meet your heroes.

The reality I witnessed This past fall, I wrote down my frustrations about why the United States and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn’t examine other countries’ protocols or recommend mask-wearing sooner when COVID-19 first appeared in the U.S. That’s when I

DECLINING WORLDVIEW

Favorable perception of the U.S. on the world stage has been declining for the past four years.

A 2020 Pew research study shows that countries such as Japan, Canada and Australia have a majority negative view of America compared to their approval ratings around 2016.

encountered a concept I hadn’t heard of before: American exceptionalism.

Exceptionalism is the perception that a country, society, institution, species or even time period is remarkable and superior, making that entity invulnerable to general rules that affect others. American exceptionalism is a theory that asserts the U.S. is a unique country among all other nations, particularly when it comes to its approach to democracy, liberty and self-government.

The steadfast belief in America’s exceptionalism is arguably what worsened the effects of COVID-19. As Uri Freedmen wrote on May 14, 2020, in The Atlantic, “While U.S. policymakers do study other governments’ initiatives more than they necessarily advertise, American politicians typically resist engaging with ideas from abroad.”

This all felt like an epiphany to me.

And in my opinion, the concept of exceptionalism reaches beyond politics. American exceptionalism is so pervasive that it traverses all forms of media that I’ve consumed throughout my lifetime. It wasn’t until I Illustrations by Gabrielle Faletto

I N T HE LO O P ESSAY

came face to face with America itself that I realized it had a tremendously negative effect. Admittedly, that might be a personal response. But it’s also undeniable it has been creating issues for Americans too.

Playing a role More than a decade ago at MU, a Ph.D. student from Singapore, a country neighboring my own, also took interest in the topic of exceptionalism. He happened to have written a 250-page dissertation on the topic and continues to teach U.S. domestic and foreign politics at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. His name is Adrian Ang, and he’s well-versed on the subject.

In his dissertation, Ang focused on American exceptionalism in foreign policy and how the notion influences the way the United States acts and sees its role on the world stage. While Ang sees this play out from a political standpoint, I see the same thing happening in everyday life. When I spoke to Americans about how Malaysia operates, they’d often say things like “that’s weird.” It was as if American systems are the norm, and everything else exists juxtaposed to it. They usually don’t mean to be offensive. A long-time friend also from Malaysia, who has lived in Australia since 2010, put it into words: “When you are so used to your worldview being the dominant worldview, you don’t even have the means to become entirely encompassing of the ideology of equality. Because you’re genuinely unaware.”

This view of exceptionalism heightened amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to research from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ 2020 Foreign Attitudes survey, Americans who believe in exceptionalism were far more likely to say the U.S. handled the pandemic better than others. Ang compared that to the view elsewhere. “You have a Pew survey of I think 13 countries, and only 15% expressed any sort of approval of how America has handled this crisis. Now, in terms of American exceptionalism, America is truly the exception in its handling of COVID-19, but not in a good way.

“If you take individual liberties and individual freedoms, which is the hallmark of American exceptionalism, to the extreme, where you have anti-mask protests and

talking about liberators from lockdowns…

American exceptionalism has been turned on its head,” he says.

Partisanship has played a big role in furthering such rhetoric. “Republicans are overwhelmingly exceptionalist,” Ang says. “When you pay attention to some of the rhetoric that political leaders in the U.S. were using in terms of responses to COVID-19, it was as if America was exceptional. As if it had nothing to learn from other countries. But again, that was limited to a particular subset of politicians.”

Experiencing exceptionalism I saw this play out explicitly for the first time when editors unflinchingly shut down pitches from my fellow international students and me about mask-wearing in early February 2020. I remember arguing that we should look into why people in other countries were wearing them, but the rebuttal was because the CDC was against it. “They trust their CDC too much,” I remember a Chinese source saying to me back in February. I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t trust the CDC, but why should that overrule knowledge from other countries?

I’m asking any American reading this: Did you, too, doubt or mock the idea of mask-wearing in the early months of the pandemic? Did you ever think the United States should be looking at what other countries were doing and follow suit? Or

Illustrations by Gabrielle Faletto and photography courtesy of Claudia Khaw

Claudia Khaw graduated from MU in December 2020 with a degree in journalism. She is now back home in Malaysia.

Growing up in Malaysia, Claudia immersed herself in Western media by watching American sitcoms and engaging in popular American apps such as Vine.

were you confident in the American way of doing things — in exceptionalism?

But I’m not here to point fingers. Ethnocentrism is not unique to the U.S. While writing this essay, I also had to confront my own beliefs. I had a difficult time articulating why the concept of American exceptionalism mattered. Was I even qualified to bring it up?

I think the pandemic has grounded me in this. Ultimately, it matters because a different worldview could have saved lives. I’m qualified because I care. Writing about it does something because it starts a conversation.

Patriotism doesn’t equate to blindly following certain values deemed to align with the country’s agenda. It doesn’t equate to indiscriminately criticizing everything about a country either. I don’t think American exceptionalism only manifests as nationalism or xenophobia. You can be proud of your country while simultaneously remaining critical. The vocalness of people is one of the best things about the United States, in my opinion. It has encouraged me to challenge my own thoughts and find my own voice.

I’m an alien, yes. A voyeur. But maybe it takes an alien to notice things.

As American anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote, “If a fish were an anthropologist, the last thing it would discover would be water.”

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

9

IN TH E LOOP VOX PICKS

Vox Picks for

March

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.

BY TYLER MESSNER

Drink…

Look out…

Logboat Brewing Co.’s seasonal, Irish-style red ale. The brewed batch is a collaboration with the St. Louis-based band Falling Fences. The beer is available for purchase in stores and at the Logboat taproom.

Logboat Brewing Co., 504 Fay St., Tue.–Thur., 3–9 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 1–10 p.m.; Sunday, 1–7 p.m., 397-6786

For COVID-19 vaccine information. Residents of Columbia and Boone County can fill out surveys on the Columbia, state of Missouri and MU Health Care websites to get updates on the availability of the vaccine. The surveys provide a method for people to be contacted once the vaccine is available to them. The city’s page also has information on who’s currently eligible for vaccination, what to expect when you get your shots and answers to frequently asked questions.

Columbia, como.gov/covidvaccine; MU Health Care, muhealth.org/form/covid-vaccine-survey; Missouri, covidvaccine.mo.gov/navigator/

Cheer on…

Attend…

Unbound Book Festival after it was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. This year, Unbound kicked off in January, and the festival has been operating totally online. This month, highlights include Representation in Publishing on March 2, First Things First: Debut Novels on March 4, Show Me Stories on March 18 and Healthcare Poetry on March 25. The fest concludes April 23 with a keynote event featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Tracy K. Smith and Jericho Brown. unboundbookfestival.com for full schedule; Free

The MU Tigers as the men’s basketball team gets ready for the NCAA tournament and March Madness. The last time the Tigers participated in the tournament was 2018, when they were knocked out in the first round by Florida State. Every one of the 67 games will be played in Indiana this year, so new bracketing principles have been adopted exclusively for 2021. The bracket will be made using overall rankings of the teams participating without the typical consideration to geographic regions, according to the NCAA. Selection Sunday is March 14, and the first games begin on March 18.

Broadcast on TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV, and available to stream through March Madness Live

Enjoy…

Socially distant karaoke on Wednesdays at The Social Room. The staff brings a cleaned, covered microphone to guests for them to sing at their tables. International Tap House has also brought back Keep the Glass Tuesdays and hosts trivia nights on Wednesdays. Guests can win beer, gift cards and “brewery swag.”

The Social Room, Wednesdays, 6 p.m., 220 N. Eighth St., 397-6442; International Tap House, Tues.–Wed., 7 p.m., 308 S. Ninth St., 443-1401

10

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Photography by Kit Wiberg/Archive and courtesy of Unsplash, Logboat Brewing Company and Unbound

BUST A RHYME P. 13

For the first time, True/False will be outside at Stephens Lake Park.

New/False The festival will bring its films to Columbia once again, but this time True/ False is completely outdoors.

BY ALEX NEASE The True/False Film Fest has been an annual tradition in Columbia since its start in 2004. With the pandemic, however, this will be a year like no other.

Here are the biggest changes to the upcoming festival.

Time and place The fest has been moved back to May 5-9, two months later than the usual early March dates. The location has also been moved from venues throughout downtown Columbia to Stephens Lake Park. Stacie Pottinger, director of development and communications for the Ragtag Film Society, says the 116 acres of outdoor space will allow attendees to stay socially distanced. There will also be a drive-in movie option, but Pottinger says the details are still being worked out.

Pass sales will be capped at 40% fewer than in normal years. “If we couldn’t do this safely, we wouldn’t do it at all,” Pottinger says.

And don’t forget your mask — even though the festival will be outdoors, you’ll still be required to wear a face covering.

True/Love Despite the film festival taking place in May, you can still get a True/False fix in March with True/Love, a collaboration between The District and True/False, on March 6.

On that day, 10% of profits at participating retailers will go to support the festival. The event is also meant to provide a boost to businesses that normally would have seen festival-goer traffic.

Illustrations by Moy Zhong

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

11

CULTURE TRUE/FALSE

Over 20 businesses will be participating in the True/Love shopping fest, including shops such as Artlandish Gallery, Poppy Made by Hand and Yellow Dog Bookshop. The full list is available on the True/False website.

There might be a May March parade, a festival kickoff tradition, but that’s still a big maybe for the True/False planning team.

The Teleported Fest This year, there is a completely virtual component of the festival called The Teleported Fest. Pottinger calls it “a treasure chest of items to be opened daily throughout the fest [that] will immerse you through all five senses into the True/False experience.”

People who are interested can apply to join the teleported experience, which will cost $695, and the True/False team will be accepting applications until April.

Although the details are still in the works, the virtual festival will provide a way to safely connect with other festivalgoers, all while never leaving home.

screening venues set up in the park that will be used to screen all of the films. True/ False will release the full lineup of selected films on March 24.

The films and features Over the five days, the fest will show 10 to 20 feature-length films and 15 to 25 shorts. In previous years, there were about 40 feature-length films and 25 short films shown. As for how many films a person can watch each night, passholders should expect to be able to attend one screening a night, along with an event or an additional screening on some nights, depending on Columbia Health Department regulations, Pottinger says. There will be four outdoor

TRUE/FALSE FILM FEST Want to attend?

Visit truefalse.org/ attend/passes for more information.

The music and art During daylight hours, the festival will still be in full swing with live music and visual art throughout the park to entertain festivalgoers. Only passholders will have access to the screening areas, while the rest of the park is open the public. Buskers will perform in the four screening venues before each film, Pottinger says. The rest of the park will be free to everyone and will feature visual art, pop-up shops and live music.

The change to an almost entirely outdoor experience is a big one for the festival and will alter the experience for those who attend the film festival every year. However, if there’s one thing loyal True/False fans know, it’s that no matter the presentation — either in a theater or in a park — they can count on enjoying documentaries while celebrating one of Columbia’s favorite traditions.

U.S. ARMY CAREER CENTER 1305 Grindstone Pkwy #107 Columbia, MO 65201 (573) 303-7394 12

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Illustrations by Moy Zhong

C U LT U RE MUSIC

Stronger together With a blend of styles and sound, Columbia’s rappers are looking to make it big. And they are creating a community to do it.

BY MARISA WHITAKER

W

earing hoodies and sweatpants, roommates Ian O’Neill and Andre Steward sit shoulder to shoulder on a couch in their apartment. Steward’s hoodie is light gray with a font resembling slime.

It reads, “SlumBums.” The two Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity members met during O’Neill’s freshman year at MU. O’Neill was introduced to some other members, who all were interested in rapping and making beats, including Steward. He began freestyling as O’Neill played beats on others’ equipment. “I don’t think anyone else in that room was like, ‘Send me that beat you just

played,’” O’Neill says about meeting Steward, who graduated last year. Before long, Steward was asking O’Neill for one beat after another, and eventually O’Neill moved into the fraternity house.

“Then it just kind of snowballed from there,” he says.

And that’s also how Columbia’s rap scene has developed.

Avid music fan and local artist manager William Walters threw a music festival in his backyard called Porchella in October 2019.

Because of his prior experience jumping gates to avoid paying for a large three-day festival, Porchella was free to its over 250 attendees. “I wanted to create a platform

Photo Illustrations by Madison Wisse and photography courtesy of Ian O’Neill, Andre Steward and William Walters

Columbia’s rap community is all about networking.

William Walters (left) created a music festival called Porchella where SlumBums, Andre Steward and Ian O’Neill, met him.

WANNA HEAR THE MUSIC? To listen to any of the artists mentioned here, find them on Spotify. Vox even made a playlist with some of the Columbia rap scene’s biggest hits. Search for the playlist “Columbia Rap Scene” created by voxmagazinemusic.

that was big enough where people could come and just hear the music,” he says.

Walters had been managing a few artists at the time, but he realized he didn’t want just one artist to blow up. “The thing that we’re missing is the platform, that thing to bump everybody.” One of SlumBums’ earliest performances was at Porchella, where the duo met many connections they keep in touch with over social media.

“Everyone’s against an algorithm,” O’Neill says. “Why would we not comment, ‘Oh, hey, this sounds cool.’”

Columbia is a melting pot. It has its own local culture, but the city is filled with college students from all over the world.

That leaves it with a stew of different lifestyles, ideas and passions that spills into the souls of its residents.

“Everyone’s just different in Columbia,” says local rapper Anthony Chitwood, or Mighty Daxter. “Nobody wants to be normal here. And that’s so cool.”

Our nation’s rainbow-haired and face-tatted rap scene has its specific look VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

13

CULTURE MUSIC

and lo-fi sound. Yet in the middle of the country, Columbia’s scene strays far from having a group uniform, besides maybe a hoodie. With the nearest big cities being St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago, lots of traffic meets in Columbia, as do rappers. This is what local rapper Nicholas Horton, or HFGhost, says makes the Columbia scene unique. “Everybody’s going through,” Horton says. “[The scene] is constantly changing, constantly evolving.”

“There’s not that one sound directing the whole wave,” Walters says. “It’s like if Vincent van Gogh and Salvador Dalí and all these artists just started battling it out.

It’s hard to say which one’s better. None of them have the same style.”

Having lived in Columbia for the majority of his life, Chitwood knows most local rappers. “We all talked about how we got to stick together to come out,” Chitwood says. “In Columbia, it’s way too small to compete against each other, and we got to come together.”

Some Columbia rappers were lined up to play shows and festivals last year,

but it was all brought to a halt by the pandemic. But SlumBums jumped at the opportunity to have a distanced and masked-up show last October with MU’s Campus Activities Programming Board.

Walters is planning another Porchella in April at a large outdoor venue and inviting more than twice as many artists as last year. Steward says SlumBums is looking forward to meeting new rappers and hearing them perform. “I think we are going to see a lot of different, out-ofthe-box stuff coming from a lot of people that we aren’t used to,” he says.

The rappers are taking the free time to make music and plan shows. SlumBums has recently been spending time in the studio with Horton, and the group is working on music together. Steward says the scene will be a whole different experience when everything can reopen. “People are thinking creatively how to do things outside of the next performance because we weren’t able to perform for so long,” he says Just like in that fraternity bedroom in 2018, that’s the Columbia rap

To Anthony Chitwood (left) and Nicholas Horton, the ever-changing environment of the music scene is one of its greatest strengths.

scene. Columbia’s rappers are asking one another to send them a beat or liking another’s post on Instagram. Even through the pandemic, the scene continues to grow through a desire to see others succeed.

“I think everyone kind of brings their own pieces,” O’Neill says. “Like a potluck.

Everyone’s bringing their own dishes to the table, but we’re all trying to eat.”

II SHOULD PROBABLY SHOULD PROBABLY GET GET AA RIDE RIDE HOME. HOME. BUZZED DRIVING IS DRUNK DRIVING

BUZZED DRIVING IS DRUNK DRIVING 14

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Photo Illustrations by Madison Wisse and photography courtesy of Nicholas Horton and Anthony Chitwood

SAVE YOUR SCRAPS P. 17

Coffee that connects From the field to your mug, every sip has a story to tell at local shop Three Story Coffee.

BY MCKENNA NEEF

Barista Emma Briner has worked at Three Story Coffee for nine months. To Briner, the coffee shop feels like home.

Photography by Trenton Almgren-Davis

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

15

E AT & DRINK COFFEE

At Three Story Coffee, your latte takes on a whole new meaning. Each cup represents the coffee shop’s namesake: a mission to unite the stories of the farmers, staff and customers connected to its coffee.

The journey from farm to mug The second floor of Columbia’s Three Story Coffee features a collection of photographs captured during co-owner Tony Anderson’s travels. Pictured are farmers from Burundi and El Salvador picking and sorting through red coffee cherries. The detailed images are paired with three signs that read Farmers, Us and Together.

Each basket of cherries weighs 25 pounds and was hand-picked in a process that takes an entire day. Once the coffee beans — the seeds to the fruit — have been dried, they make 1 pound of green coffee that is roasted. After that, 12 ounces of beans remain.

Back in Missouri, Anderson and his wife Sarah started Three Story Coffee in Jefferson City in 2012 and expanded to Columbia in January 2020 with Nick and Autum McKague as a co-owners. The shop makes an effort to honor the farmers’ time-consuming process. Barista Kate Beshuk says she has the responsibility of representing

16

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Your favorite coffee starts in the field.

“One human has to pick 25 pounds for you to buy a bag of coffee,” Three Story co-owner Nick McKague says.

the farmers’ hard work through every drink she makes.

“I think the approach that (Three Story Coffee is) taking is really inspiring,” Beshuk says. “They’re impacting a handful of people but still making the work for the farmers more humane.”

A connection across the world Three Story Coffee is able to share the farmers’ stories because of the personal interactions the owners have to those who

THREE STORY COFFEE 300 N. Tenth St. 447-8050 Mon.–Sat., 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Sunday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

grow the coffee. “We kind of take it to the next level,” McKague says. “We build relationships with those farmers.”

Anderson dedicates himself to cultivating those relationships by traveling to several different countries with a small group of American roasters twice a year. There, he helps the farmers grow a better product, aids them in building their businesses and pays a premium for their product.

Due to COVID-19, Anderson has been unable to return this past year.

Once it is safe to do so, McKague is hoping to join him.

“We go there, and we experience life with them and see what the challenges they’re facing,” McKague says.

A warm welcome When walking through the door of Three Story Coffee, customers are greeted by the baristas, the chatter of students and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. While the shop aims to tell the stories of its farmers, it also strives to be a place where customers can make stories of their own. After one year on the corner of Park Avenue and North Tenth Street, the shop has already become a local favorite.

Since visiting Three Story for the first time last May, MU student Ethan Cannon has become a frequent customer and avid supporter of the new addition to Columbia’s coffee community.

His favorite drink? The Beshuk Brew, barista Beshuk’s personal blend of jasmine tea with vanilla syrup and milk.

“What they do is truly remarkable,” Cannon says. “They’re very hospitable, and they love their jobs. That is not just a paycheck for them.”

Photography by Trenton Almgren-Davis

E AT & DRI N K SUSTAINABILITY

Compost 101: breaking it down

When the compost is finished, it should have an earthy smell, Hargrove says.

Salvaging your food scraps keeps the nation’s single largest waste component out of the landfill and helps build sustainable habits, too.

BY ABBY ORF

A

small compost pile hides behind a gray shed on Gary Street in Columbia. What looks like a pile of twigs and leaves is actually a way to break down the food waste of four households.

One of those houses belongs to the operations director for the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, Carrie Hargrove. She says composting at home is the “right thing to do.”

This is because organic waste accounts for 32% of municipal solid waste in Missouri, according to the 2018 Statewide Waste Composition Study. A local composition study completed in 2017 showed about 43% of residential material going to the landfill was compostable.

Rethink your rinds Every week, Hargrove and her neighbors

dump nitrogen-rich food scraps, called greens, such as fruit peels and vegetable rinds, into the pile behind the shed. “The greens kind of smell when they break down, so you need to cover them with browns,” Hargrove says.

Browns can be any dried, carbon-filled plant matter such as leaves, eggshells or paper. Generally, the pile should have twice as many browns covering the greens, says Jody Cook, director of compost education for the city of Columbia and operator of the Capen Park Compost Demonstration Site. “The rule of thumb is more carbons.”

Turning or mixing the pile speeds up the composting process because it circulates oxygen to the bacteria that breaks down food waste, Hargrove says. The pile also needs moisture. “It should be moist like a wrung-out sponge.”

2

1

3

Photography by Abby Orf

THE 1, 2, 3 OF COMPOSTING 1. Add food scraps (greens), such as apple cores, bell pepper stems and lemons for nitrogen.

2. Cover those with carbonproducing materials (browns), such as paper towels and straw.

3. Consistently mix and water your compost heap.

Cut your consumption Cook says the biggest difference between compost and what ends up in a landfill is management. “It’s really a good idea to keep those food scraps out of the landfill because they are going to break down much better outside of it,” Hargrove says.

After five years of composting, Cook is able to limit her monthly trash output to about one-third of a trash bag. Composting, she says, can “lead to a big behavior change.”

Cook says she doesn’t buy a lot of non-recyclable food packaging because she buys her groceries from a store that does not sell products in single-use plastics. “It has made me more mindful,” Cook says. “I buy only what I need, and I cook it.”

Worm around with vermicompost Cook also uses a different method of composting. When she does have food scraps, she places them inside a container with red wiggler worms.

Red wiggler worms are a species of earthworm that, unlike regular earthworms, have a digestive tract designed to feed on decaying organic material.

This makes them perfect to vermicompost indoors, which is different from outdoor composting where bacteria and fungi — along with bugs — break down food. One pound of red wiggler worms can compost up to one pound of food waste every week.

If you are interested in composting with worms, Cook recommends purchasing red wiggler worms from a vermicomposter or ordering them online and repurposing household items. She says most people start with a plastic bin and cut holes around the top edge. After all the materials are gathered, you place the worms, browns (like shredded paper) and about a cup of soil inside the bin.

Composting is just one of many ways people can start living a more sustainable lifestyle, Cook says. “It’s so easy and something each and every one of us can do to reduce our food waste.”

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

17

Missouri’s wine industry was a top producer until it went sour with Prohibition in the 1920s.

Today, winemakers are restoring that legacy.

Nortons are the state grape of Missouri.

The crop flourishes in Hermann, which produces most of the world’s wine made from the grape.

19

Missouri Wineries The wine cellars at Stone Hill Winery date back to the 1860s. Workers today (far right) utilize casks that were used by Jim and Betty Held when they purchased the winery in 1965.

Hermann Adam Puchta Winery Dierberg Star Lane Hermannof Winery Stone Hill Winery Fulton Serenity Valley Winery St. James St. James Winery Rocheport Les Bourgeois Vineyards

T

radition is how we connect with those who came before us. It’s how we remember and honor who they are. For Tim Puchta, owner of the Adam Puchta Winery, his tradition is wine.

As a young boy sitting at the dinner table, surrounded by his laughing family, Puchta was served a tablespoon or two of wine with meals. A crisp white to harmonize perfectly with a fish; a robust red blend to accompany beef — Puchta remembers these meals fondly. Wine was always served but wasn’t to be taken for granted. If he misbehaved, no wine with dinner. It was a privilege to have wine served with food. “Wine was viewed as food, and food was viewed as wine,” he says.

Missouri has a long and storied history with wine, full of surprising tales and colorful characters.

Did you know that 160 years ago Missouri winemakers helped save the French wine industry from collapse? Or that 100 years ago Missouri produced the most wine of any state, second only to New York?

In 1920, 48 of Missouri’s 114 counties were home to wineries, and the industry was flourishing.

That all came to a screeching halt when Prohibition began. The constitutional amendment banned the production and sale of alcoholic beverages. By 1933, when Prohibition was repealed, the wine industry had virtually evaporated in Missouri. Since then, however, many winery owners have been reclaiming their heritage, resurrecting the diminished field.

The Puchtas are one of many families who have dedicated themselves to growing and cultivating the wine industry here. They began selling wine in 1855 but were forced to abandon that tradition because of Prohibition. Now, in 2021, the Puchta family, Stone Hill Winery and many others have once again begun to share the tradition of Missouri winemaking.

Missouri: unexpected wine country

Who would think that Missouri has a climate to grow wine grapes successfully? The state doesn’t have the mild and temperate climates of Southern France or Northern California. Even German viticulturist Friedrich MÜnch, an expert in the science of winemaking as well as a Missouri state senator, wrote about Missouri’s climate in 1859, perplexed why people were trying to grow grapes here. Despite those opinions, a robust wine industry took root through the passion of Missouri winemakers and their desire to create quality wine in a difficult environment. Some wine grapes that are native to Missouri include Norton, Chardonel and Catawba.

“Winemakers I’ve talked to in the state like the challenge, so it’s not necessarily negative for them,” says Nina Furstenau, a journalist and author of Savor Missouri: River Hill Country Food and Wine.

The industry took off in 1847 when Stone Hill Winery in Hermann began producing at unprecedented rates. Stone Hill Winery, which is still around today, produced about 1,250,000 gallons of wine per year by 1870, making it the third-largest producer of wine in the world and the second-largest producer in the United States. Stone Hill’s wines were becoming world-renowned and won eight gold medals at various World’s Fairs, including in Vienna in 1873 and Philadelphia in 1876. “The history of winemaking here, due to settlement by the Germans

20

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Photography courtesy of Stone Hill Winery

and others that appreciated wines — it was deep and long,” Furstenau says.

It was during this golden era of Missouri wine production that Tim Puchta’s family entered the scene in 1855. As Bavarian winemakers and butchers, his ancestors brought their trade to North America. “They bought land, amassed about 1,000 acres of ground and immediately started clearing land and planting grapes,” he says. The Adam Puchta Winery currently lies on 86 acres of the original 1,000 in Hermann.

During this time of success in the Midwest, vineyards in France were suffering. A pest was laying waste to vineyard after vineyard — it was a full-out blight.

In 1868, three men were determined to find out what was happening to the grapevines, and what they discovered was any winemaker’s greatest fear: thousands upon thousands of tiny aphids. Panicked, the men wrote about their observations of

the bug, which caught the attention of Charles Valentine Riley, the state entomologist of Missouri.

He recognized the description and identified it as phylloxera, a tiny bug that causes grapevines to rot.

But that tiny bug is also native to North America, not Europe. Because of that, Riley took a chance and assumed the grapevines here were resistant to phylloxera. Although it took some convincing, by 1871 Riley had helped French winemakers come up with a plan to save the French vineyards. With the help of Missouri winemakers, thousands of phylloxera-resistant roots were sent to France, where they were grafted together with French vines, creating a rootstock that is resistant to phylloxera.

A screeching halt

Missouri wineries were at the top of their game by the 1860s as the second-highest producing state of wine in the U.S. Missouri kept increasing production until wine producers’ luck reversed, and a slow decline in business began in 1870. Less wine was being produced because vineyards were being over-cultivated, and California had entered the wine scene. Although people were consuming more wine than ever, California was quickly saturating the market with quality, low-cost wines, and more people continued to buy from the Golden State. This led to a slow decline of Missouri’s wine industry for about 50 years, until finally, Prohibition was put in place in 1920.

With that final blow, local wineries were decimated. The one Missouri winery that survived Prohibition was St. Stanislaus Novitiate in St. Louis, and only because the Jesuits were producing wine for sacramental purposes. All other wineries closed.

Stone Hill Winery’s once-overflowing cellars were stripped of wine barrels and repurposed for growing mushrooms. Piece by piece, the Puchta family sold off acres of vineyards in order to keep the family afloat during Prohibition. “While they were putting in grapes, they were also doing traditional farming that allowed them to, once Prohibition hit, sustain themselves for a

Over 100 years since the original Stone Hill Winery received awards for its wines at two World’s Fairs, the winery continues to win awards such as the Missouri Governor’s Cup.

Photography courtesy of Stone Hill Winery

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

21

little while, but winemaking was their main source of income,” Puchta says.

After 13 years, Prohibition was lifted, but that didn’t mean families who had once made wine went back to producing. A little more than a decade had passed since the Puchta family was forced to shutter their winery. During that time, they found other ways to support themselves. By the time Prohibition was over, it was too late for them to produce wine.

The Puchta family’s story isn’t unique — Prohibition had devastated Missouri’s wine industry. Many Americans didn’t even drink wine anymore and opted instead for hard liquor, and the wine they did drink came from the monopoly California had on the industry post-Prohibition.

to the past. “If you want to talk about history and use the lens of food, you get to see the world in something that makes sense to us today,” she says.

In 1961, Jim Held, fresh out of the U.S. Navy, began planting and tending grapes on the land at his parents’ farmstead with his brother. “He preferred the aroma of the Catawba grapes to the pigs that he was farming originally,” says Jim’s 22-year-old grandson, Nathan Held.

Fast-forward to 1965, when Jim and Betty Held bought the crumbling remains of the Stone Hill Winery with a vision in mind — they were going to restore the buildings to a functioning winery.

“They were really dirt poor, so they wanted to find a better life for themselves and their kids,” Nathan says. With the help of Phil Harrison, the mushroom farmer who owned the land before the Helds, the couple started to rebuild.

It was a huge undertaking — most of the buildings on the property sat unused for about 40 years. However, the cellars were in relatively fine condition, and the Helds produced 1,200 gallons of wine in that first year.

Nathan Held, the third generation of his family to work at Stone Hill, remembers growing up at the winery. Tasting rooms were his playgrounds, and wine cellars were his hideouts. He would hide among wine barrels with his cousins and wait for tours to pass by, then jump out and scare them.

Now, Held is taking over the winery’s marketing and figuring out how to integrate tech solutions into the vineyard and cellar management. For instance, he is incorporating software that monitors what is happening in the wine barrels at any given moment.

The Adam Puchta Winery got back into the wine industry later, about 30 years after Stone Hill. Tim Puchta reopened the winery — bearing the name of his ancestor who originally started selling wine in 1855 — with his father in October 1990 and credits the idea to sell wine again to “a perfect storm” of circumstances.

After working in the medical field in respiratory therapy, Puchta says he was burning out. At the same time, his interest in wine was growing. Wine had been a constant in his life. He grew up in a wine culture, and he dated a few women at MU whose parents had wine cellars. “My knowledge of wine just expanded dramatically because of my exposure to wines from around the world with these girls I was seeing, and we became really good friends and just enjoyed food and wine,” he says. Post-MU, he became friends with people in the restaurant industry, including sommeliers and chefs, who he

Tradition rekindled

Missouri’s wine industry lay dormant until the 1960s, when individual wineries began to take small steps toward producing again. Furstenau says it’s exciting that the historic Missouri wine industry has made a comeback because the wine brings a connection

Missouri wine through the years

1847

Stone Hill Winery begins producing wine in Hermann.

1870

Missouri wine industry begins to decline due to over-cultivation and the rise of the California wine industry.

1

1855 1870

Adam Puchta Winery begins selling wine in Hermann.

1871

Hybrid Missourian and French rootstock created to save French vineyards from phylloxera.

1873-76

1868

Stone Hill Winery wins eight gold medals at World’s Fairs in Vienna and Philadelphia.

Pest phylloxera decimates grapevines in France.

1890

says opened his perspective to how lively the wine industry was. “It just exploded into something I wanted to do,” he says.

After sitting down with his father in 1990, the two decided to sell their family’s wine once again. They produced about 4,000 gallons that first year. “I can still remember we were getting the grapes in, and my dad looked at me and said, ‘I sure hope you know what the hell you’re doing,’ ” he says. He wasn’t alone, though. Friends at Stone Hill and St. James wineries took Puchta under their wings and helped him get his family business off the ground.

“I always had a love for wine — I didn’t realize to some extent how much it gets in your system,” Puchta says. “You actually get into the production, and then it becomes a passion, and it becomes part of your everyday being.”

Spencer Puchta, who was born the same year his father opened the winery, has basically grown up with his family business. Living on the vineyard grounds, Spencer says the winery was a part of everyday life. “You walk out of your backyard one day, and there’s 200 customers out on the picnic grounds,

1920 1933

and there’s all these strangers just drinking wine,” he says. Although he now works as a mortgage loan officer in Columbia, he still goes back to Hermann to help out with operations on most weekends — after all, it’s a family affair.

Operating under ‘the pandemic normal’

Like most small businesses this year, wineries have had to change operations in response to the pandemic.

At Adam Puchta Winery, the staff has had to reimagine what being a winery means. They were able to set up tables outside during the fall harvest for outdoor tastings, but there was still a sense that things had changed. The winery added a bistro, where ideally, patrons would be able to eat a meal along with drinking wine. The bistro opened and for a few months provided the Hermann community with curbside pickup and delivery services, but it is now closed for the winter season.

“There’s things that we’re doing to maintain a viable force in the wine industry and in the community,” Puchta says. “Just trying to keep our people employed, and when you have a lot of people working for you, you try to make the best decisions.” Puchta says he’s thankful that they have their own means of shipping, so their supply of wholesale wine to businesses such as grocery stores is still strong.

At Stone Hill Winery, the staff misses the noise the most. The historic tasting rooms, once lively with people sipping various wines, are quiet. “It’s been hard to not have people coming in and enjoying wine with us,” Held says. But the pandemic has allowed Stone Hill to focus on online sales. Held says the community has been supportive through this time and he is appreciative for the help his family’s business has received during the pandemic.

Although the pandemic rages on, the Missouri wine industry has proven that it can’t be stamped out so easily. It has survived a tumbling fall from success and managed to roar back to life — all thanks to the passion and dedication the winemakers have for their craft.

The people who grow grapes in Missouri aren’t here because it’s easy. In fact, they have to battle blistering summers and numbing winters, all while trying to cultivate grapes that produce consistently good wines. The winemakers are here because they’re resilient. “We like to joke that it’s like playing on hard mode here in Missouri,” Held says. “You have to battle the climates here and can’t grow grapes that have wide awareness; it’s a big marketing question, as well as a big winemaking question. You have to really be in it to succeed.”

Prohibition enacted.

1890

1970

Prohibition repealed.

Jim and Pat Hofherr open St. James Winery in St. James.

1974

Curtis and Martha Bourgeois purchase the building that will become the original location of Les Bourgeois Winery.

1961 Jim Held begins planting grapes at Stone Hill Winery.

1975

1990

Tim Puchta reopens Adam Puchta Winery.

1965 Jim and Betty Held purchase Stone Hill Winery and begin to restore the buildings.

23

24

HIKING

WHILE

BLACK

Or climbing, running, fishing, camping, diving...

People of color historically have been excluded from the outdoors.

Three local adventurers are changing that.

BY EMMA VEIDT

A

ngelique Allen spent 36 hours hiking around Crested Butte, Colorado, this past August and didn’t see another person of color. Three months later when she went rock climbing in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, she spotted trucks displaying the Confederate flag just miles from the campgrounds. Allen, a Black MU student, had gone to Kentucky with some white friends, who saw these as emblems of local politics. Allen, a little uneasy, says the flags reminded her of her position as a Black woman in these spaces.

“I wanted to make sure my driving shifts [on the way home] were at the end of the trip, so I’m driving through Missouri,” she says. “I don’t want to get out of the car at certain gas stations in these very small towns.”

Allen is used to this dissonance, but it doesn’t stop her from exploring the outdoors.

She hikes, rock climbs, scuba dives, bikes, hammocks, kayaks, does yoga and camps all around the country. This summer, during a national movement to wipe out institutional racism, she converted her food and fitness Instagram page to one that addresses racism in the outdoors: @angeliques.outthere. She tells her followers to reflect on how many people of color they see on the trails, at the campgrounds or in their community pools. In one of her posts, she says that “Even though the majority of people you see outdoors are white, that doesn’t mean they are the only ones who can or should be outdoors.”

Community of “blackpackers” Although it might seem like it at times, Allen is not alone. Many people of color aren’t seen in nature and in the environment as equally as white people, which can make them feel less welcome outdoors.

A Black couple on TikTok dedicated their account, @black.people.outside, to their fellow “blackpackers.” They captioned their first post with their mission statement: “This page is just Black people being outside. Nothing more.

Nothing less.” They have just over 42,000 followers, and one of their videos has been viewed over 500,000 times.

During the widespread resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement this past summer, Allen says she felt compelled to share her story as a person of color in the outdoors.

“I decided to make a switch and address

26 26

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

experiences that I’ve had,” she says. “Representation really does matter. I transferred that idea to climbing by showing that there are people of color doing things in the outside realm.”

Because of this lack of representation, people of color have to make communities on their own. Outdoor Afro is a nationwide organization designed to make Black people feel safe outdoors through community, chapter-led group hikes, camping trips, nature film screenings, bike rides, bird walks, float trips, rock climbing excursions and yoga sessions.

The only chapter in Missouri is in St. Louis, but anyone can create a new chapter anywhere.

This need to create community among people

of color is a long-lasting effect of the raceand class-based origins of recreation. People of color have long been excluded from the outdoor sports community.

Started with segregation Recreation as a tool for self-betterment has historically belonged to the upper classes. They had disposable incomes and time. In the 1800s, the wealthy escaped from the hot weather of their hometowns and vacationed in resort towns such as Saratoga Springs, New York; Bar Harbor, Maine, and Newport, Rhode Island. Those who embarked on these excursions had goals to improve their spiritual, mental and physical health.

Angelique Allen Photography by Lia Waldrum and Illustration courtesy of Harryarts/Freepik

But many of these visitors were white as many recreational centers excluded Black people at the time. People of color had to find their own equivalent places to socialize, including seaside resorts, amusement parks and theaters.

During the Jim Crow era, Black children were excluded from pools and safe swimming spaces, if they got the chance to swim at all.

When Black swimmers tried to access Pittsburgh’s Highland Park pool on Aug. 4, 1931, white swimmers threw rocks and swarmed them to prevent them from entering the pool.

In similar incidents around the country, police officers arrested the Black victims and charged them with starting riots. This disparity has created the modern-day stereotype that Black Americans can’t swim.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black children ages 5 to 19 are 5.5 times more likely to drown than white children.

According to USA Triathlon, less than 0.5% of triathletes identify as Black. In 2017, Ebony Rosemond, the founder of Black Kids Swim, wrote an article for The Washington Post about the historical lack of access to swimming pools for Black Americans. Her organization helps Black adults and children overcome barriers that initially prevented them from learning how to swim.

“The Black community must focus on getting more of its children in the water,” she wrote for The Washington Post. “We should not continue to lose our lives because we can’t swim.”

Black adventurists have made efforts to counteract these disparities. In 1936, New York

City mailman Victor Hugo Green wrote the according to a study by the U.S. Forest Service. first edition of The Negro Motorist Green Book. When a white woman saw Christian Cooper, These books became the ultimate guide for a Black bird-watcher, in Central Park this past Black road-trippers; they outlined which gas summer, she falsely claimed he was assaulting stations, taverns, barher and called the pober shops, hotels and lice. In February, after restaurants were safe. completing a therapy The final edition was program that included published in 1966, two educational training on racial biases, her years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act charges were dropped. of 1964. The foreword “ We [ B l a c k of the 1956 edition statbird-watchers] should ed “the white traveler be out here,” Cooper , said in an interview has had no difficulty in w i t h T h e N e w Yo rk getting accommodations, but with the Negro it has Times. “The birds bebeen different.” long to all of us. The birds don’t care what Even though it has been about five and a color you are.” half decades since the Black nature enthulast publication, Black siasts such as Cooper explorers still have to and Allen spend time in -ANGELI QU E ALLEN take more safety prethe same environment cautions than white as all other races, but road-trippers. When Althey are often the only len went rock climbing in Kentucky’s Red River ones who look like they do in these spaces.

Gorge, she stayed in a campsite designated just Allen says it’s rare to see diversity at the for rock climbers operated by a combination local mid-Missouri crags, the rugged cliffs rock climbing shop and pizza restaurant. that attract ambitious rock climbers. ClemAs a result of historical discrimination, son University researchers found that only the modern, mainstream idea of wellness 1.5% of USA Climbing members and affiliates and recreation has become so white that it identified as African American. When Allen has excluded people of color. For example, first started climbing at MU, she says there only about 8% of bird-watchers are Black, was only one other nonwhite climber in their regular group.

“The lifelong goal of anyone who is inIn January, terested in these things would be to diversify Angelique Allen climbed Owl Rock these (local climbing or hiking) spots,” she in Moab, Utah, one says. “But it’s like destroying the patriarchy. of Arches National One thing at a time.”

Park’s most famous

“Even though the majority of people you see outdoors are white that doesn’t mean they are the only ones who can or should be outdoors.”

routes. While African Americans make up less than 2% of USA Climbing members, Black climbers like Allen are using their voices to encourage other Black outdoor enthusiasts.

Photography by Lia Waldrum

The slopes are white Allen’s father grew up as one of six children in Joplin in a low-income household. He spent his formative years playing basketball and went on to play in college, but the front yard was the extent of his outdoor recreation. He only needed to spend a few dollars on a basketball.

Allen compares that to the financial barriers from participating in outdoor recreational sports, such as how expensive it is to ski.

According to FamilySkier.com, a moderately

27

Who owns the outdoors?

The historical domination of outdoor spaces by white people cannot be addressed without acknowledging they didn’t historically exist in those spaces. Columbia sits on the traditional lands of the Oceti Šakówin (Seven Council Fires), Osage, Kaskaskia, Peoria and Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) peoples, among others. Between 1808 and 1824 there was a movement called Cession 69. The U.S. government removed Native Americans from their ancestrial lands in central and northern Missouri so colonizers could continue developing west of the Mississippi River. They saw the Native Americans as an obstacle and had them relinquish their land by enforcing boundaries to divide it. Prior to European colonization, large swaths of land did not have fixed political borders. In the Great Plains especially, territories overlapped per the migration of bison herds, according to The American Historical Review. The idea of land ownership was changed by these colonizers through the idea of Manifest Destiny and wiping out Native American culture.

TH E VAN IS H IN G IN D IAN M Y TH

L A ND OWN E R SH I P The idea that Native Americans had no concept of land distribution before European colonization is an oversimplification, but land was not considered private property.

Indigenous cultures are diverse, so relationships with the land varied widely prior to colonization. Because livestock was not domesticated as it was in Europe, there was significantly less need for fences or hedges. In general, lands were more often harvested collectively on Turtle Island (a term for North America, which comes from an Indigenous creation story rather than the name derived from European Amerigo Vespucci).

M A NI F ES T D E ST I N Y This is the nationalist, white supremacist notion that the U.S. government had the God-given right to claim the land stretching between the Atlantic and Pacific as a civilizing project. Whites’ perceived racial superiority validated this westward effort because whites could dominate this land – through genocide – so they felt they were justified in doing so.

28

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

This myth suggests Native peoples and cultures no longer exist. Although used long before, this image was popularized by the “Crying Indian” ad campaign of the 1970s in which a white actor was presented as the sole Indigenous person plagued by the consumer culture, pollution and waste of contemporary American life. This stereotype relegates Native people to the physical outdoors and aids the narrative that systemic oppression against them is not ongoing.

As a Black woman in the outdoor sports community, Allen says representation in recreation is important.

TH E L AN D BACK M OV E M E N T The NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization that aims to return public lands to Indigenous peoples and dismantle white supremacist systems of power. Although decolonization efforts have existed for decades, and the 1970s saw the rise of the American Indian Movement, within the past year, major sports teams have begun changing racially insensitive names in what might be a sign of an evolving public consciousness regarding the rights of Black and Indigenous people of color.

By

Bradford siwak

Brittany Carson was the only Black girl on her high school cross-country team in Elgin, Illinois.

Photography by Lia Waldrum and courtesy of Brittany Carson and illustration courtesy of Freepik

priced five-day ski trip can cost up to $4,800 plus airfare. In 2017, the median Black household income was about $40,000 compared to the $68,000 median white household income, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Skiing is definitely the peak of whiteness outdoors,” she says. “The socioeconomic requirements are what prevents it from being a more diverse sport.”

In a survey of the racial participation in winter sports, only 5% of respondents who self-identify as skiers were Black. There are national organizations designed to diversify the slopes, such as the National Brotherhood of Skiers. During one of the founding meetings in 1973, club leaders agreed that their mission would be to support athletes of color and get them to the Winter Olympics.

That year, Seba Johnson was born. When she was 14, she became the first Black woman to ski at the Olympics. A young Black woman competing in a sport dominated by white men, Johnson received death threats just three days after arriving at the Olympic Village in Calgary, Alberta.

Violent acts of racism, such as what Johnson endured, make it harder for Black people to enter predominantly white environments. As a result, some sports are seen as “white” and some are seen as “Black.” Black sports are those that have stereotypically become labeled as such due to the success of Black athletes in those sports, such as basketball and football.

Allen has seen this stereotype manifest itself firsthand. “My dad always had a lapse of like, ‘Black people don’t ski,’” Allen says. “If you look at any ski slope, there are no Black people out there.”

On the run Brittany Carson, an MU medical student currently on rotation in Springfield, Missouri, was the only Black girl on her high school cross-country team. She grew up in Elgin, Illinois, where 6% of the population is Black.

She says that because she was a Black long-distance runner, her friends would joke that she’s Nigerian when she isn’t. This “joke” stems from the racist notion that West Africans are “born to run,” an idea rooted in eugenics.

“I never would have considered doing cross-country until having done track and seeing (her) coaches say, ‘Hey, come over,’” Carson says. “Why would I do (distance track events)? I always figured that if I’m going to do track, I’m going to be a sprinter. All the minority people were on sprints, so I thought I would be too.”

While attending MU for undergrad, she ran for Mizzou Running Club, the school’s club team that competed against Division I and III schools and other teams nationwide.

The MU team was predominantly white, and recreational running is a pastime usually occupied by white people. In 2016, only 8% of recreational runners were Black, according to a 2016 Routledge Sociological Focus study.

Brittany Carson “I always figured that if I’m going to do track, I’m going to be a sprinter.

All the minority people were on sprints.”

Photo courtesy Brittany Carson

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

29

Carson, along with other Black runners, has had her passion tainted by racial biases.

“It’s gotten to be one of those ‘whatever’ things for me at this point,” Carson says.

After Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed 2.23 miles into a run in south Georgia in February 2020, Black runners spoke up about the unnecessary dangers of being a person of color outdoors. In 2017, Rashawn Ray, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, published a paper titled “Black

people don’t exercise in my neighborhood.”

Ray writes that middle-class Black men who exercise in predominantly white spaces have to soothe the anxieties of their white neighbors with their dress and manner: wearing a T-shirt of a notable university, running during the day, bringing a form of identification and smiling or waving to people they pass.

Carson does her own version of this. She only runs during the day and with other people. To this day, her mom asks about her route ahead of the run. When she was in Columbia, she would run alone only at Stankowski Field or at MizzouRec. She hasn’t been on any runs in Springfield because there aren’t any runners in her medical school cohort, the routes are unfamiliar and she is busy working at the hospital.

She isn’t sure if these safety precautions come more from the fact that she’s a small woman or that she’s Black.

“I will never go running on a route by myself,” she says. “When I go back to Columbia for fourth year (of medical school), I’ll run outside.”

Breaking the cycle The Missouri Department of Conservation is developing opportunities to make all Missourians feel comfortable outdoors. Christopher Kennedy, the new assistant to the director on inclusion and diversity for the MDC, grew up in a multigenerational fishing and hunting family. He had a lot of access to the outdoors because his parents and grandparents were all interested in these activities. Because of this, he says he was a rarity.

“There were racially charged instances throughout my life, but we never let that keep us away from the things that we’d love to do,” Kennedy says. “Fishing, hunting, water sports

Making Spaces

30

Saying that the outdoors is open to everybody ignores the root of the not-so-simple problem. There are barriers from generations of segregation that have prevented Black people from frequenting trails, campsites, national parks and other areas of outdoor recreation.

To remedy this deep-rooted issue, many organizations have made it their goal to prioritize social justice in nature.

MELANIN B ASECAMP

L ATIN X OUTD OORS This organization embraces Latinx “cultura y familia” in nature. latinooutdoors.org

Due to COVID-19, Christopher Kennedy and his daughter found many opportunities to bond with each other and the outdoors.

On a Missouri River fishing trip in October, the two caught several Flathead Catfish (pictured) and Blue Catfish.

E V E RY KID OUTD OORS Aimed at educators, fourth-graders and their families, this program encourages visiting national parks and planning trips. everykidoutdoors.gov

The blog is a space for diverse voices in outdoor adventure sports. melaninbascamp.com

ChristopherKennedy

— those are things that in my family were commonplace, and we love to do it. Nobody’s going to stop us from that.”

Kennedy has worked at the MDC for the past 25 years. In his new role, he will focus on hiring a diverse staff. He says the conservation department has a lot of work to do in terms of inclusive hiring, and he is working to change that because his department performs a public service for a diverse range of Missourians.

“We must deliver the services as equitably

as we can,” Kennedy says. “And that requires fected generations’ ability access the outdoors. us right now, today, to be inclusive enough He says the next generation is inclusive and to reach any member within our Missouri making the outdoors acceptable for everybody. demographics and be comfortable doing it.

Representation matters, and it will affect if We’re moving in that direction and working the next generation chooses to recreate outdoors. on training that helps us develop a level of KangJae “Jerry” Lee, an assistant teaching proempathy for one another.” fessor for the MU College of Agriculture, sugThe outdoors should feel inclusive to all, gests joining youth development organizations he says, and parks workers can help guests that expose Black children to nature. This will feel like they belong. “Something as simple hopefully break the cycle of racial disparity in as a smile could go a long way,” he says. “To nature as they grow up, he says. those individuals that Allen also uses her might be a little bit applatform to inspire her folprehensive about utilizlowers to try some outdoor ing our areas, that could activities, such as scuba divgo a long way to making ing, hiking, rock climbing them feel comfortable.” and hammocking.

In order to do “I’ve gotten some , this, Kennedy says interest from nonwhite the conservation depeople who say, ‘Oh, my partment has to have gosh, I’ve actually really “tough conversations wanted to get into this. , , that force our staff to How did you do this?’” step out of their own she says. “I’m not going comfort zone, start to to say that I inspired view things from other these people to go scuba people’s perspective and diving or anything like recognize why they would that. I think that [I’m] do things differently.” just putting it out there In this, Kennedy that this is something references the historic that nonwhite people are exclusion of people of doing, and that it’s not as – CHR I STO PHER KENNED Y color from certain spacdifficult to get into as I es, and how that has aforiginally thought.”

“We must deliver the services as equitably as we can and that requires us right now today to be inclusive enough to reach any member within our Missouri demographics and be comfortable doing it.”

I N D I G E N O US WOMEN HIKE

OU T D OOR A FR O This nationwide organization with community chapters reconnects more people, particularly Black people, to nature. outdoorafro.com

This collective of Indigenous women hike to reconnect with their ancestral roots.

Search Indigenous Women Hike on Facebook

BL ACK G IRLS TRE KKIN COM M UN ITY N ATURE CON N E CTION The advocacy- and community-based program reduces the racial, socioeconomic and disability barriers to the outdoors. communitynatureconnection.org

This group is a community of women of color who appreciate and protect the outdoors through group hikes, climbs and runs. blackgirlstrekkin.com

31

MAKE SURE THEY’RE IN THE RIGHT CAR SEAT

NHTSA.gov/TheRightSeat

WHEN THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TO EAT P.35

Therapy that sticks Heroes to Hives uses beekeeping to help veterans transition back to civilian life.

BY LIA WALDRUM

Photography courtesy of Pexels and Unsplash

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

33

CITY LIFE COMMUNITY

A strong, sweet scent wafts through the air as uniformed comrades move across a grassy field. With each step, the sharp sound of humming grows louder. There’s a familiar rush of adrenaline and sense of danger — something now missing from their daily lives. These veterans are part of a program that takes them from buzzing military barracks to tending busy beehives.

Returning to civilian life can be a difficult journey, but agriculture is often a useful tool for transitioning. This is because agriculture offers a career alternative when conventional work environments aren’t feasible. More than 10% of U.S. farmers are veterans.

A number of MU Extension programs help veterans enter agriculture, including Missouri AgrAbility, Missouri Beginning Farmers and Ranchers, and Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network. Such programs offer veterans opportunities for holistic health, careers and wellness through agriculture, says Karen Funkenbusch, director of Missouri AgrAbility project.

Inspiration behind the buzz Adam Ingrao and his wife, Lacey, launched Heroes to Hives in 2015 on their Michigan farm where they taught five veterans how to manage beehives.

Since then, Heroes to Hives has trained more than 900 veterans who now manage over 4,000 hives across the U.S. In addition to the benefits for veterans, supporting honeybee populations is a vital endeavor for the country’s food supply.

Honeybees have recently been threatened by habitat loss, parasitic mites, climate change and other factors. This is problematic since honeybees contribute about $15 billion to the U.S. economy every year by helping pollinate crops. “Veterans are used to working within areas where they have missions that are larger than themselves,” Ingrao says. “This is an opportunity to continue serving (their) nation as protectors of the most important managed pollinator on the planet.”

Ingrao’s own struggle transitioning from military to civilian life inspired the program. When veterans leave military service, they face many challenges, including depression, service-related health issues, substance abuse and finding purpose in their daily lives, he says. After Ingrao was

34

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

discharged due to injury in 2004, he met Lacey, who helped him decide to go back to school where he took a beekeeping class. “From that point on, I knew that beekeeping was something that I could get behind,” he says. “It was something that I could continue to serve my country by doing, and that was very important for me at that time.”

Beekeeping is also a therapeutic activity and provides a mindfulness practice that is helpful for veterans struggling with their mental health. “If we start to get outside of our head and think about other things, the bees bring us back by a sting,” Ingrao says. “That kind of physical

Honeybees are vital pollinators for farm crops.

One way to help them is by planting nectar-rich, native flowers or by providing sugar syrup.

HEROES TO HIVES In March, this program will join with the MU Extension agriculture offerings for veterans when its pilot launches in Missouri.

Find out more at heroestohives.com.

Beekeepers provide structures for honeybees to build their combs.

Crooked Hill in Chillicothe sells and manufactures such equipment in its shop.

discipline, to bring you back to what you should be thinking about right now, is a really powerful aspect of beekeeping.”

Bill George is an Army veteran from Chillicothe who got into beekeeping to increase the yield of his garden. Now, he and his wife run Crooked Hill Beekeeping where they sell bees, hive products and equipment. Although his reason for starting beekeeping differs from Ingrao’s, George describes the effect similarly. It is a fully immersive, purposeful experience that focuses all of the senses and prevents recurring memories.

Missouri’s program When the program launches in Missouri this year, students will study beekeeping from March to November through a mix of online lectures and hands-on training. Students meet in person monthly and practice hive handling, hive inspections and honeybee health. For its pilot year, the hands-on portion will be taught at the University of Central Missouri’s Mitchell Street Farm in Warrensburg, with plans to expand to additional locations across Missouri in subsequent years.

Travis Harper, an MU Extension field specialist, leads this portion of the program. He says interest has been strong, with over 60 veterans signed up as novice beekeepers for the program’s first year.

Photography courtesy of Pexels and Unsplash

C I T Y LI FE FAQ

Let’s talk about food insecurity More people in Columbia are going hungry every year. Here’s what you need to know about this growing nationwide problem.

BY RASHI SHRIVASTAVA

P

eople are often afraid to let anyone know they need food assistance — afraid they will bump into an acquaintance at the food pantry. Sometimes Americans can be judgmental about why someone might be food insecure, says Mary Hendrickson, a rural sociologist and co-director at the Interdisciplinary Center for Food Security at MU. “Our culture kind of shames people who can’t provide for themselves and their family.”

The rise in joblessness due to the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity locally and around the nation. In 2020, the projected overall food insecurity rate for Boone County was 14%, according to a report by Feeding America. That’s roughly 25,000 people. Vox spoke with experts about what food security is and how it affects Columbia residents.

restaurants. Food insecurity rates are often high in these areas. In Columbia, there are sizable sections of the city that the U.S. Department of Agriculture qualifies as food deserts. This includes downtown Columbia and a large swath east of Providence Road from Rock Bridge State Park to the former Boone County Fairgrounds.

Much of this area qualifies as a food desert because food security in those areas requires access to a car.

What is food insecurity?

Food insecurity occurs when a person does not have adequate access to healthy and nutritious food, says Bill McKelvey, a project coordinator for the Interdisciplinary Center for Food Security. Food insecurity includes people who do not have enough to eat or don’t have access to the right kinds of food to maintain a balanced diet, he says. Before the pandemic, a little more than 35 million people in the U.S. were food insecure, according to data from Feeding America. Now, they estimate the numbers have risen to more than 50 million people nationally.

How has the pandemic affected food insecurity in Missouri?

At the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, unemployment claims in Missouri went from 3,000 a week to more than 100,000 in less than a month.

The demand for services, such as restaurants and transportation, nose-dived as a result of social distancing and stay-athome orders. This lack of income has amplified food insecurity in Columbia, says Seth Wolfmeyer, communication coordinator for the Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri. Distributing food safely has also become a challenge during the pandemic, he says, and toward the end of 2020 the food bank’s partner agencies saw about a 6% increase in people using the pantry.

When schools pivoted to online classes at the start of the pandemic, the 2020 projected food insecurity rate for children in Boone County was 16% (2% higher than the overall rate) due to reduced access to school meals, according to data from Feeding America.

What is a food desert?

Food desert is a term often associated with food insecurity. It describes a geographic location that lacks resources such as accessible grocery stores and

Who is most affected by food insecurity?

Food insecurity is more prevalent for racial and ethnic minorities and single parent-run households, according to national data from the USDA. Some people

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations measures food insecurity using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale.

HOW TO HELP Donate money and time to your local food pantry and organizations like the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture.

Vote for officials who promote food assistance programs.

Spread awareness about food resources available to those in need.

Infographic by Madison Wisse and courtesy of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

might face food insecurity temporarily while switching jobs, while others might need food assistance for longer periods of time. Hendrickson says lack of transportation, healthcare expenses, unexpected unemployment, loss of a family member or caring for an unanticipated child are some of the many circumstances that can lead to food insecurity.

What are some local solutions for food insecurity?

Public programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, are available to help purchase food. The Columbia Farmers Market matches SNAP dollars so participants are able to get their food fresh and local. The Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture is another resource for healthy food. It teaches residents how to garden and use agriculture as a tool to better their lives, no matter their background. The Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri has mobile pantries that deliver food throughout Columbia, and they have also rolled out initiatives such as the Buddy Pack Program and School Pantries, which help distribute food to schools for children to take home for the weekend.

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

35

CALENDAR

TO-DO LIST

Your curated guide of what to do in Columbia this month.

ARTS

True/False website under the True/Love tab. And save your receipts. They’re good for a free ticket at Ragtag Cinema for every $20 you spend at a participating store (limit five). March 6,

Sketchbook Show Support local and underrated artists this month by checking out Columbia Art League’s Sketchbook Show—an exhibit of sketchbooks filled out by people in the community. Guests can vote for their three favorite sketchbooks, and CAL will create and sell a limited edition print from each of the winners’ books.

truefalse.org/true-love

Poetry Reading Listen in as poets Tyree Daye, Jennifer Chang and Rosanna Warren perform pieces from their favorite works during this Unbound Book Festival panel. March

March 2–27, Tues.–Sat., noon to 4 p.m., free

Tiny Things

9, 7 p.m., free, virtual event

Everyone loves tiny things, and Columbia Art League wants you to join in on the fun. With entry fees ranging from $10–$20, artists enter their art (smaller than 8” x 8”) on the CAL website and drop it off Feb. 26–27 to be displayed in March’s exhibit.

Zoom Sketching Group Learn more about famous works and get in touch with your inner artist at the Museum of Art and Archaeology’s Zoom Sketching Group.

A docent will discuss a few artworks in a collection and then perform a live sketch of a selected work. Email

March 2 to April 9, Tues.–Sat., noon to 4 p.m., free

Book Discussion: Things You Save in a Fire Read Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center, and sign up for a community discussion of the novel via Zoom on the Daniel Boone Regional Library website. The novel follows the sole female firefighter in a Texas firehouse as she moves across the country and learns to navigate love and family in a new environment. March 4, noon to 1 p.m., free, virtual event

Agnes of God Written by John Pielmei-

36

er and directed by Hailey Ehr, Agnes of God is a gripping story about a sheltered young woman. Enjoy this production from the comfort of your own home as Warehouse Theatre Company releases the performance virtually. Tickets can be found on the Warehouse Theatre Company website. March 5–7, 7:30 p.m., virtual event

March Exhibit Need an escape from your pandemic routine? Grab a mask and see the newest exhibit at Sager Braudis Gallery featuring the work of Zachary

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Johnson, Sara Ann Olshansky, John Selburg and Mia Weiner. March 5–27, Tues.–Sat., 11

LOOKING AHEAD

a.m. to 2 p.m. by appointment; open 2–6 p.m., free

Tristan Raine looks at art being sold

by Don Skuzzarelli during True/False 2020. This year’s festival isn’t coming until May 5–9, but you can shop to support True/False during the True/Love fundraiser this month.

True/Love Support the True/False Film Fest and shop local for this fundraiser. Ten percent of purchases from participating businesses and organizations go to True/False. Head over to Artlandish Gallery for something new and eclectic, or pick up some ceramics from The Mud Room. The full list of participating stores can be found on the

callawaycl@missouri.edu to register, March 16, 10–11:30 a.m., free, virtual event

Missouri Bicentennial: Show Me Stories Celebrate the state’s deep storytelling history with this panel of Missouri writers.

Ron Austin, Mary Troy and R.M. Kinder will discuss how their home state influences their work and shapes their complex narratives. Also check out Unbound Book Festival’s website for a full schedule of digital events happening through April.

March 18, 7 p.m., free, virtual event

Photography by Samantha Waigand/Archive

C ALENDAR

CIVIC

Legends, Lore and Stories of The Show Me State Join The State Historical Society of Missouri as they celebrate the bicentennial year with this virtual program — one of many events commemorating 200 years of Missouri in 2021. Organizations around the state, including the Kansas City Black History Project and Black Archives of Mid-America will share how they are working to preserve the stories of our collective past. March 2, 11

Blue Note with music that is traditional to Lake of the Ozarks. The show features Pat Kay of The Kay Brothers and Ben Miller of Ben Miller Band. The show is 21 and up — a rule for all shows at The Blue Note to limit crowd size during the pandemic. Feb. 26, 6 p.m. doors; 7 p.m. show, $12 in advance; $15 day of show

LuSiD

MK Ultra (Pat Kay + Ben Miller) 200% Hypno Hillbilly Stereophonic

You can catch St. Louis native and electronic artist LuSiD at The Blue Note if you’re 21 or older. His music is described as overflowing with diverse instrumentation and live looping, so learn some new dance moves while seated at this socially distanced event. March 13, 6

Live music returns to The

p.m. doors; 7 p.m. show, $15

a.m., free, registration required, virtual event

MUSIC

JURASSIC

Craig Campbell This acoustic show promises a night of lo-fi country tunes. Campbell’s new single “It’s About Time” is his first release in almost two years and his first independent release. Make sure to snag tickets ahead of time as The Blue Note has limited space to ensure a socially distanced event. March 20, 6

Tom Andes applauds Sutu Forté after her performance at the Boone County Historical Society.

p.m. doors; 7 p.m. show, $20 in advance; $25 day of show

TIMES CALL FOR

Tom Andes’ “Double Keys” Quartet The “We Always Swing” Jazz Series and Murry’s will welcome long-time performer and pianist Tom Andes for a Sunday evening concert.

This time around, he will be accompanied by his “Double Keys” Quartet, featuring organist Travis McFarlane, bassist Sam Copeland and drummer Troy Hall. March 21, 6 p.m. doors; 7 p.m. show, $40

JURASSIC

PLUNGERS

COLUMBIA

Bass Pro Shops Lake - MARCH 13, 2021

Visit SOMO.org/Plunge to register

Photography by Shelby Feistner/Archive

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

37

CALENDAR

Punk Rock Karaoke Night Let’s face it: we all have an inner rocker just waiting to be released. So grab your pod-mates and scream it out at The Social Room’s socially distanced karaoke night. Every Wednesday has a different theme, including ’80s and ’90s.

The first Wednesday of every month is a punk rock theme.

Fuel up with food and drink specials and get to rockin’.

March 3, 4 p.m. doors; music 6–10 p.m., free

will also host Kansas State March 28, Notre Dame April 2 and University of Kansas April 17. BYU game,

SPORTS

March 3, 7 p.m., Audrey J. Walton Soccer Stadium, free

Watch as Mizzou Soccer takes on the Cougars as part of a spring slate of postponed games from the fall 2020 season. The Tigers

Mizzou Baseball vs. Illinois State

first games of the month.

The teams will play four times over the weekend.

Also add March 27 to your calendars when the Tigers take on Vanderbilt. Commodores pitcher Kumar Rocker is predicted to be a top pick in the MLB draft. March

Come support the Mizzou Baseball team March 12–14 against Illinois State in its

12, 3 p.m.; March 13, noon; March 14, 1 p.m., Taylor Stadium, adults $8

Mizzou Soccer vs. BYU

Virginia Nowlin Draper (left) sings at the first annual Karaoke in the Park. The BoCoMo Grizzlies leap into the waters of the Polar Plunge.

Polar Plunge Brrrr-ing your water-worthy attire for a run into a chilly lake to raise money in support of local Special Olympics athletes. Participants must be at least 10 years old and raise a minimum of $75 by event day. Proceeds benefit Special Olympics of Missouri. March 13, 10 a.m., Bass Pro Shops Lake

Diverse programming you can’t find anywhere else.

It’s community radio!

KOPN

TRASHING ONE EGG WASTES 55 GALLONS OF WATER

89.5 FM live streaming at kopn.org 38

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

Photography by Jeffrey Zide/Archive and Loren Elliott/Archive

photo finish

FRIENDS IN THE SNOW PHOTOGRAPHY BY HILLARY TAN A trio of Columbia teens makes the most of a cold day. Jack Columbo, 17, uses a light layer of December snow to build a miniature snowman, while his friends Samuel Everett and Piper Beets rest near a fallen log. For many, the winter months and remote school or work conditions have led to increased loneliness. Children and adolescents are more likely to experience mental health issues after isolation, as concluded in a November 2020 review of studies published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Getting outdoors — especially as spring arrives this month — is one way to combat that isolation.

VOX MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021

39

give a little love SATurday, March 6th

Shop local & support true/false!

GIVE A LITTLE LOVE to

your favorite downtown shops and a portion of the proceeds will benefit True/False!

PARTICIPATING SHOPS 11. Makes Scents 12. The Mud Room 13. Peace Nook 14. Pedego Columbia 15. Poppy 16. RENEW 17. Rock Bottom Comics 18. Shop Blanc 19. Skylark Bookshop 20. Tallulahs 21. Yellow Dog Bookshop

6 ASH

5

16

8TH

7TH

6TH

BROADWAY

7 13 20 3

ALLEY A

3

15 11

CHERRY

21

4

9 8

11

18 15

4 19 14 10 HITT

12 16

PLUS! Ragtag Cinema will offer a free ticket (limit 5) to shoppers with a combined purchase of $20 or more from participating shops.

2 LOCUST

FLAT BRANCH PARK

N

ELM

7

5

WAUGH

8TH

1

10TH

12

18 5TH

2

ORR

17 WALNUT

4. Nourish Café and Market

4TH

6

Online Only: My Secret Garden

CHEERS! Second edition T/F wine will be available at these locations.

1. 44 Canteen 5. Room 38 6. The Social Room 2. Café Poland 7. Sycamore 3. Glenn’s Cafe

14

ST. JAMES

PARK

9TH

1. Alpine Shop 2. Artlandish Gallery 3. Bluestem Missouri Crafts 4. Boone Olive Oil Co. 5. Chrystal L. Hair & Makeup 6. Coming Home 7. Cracked Up Mobile 8. Glik’s 9. Hemp Hemp Hooray 10. Hudson/Hawk Barber & Shop