In downtown Columbia, Missouri, a gust of wind catches a rainbow-striped flag, sending it into a swirling dance with a peace flag hanging a few feet away. A shopper looks up to watch the flags, then down to notice the small doorway below them, nearly hidden among the busy shops and trendy restaurants lining Broadway. Curious, she peers inside, then descends a set of creaky stairs, like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, to the Peace Nook.

The Peace Nook is a non-profit store and community resource center operated by Mid-Missouri Peaceworks. Peaceworks, which formed in 1982 to oppose nuclear weapons, works to promote public awareness about peace, diversity, energy and sustainability issues. The Peace Nook carries products that support the organization’s goals, such as fair trade imports and books, T-shirts and bumper stickers promoting Peaceworks’ ideology.

Mark Haim, Director of Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, has been with the organization since shortly after it was founded, when he started as a volunteer. Haim, who studied social science as an undergraduate and did graduate work in economics, said he has spent most of his adult life working on the problems Peaceworks tries to solve.

“People often think of us as the store, but the store is an outgrowth of the organization and basically serves to support the organization’s work,” Haim said.

Most of the work Peaceworks does involves public education about social and ecological issues. The organization raises public awareness by showing films, hosting speakers, organizing weekly peace demonstrations and coordinating events, such as their annual sustainable living fair.

One of Peaceworks’ larger annual projects is helping to coordinate Columbia’s Earth Day festival, which Haim said Peaceworks has been involved with for the past 20 years.

Haim said the Earth Day festival is a big event in Columbia, complete with a street fair, booths, live entertainment and children’s activities. He said Columbia’s Earth Day differs from festivals held in larger cities because it is put together as a grassroots effort.

“Not to dis St. Louis Earth Day, but it just seems a little bit of an oxymoron when you have an Earth Day and it’s sponsored by Monsanto and Ameren UE,” Haim said. “We don’t take money from polluters. We put it on with a coalition of grassroots groups, environmental folks and city agencies and university programs.”

Peaceworks members also engage in advocacy to influence public policies relating to energy issues, often participating as legal parties before regulatory commissions. Haim said Peaceworks members recently helped prevent the construction of a large and costly nuclear reactor in Callaway County.

“This year we were part of a coalition that was successful in convincing our state legislature not to repeal a very important consumer protection law that Ameren UE was pushing that, had [it been repealed], would have facilitated them charging rate payers in advance for building a very large, very, very expensive nuclear plant,” Haim said.

Peaceworks uses the Peace Nook to reach the community and foster change through education.

“Much of what’s [in the store] directly or indirectly promotes people essentially developing greater understandings of peace, nonviolence, sustainable lifestyle choices, helping people cultivate an attitude of embracing diversity,” Haim said.

The Peace Nook is housed in a small, crowded basement. The aisles are narrow, and the shelves are cluttered almost to the point of overflowing. Colorful handmade signs label merchandise and provide fun facts, such as how many trees could be saved if every U.S. household used recycled toilet paper.

One corner of the store holds an extensive book selection, with titles including “Canning and Preserving Your Own Harvest,” “Soulfully Gay,” “Animal Spirit Guides” and “The Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews.”

Farther down the wall, a rack of children’s books stands behind a short bench painted with the words “Future Activists’ Seating.”

Another section is devoted to food items, most of which are nonperishable and organic. The selection is not extensive, but there are a number of hard-to-find specialty items, such as gluten-free pasta.

The rest of the store is a hodgepodge of T-shirts and bumper stickers with messages such as “Renewable energy is American security,” candles, CDs, gay pride items and fair trade clothing and purses.

“Fair trade imports are ones that are produced by workers’ cooperatives in developing countries where the workers actually own the companies cooperatively,” Haim said. “They’re not working in sweatshops to be exploited, and they’re getting a living income — an income they can live on — out of their labor.”

Haim said it is important for stores like the Peace Nook to set an example by selling fair trade imports.

“There’s too many stores in this country that will buy cheap, sell relatively expensive, make a big profit, and the people who are producing goods are really living in the margins,” Haim said. “People working in factories in Southeast Asia and China make 25 cents an hour and work 70 hours a week, and it’s just pretty outrageous.”

Haim said he feels the Peace Nook not only treats producers with more respect, but it treats customers more fairly as well by not marking up its prices.

“Most of the import items folks just tend to at least double the price from wholesale to retail, and we just don’t do that,” Haim said.

He said the Peace Nook’s prices also are lower because the shop has a lower cost of operation than most stores.

“Everybody questions why we haven’t moved up to street level,” Haim said. “It costs three times as much per square foot on street level as it does in a basement. By keeping our overhead low, we’re able to keep our prices low, and that means that we’re a real resource for people who have limited means and want to get things at an affordable price.”

Haim said another way the Peace Nook manages to keep its prices low is by having more volunteers than paid employees. He said the store typically has 25 to 30 regular volunteers.

“What’s always been the lifeblood of the Peace Nook is the community support,” Haim said. “We have people who value what we’re doing here and are willing to commit their time and energy to this and the fact that people in the community appreciate what we’re doing and want to support it.”

Meghan Keeler worked at the Peace Nook and for Peaceworks as a volunteer for about three months before she was hired to work at the store as an employee. Keeler said she had recently moved to Columbia when she began volunteering for the organization.

“I’ve done a lot of advocacy work, traveling around a bit, like in the last few years I spent time down at the Black Mesa reservation supporting Navajos who were facing forced relocation from their land and herding sheep, things like that,” Keeler said.

Keeler said she was looking for a place in Columbia where she could continue her activism, and she chose Peaceworks because she agreed with the organization’s goals of encouraging peace, promoting sustainability and respecting diversity.

Branson, Missouri

Fun house music plays, a water faucet floats in mid air and robots made of car parts compose a world of wonder at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum in Branson, Missouri. Robert Leroy Ripley’s fabulous collection of oddities and artifacts from all over the world greets visitors who come to this out-of-the-ordinary museum.

Ripley began traveling at age 24, and one short trip turned into a lifelong passion of learning about other cultures. Ripley returned home from each trip with new artifacts for his massive collection.

At age 28, Ripley wrote his first collection of facts and feats in a column for the New York Globe and quickly became famous for asking the question, “Believe it or not?” The public became fascinated with Ripley’s treasures, prompting him to display his collection in Chicago at the 1933 World’s Fair. When Ripley died, his artifacts were left behind for the public to enjoy in museums and attractions that continue to show his oddities to the world. The franchise has grown from one exhibit in Chicago to 67 attractions worldwide, from Mexico to Thailand and from Kuwait to Malaysia.

The Branson museum contains many of Ripley’s original artifacts in addition to a country western section representing the culture of southern Missouri. Heather Cognito, public relations director for the Branson museum, said coming to work every day involves encountering something new — or really old — and captivating.

Cognito sat in the middle of the country western section, pointing her favorite exhibits that might be overlooked in the massive room, including a 1936 wood-carved Topolino Fiat. The wooden car is the size of the real car and correct in every detail.

“This car is often missed, though, and it’s one of the biggest things in the room,” Cognito said. “Some people rush through and miss so many things, but that’s what makes it a great museum to return to over and over.”

Each museum is about 80 percent different from the other museums spread throughout the world, Cognito said. Items featured in each museum include original Ripley columns and cartoons, genuine shrunken heads that Ripley received from the Jivaro Indians and wax figures of unbelievable humans, such as the world’s tallest man, the world’s fattest man and the unicorn man.

“What fascinates me about Ripley’s museums is the size of Ripley’s collection and how much he acquired in a time when it was really difficult to travel,” Cognito said. “We have over 400 different exhibits. Visitors can go through in 40 minutes or four hours and still probably not see everything.”

Cognito said it is a challenge not to overlook many of the exhibits in the museum and suggests keeping a sharp eye while winding through. She smiled while listing a few of the exhibits that fascinate her in the museum.

“One of my favorite items is a gorgeous table runner made of lace and the wings of beetles,” she said. “It’s a beautiful piece, and when you look at things like that, you realize the work and the craftsmanship that went into it. And the thought of using beetle wings is so bizarre to me, but it’s just beautiful.”

The vampire killing kit is another piece Cognito said she finds interesting. In the 1800s, it was common to travel throughout Romania and Transylvania with the kit, which contains garlic, a mirror, a pistol, an ivory cross, silver or lead bullets, a Bible, a mallet and a wooden stake.

“The best thing about Ripley’s is that we have license to do just about anything because nothing seems bizarre enough,” Cognito said.

Cognito said she began working at Ripley’s 10 years ago, and so far her biggest challenge has been the struggle to change the public’s perception of the museum due to the building’s outward appearance.

The building was built to look as though it survived Missouri’s most famous earthquakes. According the United States Geological Survey, between December 16, 1811 and  February 7, 1812, a series of earthquakes registering between 7.2 and 8.1 on the Richter scale struck the state. These are the Midwest’s most powerful recorded earthquakes to date –– one even made the Mississippi River run backward for a few hours.

“We have such a fun building, and the outside is so different, [visitors] don’t know what to expect,” Cognito said. “A lot of people have a preconceived notion [about the museum], but when I get them in they’re all so pleasantly surprised. In one sense it’s our biggest asset, but it’s also something to overcome.”

The Branson museum is not the only one with an odd appearance. The Niagara Falls, Canada, museum appears to be a skyscraper on its side and the Panama City Beach, Florida, museum looks like a sinking ship.

Another challenge for Cognito is the preservation of the delicate pieces scattered throughout the museum.

“Every year we go through a really extensive cleaning process during the offseason,” she said. “Many of our pieces will break if you breathe wrong on them, so we are very serious about having good cleaning supplies.”

Ripley’s operations manager John Dixon said he spends much of his time with the visitors, from welcoming them when they enter to asking their opinions when they leave. Dixon said his largest challenge is dealing with different people every day.

“One of the things we try to do here, which I think we have a real advantage with, is to have fun with people by joking around and teasing each other, but every once in a while there is someone who is just not interested in my jokes,” he said.

Dixon said he finds something new or looks at an exhibit he hasn’t seen in a while every time he winds his way through the museum, which he thinks is one of the museum’s strong points.

“The best thing about our museum, in my opinion, is that it’s good for everybody,” Dixon said. “It appeals to adults, kids and teenagers. There’s a little something for everybody through the reading and history for adults and interactive rooms for the kids. Many museums don’t keep this balance or broad base of appeal for everybody.”

The economic slump has been affecting vacationers all over the world, but Dixon said Ripley’s has been lucky to receive the same amount of business thus far.

“Actually, we’ve done very well,” he said. “I don’t think it’s affected us a whole lot. The economy has probably thinned the herd a little bit, but we’ve had a good season so far, so I can’t complain.”

Robert Stemmons of London, England, said he visits Missouri once a year with his family to see his mother. This time, his two sons Robbie, 10, and Jake, 8, begged for a trip to Branson and the museum.

Stemmons said he enjoyed reading Ripley’s cartoons from the 1930s scattered throughout the museum because he had read them as a boy.

“There was one about a man who was imprisoned by the Russians for 100 years,” he said. “I find that a little hard to believe. That’s one I will choose not to believe.”

Stemmons said he enjoyed the museum and the exhibits but thought the price was a bit exorbitant.

“For a museum that doesn’t change, where an adult has to come in with the youngster, the minimum price was about $25, which I thought was a bit too high,” he said. “But they loved it, so it was worth it.”

For Jake and Robbie, the wax figure of the unicorn man and a limousine with a Jacuzzi in the back were enough to leave them happy upon exiting –– whether they believed what they saw or not.

Le Bourgeois Wine Garden, Rocheport, Missouri

        Storms threaten the Missouri river valley. Still, for Beverly and Larry Lamb, it is a perfect time to find a little relaxation with a glass of wine. It is Larry’s birthday, and the couple is enjoying one of the best views of the landscape in central Missouri.

Although weekends find a crowd of people at Les Bourgeois wine garden, they’ve got the place almost to themselves.

Les Bourgeois’ wine garden consists of an old-fashioned A-frame building with the roof stretching nearly to the ground and picnic tables on a scenic bluff overlooking the Missouri River and the Katy Trail. However, it is not the only reason to come to the countryside between Columbia, Mo., and tiny Rocheport, Mo. Les Bourgeois is more than the wine garden and the restaurant. It is also a winery, which is open for tours and wine tastings. It is the third-largest of the 56 wineries in the state, producing 90,000 gallons of wine each year.

As visitors walk through the winery door, the intoxicating aromas of wine fill the air, sweet and fruity. A cat that lives in the winery slinks between the tanks and laps up water from a puddle, a result of the heavy rains of the day. The sounds of the machines pumping and clicking are a slow background rhythm – but soon, harvest will be in full swing.

Chester Ray Stadium, Brookfield, Missouri

Nell White sits on the wooden bleachers at Chester Ray Stadium in the middle of the Brookfield faithful. Kickoff for the annual Bell Game rivalry between Brookfield High School and Marceline High School is still two hours away, but White is anxious. 

“I am sick to my stomach,” she said. “The Bell means a whole lot.”

She wears a blue T-shirt with “Brookfield High School” written in white letters. White also has two photo buttons pinned to her shirt. One is a picture of her daughter, Bulldogs cheerleader Tiffany White, and the other photo is of her son, Brookfield running back Dustin White.  

Dustin, a key contributor for the Bulldogs in their 14-13 Bell Game win in 2005, has looked forward to the contest since football camp started in the summer. 
Throughout the entire week, the White household has been preparing for the Bell Game – an annual maelstrom of football and tradition that feels like Homecoming and a state championship game all rolled into one.

Photos by Ashley Richards

   People searching for bargains and eclectic collectibles can probably find them at the Westport Flea Market and Bar and Grill. With more than 30 booths to search, treasure hunters can find anything from cowboy boots to glassware. But the most talked-about find is also the easiest: The restaurant sits right in the center of the Westport, Mo., establishment.
“They have the best burgers,” John Shaughnessy declared from his perch at the bar.
And he should know – his relationship with the Westport Flea Market extends back 15 years.                     “There’s a lot of regular clients,” he remarked. “Not just regulars who hang out at the bar, but [regulars] who come here for lunches, [and] businesses come here, plus it’s a neighborhood bar.”
Shaughnessy reflected on why the Flea, as many call it, is so successful at creating return customers.
“It’s not pretentious like some of the other bars in Westport,” he said after a pause. “Look at the people. You’ve got a family there, and there old people, young people,” he noted, pointing around him at the nearly full restaurant.

Friday Night Jamboree, Rockbridge, Missouri 

A sandstone-colored ’94 GMC backs into the grassy parking lot, muffler growling, checkered race flags adorning the rear window. The blue-jean-clad driver hops out into the cool Ozark dusk, moving swiftly but unhurriedly toward the bed of the pickup. Dropping the tailgate, he reaches into the back and deftly removes a large, black object with an unmistakable shape.

A double bass.

It’s Friday night, and for some Southwest Missourians, that means only one thing: the weekly gathering at Athel Jackson’s barn – the Friday Night Jamboree.

Tucked away in the Ozarks – the definitive region that belongs to itself more than any particular state – jam sessions are a tie that links a rocky history to the rocky terrain.

Somewhere between hardship and dignity, with roots in religion and war, tradition emerges in the form of a distinct and sometimes ancient musical repertoire.

Over the past 10 to 20 years, the traditional Ozark jam session, centuries in the making, has experienced an inexplicable revival. Jam sessions fill old schoolhouses, barns and homes five nights a week across southwest Missouri. Yet, the passing of a generation threatens to bring an end or at least a decline in not only the music but also a way of life.

Bonne Terre Mine, Bonne Terre, Missouri  

    Deep underground, the Bonne Terre mine awaits a certain kind of explorer. 
Scuba diver Bob Dulay fits the bill—which is lucky considering Dulay drove 400 miles for the experience. 

The billion-gallon underground lake that used to be a working lead mine draws visitors year-round, but its winter temperature of 58 degrees pulls in the real crowds.

“Where else are you gonna go in the center of the nation in the middle of winter without freezing water or ice diving?” Bonne Terre manager Donna Jones asked.

Dulay and more than 60 other divers set off on this underwater adventure in late February in Bonne Terre, Mo. They traveled from cities as far as Indianapolis and Chicago in hope of an unforgettable experience.

And they found it in the Bonne Terre mine.

Osceola Cheese Company, Branson, Missouri

Susie White and her husband, Bill, climb into their late-model white pickup with a paper plate and a knife.

Two hours after they leave their home in Kansas City, Kan., a giant cartoon mouse on a neon purple billboard proclaims, “Six More Miles to the Osceola Cheese Company.”

Their final destination, Branson, Mo., is still more than two hours away, but the highlight of the trip is only five minutes down the road.

Six identical billboards later, Susie and Bill White cross a four-lane highway to turn into a two-acre parking lot. The Osceola Cheese Company rises before them.

Inside, they will find flavors such as chocolate, cranberry and apple cinnamon – varieties one generally finds in cereal aisles where hundreds of glossy box fronts promise sugar highs and cheap prizes.

But at the Osceola Cheese Company in Osceola, Mo., they are flavors of cheese.

The English Shop, St. Charles, Missouri 

A statue of a Buckingham Palace guard, complete with red coat and black bearskin hat, greeted the man at the door. Two shelves protruding from the guard’s stomach displayed a blue box of Jaffa Cakes, shortbread cookies and bottles of ginger beer – just a sample of the many food items The English Shop in downtown St. Charles, Mo., sells. 

The man refused what the guard had to offer. Brian Beardsley, of St. Charles, knew exactly what he needed and so did Eileen Prichard, owner of The English Shop.

“Kippers!” Prichard yelled when she saw Beardsley. She bustled out from behind the register to help him.

Kippers, or smoked herring, are something for which most Americans do not develop a taste, Prichard explained.

Beardsley agreed, but he wanted to buy them anyway for his mother. He said his mother loves kippers, but she is not like most Americans. Beardsley’s mother is from Bath, England. 

Shatto Milk Company, Osborn, Missouri

The products of Shatto Milk Company are vast. Their milk does not just come in the typical whole, 2%, 1% or skim, but includes other uniquely flavored milks such as chocolate, orange crème, strawberry, root beer and banana.

“We just want to make milk fun,” said Leroy Shatto, who even made a batch of cotton candy-flavored milk for Family Day this past year.

What started as a family-owned dairy farm located just north of Kansas City in Osborn, Missouri has grown into an award-winning small business that welcomes thousands of visitors each year.

Shatto said people occasionally are skeptical when they hear of these products, but once they try them, they realize what a treat they actually are. In addition to milk, Shatto Milk Company also produces cream, fruit punch, iced tea, butter and seasonal eggnog.