A group of Dickinson County businesses were recognized for their patriotic pride.
Winners of the Driving Dickinson County organization’s “Stars and Stipes Storefront Showdown” have been recognized. The event encouraged businesses and organizations across the nine communities in the county to decorate for America’s 250th birthday.
Winners include:
Community Pride
My Tyme Café – An antique tractor spent the summer dressed in red, white, and blue — decorated for Dickinson County’s first-ever Stars, Stripes & Storefront Showdown by owner Kerri Gugler and her sister, Shelley, who did most of the work. The tractor was donated to the café by the Ronnie Johnson family, who still farm land north of town and come by most weekends — and seeing it dressed up for the occasion meant something to them, too. “They loved that we decorated the tractor,” Kerri said. Customers noticed right away, too. “They loved it,” Kerri said. “They’re like, wow, you’ve got it really decorated.” It was the reach of it that stuck with her most, though. “I’ve had visitors vote from New York, Virginia, and California,” she said — proof that word travels further than Dickinson County’s borders. Win or not, she said, that was the part worth doing: “I was hoping to win, but I liked the celebrating, too.” Walk into My Tyme Café on any given morning and you’ll see why the display fit right in. Ask longtime regular Jim what keeps him coming back, and he doesn’t need more than one word: “Breakfast.” Newer to town are Jason and Molly Stampfly — Molly’s service with the Army brought the family to Kansas, and what started as a job turned into roots. That’s the kind of table My Tyme Café keeps — regulars who’ve been coming for years, sitting alongside families who just arrived, all part of the same room.
Grand Champion
Joe Snuffy’s Old Fashioned Grill – Kenneth and Erin DeCock and their family are still new to Dickinson County — Joe Snuffy’s changed hands just eight months ago — and that shaped how they approached the contest. With Memorial Day, Independence Day, and the county fair all falling close together this year, the family built their display around “Flags, Food and Fireworks,” layering their patriotic spirit into everything from the décor to the menu. The centerpiece became an unexpected local celebrity: a hand-sculpted donkey named Libby, made by Kenneth’s mother, Robin J. Laws, an accomplished sculptor who recently relocated to Abilene to join the family. Dressed up in a stars-and-stripes top hat alongside a plush “Uncle Sam,” Libby — nicknamed “Party Animal” — quickly became the display’s most popular selfie spot. “So often people are told ‘don’t touch’ when it comes to art,” Ken DeCock said. “We want folks to touch, pet, ride, take great photos and enjoy.” Pulling it together took a team: Robin and general manager Amber Suskey spent hours shopping, climbing ladders, and building the display together, with voting cards left at every table so customers could cast a vote while they waited on their food. “We are a very patriotic family who loves this country,” Ken DeCock said. “The Showdown became a fun chance to share this with our new community.” Earning that welcome mattered to him specifically. “As new business owners in Abilene, it is important that we earn the trust of our community,” he said. Longtime customers noticed the effort. Pam and Stan Black have been coming to Joe Snuffy’s for five to seven years — long enough to remember it under its previous owners, and to notice that much of the staff stayed on through the transition. “The new owners are wonderful,” Pam said. “Very personable.” Some things haven’t changed at all: Stan’s order is the same every time, a Hammer Burger, no bun, smothered in gravy. For DeCock, the contest’s real value went beyond his own storefront. “Providing the opportunity for anyone who wanted to enter a vote invited the wider community to participate in a way that a judges panel simply can’t,” he said.
Star of the County
Aksent Boutique – Nobody said it plainer than Jamie Stroda, owner of Aksent Boutique. “It takes every single one of us to support each other to make it so we can all survive,” she said. “I believe in community over competition.” Her own window backed that up with as much effort as anyone’s. Working with her staff’s “think tank” — the brainstorming group she leans on for every big display — Stroda built the window around red, white, and gold, fireworks, and a birthday theme: a giant cupcake topped with a lit-up “250,” ringed in sparkle so it would still catch the eye after dark. Nearly everything in the window was pulled from what Aksent already sells in-store, including a set of decorative fireworks her team built themselves out of scrap lumber — which turned out to be popular enough that customers started asking to buy them. But she didn’t stop at her own storefront. The night before voting began, Stroda walked the length of downtown Abilene after dark, filming every decorated storefront she could find, not just her own. She wanted it unpolished and honest: “If I was a patron walking around and I was looking at a business, I’d be like, oh wow, look what they did here.” Along the way she noticed things most people would miss — the courthouse lit in red, white, and blue; a massive flag hung outside a wrecking service down the road; patriotic lights glowing at a gas station well past midnight. None of it was required. She filmed it anyway, and posted it for the whole county to see.
People’s Choice
Rittel’s Western Wear – At Rittel’s Western Wear, the decision to participate came down to one thing. “Just community,” owner Jacque Karl said. “Just wanted to get everybody excited.” She credited her staff for pushing the idea in the first place — a chance, after a quiet stretch with no window décor, to do something fun for a change. One customer told her afterward how surprised they were by just how many businesses across town had joined in. That instinct showed up at the register, too. Rittel’s set out voting cards by the checkout counter, and staff encouraged every customer who came through to go check out everyone else’s windows and vote for their favorites as well. “Thank you, guys, for doing everything for us, and Astra Bank, and everybody jumping in and making it so fun,” Karl said.
Two Lanes. One Direction.
Four different businesses, and the same idea running underneath every one of them: this was never really about who could out-decorate the others. It was about who could pull the most people in — customers, neighbors, competitors down the block — and get them looking at each other’s windows instead of just their own.
“This was never really about who had the best window,” said Natalie Muruato, CEO of Driving Dickinson County. “It was about giving every business in this county a reason to celebrate together — and watching the whole community show up for each other because of it.”
