About The Observer

It started as a dinner table discussion decades ago. Six kids. Six opinions. Six trajectories. Now, there are six-plus small businesses and lots of  experience, a fair amount of knowledge, and plenty of opinion to share as well as goods and services to sell.

Thanks for visiting The Styron Observer & Commercial Appeal, an online magazine featuring the businesses and professions of Jane, Emery, Harry, John, Sam, and Kevin Styron. We also invite Styrons and relatives in business everywhere to promote their own enterprises here, or join this forum for sharing knowledge, experience, opinion, and friendship.….learn more

Search
Guest Book
Find Us on Facebook
Login
Tuesday
09Mar2010

March Traveler will incite spring fever

The March 2010 issue of

River Hills Traveler
Get into spring!

Here’s a summary of stories in the March issue of River Hills Traveler:

Crappie can be found on Clearwater in March — Bob Todd
Bob and Roy Halbert follow clouds of shad along the old Black River channel in Clearwater Lake to catch all the crappie they cared to clean.
Choke tube wins friends, sales for SE Missouri hunters — Steve Felgenhauer
Machinists and hunters Stuart Ruehling and Mike Ponder developed a choke tube to fill in slow times at their Frohna shop. Their product, marketed under the name, Indian Creek Shooting Systems, shows up consistently in shooting championships, and has led to friendships with big name hunters such as Walter Parrott.
Change tactics or else… — Bill Cooper
Turkey numbers are down from historic highs and it takes more effort these days to bag a wise old Ozarks gobbler. Bill offers five field-tested tactics to improve your turkey hunting success.
Teamwork key to safety at whitewater event — Becky Allgier Tinsley
Becky grew up on the hog farm next to Millstream Gardens, where the Missouri Whitewater Championships are held each March, but she didn’t see behind the scenes of the races until she covered them as a writer and photographer. Tinsley interview race officials to learn how safety is emphasized in an inherently dangerous activity.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
25Feb2010

This girl is ready to fly!

Wednesday
03Feb2010

Joplin Wants More Business on Main Street

Check out this recent interview on KOAM with our very own Jane Richart of Upstairs Boutiques. The business owners of downtown Joplin are looking for 20 more businesses to join them on Main Street this year.

To learn more about Joplin’s Project 2010, click here to visit their Facebook Fan Page.

Saturday
23Jan2010

Shower shaving: who knew?

By Emery Styron

   In your quest for a greener, more efficient lifestyle, may I suggest you consider shower shaving.

 A flexible, tubular arm lets you position the Shower Tek mirror as needed and directs a flow of hot water through the enclosure to eliminate fog. A handy rack keeps razors off the shower floor, even pink ones.   I became an inadvertent adherent some months back while the sink in my basement bathing area was out of commission. It was either shave in the shower or trek up two flights of stairs to the family bathroom where there’s tough competition for face time with the mirror over the vanity sink. (Life with a wife and two lovely girls is rewarding but it does drive a man to the basement to shave and shower. What is with those 27 plastic bottles in the upstairs shower? What is wrong with ordinary bar soap? Herbal oatmeal body wash!)

    I digress. We were talking about shower shaving. The basement sink was sinko, so I took my brush, shaving mug and round mirror with the flexible neck into the shower stall. Once the regular shampoo and shower were done, I wet the brush, stirred up a lather in the mug, applied it to my face and scraped off whiskers, peering into a fogged up, 4-inch diameter mirror perched dangerously on a narrow shelf. The results were rough, but a new habit was born.

    The transition was not as silky smooth as a man’s skin in a Gillette commercial. Sometimes there was blood on the floor. I did some fancy dancing when the mirror fell from its shelf toward my toes. Several times I showered, dressed and sat down to breakfast with the uncomfortable feeling of having forgotten something. Only when I rubbed my stubbly chin to ponder, did I remember what.

Shower shaving is something you want to do while you are there. There is no efficiency in getting back in the shower a second time only to shave.

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
13Jan2010

Getting our arms around Haiti

By Harry Styron

People from the Ozarks and around the world want to help the people of Haiti. Many people from the Ozarks, especially religious groups, have been assisting Haitians for many years. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

To understand the magnitude of the tragedy in Haiti, a brief geography lesson can be helpful.


View Larger Map

Haiti occupies the west end of the island of Hispaniola, which is immediately east of Cuba and west of Puerto Rico. The east end of Hispaniola is occupied by the Dominican Republic.

The population of Haiti is about 10 million, which is roughly equal to the combined population of Arkansas and Missouri. About one third of the population (equivalent to the population of the St. Louis metro area) resides in Port-au-Prince, which is near the epicenter of the earthquake.

Click to read more ...