("Big World" by Ikoliks) (upbeat rock music) - My name is Deana Taylor and I'm one of the owners of Jammin' Nuggets Music.

Jammin' Nuggets Music is a locally owned and operated independent record store.

We sell records, new and used.

We also sell CDs, cassettes, 45s, cleaning supplies.

We do music premier parties whenever a new album is released.

We have a subscription box service, so we pick a different album every month and then send 'em out to the people that have subscribed.

We also host a record show once a year.

We had our first one this year.

I do a music appreciation for kids that come in.

I will ask them about different artists and things that they might maybe not know about and have 'em do a little research and come back in.

We do special orders, pretty much anything related to music.

(rock music) - I am James Harmon, co-owner of Jammin' Nuggets Music.

It started out as a joke.

My first name being James was where the Jammin' came from.

Our stepson, he had a nickname, we used to call him Nugget.

And so it just started as a joke.

Oh, why don't I just name the story Jammin' Nuggets Music.

And then the more I heard it, the more I said it, the more it's like, that actually sounds kind of nice and so it stuck.

(rock music) - Hello, I'm Jason Litton.

I'm an employee, partner here at Jammin' Nuggets.

Jammin' Nuggets Music to me is, it's one of the best record stores around.

I was a customer.

I traveled all over collecting records, personally.

I make the travel in because it's one of the best stores around.

It's a great hobby.

I mean, put as much or as little money into it as you want.

You want a $5 record, we guarantee we could find you something great.

If you want a $500 record, we can order that too.

Having a store like this brings that connection.

I feel connected to the music.

I know, you know, you buy a record, you take it home, you play it.

You wonder like, who else has owned that record before?

You know, maybe that was somebody's favorite record.

Maybe it wasn't, but it makes you wonder and think.

You feel a part of something.

(upbeat music) - My history in music goes back to my childhood.

My dad, Delbert, was one of the original Baldknobbers in Branson before they set up their theater down there.

He played the fiddle for them.

Everybody in my family is musical.

I was running soundboards for them whenever they had shows and things like that.

We had music all the time whenever I was growing up.

- We started buying collections and next thing I know, our garage was full, bought a popup tent, that was full.

People were like, "Dude, why don't you "just open a record store?"

And it started as a joke and I'm like, "Well, yeah, maybe when I retire."

And then, well, the opportunity came by a little faster and so we opened a record store.

- The music that I'm interested in really varies depending on the mood that I'm in.

I might listen to some hip hop on the way into work.

I might listen to rage metal if I'm frustrated, country ballads, Americana, reggae.

I don't really have a genre that I don't like.

It really just depends on the mood because that's the whole point of music.

It's there for every mood and every emotion.

(gentle jazz music) - Music is life.

I mean, it fits any mood, situation.

It's just life.

You know, you wake up to it, you can go to sleep to it, you can work to it, you can drive to it.

Just chill out to it.

It's almost as important as air and water.

(gentle jazz music continues) - Music means a lot.

There's music for every situation.

If you're happy, there's happy music.

If you're sad, good mood, bad mood.

I mean music for if you're hungry, music if you're sleepy.

I mean there's just something for everyone.

I mean, no matter what you're thinking or what you're feeling, there's a song out there for it.

- My thoughts on people getting back into vinyl records is that they're looking for a connection to the past.

Whenever I was younger, we had a huge console that had the TV and an eight track player and a record player, and that's what we listened to.

We would put stacks of 45s on or we'd put stacks of albums on and we would listen to music.

We didn't watch a lot of TV.

It was more about creating memories together.

We would always be singing and listening to music.

And my dad would be playing along with his steel, trying to figure out what chords he needed to do.

So I think that there's a connection to that, that nostalgia, the emotions that music brings, which is really the whole purpose.

- I think as long as you're exploring music, it's not a bad thing.

And there's stuff that we have that you just don't find on streaming.

It's really sad because you know, so many people are prone to just let's, oh, let's go to Spotify, let's go to YouTube.

A lot of stuff's not on there and you just really have to dig for that more obscure stuff to really to enjoy it.

(upbeat music) - I hope for the future of Jammin' Nuggets that we can expand, that we can get a bigger location.

Something where we can have, not necessarily better but bigger events.

Right now we host bands occasionally and they get to play and get their music out there, but it would be nice to have a dedicated stage area where they can come in and we can have them more often.

- I'd eventually like to get us to the point where we have a coffee shop in here.

Other than that, just to continue on for as long as we can.

- Get in here and get to talking to James or Deana or whoever, I mean, it's just even talking to customers, it's just fun and friendly is how I describe Jammin' Nuggets Music.

- Jammin' Nuggets Music is located at 115 South Ohio Avenue in Sedalia.

- You can find us on Facebook, Instagram.

The best way would be just to come on by, but you can always call James or me here at the store.

We'll get you taken care of.

(upbeat music continues) (gentle music) - My name is Jamie Platt and my job title is the Director of Gallery and Events.

I've been at UCM for one year.

One of the things that's different about UCM is there's a permanent collection and so that means that there's more that you can do to engage the public even more than what I was doing.

And it just seemed like the right fit for me.

It allowed me to be around art all the time, which is a really wonderful thing.

It's a creative job and it's one of those jobs that people know about, but they have no idea what goes on behind.

I didn't, when I first thought about gallery directing, I thought, well, what else is there?

You know, put the show up and then what?

What do you do for the rest of the time?

No idea, there's so much all the time.

Well, my job is actually really various, it's different every day and I'm responsible for the back of house operations for the gallery.

So anything that has to do with planning an exhibition, from selecting artists for exhibitions, I work with a team of faculty, the gallery committee, to select the artists that will be in our exhibitions.

We schedule a year in advance, and so in the meantime between exhibitions are working with artists to make sure that they know what we need from them and to make sure that we know what they need from us.

It's really all about bringing people together over art, but it has a lot of pieces.

So you have the things that are happening right now and the things that you're planning for in the future.

And it's all happening simultaneously.

This gallery, actually, all of our galleries, are an exhibition space for a mix of professional artists and student artists.

(gentle music) So right now we have two exhibitions on display and one of them is, the one that we are in right now, is called the "Citation Show".

And this is the 56th annual "Citation Show".

It's mind blowing.

The "Citation Show" is an annual juried exhibition of student work and all art and design students are invited to submit up to two pieces and every piece gets in as long as they follow the rules, every piece gets in and then the outside juror comes in and they award prizes.

So they evaluate the work and then they select eight award winners.

And we always try to choose someone who is an arts professional.

The juror this year is Courtney Wasson, and Courtney is the Executive Director of the Kansas City Artist Coalition.

So we're really excited to have her.

When you put together an exhibition, usually there's a theme.

In the "Citation Show", you don't have that.

To try to make it cohesive, you have to look for the ways that themes emerge within the artworks, that relationships emerge within the artworks.

We also have some paintings by Nikki Hawes who is getting ready to graduate this year.

She is working on a series of gargoyles and so those are really super interesting paintings there in the front of the gallery.

And then we, I put those next to some other works that resonate with the sensibility in Nikki's paintings to kind of create little galleries within galleries.

The other exhibition that's going on right now is our high school art show.

The annual high school art show is an exhibition that is open to high school students within 150 mile radius.

We get a range of high schools that send submissions in.

This year we juried from 630 entries down to 200.

So a team of faculty selected the work that's in the high school art show.

So if you walk down the hallways right now, you're gonna see that they're lined with artworks, ceramics, painting, drawing, textiles, printmaking, sculpture, and bookmaking.

So everything really that students get involved in is represented and it's all made by high school students.

Originally, so this building used to be an elementary school and the gallery was, as an entity, not in this space at all.

And even when the art school took it over, originally, they were hanging work in another building.

So then they brought the gallery here and now we actually have technically three galleries.

This room that we're in right now is the, is what's called the "Main Gallery" and then adjacent to this room, which it's all one, but it's two separate rooms that are connected to each other and we call that the "Outer Gallery".

What matters about that is that sometimes we will have one exhibition in here and a totally different exhibition in there.

So you can have two related or unrelated exhibitions going on at the same time.

And then we have our smaller gallery, "Gallery 115".

One of the things that's really important to know about coming to a gallery is that you don't have to know anything about art.

I think that a lot of times people feel like, "Oh, I'm not an art person," or "I don't understand it."

But the truth is that you already have everything that you need to be able to come into a gallery just by you being who you are.

So whatever you're bringing with you is gonna be totally unique.

That's one of the great things about art is that what you see is just as valid as what anyone else sees.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - So I am Kristy.

I am an accountant by, I guess trade or education.

So I have an undergrad in accounting, an MBA, and then I have agent status with IRS.

I possibly got a little bored doing taxes.

So we branched out, started a few different stores to help my creative outlet and I still do accounting and taxes on the side.

So my position at Meyer's Market is just helping out the team in any way that I can.

I love bringing things to the stores that make people smile.

I also like to encourage any of my employees that want a future in owning a business or entrepreneurialship an outlet to maybe start that without as much risk as, you know, having their own storefront.

So we can touch on the micro business later, but that would be one of the versions of that.

(upbeat music continues) I like to describe Meyer's Market as a modern day general store.

We opened in Knob Noster six years ago in November and then three years ago this past June here.

We kind of just have a little bit of everything.

We have bulk candy, ice cream, toys, gifts, some groceries are provided.

The things you don't think you need on a daily basis.

You come in and you'll find a fun gift here.

So the idea originated in probably 2016, I had an accounting office in our little town of Knob Noster and I would sit and stare out the window and just watch people drive through our little downtown.

And at that point there was no grocery store.

There really isn't one still, Dollar General now provides produce.

So I thought I'd start a little market where you can just grab a tomato or a gallon of milk, like those ones and two items that was holding up dinner and you don't wanna go all the way to Warrensburg.

And then from there I just expanded 'cause if I have groceries, you know I need bulk candy and then I need toys and then I need gifts.

So it just turned into a a little market.

So the more you can do to help like other people not have, you know, added stress, then you know, you've done your job, I think.

My favorite story to tell people is the day that we opened in Knob, it was shop small Saturday in '17 and these three boys probably 10 to 12, rode up on their bikes, threw their bikes down on the sidewalk, came in, got bulk candy, paid with change, got back on their bikes and rode away.

And I was like, that was what I wanted to get outta the store.

It was just that old general store feel.

(upbeat music) So I would classify the menu just as like a generic like little deli.

We've got paninis, hummus platters, smoothies, acai bowls, of course the ice cream.

About a year and a half ago, we started making our own boozy ice cream as well.

The regular ice cream we just get from Central Dairy in Jeff City.

It's a staple of Missouri, but the boozy we do make here.

So most of ours is prepared here.

I mean outside the ice cream, but like smoothie, acai, the hummus, like all, I mean, a lot of it too, like a sandwich, you're just gonna, you don't cook it, you just prepare it, right, put it together.

But as far as like employees taking reins, I've got some employees that started trivia nights a year ago and they've really gained a following with trivia nights and it's after hours every other Friday and they'll do themed drinks with it.

And then they're also the ones that kind of, once I exited with my clothes, they came in with their micro business because they had a desire to do like, a bookstore bar, like coffee, bar, bookstore, like the three best things, right?

And so that's what we're, they're getting going here and then they can still provide the drinks, the coffee service, 'cause we have lattes and all that fun stuff.

So best of both worlds.

I think my favorite part in general, even though it comes with ups and downs of owning any of the stores are the employees.

Over the years I've gained really good friends that way.

I have four kids of my own, so I'm kind of like a mama hen anyways.

So I really encourage like open communication, like we're gonna have scuffles, I mean you are together this much you're going to, but just, you know, really breeding like positivity and like working together and if there's an issue, let's fix it.

I mean they're, they don't look at me as a boss.

I'm just one of them.

I will come in and play on their level all day long and I think that really helps like the whole team.

So yeah, the people, I would say.

The store was voted by the Chamber of Commerce in Warrensburg and Best of Berg as you know, one of the best places for employees to work, like 15 employees and under so small business.

And that's probably been in six years of owning a business and having employees been the most valuable thing that's happened because you can make people happy with ice cream all day long.

But like to know that there's a team and there's people that maybe not every day enjoy coming to work but you know, overall, in the workplace culture.

I've had some really good bosses currently and in my past that are more leaders than bosses that really encourage work-life balance, like respecting their employees.

I think employees are always gonna be your biggest asset.

So you can buy, you know, the best ice cream or the best gifts to sell, but your employees are gonna really make the business because if you don't treat them well, they're not gonna treat your customers well.

And I mean, if a customer comes in and yells at them, all day long, I will back my employee.

(upbeat funky music) I feel like when you surround yourself with people that are like-minded, other small business owners, other people that want to promote small businesses, you're gonna be the best version of you because the more you're around people that want to do good, you're gonna be encouraged to also do your best.

If you surround yourself with people that are, have similar goals, then everybody's gonna do better.

(upbeat funky music continues) (upbeat funky music continues) (upbeat funky music continues) (rock music) - My name is Mark Montgomery.

I am the owner of The Zone Tattoo and Body Piercing.

My wife is co-owner and manager.

I am a piercer by trade.

I started in this industry as EMT, so I thought that would be interesting.

While I was going through college I could pierce and make some money and then retire and be a body piercer.

- Nicole Montgomery.

We've been together 14 years, I've been managing about seven and I also teach at the university, psychology.

- The Zone is a tattoo and body piercing studio.

We offer complete line of body jewelry.

We carry some of the top makers in the USA and abroad.

As far as our artwork, it's not limited to your imagination, I mean, anything you can think of, my guys can come up with the art and do it for you.

The Zone was established in 1997, March 10th.

I, at the time, was a full-time firefighter here for the city, and EMT.

So as a firefighter you only work 10 days a month.

So I had 20 days a month to do something I liked.

And so I decided to open the studio and it just kind of grew from there.

(rock music continues) As far as standing out, we were the first studio in Missouri to be become a member of the Association of Professional Piercers.

Basically what that mean is we had to meet their criteria as far as the quality of jewelry, how we do sterilization, and techniques in the piercing room.

I think there's now seven or eight studios, which is not very many out of the hundreds in the entire state that have become members.

So it's something I'm very proud of and, you know, offer a safe educational environment for our clients.

- I think the other thing that sets us apart is not only has he managed to be in business for 27 years is not only do we care about our customers and we want that good client experience every single time, but we make sure that all of our people have more than adequate training to do the job that they're assigned.

We don't have tattoo artists that pierce, we don't have piercers that tattoo.

You are honed into that one specific trade and that's what you do and you do your best at that.

- As far as like jewelry and everything here is made in USA, it's implant grade, meaning it's the same thing that's used in titanium hip replacements to pins and screws in your body.

So, but as far as impact to the city, we've sponsored charities and golf tournaments and stuff over the years, go to schools for career day.

I've gone to the college and spoke just to kind of put people and, you know, give them the information they're looking for or point 'em in the right direction.

But I mean, I try to support the community as much as possible.

Initially when I first got piercings, it was for that pain, the adrenaline rush, the control of my own body.

And I mean, I've done play piercing where it's not permanent piercings, it's to make designs and have the endorphin release for people.

For some people it's to be able to reclaim their body if they've been, you know, traumatized or in a bad situation.

- That's what I was gonna say is we pierce from a trauma-informed perspective.

Some people do come in and it is that adrenaline and is that kind of to take away the numbness feeling if they've been through a traumatic event.

So we try to keep all of that in mind and pierce from that perspective.

For me, all of my piercings were because I thought they were cute or unique or whatever.

As silly as that may sound, it just makes you kind of like, feel better, you know.

- [Mark] Decorate your temple.

- That's right.

- My favorite thing about piercing is seeing their expression when they see it for the first time, they're like, "Oh my god, I love it."

You know, make people happy.

Seeing that smile or cry.

Sometimes it's a good cry, so.

From where I started at in '97, you know, people couldn't have a job and have their, you know, cute, teeny tiny little nose piercing, let alone walk in with a full sleeve.

And so yeah, the industry has changed things, it's become more accepted.

We try to have a relaxed environment so it's just more laid back, you know, and make people feel comfortable- - [Nicole] Safe.

- Safe.

I'm very much be you.

Don't let somebody dictate how you live your life, which can also be negative to be you too much depending on what you're trying to do.

So when somebody wants something, either they Google us, Facebook, Yelp, I mean, you know, people ask questions and we tell 'em to come in or when the artists will be in, and our time of hours, you know, we open at noon, we take our last piercing in at 7:30.

As far as piercings, it's always first come, first serve.

So we get to people as quick as we can.

With tattoos, you know, we do our bigger pieces during the week and so we set up Saturdays as small walk-in tattoo day.

And normally, like I said, there's a line out the door and you know, we've got eight or nine people waiting to get tattooed and it's a long day for the tattoo artists, but they enjoy it.

So you can find us in Warrensburg, Missouri.

The easiest land spot would be right next to Sonic and it's 417 North Maguire Street, Suite A.

Our website is TheZoneTattoo.com and you can also look us up at The Zone Tattoo on Facebook as well and Instagram.

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