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Newcomers say they're here to stay
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| By Bobbi Patterson, Contributing writer |
March 08, 2004 |
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This is the second in a series on "new settlers" in Clay County and how they found their new home in our community.
It is morning. The Stonehouse family is up earlier than most because they have 17 extra mouths to feed before they leave for work and school, and to do again when they get home. They have registered Brittany hunting dogs, nine adults and eight puppies from two litters, the beginnings of their new kennel business.
Brenda and Kevin Stonehouse and their two daughters, Chelsea and Courtney, moved to Clay Center in December of last year. Kevin and Brenda, both, came from small towns in Iowa, he from Mt. Pleasant and she from Chariton. They were high school sweethearts and married right after graduation when he joined the Army. Both later obtained BA degrees from Colorado College.
Kevin is an Army CW3 communications specialist stationed at Ft. Riley, currently training at Ft. Gordon in Augusta, Georgia. On his return in mid May, he will be the Installation COMSEC Custodian for the whole of Ft. Riley. His plan is to retire in April of 2006 with a full kennel, up and running, to continue their income.
Brenda is a licensed staff agent for a State Farm Insurance office in Manhattan. She is maintaining the children, the house, and the dogs and horses by herself until Kevin gets back in May. In addition, she continues the daily training of a number of dogs she will show in field trials this spring.
Before he was sent to Korea for a year in April 2001, Kevin and Brenda charted the course they wanted to follow until his retirement. They requested an assignment, on return from Korea, to a post situated in the middle of the country that would be accessible to the most possible American Kennel Club field trial sites, and chose Ft. Riley, Kansas. Brenda and the girls then stayed at Ft. Carson in Colorado until Kevin returned from Korea in April of 2002 when the entire family moved to Ft. Riley. They lived on post for a year, then last year, when the girls were spending the summer with their paternal grandparents back in Iowa, Kevin and Brenda spent the months looking for the right house and property on which to start their kennel business.
The house they chose is a beautiful, all-electric home that they bought from Rick and Nancy Hammel. It is sits just outside Clay Center on five acres of ground, enough for the three horses they use in the field trials and for the 24 kennels that Kevin will build this summer.
"We are situated so that within six hours, we can hit any of 15 to 20 AKC Field Trials in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma and Colorado," said Brenda. "Trials are held for three months in the spring and three months in the fall. A trial is generally held on a 40- to 50-acre course 'planted' with three or four quail a brace. A brace is two dogs and their handlers competing against a standard, judged by two judges, for a period of 30 minutes. The dogs must hunt and find the game, hold a point through the flushing of the bird and the firing of a pistol by the handler, and they must watch the bird fly away without following it. It is called 'broken wing to shot.'"
The Stonehouse's plan is to raise and train Brittany's and any hunting breed, and to "campaign" (handle) both their own dogs and those of clients at AKC trials.
Kevin has constructed a website, http://www.geocities.com/kbkennel2002/ explaining their business and philosophy. One of his hobbies is doing extensive research on the Brittany lineages.
Even though the family actually moved into the house the first of December, daughters Chelsea and Courtney remained in school on Ft. Riley until the end of the fall semester. They began the second semester here at Clay Center Community Middle School in January. Chelsea is in 7th grade and plays flute in the band; Courtney is a sixth grader and plays the trumpet.
We asked if the boys at CCCMS were cute and there was a resounding "Yes!" from both girls. Each girl has a dog of her own. Chelsea's dog is a year-old, tri-colored Brittany named "Mick," and Courtney has an 11-month-old, "almost all white" Brittany that she named "Ghost." They are learning to train their dogs in "basic yard commands" such as "come" and "whoa," and will eventually learn to run the dogs from horseback.
Says Brenda, "This is my dream home." We've never found people anywhere as friendly as those in Clay Center, and we've lived a lot of places over the years. We lived on post at Ft. Riley for a year and had no interaction with any of the neighbors. Here, we've had invitations to all kinds of things from Rick and Nancy. Dan Goff passes our house on his way to work and made sure that we had someone to blade the driveway so we could get out in all this snow. And the last time we went to a CCCHS basketball game, we were welcomed and spoken to by a number of people. I'm never moving from here! The joke is they're going to bury me in the northeast pasture!"
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©Clay Center Dispatch 2010
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