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Sensory Open Play Group moves to South Watertown
Sydnie Sparks, the owner of Sensory, has moved her open play group out of Downtown Watertown to 1018 Sixth St. SE near Infinity Fun.
The move came as a surprise to Sparks, who had only just settled into her first location in the former Medical Arts Building on Broadway, which opened in early September last year. The move was prompted by a change in ownership of the building, though the new owner was accommodating and allowed Sparks to stay in the building for as long as she could before she found her new location.
That new location is the former RC Technologies building which Sparks said came with almost triple the space of her former location as well as a nice decrease in her monthly rent.
Sparks moved into the new location on April 11 and since then she’s overhauled the entire space to make it perfect for children.
Some renovations include a rainbow wall, another wall with Sensory’s logo and handprints from the children, more activity space, a kitchen, two bathrooms, a staff room and more.
Once June hits, Sparks will also begin building an outdoor play space. Sparks’s goal for the area is to fence it in and set it up for outdoor recreation.
“Knowing me I’ll get a splash pad because I love our pool days,” she said. “We’ll get to play outside without walking to the park consistently.”
To help keep the place running Sparks is looking to hire three full-time daycare providers with degrees in Early Childhood Development and two part-time employees.
The new building isn’t the only thing Sparks is looking to cross off her agenda, however.
“Hopefully at the beginning of June, I’ll be a fully licensed Family Group Daycare,” she said. “That was supposed to be a (goal) for the next five years, but it turned into the next three months.”
The license, according to Sparks, will allow her to take up to 20 children at a time.
“Getting another daycare in town (will) help out a lot more families,” she said.
Previously Sensory was simply an open play group, where children could improve their fine and gross motor skills, but had to be monitored by their own parents during play. That was the launch pad Sparks needed to get families more involved with their kids and their fellow families in the community. She said the daycare license will help her provide more opportunities for families.
Another thing the license will provide includes two emergency slots for “drop-ins” which allow Sparks to care for a child whose family might be struggling to find care on short notice.
“I’m able to do two drop-in’s every single day if families need them,” she said. “Once the licensing starts, I’m able to accept them.”
Sparks credits her new landlord which made the move go very smoothly and even chipped in for some of the renovations.
Sparks spoke about how the change, though sudden, has put Sensory in a better place.
“I hope that Sensory will help a lot of parents come together more and (give) their kids more social skills,” he said. “We’re in the (era) of kids watching TV and going on phones, I hope Sensory helps Watertown get the kids out of that mindset and come in and play together. … That’s my full hope and goal (for the new location).”
Connoisseur Media to sell six Watertown radio stations
The media marketing and radio broadcasting company, Connoisseur Media will sell six Watertown radio stations to Riverfront Broadcasting, a Yankton-based company.
The stations being sold include 92.9 KSDR, 96.1 KIXX, 96.9 KDLO, 104.3 KKSD, which is licensed to Milbank, along with 950 KWAT and 1480 KSDR.
The sales come on the heels of several other stations being sold to local Brookings staff earlier this year.
Riverfront owns 21 stations in South Dakota, Minneapolis, and Iowa. The owners said they were happy to bring back local oversight and focus to the stations.
The CEO of Connoisseur said in a press release that “The Watertown market was not (one) we felt Connoisseur could make a material difference in with the focus and approach we bring to radio.”
Brown Butter Bakery sets up shop in Watertown
A new bakery, owned by Vivian Kopman, has set up a weekly stand in the parking lot of Nyberg’s Ace Hardware at 700 Ninth Ave. SE.
The bakery is a self-serve “honor system” style of business where people looking for baked goods can stop by and pick them up on Fridays from 9 a.m. until sellout every week until the Kopman closes the stand for the season in the fall.
She said the honor system and the small shack-style set up will make it easier on her and more convenient for her customers.
“I want to bake for people because it’s something I love,” she said. “I like using nice, clean ingredients. I want to bring people food that doesn’t have any junk in it.”
She said she puts an emphasis on everything she makes being homemade, and that there will also be a gluten-free option available.
The location, according to Kopman, is being tested out as of now, but will likely become permanent.
Her inspiration for the stand came from her youth. She told The Watertown Current she’d been interested in baking since “a very young age.”
Kopman intends to make things like cinnamon rolls, scones, brown-butter cookies, banana bread and a few rotating dessert items for the stand, each of which can be pre-ordered by reaching out to Kopman on the Brown Butter Bakery’s Facebook page.
“I feel like so many people haven’t actually had access to real baked goods,” she said. “I really want the stand to feel like a small, familiar morning stop people can look forward to on their way through town.”
Big Stone Therapy to celebrate 20 years of service
One of Watertown’s physical therapy clinics, Big Stone Therapy, will celebrate 20 years of service with an open house and ribbon cutting on Thursday, May 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. at 8 Fifth St. SE in Watertown.
According to one of the managing partners, Wade Fligge, Big Stone Therapy has been around since 1990 in South Dakota starting off in Sisseton, as well as Wheaton, Ortonville, and Graceville, all towns in Minnesota. It wasn’t until 2006 that the therapy practice expanded to Watertown to fill a gap in the service.
Alongside his other managing partner, Kim Pearson, Big Stone Therapy has seen various challenges in the changing field over the past 20 years. One such challenge is the constant shifting of the insurance environment and how that leaves the pair’s practice with little choice in pricing their services.
“Insurance companies basically dictate what they’ll pay us,” Fligge. “We can’t set our own prices.”
Another challenge the practice has faced is public perception.
“A lot of people think of physical therapy as massage,” he said. “We look to get at the underlying root of the problem, provide education including activity modification, function strengthening and awareness, which is a lot more than just massage.”
Fligge said COVID was no walk in the park either, even though Big Stone Therapies was considered an essential business and could remain open while abiding by restrictions.
A large change the field has seen in the past two decades, said Fligge, is the expansion of “direct access,” meaning patients don’t have to go through primary care doctors to get appointments anymore. Now, they can receive care with a simple phone call to schedule an appointment.
He said reaching the 20-year mark will come with more growth to fit the needs of the community. The organization’s second location at The Village of Harmony Hill, opened in 2023, is undergoing renovation which will provide a new therapy space in October.
“We appreciate all the community support and partnerships we’ve had over the 20 years,” he said. “We look forward to continuing to provide quality services withing the healthcare community in Watertown.”
The practice in Watertown covers the entire age spectrum from newborn to geriatric along with a variety of specialty areas such as sports medicine, orthopedics, concussions, and more alongside some neurological disorder therapies and occupational health services.
Lloyd’s Heating cuts celebratory 50-year ribbon
Andy Stemwedel, the owner of Lloyd’s Heating at 607 Fourth St. SW, recently celebrated the company’s 50-year anniversary with a ribbon cutting alongside previous owners Scott and Lloyd Christians.
Andy Stemwedel cuts a Chamber of Commerce ribbon while Lloyd Christians, the original owner of the business (right) holds up the ribbon. Photo by Tucker Hermans, The Watertown Current.
Stemwedel has been with the company since 2002, starting out as an installer, then later bought half the company in 2013 from Scott, the primary owner at the time. A decade after that, he bought the second half of the company in 2023 and became the full owner.
He said when he started with Lloyd’s, two other employees were on their way to other jobs, which made him Scott’s only employee at that time.
“It was Scott and I side by side,” he said. “We worked great (together) for years.”
After a few years Stemwedel said more employees were hired on, and he became the supervisor of the installation side of the company.
Now that the company has cut its 50-year ribbon, Stemwedel has a few goals for Lloyd’s. One of them is to maintain a steady but maintainable growth rate and the other is to begin helping out Lake Area Technical College if its HVAC program is funded during the state’s next legislative session.
“I hope (that happens),” he said. “In the early 2000s there was no place to learn this. You came through the school of hard knocks. … I’d hire one of those kids in a heartbeat.”
He said one of the biggest struggles in the business is closely related to the education aspect.
“There’s not a book to read,” he said. “You have to basically go with people side by side, (and) teach them on the job site. … You have to teach these people somehow.”
He said training gets to be expensive, and that it sometimes leads to trained employees being hired off to other companies which could lead to the entire process beginning again for Lloyd’s.
“It’s not a flashy job, but it’s a high-demand job,” he said, “but the demand is going up.”
Stemwedel thanks Scott and Lloyd for teaching him everything he knows.
“I didn’t just wake up one day and know all this,” he said. “Scott and Lloyd really helped me.”
