Barham recalls being gratified that Mooney and the other meeting attendees were so quick to embrace the idea of marketing their regional identity. Fact is, Barham says, she half expected residents to be more reticent about taking advice from an outsider.

"But it was just the opposite, really," she says. "They were thrilled that someone from the University was getting involved. Everyone was so ready to do something. I think they were all feeling that the region had potential but that they just weren't able to do anything with it."

That is changing. With Barham's help, business people in the region -- winemakers, hoteliers, small farmers, restaurateurs, crafts people -- organized themselves into interest groups. They first defined what was special about their own products and services, then focused on what they needed to do to maximize this comparative advantage. Next they organized the Mississippi River Hills Roundtable where region-wide strategizing could take place. At the same time, extension agents began offering entrepreneurial training sessions, state tourism officials stepped up with marketing advice and counsel, and experts from MU and the Missouri Department of Conservation pitched in with geographical information system (GIS) data that led to publication of a sophisticated, tourist-friendly Mississippi River Hills map. All the while Barham continued to develop quality standards for a future "label of origin." People got excited, and the project grew. So far more than 200 businesses have signed on.

All of this couldn't be happening at a better time, says one the participants, DeWayne Schaaf, 30, executive chef at Celebrations, the Cape Girardeau restaurant supplied by the Truempers. Schaaf has been honored statewide for using fresh local ingredients to create elegant interpretations of regional dishes.

"More people are getting into the whole fine food thing these days, both eating out and preparing it themselves at home," Schaaf says. "I hope that this idea of an appellation will pull other things into that local fine food trend -- the art, culture and history that this region has to offer."

Like Barham, he thinks there is no better place to begin than with Missouri wines. "They have the opportunity to set the benchmark for everything else," Schaaf says. "I don't think Missouri is ever going to be California, or France or Germany or Italy. But that's not important. We don't need to produce $50 cabernets. We need to focus on being Missouri. That's what I think this appellation can do for us."

Slowly, say people like Christina Truemper, the idea is sinking in. "The farming is still pretty conventional around here, because that's the way it's been done for generations," she says as she reaches down to scoop up Behren, the couple's 2-year-old son. "But I think for some of the younger people things are changing. We go to buy milk from a neighbor's farm, for instance. There is a 20, 21-year-old guy there who is positioning himself to someday take over the place. He's recently started researching what it would mean to be organic and sell more milk locally, not just as a commodity to, say, Prairie Farms."

"There is wonderful farmland around here," she adds. "We can make a living off of a nine-acre, rented field. It's a lot of marketing, and you've got to be willing to do the work. But hopefully there will be more of this. I think the younger generation will make it happen."

Published by the Office of Research.

©2006 Curators of the University of Missouri. Click here to contact the editor.