ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Not every business makes it to 70 years of existence but in 2025, local jewelry favorite Staats Jewelers has reached just that milestone.
As current owner Brent Staats tells it, however, the business’s journey began long before he was born.
“The gentleman my dad, Merle, bought the business from, he had started this in 1910 so that would actually make it about 115 years old. O.J. Wilkens was the original owner and Dad worked for him for a few years before he bought the place in 1955,” Staats said. “My dad went to the Kansas City School of Watchmaking on the GI Bill after World War II and was a watchmaker for many years. He had gotten a job in Salina and got a letter from a classmate from Liberal that said 'I can't take the dust out here, and I know this is close to your hometown in Woodward, Okla., would you be interested?' So Dad came out and ultimately took the job.”
Staats then began in the business around 1978 and has been part of the store’s operations ever since ever since.
“I was the baby of the family and the youngest of four children, but no one wanted to really have anything to do with the business since we'd all grown up having to work in the shop,” Staats said. “But I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do, so Dad sent me to Holland School for Jewelers in Alabama, and I liked it, so things took off from there. I started off in the back and doing more of the benchwork stuff like setting stones and that, and then I eventually took on the sales stuff. Dad retired, and I officially bought the store in 1991. The store was originally split into two stores with a wall running down the middle, and Dad knocked that wall down to turn the store into what it is today. We've gone through a lot of different phases in Liberal, like the oil boom of the 1980s, and things were really good then. We've also had a few break-ins, including a guy who came in through the roof and was pretty quickly caught by the police because he was on camera. I've also been a goldsmith since the late 1970s, and I'm officially the shop's old man at this point.”
Staats said the store reaching seven decades of operations is definitely a success story.
“It's great, and it's definitely a success story because it seems like just yesterday I was young and helping out in the back, and now I'm here and in charge of everything. With the original owner, I know he also had another store in this immediate area, but his landlord raised the rent, which made him angry, so he bought this building, and we've been here ever since,” Staats said. “And as far as the business's evolution, they had sold jewelry back then too but it wasn't the main inventory because Dad was the watch inspector for Rock Island Railroad and everyone had to have their watches worked on all the time and they had to be accurate, so he was the official inspector. And the diamond thing came a little later as that's what jewelry stores got into more and more, and that's been our main inventory for a long time now.”
Staats said there has been a lot to enjoy about the work during his time on the job.
“The travel is definitely the best part. We belong to different organizations that host different jewelry shows and other similar events, including an upcoming show I'll be attending in Palm Springs, Calif., which should be great,” Staats said. “I also travel to Antwerp, Belgium frequently to buy merchandise, and it's a beautiful city to visit. It's been a great ride, and I've loved everywhere I've been able to travel. Another great thing about my job is we're dealing mainly with happy people – couples getting engaged, or someone buying their partner a really nice piece of jewelry, so it's a really positive occupation. The ladies who work here do a wonderful job and enjoy what they do since everyone's so happy when they come in here. It's fun being a part of that because they're excited and I enjoy it. We also do different colors but diamonds are the main thing. Back when I started, there was yellow gold and white gold, and we worked with both of them pretty evenly. Yellow gold was especially popular with all the set diamonds and heavier jewelry, and that was all back in the 1980s and 1990s, and nowadays, I'm seeing a lot of white gold with the tiny inset diamonds, which I actually think would be way more difficult to maintain since everything's so, so small. We also carried a lot of Waterford crystal for a long time, but that ran its course, so we don't do that anymore. Something else we used to have a lot of was the gold chains – gold is now $2,800 an ounce compared to $200 back then. We also have a lot of bridal sets, and that's the majority of our inventory.”
Staats added the future overall looks very bright, and he hopes to continue helping customers as long as he can.
“Business is good, and there aren't really too many retail stores downtown, so it'd be a shame to just go ahead and shut everything down. As long as my health holds up, I'll probably stay in business, and maybe after that is when I'll ride off into the sunset, so to speak,” Staats said. “Everything is actually in the store, and not on a computer screen, so people can come in, see what we have, and actually try it on and see how it looks. We also do all adjustments and work here like ring sizing and stone setting and goldsmithing and all of that, which is a big advantage for everyone. We're all about taking care of the customers, and that's something I feel is kind of a lost art in more modern times. I want our customers to get a good value on good quality jewelry and leave our store happy. We're stronger than we've been, and we've got more inventory than we've ever had. We've got a lot of great selections for people, and a lot of different designs, and we're happy to help anyone who comes in here in any way we can.”
In 1965 my folks bought for a wedding present a complete 12 piece set of china dishes from Staats. My youngest daughter has the complete set now all plates, saucers, cups, salad bowls and full size bowls and platters.