By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
Technology and time has negated the need for a large home for the city’s official newspaper.
But as a testament to the ongoing ability of area residents to adapt to the future, the former home of the Hays Daily News at 507 Main soon will be home to a science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning center.
The building’s new owner, Dallas Haselhorst, has named the upcoming center STEM Harvest, reflecting his desire to encourage STEM education in the region, while also finding in the building a new home for office spaces downtown, including his own TreeTop Security.
And while creating a new learning center in downtown Hays is an exciting opportunity for Haselhorst, he also said saving and rehabilitating the building, while preserving its history is also a rewarding experience.
“As I was growing up, obviously had a lot of ties to the building,” Haselhorst said. “I had friends that had newspaper routes, and I'd often fill in for them. So obviously even I have my own bit of history with it, but it really is a community centerpiece that a lot of people have looked at over the years.
“It's a part of the community.”
While most today will remember the building as the home to the newspaper, it was first built as a home for Scheufler Supply Co., an automotive parts and repair business in 1954, according to a 1979 Hays Daily News article.
It would also temporarily serve as the Hays Post Office from Feb. 1, 1964, until Jan. 31, 1965, while the current facility was being constructed from the shell of the previous building standing in the same location as it is today.
A few years after the post office moved into its new facility, Scheufler would also move out his business to a smaller location and sell the building to Pete Felten, who then would sell the building to Hays Daily News in January 1967.
After the first of several remodels, the paper would move into the location in October of the same year.
The paper’s local operations would run from there until Haselhorst bought the building from Gannett in 2021.
As soon as the purchase was completed, he would begin work to secure the building, which had been suffering water damage from a roof that was in desperate need of repair.
"(The) very first thing that we did, before we even purchased the building, was actually go out and get some roofing bids,” Haselhorst said, “because the roof was about 10 to 15 years past where we needed it to be.”
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After getting a new roof on the building, the next step was cleaning out the countless office supplies and artifacts left behind.
“We actually picked up a handful of old newspapers, some from the 1800s,” Haselhorst said. “So those are kind of interesting to kind of leaf through and see,” noting some included President McKinley on the campaign trail.
“To go through some of that stuff, we found some old negatives of, say, the Kennedy assassination, some things like that from the actual front page of the Hays Daily, so yeah, lots of cool history, lots of cool artifacts.”
While he saved some of the most unique items, stacks of everyday newspapers from decades gone by — many damaged beyond saving — were discarded.
“We recycled a lot of paper — to say the least. We actually ended up taking, I think, 27 truckloads of recycled materials of papers that have just been from the past 20 years that didn't really have any value,” Haselhorst said.
For the materials that were saved, he said finding ways to showcase that history for the community is in the works.
STEM Harvest
Now moving the building away from the past, with an eye toward the future, a large portion of the building will be dedicated to STEM Harvest, designed as a center for STEM education.
“STEM Harvest is something that honestly is about 10 years in the making,” Haselhorst said. “And so it's going to have a heavy tech slant, obviously, with me being involved with it. So coding, programming, 3D printing, prototyping, fast-track prototyping is something that we've talked about — to where you kind of get all of those skills together, you now start producing products and start creating ideas.”
He said the center could provide after-school learning opportunities, as well as camps, where youth can learn about the skills needed for jobs in the future.
“And really, it kind of goes back to you teach the fundamentals, and then see what a kid can create,” Haselhorst said.
“We can also bring in some mentors,” he said. “I have kind of friends all over the place in the tech field. … We've also talked with bringing in some different experts, at least on a monthly basis.”
Those experts span a wide range of fields and positions who Haselhorst said would be happy to share their experiences with the next generation.
“I think it has the chance, the possibility, to be really, really special for the area,” he said.
As the space continues to develop, Haselhorst said the search for funding is underway, to help him achieve his goal of a free-to-use facility.
“One of probably the most exciting things for me is we are currently working for trying to get grants, sponsorships and things like that,” he said. “I, ultimately, I want it to be free. … What I really, really want to do is to keep that free so every kid that really has access to it.”
And ultimately, Haselhorst said, bringing high-tech educational opportunities could strengthen and grow the local workforce.
“The the idea is to get kids to really learn those skills, and then stay right here,” he said. “Whether that means that they're working remotely for some other company, or whether they're generating new businesses, new ideas for this area, there's absolutely zero reason that we can't be a tech (center). Maybe we're not going to be a Denver, we're not going to be a Kansas City, but Hays is a very attractive place to live and there's no reason why we can't keep people here.”
While he hopes for a summer opening for STEM Harvest, as work continues inside the building, other businesses, including his own TreeTop Security, could soon be located there as well. A new façade is planned for March, which will break the front of the building up into separate offices.
“So it's revisioning, dividing that up a little bit, for some other businesses to come in and add to the vibrancy of downtown,” Haselhorst said.
TreeTop Security and more
Haselhorst will also turn the building into a home for his cybersecurity company, TreeTop Security, along with office space for other area enterprises.
“For the last few years, we've been looking for space for the kids’ area, as well as TreeTop,” Haselhorst said. “And so I knew going in that we were needing about 6,000 square feet.”
That large a space in Hays has been hard to come by, he said, but when the former Hays Daily News building came up for sale, he knew it would be a fit, but also there would be ample space left over.
“It was kind of the idea that, well, what else can we do with this?” Haselhorst said. “What other ideas? Could we make it kind of a — not gonna say a centerpiece, beautiful downtown Hays is already there and very well established — but how can we make it kind of its own unique blend?”
He hopes that along with what is already located in downtown Hays, the facility can be another draw with the right combination of businesses.
“There's already a lot of fantastic businesses, fantastic things to do,” Haselhorst said. “You have the pool right there. You have a lot of festivities and activities in downtown. So (it will) just to try and promote that area, even just a little bit more.”
And while he works toward those long-term plans, he knows the process will be a long one.
“Phase one, really, is to have the front 60 percent of the building … hopefully have it 100 percent used,” Haselhorst said.
For the remainder of the space, currently in the form of a warehouse space that housed the paper’s printing press and circulation operations, finding the right operation to move in remains up in the air.
“So it's really, get the front half going because, well, honestly, that's easiest,” Haselhorst said. “But then also, kind of that back half, that's where the artifacts, hopefully, eventually play into that.”
But he is also open to other ideas for the space.
“I've had a number of other ideas, business owners pitch ideas I should say, for different things that that could be transformed into,” Haselhorst said. “So yeah, we'll see. It's a space there and available that we can try some different things with.”
For more about STEM Harvest, visit stemharvest.org.
For more about TreeTop Security, visit treetopsecurity.com.