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3 weeks ago | 
thestl.com | Valerie Schremp Hahn |Michael Thomas |Lauren Milford
The players with Arch Rival Roller Derby might be the nicest, most welcoming, yet toughest and most determined group of people in St. Louis. They’re proud to represent home. “Fueled by the Mississippi River and energized by the Gateway Arch, we skate, hit, and high-five among the best in the world,” says the league’s website. Indeed. In November 2024, 13 of the best roller derby teams worldwide met in Portland, Oregon, for the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association global championships.
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1 month ago | 
thestl.com | Cheryl Baehr |Lauren Milford |Michael Thomas
Luke “Spike” Kohlbecker can’t remember the exact moment he fell in love with racing, because it’s always been a part of him. Growing up in a family of car and racing enthusiasts, the Kirkwood native was itching to get behind the wheel not long after he could walk, donning his Superman cape at the age of 3 before jumping into his electric go-kart to do laps on the track his dad sketched out with chalk in their driveway.
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1 month ago | 
thestl.com | Ginger O’Donnell |Jennifer Silverberg |Lauren Milford
Katie Murphy was an undergraduate research assistant at Stanford University when she discovered her passion for corn. Every morning, she and her colleagues would weed and tend to a cornfield while cultivating their ability to ask meaningful and measurable scientific questions. As a first-year chemistry major seeking any available paid research opportunity, she had serendipitously landed a spot in the lab of one of the world’s premier corn experts, Virginia Walbot.
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2 months ago | 
thestl.com | Nancy Stiles |Lauren Milford |R.J. Hartbeck
The best T-shirts are often the cheekiest — at least for Randy and Jeff Vines. At their Cherokee Street shop, STL Stylehouse, you’ll find tees, stickers, hats, posters, and all manner of St. Louis swag. Jeff’s favorite shirt design actually predates the store, which the twin brothers opened at the corner of Cherokee Street and Compton Avenue in 2010.
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2 months ago | 
thestl.com | Heather Riske |Lauren Milford |Jennifer Silverberg
Knee-deep in dirt and covered in mosquito bites, Kay Wells knew there had to be a better way. Not long after moving back to St. Louis from the West Coast with her family in 2012, Wells, who was working in the aerospace sector at the time, decided to start digging up an in-ground garden at her home.
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2 months ago | 
thestl.com | Cheryl Baehr |Lauren Milford |R.J. Hartbeck
Danish Nagda describes himself as a reluctant entrepreneur. A physician by training, Nagda assumed he would spend his professional life as a clinician, and was well on his way down that path as an ENT resident at Washington University School of Medicine. Then, life presented him with a situation he could not ignore — one that would alter his professional trajectory and has the potential to change the health care industry at large.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
thestl.com | Ginger O’Donnell |Lauren Milford |Jennifer Silverberg
Hilda Andres, executive director of the Foundry Art Centre in historic St. Charles, grew up in Lebanon and moved to the United States to attend college. She studied interior design at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she met her husband, an architecture student. Over the years, as they built a life together, they moved multiple times for professional reasons. In each new community, Andres found herself searching for a place of belonging and enrichment.
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Jan 13, 2025 | 
thestl.com | Heather Riske |Lauren Milford |R.J. Hartbeck
Lia Holter has recently had a few friends rewatch the fourth season of TLC’s “The Next Great Baker,” the reality competition she won with fellow pastry chef Al Watson in 2014. In addition to a $100,000 cash prize, Holter won the opportunity to move to Las Vegas or Hoboken, New Jersey to work in one of the renowned bakeries owned by host Buddy Valastro (aka the Cake Boss). It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So why, her friends wondered, didn’t she jump at the chance?
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Dec 12, 2024 | 
thestl.com | Cheryl Baehr |Lauren Milford |Michael Thomas
When Jonathan Lidgus, director of the University of Missouri-St. Louis’ Office of Inclusive Postsecondary Education (OIPE), talks about the unemployment crisis for individuals with intellectual disabilities, the numbers are staggering. When he notes the employment outcomes for graduates of the university’s OIPE program, they’re equally jaw-dropping — yet for a much better reason.
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Dec 9, 2024 | 
thestl.com | Alecia Humphreys |Lauren Milford |Jennifer Silverberg
Fashion is intricately woven into the very fabric of St. Louis’ rich history. From the turn of the 20th century until after World War II, the hum and clacking of manufacturing machinery echoed through the side streets off Washington Avenue in Downtown St. Louis, where workers produced everything from footwear and hats to dresses and luxury garments.
