Neosho Falls’ Oasis reopens doors

NEOSHO FALLS — After a period of fallow months, the tavern in Neosho Falls is open again.
New owners Gary and Tracy Schainost cut the ribbon on the Main Street bar last week in the company of a nearly packed house. If reality merges with the Schainosts’ hopes, in time, the “The Oasis” will help to inject a bit of civic energy into the historic, but commercially barren, riverside town.
“I like to call it a tavern,” said Gary, “and not a bar, because we’re trying to cater to the whole community. We’re kid-friendly, pet-friendly. We want to keep a clean, bright, friendly place. Say you just want to stop in for a glass of iced tea, that’s great.”
 The Oasis — which retains its name in memory of the well-loved former owner, Donnie McCullough, who died last summer — opens its doors at 7 a.m. during the week and 10 a.m. on Saturday, and serves coffee, ice, breakfast sandwiches, biscuits and gravy, pizza, subs, among other food items, and of course boasts the full-scale offerings of a 3.2 bar.
There are two 50-cent pool tables near the rear of the spotless, alley-shaped tavern, as well as a shuffleboard table, pinball machine, and well-stocked juke box. “And now we’ve got free Wi-Fi, internet, cable TV. They’re dragging me into the 21st century kicking and screaming,” said Gary, who supplements the food and drink with his wit and good-humor, and who refers to himself, in his black bent-brimmed hat, as “just an old broke-down cowboy.”
The Schainosts’ first loyalty is to the local residents and to the oil field workers and farmers who labor in the fields that fan out across Woodson, Allen and Anderson counties (“oil and ag,” as Gary puts it). But the couple hopes to draw fresh faces, too.
During the first week, as word got round that the bar was back, young people in their twenties and thirties — from Westphalia, Le Roy, Yates Center, Iola — began migrating to the bright tavern on the dirt road within earshot of the falls.
The pair has spent the last month scrubbing the tavern’s now-glittering white floors, cleaning and painting the ceiling tiles, and attending to the accumulation of disrepair that is the legacy of an old building.
“We were going to put on a new bar top,” recalled Tracy, “but some of our customers came in and said, ‘That’s ours. Please, leave that for us.’”
Gary: “They said, ‘There are too many memories here.’”
Tracy: “It makes it their bar. The locals are like, ‘No, we’ll drink off this bar top, you just leave it. I said, ‘OK — it’s your place. It’s not our place. That’s how we look at it.”
Gary is a Colony native. Tracy grew up between Neosho Falls and Iola. But since taking over what is very nearly the town’s only business, the couple has assumed a personal interest in the health and longevity of the Woodson County outpost.
They’ve discussed, in time, adding a bait shop to the premises, and perhaps a “dab” of groceries behind the bar, which would save local residents a drive to Iola or Yates Center.
“Anything that we can afford to put back in the community,” said Tracy, “we want to do it.”
The couple — who recently celebrated their 30th anniversary — know that the undertaking, with its long hours and financial uncertainty, will be an arduous one. But they have the support of family — Gary’s mother pitches in on the mopwork and Tracy’s younger brother lends a hand on the maintenance side. (They’re also aided by Rusty, a playful, long-haired mongrel, no taller than the top of a cowboy boot, who, when he’s not casting a cool eye over the front door, curls up into a reddish-blonde ball in a bed under the bar.)
While they’re keeping the bar top and the name — McCullough was a friend of theirs — “we’re changing our motto,” said Gary, “from ‘Just one more’ to ‘Stuff’s getting better.’” The latter a line from one of Gary’s favorite films, a Kevin Costner vehicle, “The Postman.”
“We went through a rough patch,” said Tracy. “He lost his job. Two months later I lost my job. We lost our home, everything we had. …We’re just coming back. So: ‘Stuff is getting better.’ It’s kind of a personal thing for us: ‘stuff is getting better.’”
“And now we want to give that to the town, too,” insisted Gary.
Driving the dark rural roads into Neosho Falls after sunset these days, two tall light poles peer down over the little bar, creating a welcoming island of light in the little town, where the Oasis is again open for business.