Dakota Stained Glass is opened on Main Avenue in Garretson (Preview)

Dakota Stained Glass co-owner Nico Rogers poses with an art piece created by founder Ken Bird, who passed away in 2018. Nico and her husband Matt recently acquired the business and moved its location to Garretson, where they plan to hold classes as well as offer stained glass supplies, repair, and a ready-made art sales gallery.

Garretson has a new business in town, and it’s one that had a long-established history in Sioux Falls. Founder Ken Bird’s work can be seen at both Sanford and Avera, as well as several area churches. Under new ownership by Matt and Nico Rogers, Dakota Stained Glass has moved operations to Garretson, and is now located at 332 Main Ave.

When Nico Rogers received a stained-glass class as a Christmas present in 2018 from her mother-in-law, she was grateful. Always drawn to art, Nico couldn’t wait to try it out.

“I hadn’t quite found my medium yet,” she said. When she did the class, it clicked. She said to herself, “This is my medium. I finally found it.”

Once hooked, she started taking more classes, and in March of 2019, she asked if she could start working there part-time. A stay-at-home mom to four children ages 1-9 at the time, Nico was ready to get back into the workforce, but had to keep it limited in order to work around husband Matt’s schedule.

It didn’t take long before Matt, a floor-installer by trade, was bitten by the stained-glass bug too. He also started taking a few classes, and not long later the two of them started helping Dakota Stained Glass owner Janet Smith with cleaning out the warehouse that had originally been set up by founder Ken Bird.

Bird passed away from lung cancer on January 6, 2018, and after a nearly 30-year career in stained glass, his legacy is everywhere around Sioux Falls and the state of South Dakota. However, that long career also meant that he’d built quite a collection, and Smith was attempting to go through it, with the hopes of downsizing slightly.

After seeing Matt and Nico’s industriousness and enthusiasm for the art, she offered them the chance of a lifetime this past February.

“She was ready to retire,” said Nico.

When the offer to buy Dakota Stained Glass was given, Matt and Nico knew they had to jump on it. “Owning a shop was always something we wanted to do, we were just waiting for the kids to get older before trying to find something,” she said.

The children, now ages 2, 4, 7, and 10, have been as helpful as they can be, considering. Oldest son, Lane, has multiple plans for how he’d like to help his parents out. He too is an artist, and is developing his ideas. The younger children have been spending their time with Matt, and when he’s at the new business, with grandparents who live nearby.

Besides downsizing from the warehouse, moving the business to Garretson was first on the Rogers’ wish list.

They’ve lived on an acreage a few miles south of town for seven years now, and knew Garretson would make a perfect location for their business. Being introduced to the old Lil’ Dreamers Daycare location by Kris Frerk was the topping on the cake.

Continued on Part Two