THE FACES BEHIND THE FIREWORKS: Pontiac couple puts on dazzling professional fireworks displays in multiple states as owners of Foggy Bottom Fireworks

The Fourth of July is just around the corner, and that means busy work for the crew at Foggy Bottom Fireworks, a professional pyrotechnics business owned by Pontiac residents Kirk and Segri (pronounced See-gra) Stephens. 

The Stephens’ work, which pairs the latest pyro-technology with Kirk’s decades-long artistic eye for firework combinations, is well known in Ozark County and beyond. 

From the dazzling displays at the 2011-2017 Ozark County’s Relay for Life events to the longtime running and well-attended “Light Up the Lake” show over Bull Shoals Lake at Pontiac, the Foggy Bottom Fireworks owners have made a name for themselves locally. But, their work reaches far beyond the Ozark County line. The crew has put together hundreds of professional fireworks displays in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas over the last 25 years. 

“We slowed down a little bit and just have seven to nine shows this year, but we’ve done as many as 25 or 28 in a year before - and 20 of those were from June 30 to July 30,” Kirk told the Times in a recent interview.

Finding each other

Kirk says he was born and raised in Raytown, Missouri, but left his hometown when he was 17 to relocate to Colorado. After sustaining an injury in 1996, he moved back to the Kansas City area.  

That’s where he met Segri in 1998. She had also relocated to Kansas City after growing up on a dairy farm in mid-Missouri. She was working as a secretary at a construction company that had subcontracted with Kirk, who by that time had started his own construction business, Stephens Restoration LLC. 

That introduction began the love story that continues today. The Stephens still operate their Kansas City-based construction company and maintain a home in the city, which they visit every other week to do the company’s payroll and other times when Kirk needs to bid  new jobs. Segri also travels up to Kansas City every Tuesday to take their granddaughter to dance class. 

The Stephens manage a crew there that have ranged from five to 10 employees over recent years. “We do a lot of insurance work for disasters... fires, flood, following hurricanes... that kind of thing,” Kirk said. 

The workers used to travel, completing construction jobs in natural disaster areas. “We traveled all over America doing multi-million dollar [jobs]. We’ve done a little bit of it all,” Kirk said. “But we don’t do that much anymore, because everyone is getting older and has children.” Instead, the crew stays closer to home.

Kirk says the workers usually come in after a disaster of some sort has wreaked havoc on homes and buildings, and they “put everything back together... we do insulation, drywall, trim, cabinetry doors, siding, roofing, painting...all that stuff.”

Three of their construction guys play double duty, helping with fireworks shows in addition to working construction, he says. 

Coming to Ozark County

Outside of work, Kirk and Segri said they love being out in nature - and it was that interest that brought them to Ozark County for the first time.

“Back then, we camped a lot. We would get the Missouri’s Conservation Atlas out each week, and I would pick a conservation area [to visit] one weekend, and the next weekend, she’d pick one,” Kirk said. 

On one of Segri’s weeks to choose the destination, she flipped to the atlas page featuring Caney Mountain Conservation Area, a more than 7,000-acre piece of property north of Gainesville. Liking the looks of the solitude, scenic overlooks, abundant wildlife and other offerings at Caney Mountain, she decided it should be their next place to visit. 

“So we came down and camped there that weekend, and we just loved it,” Kirk said. “And while we were there, we saw there were also managed turkey hunts and managed deer hunts offered.”

The couple, who both enjoy hunting “anything and everything,” pitched their names into the lottery drawing for both the Caney Mountain management deer and turkey hunts. They were chosen that first year and have been chosen and participated in the hunts many years since then. 

“So, in 2010 or 11... we were down here on a turkey hunt, and we were tent camping. It rained all day. When we went back to the tent, we were soaking wet. We couldn’t start a fire to make dinner. So we said, ‘Let’s just go down to The Antler,’” Kirk said. 

Drenched, the pair drove into Gainesville, thankful to find a warm, dry seat and a hot meal. 

“That’s where we met Pam,” Segri said, referencing the late Pam Cramm, who was a co-owner of The Antler Pizza & Package store at the time with brothers Rocky and Robert Klineline. Pam was known for her friendly personality and love for visiting with the restaurant’s patrons. 

After finding a table and ordering their meal, Pam came over to the table and sat down, introducing herself and began chatting with the new customers.

During the course of that conversation, which ended up lasting 45 minutes, Pam mentioned that she was involved with Ozark County’s Relay for Life, a year-long fundraising effort that honored those in the community who had been diagnosed with or had died from cancer. Pam told the couple that the effort cumulated in an overnight event, held each June at the Gainesville track, where hundreds of people gathered together for a powerful ceremony. After Kirk and Segri told Pam that they were in the fireworks business, Pam said a fireworks display would be a wonderful addition to the event and that she would love for them to do it. They agreed. 

“I didn’t think she’d really call us, but sure enough that next year, she did...” Kirk said.

The first Foggy Bottom Fireworks show in Ozark County was put on at the 2011 Relay For Life, and the Stephens continued the display at the event each year until the last Relay for Life was held here in 2017. 

To say the fireworks were memorable additions to the events is an understatement. Each year, the display was a non-stop thrilling experience that awed the crowd for more than an hour. It ended each time with one of the best fireworks finales many onlookers said they’d ever seen.

And, although the Stephens are not quick to boast about the donation, they put the Relay for Life shows completely free of charge, using upwards of $100,000 of firework product credit they’d built up throughout the year from their supplier, and paying their crew out of their own pockets.

Finding home

Each time they visited, the Stephens made a deeper connection with Ozark County and its residents. 

“When we were doing the shows down here, we were just blown away by the gratitude that everyone showed us,” Kirk said. “We’d go to The Antler to have lunch, and when we were done, we’d ask for the bill. They’d say it was taken care of and wouldn’t let us pay. Or we’d go to the lumber yard for little extra wood for something, and they’d throw it in the truck and say we were already taken care of. There were just lots of things like that. Jeff Nash offered to let us stay in his cabin each year, and his son Taler would go out and mow for us. Even now, Jackie [Klineline of Just Jackie’s] brings our crew pizza, and Jabet [Wade of Pontiac Cove Marina] brings us breakfast. You can just really tell everyone is so thankful for what we do, and that means a lot to us.”

Sometime in 2019, the Stephens were looking to buy a piece of property somewhere outside of the city. They had been considering a farm in northern Missouri for the fertile soil and ample growing grounds, but during a trip down to Ozark County, they changed their minds.

“Once we got down here and into the Pontiac area, we loved it. And we knew that was where we want to live,” Segri said.

Pontiac resident Keith Herd had heard through the grapevine that the Stephens were looking to buy a place and decided he might have just what they were looking for.

“Out of the blue we got a call from him, saying ‘Hey look, I’m selling my house. Would you be interested?’ We went down and looked at it and love it. We bought it right then and there,” Kirk said, referencing a 74-acre piece of the Herds’ property on Bull Shoals Lake that the Stephens purchased in 2019. 

For about a year, the Stephens used their Kansas City residence as their primary home and came to the Pontiac house on weekend getaways. 

Then in 2020, the covid-19 pandemic hit. As part of the effort to reduce exposure to the virus, there was a lot of infrastructure built across the country that allowed people to work remotely. The Stephens used the opportunity to begin their own to transition to a more Ozark County-based lifestyle. They had Starlink internet service installed at their place and began finding ways to run the Kansas City business from the quiet hills of their home in Ozark County. 

In that time, they also bought cattle, and Segri’s brother John moved in with them. They say both changes have led them to spend more time here, as John enjoys his time in Ozark County more than in the city, and, as all farmers know, cattle always need tending. 

Now, instead of being Kansas City residents visiting Pontiac when they can, the Stephens are Pontiac residents who occasionally have to travel north to the city for work. They’ve made many friends here over the years and have settled into a quiet routine in the country. 

Sadly, they’ve lost some friends too - including one of the first friendly faces they remember from Ozark County, Pam Cramm, who spent many years raising funds through the Relay For Life, died March 21, 2021 after her own valiant battle with cancer. 

Finding a career in a love for fireworks

Kirk says his interest in fireworks started early in life. 

“My dad bought me my first fireworks when I was five or six years old, and I just fell in love with it,” said. 

That interest only grew as he got older. In 1996, after returning to Kansas City and opening the construction business, he threw a Fourth of July company party for his crew and put on his very first display. 

“It was just something small. It wasn’t a professional display,” he said. “So, for about three years, I did these  consumer firework-displays, and everybody just loved it.”

Then in 1999, Kirk took the next step in his pyrotechnic interest by joining a company called Fireworks Spectacular, helping them to put on firework displays at The Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, the home ballpark of the Kansas City Royals.

“At that point I started buying bigger fireworks from them and doing bigger shows. And there wasn’t really any laws constituting all the things that we have now,” Kirk said. In fact, for the first 10 years the Stephens were in business, there were hardly any restrictions on the sale of fireworks in the United States, they say. 

“It was kind of a free-for-all,” Segri said. “I mean, anyone could go buy them.”

“You just showed them your driver’s license and could drive off with all kinds of explosives,” Kirk added. 

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the Patriot Act was instated, and that has had a huge impact on the purchasing requirements for firework companies, the Stephens say. 

“You have to be registered with the ATF, and they have to do a background check. You have to have a license in any state that you shoot in from the state fire marshal. You have to have a HAZMAT endorsement on a CDL license to transport it, and you also now have to be background checked by the Homeland Security,” Kirk said. 

But Kirk and Segri decided it was worth the effort to jump through all of the new hoops to pursue the fireworks career. All the while, they were still managing the construction company. 

“Most everything I did at first, with the exception of my own displays and a fundraiser for Mercy Children’s Hospital, was basically subcontract through Fireworks Spectacular,” Kirk said. 

At some point, bitten by the pyro-bug with no chance of turning back, Kirk began buying his own equipment. “I think I ended up spending $75,000 or $80,000 on fireworks systems, tubes and all that stuff,” he said.

Then, Fireworks Spectacular, the company Kirk was contracting for, had an explosion at its fireworks factory that killed three people, Kirk says. After that tragedy, the company was sold to DDT out of Oklahoma, and Kirk went to work for them.

The new company put Kirk in a new role. 

“I went to six different states teaching fire safety to fire departments through the Pyrotechnic Guild International or PGI,” Kirk said, explaining that any organization, town or city that puts on a fireworks show has to have staff go through a course about firework safety before applying for a state license.

“So, we’d go there and take them through an 8-hour class and teach them how to actually load and fire. That would be part of their education, and then they would have to have three shoots under their wing before they could get a state license,” he said. 

Kirk says he did that job for six or seven years, traveling to Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska teaching the courses. Sometimes Segri would tag along, but a lot of the time, she would stay behind to help keep the construction business running smoothly. “And when you hear the same class 3,000 times, it isn’t quite as interesting as it once was,” she said laughing. 

“But for me, I just love fireworks so much that I was having a blast doing it... even just doing the classes,” Kirk said. 

At some point, DDT sold out to another company, Rainbow Fireworks, out of Inman, Kansas, just outside of Wichita. “We did a few shows for them, but it was just too far to drive,” Kirk said.

So, at that time, about 10 or 15 years ago, the Stephens decided to change gears a bit and look for a new path forward.

“That’s when we met up with Jeremy and Stacy Kovak. They own Aerial FX in St. Joe, Missouri,” he said. “I actually had met him originally through DDT. Jeremy had a bigger company. I drove for DDT at the time and would drop fireworks off at all these little fire departments and everywhere through all these states. He ran out of product one year, and he bought a bunch of product from Aerial FX. So, I went up, and I met him then.”

The Stephens began a subcontracting relationship with Aerial FX at that time - an arrangement that has continued for more than a decade.

Nowadays, the Stephens book their own shows as Foggy Bottom Fireworks and also shoot shows that they subcontract through Aerial FX. They work with a close crew of employees that includes Eric Tavai, Michael Schoffstall, Larone Hall and Quentin Buschshult. The Stephens say they couldn’t do the work without that group, and that the workers are truly a blessing to the company.

“We do shows in Missouri and Kansas mainly. I’m still licensed in Oklahoma and Arkansas,” Kirk said. “But most of our shows are in Missouri.”

They put on fireworks shows of all sizes, from private weddings to huge public Fourth of July displays for cities. They even shot their first celebration of life ceremony last year when the family of the late Gainesville resident Diane White honored her last wishes by placing her ashes into a firework shell that was shot into the sky before her loved ones. 

The nitty gritty

The Foggy Bottom Fireworks shows range in budget from $5,000 to upward of $30,000 to $40,000, Kirk says.

“Basically, what I tell people is that a great fireworks display is about $1,000 a minute,” Kirk says. “But we just did Seymour this last week, and it was $7,000, and we went 13 minutes. But we can only shoot a 3-inch shell up there, so you get a lot more of them for the money.”

The Stephens explained that there are regulations that limit which shells can be set off in various locations, which is determined by how far the shoot site is away from other things.

The shell or mortar, terms for the round ball containing the pyrotechnic ingredients that explode into the sky, are measured by inch of diameter. The rule the Stephens and other operators have to follow is that the shooting site must be 75 feet away from any buildings or people per inch diameter of the shell they shoot.

“So, for the show in Seymour, we can get 225 feet from the crowd or buildings, so that’s 2.5-inch or 3-inch shells we’ll be shooting there,” he said. “Now, the further away you can be, the bigger the shells can be and the more expensive they are.”

The Stephens shoot up to a 10-inch shell at their bigger shows, like the Pontiac fireworks show or their biggest show they put on each year, which is in Coffeyville, Kansas. 

Kirk says there are shells as big as 12-inches, that when shot off, go nearly half a mile into the sky. He said before the stricter regulations were in place, he used to shoot them. But now, the ATF has much more stringent licensing requirements for those shells, which would require Kirk to go back to school. He says it just isn’t worth it to him, as 10-inch shells are plenty big for his shows.

What goes into the dazzling displays?

The Stephens say there is a lot of pre- and post-display work that crews put in. 

The process begins weeks before the actual display with Kirk putting together a sort of firework set-list, determining which shells will be used and in what order and placement. 

“I have to see it in my mind and think of how it’s going to go. Because of all the years I’ve been doing it - and just knowing what all the different shells will do and look like, I can sit down and dream it up in my head. And a lot of times, it comes out better than I thought,” Kirk said. 

After the show is planned out, Kirk then meets with the local fire department in the area of the show. He has to put together paperwork that includes a drawing of the shooting site and a copy of his permit information. He then has to get insurance for the event and fill out an application for that specific display, which includes site-specific information like how far the spectators will be from the shoot site and other relevant details to the event. Once it’s approved, they start the process of preparing for the actual show. 

Kirk orders the fireworks and drives to St. Joe to pick up the product that will be used for the event. When he returns the crew pulls together everything that will be needed for that particular shoot, loads it into trailers and head toward the site. 

Once they arrive at the location, they work to unload and put together the “racks,” wooden housing units that are used to hold the large fireworks tubes. It is inside those tubes that the shells are placed for firing. “The setup of the racks is dependant on the show. So, during the body of the show, everything is pretty much [shot] straight up. But for flights and finales and things like that, we spread them out on angles, so it fills the sky,” he said.

The crew uses an electronic firing system to set off the shells. “Each shell that we drop has what we call an e-match, or an electric match, that hooks to the shell. You tie that off and run it to a module and plug it in. And then we sync our modules. A module might hold 18, 36 or 72 wires. Then you sync your controller to that module,” Kirk said. 

The shoot site is usually located about 25 to 50 feet from where the shells are set off, close enough that they can run in if a fire starts or anything else goes awry.  “We like to actually sit right on top of [the tubes] at our firing table. We call it sitting at the mouth of the dragon,” Kirk said. 

After the fun part, firing off the show, comes another slug of work as the crew works to clean up after the show. 

“When we do the Coffeyville show, I’ll have eight to 10 people down there Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Then Friday, we’ll have another three come in. And then Saturday, we’ll have about five more. So we’ll end up having up to 18 people just to set that one show up,” Kirk said. 

“And that’s us dropping shells day and night for days,” Segri said. After that, the crew is on clean up duty.

The Stephens say in total it takes about seven or eight days for the large crew to setup, put on and tear down the Coffeyville fireworks show. 

But when they see the smiles and sparkle in the eyes of spectators burning brighter than any shell they’ve fired, they know it’s all worth it. They pack up their equipment and look forward to doing it all again at the next show. 

See them in action

To see the Foggy Bottom Fireworks crew in action, residents can attend one of their local upcoming shows:

This Friday, June 28, the 38th annual Fourth of July Celebration for Heart of the Ozarks in Ava will feature fireworks beginning around 9:30 p.m. at the nursing facility.

Then, the Light Up the Lake fireworks show at Pontiac over Bull Shoals Lake, will be set off at dark Saturday, Aug. 31. The rain date is Sept. 1. 

To contact the Foggy Bottom Fireworks crew, call 816-564-0267, email segra411@aol.com or find them on Facebook.