The Path to Wire Works Success Took Many Twists and Turns

This piece was originally written for The Cattleman's Advocate, an agricultural print publication.

The Wire Works Legacy begins with Jim Thompson. 

Jim Thompson graduated from high school in 1955. He was witty, small in stature, and from Coffeeville, Kansas. He loved motorcycles, but didn’t weigh enough to start his own, which led to his frustrations and eventually to the creation of what is now known as a go-kart. As a natural businessman, Jim decided to start making go-karts to sell, the only problem was that he needed some cash to get started. In hopes of purchasing a bulk order of tires, Jim went to get a loan from the bank. He didn’t have any ponies to offer the banker as collateral, so he suggested that he had a lot of tools and invited the banker to his shop. After taking a look, the banker approved the tools for the use of loan collateral. What the banker didn’t know, however, was that Jim’s father owned the tools. With an even greater need for profit, to avoid severe consequences from his father, Jim became successful, and eventually sold his business and moved to California where he started another successful go-kart business to sell before deciding to return to Coffeeville, Kansas. With the entrepreneurial itch, Jim later moved to Florida and bought an apartment complex. He quickly learned that he didn’t make a good landlord, sold the apartment complex, and bought a boat to live on, on land.

One night at the bar, Jim met some sailors who were interested in traveling to the Caribbean Islands. Jim had a boat, but his Kansas upbringing had not provided him with the opportunity to practice sailing. So, the group took sail together, mutually benefiting from Jim’s boat and the sailors’ experience. The group sailed from island to island for six years. 

One of Jim’s crewmates carried a satchel in his suit pocket, which earned him the nickname of “Wire John.” When the boat stopped at an island, this man would take out his satchel, and begin bending and shaping wire into hat pins with customers' names. One name at a time, he made a living, and he taught Jim to do the same. 

After their ocean voyage, the crew decided to return to the United States. Coincidentally, the World’s Fair was going on in New York City at that time in 1964. Jim sailed to the harbor in hopes of being an exhibitor at the fair. Upon his arrival, nobody knew who he was or what he had to offer, which resulted in his quick denial to being an exhibitor, but before he could leave, Jim resiliently asked, “How much rent are you getting for that trash can? That’s all the space I need.” Upon agreeing, Jim paid his rent, set up a card table, and began selling wire names and jewelry. The next year, Jim continued his work at the events hosted on the fairgrounds of the Seattle World’s Fair. In 1968, he traveled to the San Antonio World’s Fair, but the event was unfortunately too hot for a good clientele. Jim was forced to get a second job as a door caller, calling people into a restaurant. Jim would call in customers and make wire names while he did so. During one of his shifts, a customer suggested that he attend the local rodeo. Jim had no interest in rodeos, only the crowd. Without much to lose, Jim decided to attend the rodeo, where he secured a booth with a conversation and a handshake. During one night of the rodeo, he made more money than he could during an entire World's Fair. Jim had a flamboyant personality making it seem like he had never met a stranger, even among a rodeo crowd. That year Jim started the rodeo and stock show circuit, which is how the business is still operating, almost 60 years later! 

Craig’s Start in the Business

Craig Kime grew up in Oklahoma City in a family of “rockhounds” that traveled on rock-hunting vacations. He has a rich family history as a citizen of the Potawatomi tribe and spent weekends on his family’s cattle ranch in Billings, Oklahoma. At a young age, Craig became interested in the trade of lapidary- skilled gemstone work. He knew how to cut the stones but was limited to what he could do with the stones. Naturally independent, He wanted to be a silversmith around the age of 15, but his parents discouraged him from using a torch when they were not home. He pivoted to wire wrapping because it only required four pairs of pliers. Craig became certain that that was what he wanted to do for a career. His parents encouraged him to get a “real job,” but he felt confident about what he wanted. His dad worked at a radio station, so growing up Craig would go with his family to set up and tear down the radio station booth. As a teenager, Craig crossed paths with Jim at the Oklahoma State Fair. Craig was responsible for passing out bumper stickers from the radio station booth, but after meeting Jim, he had his sights set on things other than talking with those passing by the booth. 

Although much has changed throughout the years, Craig still relies on his pliers for his craft.

“During the fair, I would do my two hours of handing out bumper stickers and then I would get to run around the fairgrounds. I would go straight to Jim’s booth to show him the jewelry I made." At first, Jim would respond by saying,‘Oh yeah, this is nice kid, now move along,’ but as Craig got older and became more talented, he started saying, “Oh, this is nice” with more interest.” With Craig’s persistence, he eventually began spending the fair day helping Jim sell jewelry from behind the booth, unknowingly foreshadowing his future. 

Around this time, Craig did two years of VoTech, had a welding certificate, a welding truck, and plans to go to Alaska for the pipeline. All he was waiting for was a high school diploma. But just six months before he could begin his career, the pipeline went dry. 

Craig began selling his jewelry at junior rodeos and a few years later had a storefront in the mall. Jim also had a storefront in this mall and the two would help one another when needed. 

Craig discovered that having a brick-and-mortar felt more like a waiting game, and decided he was not much for waiting around. In a store, the customer must already know what they want before they come into the door, but at livestock shows and rodeos, the customer comes to the event to have a good time and stops at the booth and finds something to make their experience even better along the way. 

The Partnership

In 1990, Craig went to the Houston rodeo to deliver some jewelry to his customers. Jim and Craig saw one another and Jim asked him on the spot to stay and help work the booth. He stayed, and the next year, Craig began helping Jim more and more often. One day, Jim tasked Craig with helping build some new showcases for jewelry. When they had finished, Jim stepped back and said, “Man these look good. We need to build another set. Do you have time?” So, Craig helped him build another set. When they were finished, Jim asked Craig to go and get his trailer. Craig was ready to load up the scrap lumber, but to his surprise, Jim said, “Load these showcases up, these are yours.” Craig expressed his concern as he would not be able to afford to buy them, but Jim said, “I didn’t ask for anything. You have earned them, go out and make a name for yourself.” 

The two went to load the gift onto Craig’s trailer, and they didn’t fit. So they went down the road, bought a new trailer, and went their separate ways for about a year before Jim asked Craig for some more help. After making some arrangements, they partnered up and worked together for the following show season and then for the next 35 years. Jim taught Craig the finesse needed for wiring names and brands, and Craig taught Jim how to do stonework. The two became a dynamic duo, and although they had known one another for a decade before becoming partners, their shared time on the road strengthened their relationship significantly. Jim did not have children of his own, and with their wide age gap, Jim naturally became a father figure to Craig. This worked out well since most customers assumed the jewelry was a family affair regardless, calling them father and son. Craig put it simply saying, “We had similar personalities. We had a lot of fun, we liked the same people, and we both enjoyed traveling.”

When times were tight

Sometimes along the event circuit, money would get tight, especially if rodeos along the way were canceled. Craig recalls nights when he only had enough money to buy one beer from the bar. Jim was no stranger to this experience himself and passed down a unique strategy to Craig. He’d order a beer, which was the only thing he could afford, and find the darkest corner of the room to sit in. When the waitress would make her rounds to the darkest corner, Craig didn’t have enough money to leave a tip, so he’d instead make a name pin for her. As the waitress 

would make her way back around the bar, and the pin would catch the attention of many people, who also wanted a pin. When asked, Craig would hesitantly reply saying, he would probably have time to make a few. He didn't want to seem too desperate or too available, and sure enough, as the night went on, Craig would sit in the corner working on his list of names to create. One name pin at a time, he’d leave the bar with hundreds more in cash than he’d walked in with. 

“It’s a passion of love over dollars. I’m comfortable today, but at the beginning that was not the case,” said Craig. Although Craig doesn’t recall those days proudly because of his poor financial state, he does recognize that it challenged him to focus on the showmanship and entertainment of the customer’s experience while buying jewelry, which has customers coming back year after year. 

Craig has made jewelry for couples while they were dating, then for their kids, and then for their grandkids. It's not uncommon for him to have a past customer walk up to him, proudly showing off a custom piece saying, "Look, you made me this here 25 years ago!" 

Craig carefully crafts a wire name.

Family

As Jim and Craig grew their business over the years, Craig's family had also been growing, despite living on the road. Through all his adventures, Craig’s first wife, Kelly, was by his side. They were childhood sweethearts and married at the young age of 17. Together they had three kids and traveled as a family. In the '90s, homeschooling was not what it is today, so Craig and Kelly searched high and low for curriculum, and at times struggled to balance being business owners, parents, and teachers to their children. “It wasn’t always easy,” Craig said as he reflected on that season of life. Together they made it work. After over three decades of marriage, Kelly became sick for several years and Craig embraced the responsibilities of being the caretaker to his wife, parenting, maintaining the home, and managing the business before her passing. 

As with any story, there is heartache and loss, and Craig’s story is no different. Upon reflecting on life and business, Craig states, “Nobody should feel sorry for me because I have gotten to live life the way I wanted to live it. Like any life, there have been ups and downs, and tragedies, but overall, I have gotten to do it my way, and I can’t ask for much more. Where will things take us tomorrow? That is anybody’s guess…” 

The Business Today

The current business revolves around 11 major shows a year and one stationary booth at the Lazy E arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma. The jewelry booths are on display across the country for around 132 days a year, not counting travel, set-up, and tear-down days. The year starts at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado, then goes to the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo before a break to work at the Lazy E arena. Next is a rodeo lineup of the Greeley Stampede and the National Little Britches Rodeo in Colorado, and Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming, straight into a fair season with the Missouri State Fair and the Tulsa State Fair before heading home to the Lazy E arena and prepping for the final and largest event of the year, the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

The business has changed throughout the years, especially since Craig met Cheryl, and gained a life and business partner after their marriage in 2014. Craig and Cheryl met through mutual friends at a booth selling boots. They sat next to one another at an event and immediately hit it off, but it wasn’t until Craig was driving across Kansas that he decided to give Cheryl a call as he crossed through the monotonous and straight stretch of land. Craig recalls the conversation saying,“For whatever reason I said, 'If you fly into Denver, I’ll take you out for a steak dinner.' I thought that was pretty safe. She was in California, and I was in Denver. I didn’t think she’d fly out. A few days later, she called and said, ‘Well, you can pick me up around 3 o'clock.’ My mouth liked to have hit the floor.” When it was time for the promised steak dinner, all the restaurants were closed because they were working late in the jewelry booth. After a few days, Cheryl returned home to California, and later for her birthday, Craig gifted her a round-trip ticket to San Antonio for the rodeo. Before the trip, Craig asked what she thought about not using the return flight ticket and instead traveling around the country with him to see what it was like living on the road. 

After some deliberation, she made sure he was serious before packing an extra bag. Cheryl called her adult children and made sure it was okay. They encouraged her to go, assuring her she would always be able to return if it didn’t work out. Needless to say, it did and Cheryl returned to California only to pack the rest of her belongings and move her home and her horse from California to Oklahoma. Together the two work as a team, each with their unique roles. Cheryl is a talented jeweler, making earrings, necklaces, and bracelets from authentic Navajo pearls. Cheryl also has an integral role in the business and has taken on a lot of the burden of being a business owner by managing the crucial and tedious tasks of marketing, mail orders, and customer inquiries. This has allowed Craig to have greater mental capacity for creating products. While the two spend hours on the road together, they often have a notebook to write out ideas and big goals that they discuss as they travel from show to show. Their combined passion and determination ensure the constant improvement of their business. 

Craig and Cheryl Kime at their booth during one of many stops on the circuit.

Unusual Customers 

Through the years, the business has had some notable customers including John Michael Montgomery, Sammy Kershaw, Michael Martin Murphey, and ZZ Top. The jewelry even made a TV debut as it was featured around the neck of Sarah Jessica Parker in the series Sex in the City. On another occasion, while Craig was taking inventory in Austin, Texas, a man walked up wearing Air Jordan sneakers, a hat backward, and sweatpants. Craig assumed this passerby was a stageman since the event was closed to the public and only available to those involved in the pre-concert sound check. The man took a look and asked, “Do you make all these?” Craig answered and had the man draw out the brand he would like to have made. It was a simple “GA.” Craig curiously asked, “What’s that stand for?” to which the man said, “Garry Allan.” Craig replied, “Oh, do you know him?” and he said, “Yes, I think I’ll get it for him.” A couple of hours later, Craig delivered the hatpin to the police where he was asked to drop it off. The police escorted him to a bus where Garry Allan met Craig and asked him to place the GA letters on his hat. Much to Craig’s surprise, Garry had been out with his kids and was wearing a disguise. Garry gave Craig a signed album, which he still has in addition to the ticket with the“GA” brand drawn on it from that day. 

A Visit to the Missouri State Fair

Together, Craig and Cheryl continue to travel the country, creating and selling uniquely handmade pieces. I met Craig and Cheryl during one of their stops on the circuit at the Missouri State Fair. It was the summer of 2022 after my freshman year of college, and I was interning at the fair for a business. Each day of the 14-day Missouri State Fair, I would use my lunch break to grab a quick sandwich before spending the rest of my allotted time at the Wire Works Custom Jewelry booth. As a frequent visitor to the booth, I got to know Craig and Cheryl quite well by the end of the fair. They offered me the opportunity to attend the National Finals Rodeo with them to sell jewelry. It was a thrilling opportunity, especially coming from two people I had just met. Unfortunately, I had to decline the offer due to a big course load that semester, but when the fair rolled around the next year and I saw Craig and Cheryl, they had new jewelry to try on and a new opportunity—the chance to travel with them to the National Western Livestock Show in Denver, Colorado. My sister Selestia and I spent 17 days together working with Craig and Cheryl. I learned the names of the stones, how to take inventory, and how to make a sale. With 12-hour work days, we usually had plenty of time for conversation and storytelling. The more time I spent with them, the more I appreciated the complexity of the trade and the history of the business. Each day the stories kept my interest, and finally, I asked Craig and Cheryl if they'd be willing to do a series of interviews in the evenings after we finished the work day. The stories I heard in between jewelry sales were too good not to be on paper! 

At this time, I didn’t know the great story that would lie ahead with Craig and Cheryl for me personally. Summers later, Jacob, my now husband, proposed to me in front of the Wire Works booth, a non-traditional, yet meaningful place to say“yes!” in front of hidden friends and family. On our wedding day this May, Jacob and I wore coordinating and hand-crafted rings made by Craig. After all, the Missouri State Fair has always been one of my favorite places in the world, and it's because of people like Craig and Cheryl and the stories we weave together. My own story with Craig and Cheryl is one that I cherish, but there is an even greater story that lies in the history and hard work behind Wire Works Custom jewelry. 

For the readers here who enjoy the Missouri State Fair as much as I do, stop by the Wire Works booth and say hello to Craig and Cheryl. They love to make a deal as much as the next entrepreneur does and if you let them know that you read their story in the Cattleman's Advocate, it might be your lucky fair day! What I have been able to include in this article is only a fraction of the entertaining stories I've heard from the couple. Craig has used over 100 miles of wire through the years of his jewelry creations, and I am confident there will be many more used in the future. If you do get the chance to stop by their booth, I have no doubt you'll be able to hear a few more entertaining stories while you find something you can't live without!