PFI Magazine » Featured Articles

PFI’s Spring Tent Sale is Here! Check out our commercial!

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:04:06 +0000

It’s time for PFI’s Huge Spring Tent Sale!

Come out for Free Hamburgers Friday, Saturday and Sunday!
Hundreds of belts starting at $12.99!
Ladies tops starting at $9.99!
Wrangler Denim Work Shirts only $14.99!
Walls, Ariat & Wrangler shirts starting at $24.99!
Ariat Fat Babies starting at $49.99!
Ariat Pro Babies starting at $79.99!
Carolina Work Boots starting at $84.99
Ariat Men’s Work Boots starting at $89.99!
Santa Fe Lace-up Waterproof Boots only $89.99!
Saddle pads starting at $29.99!
Training whips $9.99!
Plus much, much more!

Ariat/PBR World Finals Promotion!

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:40:50 +0000

PFI is excited to announce the One lucky fan will win an action-packed trip for two to the 2010 PBR World Finals in Las Vegas! This amazing package includes:

A trip for two (2) to the 2010 PBR World Finals in Las Vegas, NV on October 20-24,2010.
Tickets for two (2) for (5) events.
Four (4) night hotel standard accommodations at a 3-Star hotel.
Round trip airfare for two (2) from the major airport nearest the winner’s home.
Transportation to and from the airport to the hotel.
A VIP lunch and behind-the-chutes tour, both with Adriano Moraes.

This package is valued over $3000! How to register? It’s simple! Come into PFI and try on a pair of Ariat Boots and then you can enter to win!

Rules:

Must be twenty one (21) or older.
Open to all residents of the fifty (5) United States and the District of Columbia.
Open to all residents of Canada (expect the residents of Province of Quebec)
Contest ends August 1, 2010
Drawing will take place on September 1, 2010
Multiple entries submitted by a single entrant, will void all entries.
Further rules can be found at www.ariat.com.

“America’s Got Talent” Trio wins big…Will be playing at Starlite in Branson!!

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:38:02 +0000

Pleasant Hope native JC Fisher and his friends John Hagen and Marcus Collins didn’t win the million-dollar prize on “America’s Got Talent” last fall.

But even a fourth-place finish is opening doors for the trio, known as the Texas Tenors.

The three men perform a unique country-pop-opera blend that is attracting fans of all ages and genres.

In December, their debut CD reached the No. 1 spot on CD Baby.com in three genres: Country Pop, Classical Opera and Ambient Sound Voice.

And their tour schedule is filling up, with appearances from Las Vegas to the United Kingdom. From May 9 to 12 (8pm), they will play at the Starlite Theatre in Branson.

It’s career adrenaline for the three, who separately have honed their crafts for years before joining together and gaining national attention from the talent show.

“We are grateful every day,” said Hagen. “We really do think about it every day, how fortunate we are.”

How the trio formed:

JC Fisher graduated at the top of his class at Pleasant Hope High School in 1992. Before finishing a degree at Wichita State, Fisher studied at Southwest Missouri State for three years.

Show Dates:
Shows are at 8 p.m. May 9 to May 12 and at various times Sept. 28 to Oct. 23 at the Starlite Theatre, 3115 W. Missouri 76 in Branson.

Tickets cost $29.50 for adults. Youths 16 and under who live at home get in free with purchase of an adult ticket. Tickets for sale at: http://www.starlitetheatre.com

Horsefest is back at Ozark Empire Fairgrounds!

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:23:33 +0000

Pull those cinches tight and snug up that stampede string because it’s Horsefest time again in Springfield, Mo!

Horsefest, now in its sixth year, has proved to be the area’s major equine exposition and is scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, March 12, 13 and 14 at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds. The event, which is aimed at everyone interested in the equine industry, is co-produced by Farm Talk Newspaper and the Ozark Empire Fair. Hours will be 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day of the event.

This year, Horsefest promises to be as good as ever with top-notch clinicians and a list of daily activities sure to keep everyone busy. However, without a host of generous sponsors it would be hard to pull such an event off. This year’s Gold Sponsors includes PFI Western Store, which will have six booths full of saddles, tack and boots for purchase. In addition to the clinicians and special events, Horsefest will feature the area’s largest equine-oriented trade show with over 300 booths.

When it comes to clinicians at this year’s Horsefest the producers of the event have raised the bar once again presenting Stacy Westfall and Westfall Horsemanship. Famous for her bridleless and saddleless reining patterns, Westfall uses her years of equine experience to direct clinic attendees and their horses in the direction they’ve been searching for. No stranger to horsemanship, Westfall has trained her way into being one of the country’s top clinicians and reining competitors. While she continues to compete, start young horses and train, she truly loves to explain to people what her mom encouraged her to learn–to discover the “why” behind what the horse does.

In addition to Westfall, Kerry Kuhn will be making a return trip to Horsefest. The Coats, Kan., horseman will bring his method of “Practical Horsemanship” to Horsefest to help area horsemen and horsewomen further down the trail toward a more satisfying horse-rider relationship. Kuhn’s “Practical Horsemanship” approach has been built over the past 22 years of working with horses and is developed to help equine enthusiasts better balance their own horsemanship. “The most important part is realizing there is much more to the horse than what you can see,” Kuhn explains.

Westfall and Kuhn will be putting on their horsemanship clinics each day of Horsefest but there is much more. Each day, Horsefest will feature a host of “Mane Events.”

The Mane Events include:

Youth Horse Judging Clinic Friday morning with NE Oklahoma A&M Equine Judging Coach Shannon Cunningham.
Cowboy Mounted Shooting on Saturday and Sunday.Ultimate Horsemen’s Challenge, competitive obstacle course clinic on Friday and competition on Saturday.
Live horse displays every day of Horsefest in the livestock barns.
Trade show featuring over 300 booths focused on the horse and horse owner, every day.
Cowboy church service with cowboy Christian music for anyone who wants to attend Sunday morning from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Exhibit halls will open following the church service at 10 a.m. on Sunday.

Regardless of your particular interest, from cowboys and horses to training and perfecting, there is something for everyone at this year’s Horsefest.

Admission for Horsefest will be $10 each day for adults. Youth ranging in age from 13-18 can purchase tickets for $5 and children 12 and under are admitted free. Those interested in coming to Horsefest can also obtain $3 Off Family Coupon at PFI.

See Stacy Westfall’s 2006 AQHA Congress Freestyle Reining run on the clinicians page. For more information, contact Farm Talk at (620) 421-9450 or the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds at (417) 833-2660.

PBR Built Ford Tough Pfiwestern.com Invitational: Tickets going on Sale!

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:45:06 +0000

The Professional Bull Rider’s Elite Built Ford Tough Series Returns
to Springfield, Missouri- Now 3 Days of Competition.

Springfield, MO (January 27, 2010)- The Professional Bull Riders, Inc. (PBR) Built Ford Tough Series (BFTS) tour will be coming back in Springfield, MO., for the Pfiwestern.com Invitational, stop #26 on the prestigious tour.

This year is a little different. Instead of two action-packed evenings, we’ve added a third night! The top 40 bull riders will take on the toughest bulls the PBR has to offer at the JQH Arena on Friday, September 17th at 8:00 pm, Saturday, September 18th at 6:50pm and on Sunday, September 19th at 5:00pm.

Tickets start as little as $15 and increase to $25, $40, $60, $80 and $100. A ticket will guarantee PBR fans, new and old, not only an up-close-and personal view of the toughest athletes on earth, but they will also see more than two hours of edge-of-your-seat thrills and spills, rock & roll music, and pyrotechnics!

Tickets will go On Sale this Friday, January 29th at 9am and can be purchased at the
PBR box office inside of PFI or by phone at (800) 222-4734!

Tickets can also be purchased at Missouri State University Box Office, online at www.missouristatetix.com or by phone at (417) 831-2727

(Standard ticket fees may apply).

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Click Here: Pfiwestern.com or Click Here: PFI Magazine.

The Pfiwestern.com Invitational will consist of three rounds of competition with the first two rounds featuring the top 40 bull riders matched against the PBR’s toughest bulls. The scores from the two rides will be combined and the riders with the top 15 scores will advance to the Built Ford Tough Championship Round after intermission on Sunday. In the end, the cowboy with the highest total score on three bulls will be declared the winner!

About the PBR:
More than 100 million viewers tune in each year to the PBR on FOX, NBC, VERSUS and on a host of foreign networks across the globe. With approximately 400 hours of prime time programming annually PBR ranks among the most prolific sports on air, in addition to attracting over one and one half million live event attendees each year with its multi-tiered event structure which includes the marquee Built Ford Tough Series and Touring Pro Division. The PBR is headquartered in Pueblo, Colo., and has over 1,200 PBR bull riders compete in more than 300 PBR sanctioned competitions in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico.

For more on the PBR, please visit www.pbr.com, www.teampbr.com, www.pbr.tv, www.myspace.com/teampbr, twitter.com/teampbr, www.facebook.com/TeamPBR, or www.pbr.com/worldfinals/.

PFI’s 35th Anniversary! Do you remember our dog dippin’ days?

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:13:34 +0000

Hello and Happy New Year! We are excited to be celebrating our 35th Anniversary! I can’t believe it’s been that long. Check out our history below! Don’t forget to go and shop our 35th Annual Bandana Boot Sale going on now!

PFI: The clothes came with the building!

PFI Western Store originated in 1975 as Preferred Farmers Incorporated (P.F.I.), a dusty livestock feed and farm supply business located on Springfield’s northwest side.

Though its means were modest – the first store boasted only one desk, two chairs, a telephone, and lots of feed bins – PFI had ambitious dreams even from the beginning. That goal, was to become the best livestock feed company in the region.

But then a funny thing happened on its way to becoming a successful feed store.
When more space was needed to make room for the growing line of farm supplies, PFI bought the Western wear clothing shop next door. The clothes came with the building.

And then an even funnier thing happened. While the original plan was to sell off the clothing inventory as quickly as possible and replace it with farm supplies they discovered that their customers liked the Western-inspired fashions. They agreed to keep the clothes in stock. When the original merchandise that came with the store sold out, they restocked. And restocked. And restocked. Before long the feed bins were tossed to make room for more clothes.

Randy Little became sole owner of PFI in the ‘80s with his college sweetheart-turned-wife Johnelle serving as his fashion guide. Having grown up around horses, she knew Western styles better than her husband, an agricultural economics major from the University of Missouri. Together, the Littles became a formidable force in the world of Western fashion, taking Preferred Farmers, Inc. through various names and incarnations before finally stopping for good at PFI Western Store, now a multi-million dollar company with the largest Western retail center in Missouri, located at U.S. 65 and Battlefield.

Quite a journey for a business that never set out to sell anything other than farm supplies. But therein lies the beauty – and perhaps the genius – of PFI. By watching the folks who shopped at his once humble feed store and listening to what they wanted, Little built PFI around his customers, giving them what they wanted – functional but fun Western-inspired fashions – rather than the livestock feed he thought they needed.

There were only a few minor challenges in PFI’s early days. The original feed store was located on the then-unfashionable northwest side of town. The transition from feed store to Western fashion outpost came at the very time the “Urban Cowboy” trend was on its way out. Even the initials behind PFI were all wrong: Preferred Farmers Incorporated hardly described the products or services offered by the Western retailer.

And, oh yeah, Randy Little had no prior retail experience.

Nothing that couldn’t be overcome with a little horse sense and lot of humor, both of which Little used in his early advertising spots, which played on the dual universe he had unintentionally created when he began selling clothing in the feed store. Early radio ads featured two voices: “I got my dog food there,” one would voice said. “Well, I got these boots there for $99.99,” the second voice answered. And then the tag question: “Is it a feed store or is it a Western store?”

Little’s philosophy? Get the customers in the door and let them decide what kind of store it was. Better yet, create a retail center that broke all the rules and resisted easy categorization.
That’s what PFI did with its 30,000 square-foot retail center. Opened in 1993, the new store addressed the location problem and helped establish PFI’s unique identity as the retailer like no one else.

To meet his competition head-on, Little knew he had to break a few rules. He did so with gusto, developing a “good, better, best” philosophy of buying that appealed to all levels of taste and budget. Unlike the inventory at the discount mega stores and the franchised stores in the nearby mall, PFI prides itself on its unexpected and even outrageous inventory of 15,000 (yes, thousand) styles of boots available in a child’s size 4 to men’s 16 EEEE and in leathers that range from cowhide to ostrich to kangaroo.

Recognizing that the “Urban Cowboy” trend might come and go, but that Western lifestyle was as much a part of the American landscape as the Grand Canyon or the Ozark Mountains, PFI not only survived but endured – even though the initials still don’t make much sense.

It’s tempting to think that PFI is where it is today solely because of an enlightened management philosophy or an inspired company history. The truth is PFI is successful because of the people who come there every day – both as customers and employees.

From the very beginning, Randy Little knew he had to hire people who had more experience than him. And not just retail experience.

To create the kind of retail experience he wanted to build, Little knew he had to find old-fashioned craftspeople who still knew the art of blocking hats, making saddles, and custom-fitting a pair of cowboy boots.

He was blessed that such talented people live right here in Springfield – or close enough that they were willing to commute. That’s why Springfield is as much a part of the PFI success story as is Randy and Johnelle Little and all those thousands of pairs of cowboy boots.

But PFI would be a deserted storefront were it not for the customers who shop there time and again. Whether it’s to pick up a denim shirt to wear on casual Friday or to shop for a child’s first pair of cowboy boots, PFI has become the place people turn when they need a little Western in their lives.
The fact that Americans still hunger for the fashions that evoke the history of our country is a tribute both to the timeless fashions and the proud history of our nation.

Being able to fulfill that hunger for the pure and honest Western lifestyle is a privilege Randy Little and everyone at PFI feels grateful to be able to do every day.