"My mom still has the key ring I 'earned' for helping water the trees at a Colorado campground when I was a kid," says Jodie. "Now, as owners of the Wellington KS KOA, we are helping other families create memories for their young campers."

"We want to provide our guests with a comfortable and safe place to spend the night as they travel or as a base camp if they want to explore the area," says Jodie. "We provide friendly service as well as clean bathrooms and showers. We wish to be a bright spot along the road. We're eager to assist campers any way we can. We hope to have families on vacation as well as snowbirds just passing through."

The owners of the Wellington KS KOA Kampground, Chad and Jodie Bartelson, are a perfect fit to take the reins from the campground's owners of 30 years, the Craig family. "We hope to bring back the family feel and great service they provided," says Jodie. Shirley Craig was able to attend our ribbon cutting ceremony with her son and daughter. We were also lucky to meet one of their previous campers recently, who shared many memories of their time here as custom harvesters while they were in town visiting Mrs. Craig and others in the area. We hope to create those memories and lifelong friendships with our guests."

In addition to owning the campground, Chad is also Director of facilities for the Kansas Star Casino. "We purchased the campground after driving by it daily while working at the local lumberyard. We could see the potential it had and thought meeting new friends on a daily basis would be fun and rewarding," says Chad.

Jodie's experience in bookkeeping, accounting and as a business education teacher gives the couple the expertise to stay on top of the latest business trends, while Chad's hands-on work keeps the campground facilities top-notch. "We are proud that all of our sites are brand new, level, and provide full hook ups. Also, our new restrooms and individual shower rooms are fantastic. We look forward to the GREAT times families will have fishing our stocked catch-and-release fishing pond," says Chad.

Prior to owning and managing the campground, Jodie enjoyed scrap booking, reading and watching NASCAR racing as well as volunteering in the community, especially with 4-H. Chad has been active in city government, enjoys woodworking and the PBR, as well as helping a local stock contractor.