Resort Owner Grew Up In The Business
John Poynor has been a part of Noel’s River Ranch Resort for as long as he can remember.
His father, the late Gary Poynor, started River Ranch in 1980, the year after John Poynor was born. John now owns the resort.
“I just grew up working here as the business grew,” Poynor said. “It’s all I’ve ever done.”
He said the place has changed dramatically since its beginning. In the early days River Ranch only offered tent camping and a few RV sites, he said.
“Then he (Gary Poynor) was able to purchase what we call ‘the island’ and expand camping,” he said. In the early 1990s the business got its first cabins when the Poynors expanded some carport sheds. Then, over the years, they continued to add more and different sizes of cabins. The last ones, two-story cabins, were added in 2011, he said.
River Ranch offers primitive camping, electric campsites, a full hookup RV park and a range of cabin sizes that sleep six to 24 people. Their floating craft includes canoes, kayaks, rafts and tubes. There is a 6,000-square-foot camp store that hosts a breakfast buffet on Saturday and Sunday and a full-scale pizza operation on
Friday and Saturday nights. The business also has a 3,700-square-foot event center called the Rendezvous Room that hosts weddings, Christmas parties, birthday parties and other events.
Poynor said River Ranch opened the Rendezvous Room because “there was a need in the area. Nothing was available for groups to have events of any size. It also allowed us to expand our catering. We have done barbecue catering almost since our beginning.”
As for the customers that frequent River Ranch Resort, most of them are from the greater Kansas City area because the Elk River is one of the closest floating rivers to Kansas City and it’s an easy drive, he said. Guests are typically young professionals, he added.
“We try to draw the Northwest Arkansas crowd, but we’re on the lower end of the river, and they typically go to Pineville. When they come here for the first time they’re like, ‘Wow. I didn’t know anything like this existed.’”
Poynor gets plenty of opportunities to interact with the guests as well.
“I’m here six days a week, whether it’s running a register or helping guys on a landing or answering customers’ questions or answering emails — I do a little bit of it all.”
He said the best thing about his job is that no two days are the same.
“You never know what that day is going to bring. Every Friday is different from the one before and the one next. I’m definitely not the type of person who could do the same thing day in and day out. I might be building a website one day and the next day I’m the plumber.”
The worst part of his job is when there is a flood and he has to call people and tell them they cannot come.
“They look forward to coming for sometimes a year ahead of time. They’re completely disappointed. We try to reschedule them for later in the year.”
He said he has been through a lot of floods. Asked how he keeps going when a flood damages his business, he replied, “There’s no other option. It comes down to the strength of the good Lord and a lot of hard work by a lot of good people.”
River Ranch employs 50 people in the summer and four or five in the winter that work on repair projects.
Poynor is president of the McDonald County Canoe Floaters Association, secretary of the Missouri Canoe Floaters Association and a board member of the McDonald County Schools Foundation.