Wichita shoe shop owner featured on the ‘Today’ show

Peru native Aida Stenholm has learned a lot about America since becoming a citizen in 2017, but there are still some cultural touch points that elude her.

For instance, she wasn’t that familiar with NBC’s “Today” show or how popular it is — until last week, that is.

Stenholm is a shoemaker whose shop, Killasumaq, is on Hillside just south of Douglas.

A stylish customer whom Stenholm says she’s always enjoyed recently brought in her mother and daughter to shop in the store. Stenholm was measuring another customer’s feet at the time but met them briefly.

A couple of days later, the daughter called Stenholm to say she’s with the “Today” show and wanted to feature Killasumaq in a segment about shopping local on Black Friday.

Stenholm was a little confused about who was on the phone and what show she was referring to, but she agreed to be featured.

“I didn’t know it was a big deal.”

Her husband, Brett, did.

“He was screaming,” Stenholm says. “He was jumping. He was so bananas. . . . He was jumping like a monkey. . . . It was really funny.”

It turns out the shopper was Sheinelle Jones, who used to live in Wichita and now works for NBC News and the “Today” show.

Stenholm says Jones told her, “I want to support my own city.”

In the segment, Jones explains what a fan her mother is of the store.

“My mom is obsessed with this small business,” Jones said.

In addition to a shout-out about the store, Jones also gave a literal shout-out to Stenholm by waving and saying, “Good morning to you, Aida!”

Except Stenholm missed the segment when it aired live. She worked late the day before and was just getting a shower that morning.

Then her phone started ringing — and ringing.

“I said, ‘What the heck?’ ” she says. “It was amazing.”

However, her website is relatively new and almost couldn’t handle the traffic the show generated.

Stenholm says she normally gets only a visitor or two a day.

“In these two days, I have (had) 6,800 visitors,” she says. “It practically almost shut down my website.”

Another issue is that Stenholm makes each pair of her shoes by hand, and she couldn’t handle the orders that were coming in.

“I’m keeping all the e-mails,” she says.

With the help of her husband and family members, Stenholm says she’s been in touch with all the potential customers to say she’ll have a new website next year where they can build their own shoes, and then she’ll fulfill the orders.

“People understand they are handmade,” Stenholm says.

Though she can’t quite capitalize on the attention just yet, she says the exposure from the show is incredible.

“It was a blessing,” Stenholm says.

And she now knows the power of “Today.”

“It’s a big deal.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2019 at 11:24 AM.