Keota woman swaps Finnish volleyball for farmers markets

Julianna Klein was born and raised on a farm north of Keota. She was a stand-out volleyball player in high school, which earned her a scholarship to play at the University of Missouri. While there, she excelled both inside and outside the classroom. She obtained a master?s degree in accounting and her performance on the court impressed professional scouts.

It was not until Klein was half a world away, playing professional volleyball in Finland, that she realized her true calling in life: baking. Since returning from Finland, Klein has baked morning, noon and night. When she?s not baking, she?s traveling to local farmers markets to sell her goodies, such as at Washington?s farmers market, where she has been a vendor for the past month.

Klein attended Keota High School and graduated in 2006. She spent 4 ½ years at the University of Missouri where she played volleyball for four seasons. Her team enjoyed consistent success, including a Sweet 16 appearance in last year?s NCAA Tournament. In the summer of 2010, Klein was invited to play volleyball in Brazil. She went on a 10-day tour from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro. The trip allowed her to meet agents from professional teams around the world.

The United States is among the few industrialized countries without a professional volleyball league. American athletes who seek a career in the sport must do so oversees. Klein?s tenure at Missouri positioned her well for a chance at stardom in another land. While the U.S. has no professional league, it is one of the few countries where young people can play volleyball in college. Women who graduate from Division 1 schools in the U.S. are highly sought after on the international market.

?In the other countries, they graduate high school and go pro,? said Klein. ?They don?t get the intense training you?d get in those college years. Usually, the Americans are the best on the team.?

Klein graduated from the University of Missouri in December 2010. She anxiously awaited a phone call to find out if any of the international scouts were interested in her. She hoped to play in Puerto Rico, which is known as a volleyball hotspot because of its warm weather and sandy beaches. Klein did receive a call, and it was an offer to play for a team in Finland. Klein happily accepted the offer.

Luckily for Klein, there was no linguistic barrier to break through upon arrival in Finland. Her teammates spoke English, as did every other young person in the country. Finnish children are required to learn English and Swedish as second and third languages.

?They were definitely fluent in English,? said Klein. ?When you go to a restaurant, they have a menu in Finnish and one in English.?

Klein jumped into the middle of the volleyball season in Finland. The team she played for needed an outside hitter, a role she excels in. She spent three months in the city of Kuusamo, which is located in a remote region in northern Finland. The weather was often unpleasant, to put it mildly. It was a rare day indeed when snow did not fall on the town.

?There were days when it was almost negative 40 Celsius,? said Klein.

Kuusamo is a city of 16,000 people. The closest town of considerable size was 2 ½ hours away, which made it an unattractive hang-out after practice. Klein said the most striking difference between the U.S. and Finland is that few Finnish stores stay open 24 hours.

?They close up everything at 5 o?clock,? said Klein. ?They shut down, and you?re like, ?But I need a can of pop.? You?ve got to wait till tomorrow.?

Not only was there very little to do in Kuusamo, but there was very little daylight in which to do it. When Klein arrived, the sun was in the sky for a meager five or six hours a day.

Klein found herself with nothing to do during her free time away from the volleyball court. She turned to a hobby she picked up in her youth: baking. Baking was rather difficult in the small, remote town, because the ingredients she needed were very expensive. For instance, a jar of peanut butter was 8 euros, or $12. Her mother Jeri mailed her several of the ingredients from the United States. Klein baked dishes for her Finnish teammates that they had never eaten before in their life.

?They had never had puppy chow, caramel Chex-mix or sugar cookies,? said Klein.

Her concoctions were universally praised by her teammates. Her roommate even suggested to her that she become a full-time baker. Although she had studied accounting in school, Klein was warming up to that idea.

?I was pretty sure that my stuff was just as good as these big bakeries,? said Klein. ?Once people try it, I know they?ll be back.?

Klein called her parents to tell them she wanted to bake for a living. Her mother reminded her that she could make a lot of money in accounting. Klein said she is still interested in accounting, but has placed it on the back burner while she focuses on baking.

She returned from Finland in April and wasted no time in converting her kitchen into an around-the-clock bakery.

?When I?m not at a farmers market, I?m probably in the kitchen,? said Klein. ?There are days when I bake from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Finally, I?m like, ?I have to sit down.??

Klein?s best-seller at the market is her bread, especially the artisan-style breads such as Picaccia, Ciabatta and French bread. She also makes decorative cookies and cupcakes. Many of her sales are from custom orders she received at the prior week?s market.

?People ask, ?Can you make cinnamon rolls with raisins?? and I say ?OK, come back next week,?? said Klein. ?A lot of the things I?ve made on request have been my biggest sellers. I would never have thought to make dill bread until somebody asked me.?

Klein hopes to have her kitchen approved as a ?commercial kitchen,? which will greatly expand the products she can sell from it. If her business grows as she expects, she will open her own bakery in a big city.