Elgin High School principal shores up plans following retirement
Roots-n-Stone - atmosphere
Merchandise is displayed at Roots-n-Stones on March 15, 2024, in downtown La Grande. Owner Dawn Guentert wanted to create a relaxed, cozy atmosphere for her store, which celebrated its soft opening at the beginning of March with a Union County Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony.
LA GRANDE — When Elgin High School Principal Dawn Guentert decided to retire from administration at the end of this school year, it was with the idea of following a lifelong passion, one that would mix her degree in biology with business.
In January, Guentert, 55, signed a store lease for her new business, Roots-n-Stones, 109 Elm St., La Grande, and on the evening of March 7, she hosted a soft opening, celebrating with a Union County Chamber-sponsored ribbon-cutting ceremony and a sip-n-shop experience.
Guentert has always wanted to start a business centered around her love of biology, plants and beautiful products of nature. These all have a beneficial influence on the physical, mental and emotional health of a person.
“I have been dabbling in roots and salves for a while, but I really wanted a space for people to come and find therapeutics,” she said. “I grow or forage all the active ingredients, so it’s all organic.”
Her business encompasses three main product lines — therapeutic skin salves for men and women, exotic and beautiful plants and glistening crystals.
The plants are in their own vessel, and a crystal comes with each one, Guentert said. About 65% of her plant inventory are exotic plants that can’t easily be found in this area. She also sells succulents and everyday plants for the beginner plant enthusiast.
Roots-n-Stones - Guentert plants
Dawn Guentert on March 15, 2024, prepares to pot a succulent for sale at Roots-n-Stones, her new shop in downtown La Grande. Her plant inventory includes exotic plants, succulents and everyday houseplants for beginners.
There are plants for sale ranging from $10 up to $150 depending on the type and rarity, whether they are common houseplants or unique, exotic ones. Some are hanging plants, and some are displayed in other ways.
“There’s a whole array of plants of all different colors,” she said.
A store filled with plants creates a relaxed, cozy atmosphere at Roots-n-Stones.
“I just want people to feel the space when they come in and let go of the world’s burdens,” she said. “So, I centered my business around plants, crystals and therapeutics.”
Roots-n-Stones - crystals
A selection of crystals line the table at Roots-n-Stones in downtown La Grande on March 15, 2024. Owner Dawn Guentert has always wanted to start a business centered around her love of biology, plants and beautiful products of nature.
The crystals that she offers are polished pocket crystals, ranging from $3.50 to the more expensive cluster crystals. They come with information, so the customer will know more about them. With her science background, Guentert loves rocks, especially those that conceal some of nature’s most beautiful crystals.
Skin and pain salves
Guentert’s salve products are compounded with shea butter from Africa or olive oil from a small family farm in Italy and essential oils from a source on the west side of Oregon. For men’s salves, she adds just a hint of citrus oil as a carrier, otherwise she likes to use lavender for women’s therapeutic products — nothing heavily perfumed.
Some of the herbs she acquires by foraging from the Blue Mountains. For example, she makes pain salves, and she forages the arnica plants for these from this area.
Jordan Hovingh, of La Grande, wanted to try Guentert’s pain salves, particularly the ones that are compounded with comfrey and arnica.
Roots-n-Stones - Guentert bath salts
Dawn Guentert fills up a container of bath salts made in-house at Roots-n-Stones, her new business in La Grande, on March 15, 2024. The shop has three main product lines: therapeutic salves, exotic plants and glistening crystals.
“I have a painful autoimmune condition that produces noticeable inflammation, particularly in my feet,” she said. “When I put the pain salve on my feet, the inflammation had gone down by morning.”
Hovingh also uses the pain salve to sooth her arthritic hands and to relieve feminine cramping.
“I’ve been really happy with it,” she said.
Hovingh also discovered that it soothes the pain caused from bruises. Her daughter had injured the outside of her foot, and it was covered in bruises, so she applied the salve to the bruises and it brought relief, she said.
Guentert grows comfrey, calendula and rosemary in her home garden for use in her pain salves. Calendula is a universal herb that has been used externally to soothe wounds and moisturize dry skin following radiation therapy or internally to support feminine health. Benefits vary per person, and Guentert makes no claims, but customers, like Hovingh, have been pleased with the results.
“There was a time when we used to treat ourselves using the plants around us,” Guentert said. “That was lost over time.”
Most of her salves replenish moisture in the skin, such as the lip balms she makes with herbs from her garden.
Roots-n-Stones - customer shopping
Customer Lynette Williamson looks at the merchandise available at Roots-n-Stones in downtown La Grande on March 15, 2024.
“They have been really well received, and customers were pleasantly surprised,” she said.
Following her dream
A native of Texas, Guentert came to the Grande Ronde Valley in 1994 and attended Eastern Oregon University. She graduated from Eastern in 1998 with a major in biology and an emphasis in chemistry. She continued at EOU and earned her master’s degree in 2000. While working as a principal, she received her administrative endorsement online in 2019 through George Fox University.
She has worked in education for 26 years, mostly in the Umatilla School District as a science teacher. She’s been a principal at Elgin High School for the last six years.
As she leaves this career to pursue another, Guentert said, “It was just one of those things that came together, and I’m following my dream at age 55.”
