By Dan Nienaber
Free Press Staff Writer
MANKATO — With 20 years of experience as a police officer, Allen Schmidt knows what it’s like to be the guy who has to tell everyone to move along when a party gets too loud or lasts too long.
Many who have seen him as a party pooper in the past might be surprised to find out this about Schmidt: He’s also becoming well known as being a guy who gets paid to keep a party going.
Schmidt has been moonlighting as a disc jockey since 2002 with a business that used to be called Extreme Sound and Light. It was an idea he stumbled on while working as a liaison officer at East High School.
“I was chaperoning at dances, and the DJs weren’t playing the most appropriate music — there were a lot of profanities,” Schmidt said. “That was the birth of the DJ side of the business. I started talking to people, talking to kids about what they like.”
He started out focusing on youth dances but broadened the business after a couple asked if he would be willing to work a wedding. That merged perfectly with a hobby Schmidt had before he became a cop: portrait photography.
“I’ve been doing portrait images since 1987,” he said. “The photography I’ve been doing forever. That’s just a passion.”
More recently, he’s fused the two businesses together into what is now called Studio 117. About 90 percent of the DJ shows he does now are for weddings. So, occasionally, he’s hired to take pictures during the ceremony before entertaining guests at the reception.
That’s what Justin Jenness and his wife, Sara, asked Schmidt to do for their New Year’s Eve wedding. Jenness works at the Holiday convenience store on Adams Street and Schmidt stops in regularly, while on patrol, for coffee breaks.
He asked Schmidt to work at his wedding after finding out about Studio 117 a couple of months ago. Had he not already known Schmidt was a police officer, Jenness said he never would have guessed he had a job outside photography and entertainment.
Schmidt does more than play music during his shows. He also has several games to keep the crowd happy. One includes handing out a set of number cards to 10 men and 10 women. The groups are then asked to string together numerical answers to questions, such as “How many feet are in a mile?” or “What’s the zip code for Beverly Hills?”
He has a shortened version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance that he can teach to guests of any age. And, as Jenness found out, Schmidt is also good with parachute games.
When the Jennesses’ wedding dinner was delayed, Schmidt, without being asked, put the parachute to use as other guests started to arrive for the reception.
“He really connected with us on a personal level,” Jenness said. “He came over to our house for a consultation and asked us what we were looking for as far as music and pictures.”
The same passion came through with Schmidt’s photography work, Jenness said. A theme for the wedding was “once in a blue moon.” They got the idea because there was a rare blue moon, the first in about 20 years, on Dec. 31. (A blue moon is commonly considered the second full moon in a single month.)
An original plan was to go to a park before the reception and take a picture with the moon in the background. That didn’t work out. But, after most of the guests had gone, Schmidt saw an opportunity outside as he was packing up, Jenness said.
“He was so wanting to get this shot for us the he was lying on the freezing ground with his camera and a little tripod,” Jenness said.
Currently, Schmidt’s able to do two or three dances per month with help from his family, which includes his wife, four sons and one daughter. The youngest child is 7 years old. The oldest, Alex, 18, is a senior at East and has been helping out for about six years now.
Schmidt said his plan is to keep building the business so it provides a decent income after he retires from police work in about 10 years.
For those wondering, it’s not likely that Schmidt, with his law enforcement background, will be adding party security services to his Studio 117 offerings.
He’s having too much fun being the life of the party, so he doesn’t usually tell his photography and DJ clients that his primary job is patrolling the streets of Mankato.
“Usually that’s a hidden secret,” he said. “I don’t tell people that because I like them to buy into who I am as a person.
“I get invited to come to celebrations where people enjoy the fun and excitement of the evening. That allows me to have fun and be creative at the same time.
“It’s a morale boost, a body boost. It truly is.”
