In 2018 Janet Thurlow introduced her Chiefs cookies to the public. An avid baker and regular at the Clay Center Farmers’ Market, she wanted to share her love of the Kansas City Chiefs through baking.

The first year she offered the playoff sugar cookies, the Chiefs took the Super Bowl. They repeated that win again for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. They also made it to the final round of the playoffs in 2020 and appeared in 2021’s Super Bowl.

“They’ve been pretty lucky,” said Janet’s husband, Mark Thurlow. “Look how many Super Bowls they’ve been to.”

Janet added that the team would win their first playoff game because it falls on a special date – her 58th birthday.

However, it’s not just the cookies that are “lucky,” it’s Janet who bakes them. After her two daughters, Sheena Marie and Tori Lynn, were killed in 1994, she said the girls are with her. They now sit on her shoulders as guardian angels.  

They also pray over each batch, for those who buy and will eat them to add ministry to their baking, Janet said.

The Taste of Perfection

The cookies include real butter and cream cheese and feature designs of the KC arrowhead, footballs, and hearts. Janet handles the mixing, cutting, and piping, Mark said, while he takes the cookies out of the oven and adds the base level of frosting.

“It’s getting harder for her to bake but it gives her kind of an incentive to do something and she’s good at it,” he said of Janet, who has Parkinson’s disease. “The funny thing is, her hands shake all the time but she can still pipe a pretty straight line. It’s kind of God working through her hands.”

However, Janet gave him more credit, saying he handles the math side of the business, including double-checking her measurements when doubling recipes. Despite math coming easy to her most of her life, she said those skills have begun to wane with her Parkinson’s.

“Here I have three bachelor’s degrees and minors and I’m at home baking,” she said.

Mark also handles phone calls; she has only 10% hearing and relies on reading lips to communicate. And he’s key taste-tester, an important job.

Because he grew up baking for younger siblings, he said he enjoys working in the kitchen as well.

In fact, in 20 years of marriage, the pair said their biggest fight has been about who makes the better baked beans.

“That turned into a pretty big argument,” he said. “Now we have a rule that whoever’s baking or cooking is the head cook and the other has to follow along. That way we don’t argue over it anymore.”

Janet started J&M Baking Industries as a side job eight years ago, when Mark broke his wrist at work. First with cinnamon rolls and breads, then adding cookies of various shapes. In years since, he had an amputation, leading the pair to work jointly on their baking venture.

“It’s not just the cookie people love,” Janet said. “It’s the frosting.” Adding that she simply loves to bake. Initially she began doing it when she saw that others were having a hard time getting to their holiday treats.

Today it’s their main source of income, including funding a savings account for Janet’s future electric wheelchair, which she will soon need. They also donate their baked goods to fundraisers and charities, such as CCARE, Relay for Life, and more.

Chiefs Kingdom

For last year’s playoffs, Mark estimated they made more than 40 dozen cookies. For them, it’s part of the season’s excitement.

“We’re both big Chiefs fans, she doesn’t miss a game anymore and neither do I.”

He also collects rookie cards of players and has multiple Patrick Mahomes cards and a signed jersey of Travis Kelce, his favorite player.

“I picked it up a few years ago and now it’s quadrupled in price,” he said. “I won’t sell that, it’s really cool.” He obtained the jersey from his friend in Salina, who deals sports memorabilia.

Still on the want list for Janet, however, is a signed jersey from Chris Jones, her favorite player.

“I told her he doesn’t sign a whole lot so that will be harder, but we’ll see what we can do.”

Left: Janet and Mark Thurlow posing in their Chiefs’ gear. Above: the lucky cookies.

The pair also celebrate a love for K-State, Janet with her degrees and Mark with his new prosthetic leg and decades of sports fandom. Mark told Janet she couldn’t marry him unless she was a K-State fan. His parents, then he, held football season tickets for 47 years and basketball for 33 years. He remembers touring Bramlage Coliseum as it was new and choosing their new seats.