Kris Miller came by his passion for scuba diving naturally — he inherited it from his father, Kenny Miller. Kenny started taking scuba diving lessons when he got out of the military, Kris said. Kris started scuba diving when he was young.
“It’s a fun thing to pass down, and a fun way to see the world,” Kris said.
Kris passed the love of scuba diving to his daughter, Emilee Taylor, and in 2019, started Ozarks Scuba Diving with three generations of the family — Kenny, Kris and spouse Mikayla Miller and Taylor.
Most of the family lives in Deepwater, Kris said, but Ozarks Scuba Diving is a mobile company, meeting people where they want to dive. They have taken people scuba diving in area lakes to explore wrecks or treasure hunt.
“We can point them to good locations,”Mikayla said.
Next fall, Ozarks Scuba Diving will offer scuba diving lessons at the Clinton Aquatic Center, Mikayla said. Certification will probably take place at Stockton Lake, she said, which has clear water.
They offer guided diving trips to Stockton and lakes in Arkansas and Illinois. They especially like to go to Beaver Lake near Eureka Springs, Ark., Kris said, where there is a sunken ghost town called Monte Ne, which was flooded when the Beaver Lake dam was built.
“There’s an old jailhouse there,” Kris said. “You used to be able to dive down to it and put yourself behind bars.”
This time of year, they are mostly involved in the recovery side of things, Mikayla said. They work with the state highway patrol and the Henry County Sheriff’s Department to recover cars and boats from the lake, she said, and recently found a site with seven cars plus a dump truck that they are going to recover.
“Ozarks Scuba Diving is the only independent rescue, recovery and salvage diving business in the area,” Kris said.
To raise cars or boats from the bottom of the lake, divers attach tow ropes that pull the vehicle up, he said. Under certain circumstances, however, they can attach flotation bags, which are inflated using a spare tank.
Salvaging vehicles takes concentration on a lot of details, Kris said
“Safety being paramount,” he said.
Ozarks Scuba Diving also recovers keys and cell phones, Makayla said. Treasure hunts of Truman Lake have turned up cell phones, lighters, Apple watches, fishing rods and lures, Kris said, as well as snorkel masks, towels, shoes and swimsuits. Ozarks Scuba Diving has short, lightweight metal detectors that attach to your arm and work underwater, he said, and vibrate when they detect metal.
Ozarks Scuba Diving also owns an underwater drone, which is tethered and has a camera and a robotic arm.
“It’s part of the team,” Mikayla said.
The robotic arm is useful in picking up trash and pop cans, when the Deepwater divers help with environmental clean-ups, Kris said. They will be at Bennett Springs State Park at the end of February to clean up the springs, Kris said, to help save the environment of the hellbender, an aquatic salamander, that lives there.
To keep warm in the winter, divers wear thermal dry suits with layers of clothing, called diving thermals, under them, Kris said.
They also do cave diving in warmer climes, including Mexico’s Cenote Zapote caves in the Mayan jungle of Mexico. A cenote is a cave that has collapsed, creating a depression that is filled with water. The dive they do at Cenote Zapote has a narrow access, and is a dive for advanced divers. It is known as Hell’s Bells because of underwater stalactites shaped like large bells.
There is a vast difference in scuba diving today and when his father was learning, Kris said. Back then, the equipment was rudimentary, he said — divers had a weight belt, an air tank and an emergency flotation device.
Now, they have breathing regulators and floatation devices that are much more intricate, and can be fine tuned, plus electronics and computers that tell divers the depth and water temperature, and have built-in compasses.
“It’s much safer,” Kris said.
The sport of scuba diving is becoming more popular, Kris said. With him, the hobby progressed to an obsession, then to a business.
For Kris, diving and being under water, where he can view a part of the world that few people see, is his natural habitat. Or as Mikala puts it:
“He has to get his gills wet,” she said.
To contact Ozarks Scuba Diving, call 417-353-2370.
