FROM GREEN TO KUNES: SPRINGFIELD’S NEW DEALERSHIP OWNER DRAWN INTO RACIST VIDEO FIRESTORM

Crime & Public Safety| Business and Economy | Featured| Schools & Education

November 11, 2026•8 min read

YOU KNEW THE NAME GREEN. NOW GET TO KNOW KUNES.

The company taking over familiar Springfield dealerships has a family connection to a disturbing Ole Miss video. The attention has also brought separate Wisconsin discrimination allegations back into view.

By Staff Writer
November 11, 2026

If you have bought a car in Springfield, there is a good chance you know the Green name. Maybe it is on paperwork in your glove compartment. Maybe it is where you take your vehicle for service. For decades, it has been part of the local car-buying landscape.

Now, several of those familiar dealerships have a new name: Kunes.

And if that name sounds familiar for another reason this week, here is why.

The granddaughter of Kunes Auto Group’s owner has apologized for her involvement in a video showing monkey noises and gestures outside an apartment occupied by three Black University of Mississippi students. The footage triggered a university investigation and drew national attention to the family behind the Wisconsin-based dealership group.

That is the Springfield connection. The company operating several former Green dealerships is the same company now responding to attention surrounding its owner’s granddaughter.

The reported conduct happened in Mississippi. Separate customer complaints involving Kunes dealerships happened in Wisconsin. No Springfield dealership employee has been implicated in those incidents in the reporting reviewed for this article.

But for local customers getting acquainted with the new ownership, there is a story behind the name.

The Green family’s automotive history reaches back to 1958, when Ray Green opened a dealership in Monmouth. His son, Todd, bought his first Springfield dealership in 1983. Over the years, the family name became attached to businesses where local customers made substantial purchases and returned for maintenance, repairs and their next vehicle.

In August, Springfield Business Journal reported that several Green dealerships were being sold to Kunes. A Green spokesperson confirmed a sale was underway and said the stores were going to more than one buyer.

The message then was reassuring: The incoming owners had a policy of retaining employees and managers. Customers could expect business as usual.

Today, Kunes Auto Group’s directory lists Springfield operations selling Toyota, Subaru, Volkswagen, Nissan, Kia and Dodge Ram vehicles, along with Springfield Automall and Audi Capital City. Kunes Toyota of Springfield lists its address as 3901 Wabash Avenue.

For someone pulling into a familiar service department, the transition might begin with noticing a different name. Understanding the national headlines requires following that name hundreds of miles south, to an apartment door in Mississippi.

On Nov. 6, a doorbell camera recorded three white women passing an apartment occupied by three Black students.

Two made monkey noises and gestures toward the camera, then walked away laughing. A third walked past.

Think about where that happened. This was the entrance to the students’ home, the place they returned to after class and went about their lives.

Student Jakiyra Metcalf and her mother, Tasha Bolton, shared the footage. Bolton called on university administrators to explain how they would address the conduct and ensure accountability.

As the video spread, the university condemned what it showed and opened an investigation.

“The behavior depicted in this video is deeply troubling, hurtful, and unacceptable.”
Shawnboda Mead, University of Mississippi vice chancellor for student affairs, in a statement reported by The Independent.

University officials also warned about the damage caused by unverified accusations after at least one person was wrongly identified as being involved.

On Nov. 10, Alaina Kunes acknowledged her involvement in a statement released through her attorneys.

The 18-year-old freshman apologized to the women and the Ole Miss community. She said she had never met the apartment’s residents before the incident and did not know their race. She denied intentionally directing the noises or gestures toward a person of color.

She also acknowledged that her actions caused harm.

“I recognize my actions were insensitive, inappropriate, and deeply harmful.”
Alaina Kunes, in a statement released by Gardiner Koch Weisberg & Wrona.

Kunes said she had apologized to the women and intended to cooperate fully with the university’s investigation. She also said she and her family had received death threats and harassment.

Her attorneys addressed the question that had brought the dealership business into the coverage.

Her grandfather, Gregg Kunes, owns Kunes Auto Group. Her father, Scott Kunes, formerly served as chief operating officer and left that role in February 2026. According to the attorneys, Scott has no ownership stake.

Alaina has never worked for the company and has no ownership interest, they said.

The company emphasized her lack of a business role in its response to TMJ4.

“The individual in the video has no employment, ownership, or professional affiliation with Kunes Auto Group.”
Kunes Auto Group, in a statement provided to TMJ4.

Both points matter. She is related to the owner. She does not work for or own the business.

The video does not establish responsibility by the company or its employees for her conduct. But the family connection brought the Kunes name into national coverage, and that attention revived another customer’s account of what happened at a Wisconsin dealership.

Makayla Starks had gone to Kunes Buick GMC of Oak Creek for an oil change in January 2025.

It was an ordinary service visit. According to her subsequent lawsuit, it ended with a racial slur printed on the maintenance sticker attached to her windshield.

Starks, who identifies as biracial, said she sat in her car crying for about 20 minutes after discovering it.

The sticker was supposed to tell her when her vehicle needed another oil change. Instead, according to her account, it became something she could not simply drive away from and forget.

Her complaint also alleges that the dealership later contacted her about a tool a technician supposedly left inside the vehicle. Starks alleges the actual purpose of seeking access to her SUV was to retrieve the sticker.

Those claims are allegations in the lawsuit.

Kunes announced in February 2025 that the employee involved had been fired. The company condemned racism and discrimination as contrary to its values.

Starks filed suit on Aug. 21, 2026, naming the dealership and an unidentified employee. Her claims include racial discrimination, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and negligent training and supervision. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

Public docket records show the dealership removed the case from Milwaukee County Circuit Court to federal court in September.

That timeline is important. The lawsuit was filed months before the Ole Miss video. It concerns a customer’s treatment at a Wisconsin dealership.

Another Wisconsin customer complaint emerged in April 2026. A woman said a salesman at a Kunes dealership in Elkhorn sent her a text containing an image of a dancing ape wearing a bathing suit.

TMJ4 reported that the salesman was no longer employed there and that Kunes said his conduct violated company values.

These are separate events involving different people. The company has said the employees involved in the Wisconsin incidents were terminated. The university is investigating the Mississippi conduct.

For Springfield, the connection comes back to the change customers are seeing close to home.

Buying a vehicle means deciding whom to trust with a substantial amount of money. Returning for service means trusting the people who maintain something your household depends on. For longtime Green customers, those relationships may stretch across years and several vehicles.

A change in ownership naturally brings interest in who is now behind the business.

The Kunes company has become part of Springfield’s dealership landscape. Its family connection to the Ole Miss incident explains why a story unfolding far away now has local relevance. It does not implicate the Springfield dealerships or their employees.

At Ole Miss, an apology has been issued and an investigation continues. In Wisconsin, a customer’s allegations are before a court.

And in Springfield, people who knew the Green name are getting to know Kunes.

Official and primary sources