Small Town News

Hardware reaches milestone

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Four generations of family have put their time into Winchester Hardware, and those memories were on the mind of owner Charles Edmonds and his daughter, Gigi Perry, as they prepared for Saturday's open house to mark the store's 20th anniversary at its location along Wellman Road south of Winchester.

The celebration is set for 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the store with drawings and refreshments offered. The business' regular hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. A special sale honoring the anniversary started Tuesday and runs until Sept. 19.

Charles and his wife, Karen, have lived on the land where the store sits since 1962. They originally purchased the business in 1978 and ran it for 11 years out of an old building in Winchester. When it became clear that building was going to have to be rebuilt, they made the decision to build a new store just south of their home. When Gigi and her husband, J.R., settled with their kids, they moved in just south of the store, which makes for easy access. Gigi is the main operator of the store now as Charles and Karen have gone part-time, and Gigi also owns and operates Gigi's Monogramming out of the location, as she has for 15 years. Charles said the couple's other child, Rick, lives in Dunavant and hasn't gotten involved in the business. Charles and Karen have four grandchildren.

"That building (in Winchester) would sway when the wind blew hard," said Charles with a laugh. The couple bought it from Bill Moon after hearing he was looking for a buyer. It no longer stands. "There had been a hardware store in town for 100 years back, and at one point there was a mortuary next door. No matter what time of year, you had to wear something warm, because it got cold. It came down to deciding if I wanted to try and rebuild there and know I'd probably have to eat the cost later, or moving it out here. We chose that."

"I remember going in there before we ran it and seeing the people sit around a stove and wonder why," Gigi said. "It wasn't until I worked there that I understood."

Perry has fond memories of working with both sets of grandparents - Bill and Mary Edmonds and Jack and Jackie Bryant--at the store when Charles was still working full-time in Lawrence and the grandparents minded the store. She said directly after school, if she wasn't involved in athletics or other extracurricular activities, she was down at the store working. She also watched it on Saturdays. She and Charles also have memories of Gigi's own children coming to the store as children and later working there as teens.

When the decision was made to move and Charles made the logical choice to put it near their home, Charles quit his job in Lawrence to devote time to the store.

"It's served our needs real well," he said. He acknowledges the fact that, for a rural location, traffic isn't a problem as Wellman Road gets more than its fair share of commuter traffic that passes by the store each day. "I built it so, if things didn't work out, I could just knock out the back part and use it as an ag building."

That contingency plan hasn't had to be put in play, and the couple has branched out in several ways since the move in 1989. They now have self-storage units for rent, sell blueberries that buyers pick, and in 1999 began selling elk meat as Rocky Hills Elk Ranch. What started with about 20 elk is now a 100-head herd.

"I'm a third-generation cattleman and, in the 1990s, the cattle business got where it just wasn't profitable," Charles said. "We were kicking around ideas and my son saw an elk sale while watching TV over his satellite dish. He taped it and the next day we were gonna go deer hunting, but by the time I got there it was raining, so he had me come in and look at it. That same week Karen was reading the Lawrence paper and saw something about a seminar in Wichita about raising elk. It just went from there."

The main business, however, has been the hardware store. Edmonds said a surprising part of the business is how the inventory changes from year to year. He said Karen and Gigi also had to become knowledgeable about plumbing over time to help people figure out just what parts they needed for an urgent repair.

"What you sell year-to-year changes," Edmonds said. Gigi's grown children, Laura Gigstad and Matt Perry, both helped out at the store while in high school, marking the fourth generation of the family to earn their keep at the store. "It's strange how the inventory changes."

The store has also been able to roll with technology changes somewhat. Through the Do It Best distributor, customers can order hardware online at the Do It Best website and have it shipped to the hardware store for pickup. Charles and Gigi said they can order merchandise on Wednesday and it'll be there on Friday when the Do It Best truck shows up from Cape Girardeau, Mo. Gigi has been able to build her monogramming business to where she gets some orders from other states but hasn't been willing to make the time commitment to put the business online.

All in all, Charles seems content with what his business has been both for the community and his family.

"We got a lot more business from McLouth than I had figured moving out here," Edmonds said. He was born and raised not far from where he and Karen now live. "We also get some from this side of Leavenworth County.

"The biggest thing this store has always strived for is being helpful to the customer. I think it's provided a good service for the community. It's a family thing, we all have to help out."



Copyright 2009 The Valley Falls Vindicator, Valley Falls, Kansas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2009 The Valley Falls Vindicator Valley Falls, Kansas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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