Deedee Alston

is the Home Extension now. She founded the Home School’s Preservation Club, which is another chapter of the local Extension Club with an emphasis of preserving the way things were done in the old days. We’re losing those skills. They also started a YouTube channel.

“Luke and I were a little bit ahead of our time on some of these things,” she said. “Now, postCOVID, these things are hugely popular.”

Meanwhile, their neighbors and good friends, Sharon and Farrell Cole, had been attempting to recruit the Alstons as realtors for years. The couple started getting their licenses in 2019, planning on it being a part-time job.

“We got our real estate licenses and that practice took off. We found ourselves making the decision to either shut down our real estate business we’d been building in the interim, or do we continue on this. In the meantime, our boys grew up and moved away.

“What we quickly learned is there is nothing that is part-time about real estate. When they call and they want to see something, you go.”

With their knowledge of agriculture, land, water tables and such, the Alston team has a good grasp on selling rural property.

“Luke has been very successful at that. That is his game. Luke’s love is land, but we go anywhere.”

Deedee, a Vandervoort native, also has The Vault Coffee Shop in Cove, which is practically a half hour from their farm. She’s a graduate of Cove and knows a lot of the community.

“I did not sign up to start a coffee shop. It slapped me.”

It came about from the family doing their own farm market, as well as Deedee leaving out at 3 a.m. every Saturday to set up at the Farmer’s Market in Fort Smith. Yet, they still had a lot of produce. The Cove community had lost their grocery store, so they started doing a market on the lawn of The Vault Coffee Shop for two or three years.

“I didn’t know it was for sale,” she said, explaining a conversation about how they could implement a farmer’s market once again now that the threat of the pandemic wasn’t as great. “Before we knew it, we bought it. We took over the coffee shop last May.”

Alston’s advice: “I don’t box myself in by being a woman. I don’t see in color. I don’t see in age. I don’t see in gender. If I want something, I should do it. If you want something, you should just do it. It does take work. If you want something, quit caring what everyone thinks… You have to keep your eye on the prize.”