2014-02-22 The Progress B

Healthy @ 150

B What keeps a community alive, vibrant and thriving?

Business and Industry They’re the job creators, tax base boosters and community supporters that keep Ottawa and Franklin County strong.

They provide vital goods, services and even security in an ever-changing world.

As Ottawa and Franklin County near the communities’ 150th birthday milestones, The Herald is taking a look at what’s kept the area healthy for nearly a century and a half in the newspaper’s annual Progress edition.

The second of three special sections takes

a glimpse at some of the businesses and industries that help shape the community, steering it toward a brighter future. It isn’t intended as an all-inclusive list, but rather a sampling of those who work to keep the heart of Ottawa and Franklin County healthy and beating.

They’re professionals, innovators, employers and laborers. They’re friends and neighbors.

Business and Industry.

Progress 2014

Progress

Page S2

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

Grocery store bags local flavors

By DYLAN LYSEN Herald Staff Writer

The mascots of Franklin County high schools line the walls of the entry at Ottawa’s Country Mart.

Although some of the mascots now are defunct, the message is clear: Country Mart, 2138 Princeton Circle Drive, is a grocery store that cares about the local community, Gary Jones, store owner, said.

“We just try to help Jones the community,” Jones said. “We’re known for that.”

One of the best ways for the local grocery store to give back to the community is through special programs that partner Country Mart with local organizations, he said.

The store now is running a points program to help benefit local schools.

Jones said customers can either win points to help them save money on groceries in the future, or send those points to Franklin County schools.

The points for the schools add up as checks from Country Mart that helps the schools with funding.

“We try to focus on what we can do locally,” Jones said.

Schools aren’t Country

Photo by Dylan Lysen/The Ottawa Herald

Workers at Country Mart, 2138 Princeton Circle Drive, Ottawa, sack groceries for a customer. Gary Jones, store owner, said Country Mart prides itself on providing as many local products as he can get his hands on. “We buy all the local produce we can, when it’s in season. All the apples. Corn, we buy all the local corn we can,” Jones said.

Mart’s only local emphasis, Jones said. The store also buys local products whenever available.

“We buy all the local produce we can, when it’s

in season. All the apples.

Corn, we buy all the local corn we can,” Jones said.

Jones said local farmers appreciate a local grocery store that features the

hard work of their farms.

“They love it,” Jones said. “They look forward to it every year.”

A majority of Country Mart’s workers are

based in Ottawa, he said, which helps with the local economy.

“Whenever we can, we try to hire locally,” Jones said.

Jones is from Kansas City, Kan., where he has a Country Mart store that he owns with his business partner, Jim Coddington.

But the Ottawa community interested him so much he decided to live here.

He said people know him in Ottawa, and that’s a big plus for his business.

“I love it. It’s a great little town,” Jones said.

“There’s no comparison.

In Kansas City, they don’t care who I am. That’s the reason I moved here when I bought the store. If I want to succeed, people need to know who I am. So I moved down here and got involved. I’ve got a lot of great friends, people here in town.”

The store opened in Ottawa in 1989, but Jones purchased the store in 2002. Since taking over, he said, his main goal has been to find what the people of Ottawa want and need from a grocery store and provide it.

“We’ve done surveys and focus groups,” Jones said. “We try to focus on what the community wants.”

Jones said the store prides itself on its meat and produce sections because of their high-quality goods “We have the best meat department,” Jones said.

“Best meat, produce, bakery and deli. That’s our claim to fame.”

Business manufactures better health for company, employees

By MEAGAN PATTON-PAULSON Herald Connections Editor

In a corporate environment, it’s easy to lose touch with individuals, Jeff Seymour said.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth at Mac Fasteners, Seymour, Franklin County Development Council director, said.

Along with making and keeping one-on-one relationships with employees, he said, Mac Fasteners’ top executives are known for doing what they can to make their employees successful, healthy and happy.

“I think that’s a testament to their management capabilities,” he said.

‘By their bootstraps’ Bob Macdonald started the company more than 20 years ago, growing it from a three-person operation when it began to more than 80 employees today.

“I think Mac Fasteners is a great example of a company that has pulled themselves up by their bootstraps,” Seymour said.

In 2011, the company completed a 24,000-square-foot expansion of its plant at the Ottawa Industrial Park, paving the way for more job creation, executives said at the time of completion.

In October, Mac Fasteners was bought out by another company, TriMas, Dee Henrichs, Mac Fasteners’ manager of administration and human resources, said, which consolidated three businesses into one.

“With new products they’ve rolled out, new types of bolts and fasteners ... any company that’s going to survive today, especially one in a sphere that they are in of making fasteners and things, is constantly going to have to make sure they not only have new products out there but are still delivering product quality.”

— Jeff Seymour, Franklin County Development Council director Along with Mac Fasteners, those companies were BD&J — a drawer shop in Ottawa — and another company in Arkansas in which Bob Macdonald was part owner.

The change was made because Macdonald was considering retirement and was looking for an independent owner.

Macdonald is to remain as a consultant for Mac Fasteners for two years, Henrichs said. One of Macdonald’s sons, Brian Macdonald, now is general manager of the business.

Mac Fasteners’ name hasn’t changed, Henrichs said, and the business now employs 83 people.

“So far, so good,” Henrichs said about the change in ownership. “It’s been really good.”

With an increased workforce, the company has been able to expand its product line and increase sales.

Macdonald said he credited part of his success to the good

working relationship he always has had with the City of Ottawa.

“When I started this business, I looked at a lot of places and went to a lot of banks, and Ottawa was the only place willing to give me a chance,” Macdonald said previously.

The business has used tax abatements received from the city to help grow the business, including a recent 10-year tax abatement.

The tax abatement was a winwin situation for the company and the city through the years, Scott Bird, Ottawa finance director, said previously.

‘Healthy decisions’ One of the factors that has made the business successful, Seymour said, is its willingness to try new things.

“With new products they’ve rolled out, new types of bolts

and fasteners ... any company that’s going to survive today, especially one in a sphere that they are in of making fasteners and things, is constantly going to have to make sure they not only have new products out there but are still delivering product quality,” Seymour said.

That has led to expansions of the company’s services and its employment base, which is something that’s important for the health of the community, Seymour said.

“It’s kind of like we talk about the circle of person, and by providing people with enough income, they are able to buy healthy food and make healthy decisions,” he said. “So just by providing employment and a good stable job, that’s the first step in that direction.”

Along with providing quality jobs for the community, Mac Fasteners is known for taking care of its employees, Seymour said.

“It’s not unusual for somebody in the management team to run employees out in their own car [in an emergency],” Seymour said. “They’ve gone above and beyond to take good care of their employees, and I think that’s something that should be commended.”

Mac Fasteners’ employees now have expanded insurance options since the consolidation, which has proven to be an asset, Henrichs said.

“A lot of our employees are local people, so the change that has occurred with the transition

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is that the health and dental and vision are through TriMas, they charge on a sliding scale,” she said. “So [people] on the lower end of scale, now can afford to get health insurance.

For some of them it’s the first time they’ve ever had health insurance.”

The business also has programs in place for people struggling with depression or substance abuse.

Henrichs echoed Seymour’s thoughts on the management’s respect, kindness and collaboration with their staff.

“We’ve always had this sort of hands-on approach, and all the managers are working managers,” Henrichs said.

That means less time spent in meetings and more time involved in the day-to-day processes, she said.

It also means a closer relationship to employees, something Bob Macdonald was known for upholding, she said.

“We have an interest in our employees’ lives and support them the best we can,” she said.

“It creates more loyal employees. ... If people have been treated decently and kindly, they’re more likely to stay and be productive employees.”

Seymour also commended Bob Macdonald on his diligence and community mind set.

“He’s literally built his business from the ground up. ... If anybody deserves some community recognition, it’s Mac Fasteners,” Seymour said.

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Progress

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

Page S3

Hasty family etches name on awards industry

By CLINTON DICK

awesome and we’ve been very fortunate. We have a great and loyal customer base. We have very few problems that are unsolvable. I probably most enjoy working with the YMCAs and some of the less fortunate. I get as much out of working with an inner-city YMCA, say in North Carolina, as I do working with the Kansas City Marathon people because it is really on our level where they are treated exactly the same.”

Herald Staff Writer

Jim Hasty always said he wouldn’t be satisfied until every child in America had a Hasty award, his wife said.

His journey toward that goal led to the founding of Hasty Awards, 1015 Enterprise St., Ottawa, in 1986.

Jim and Judy Hasty grew the business — headquartered in Ottawa’s Industrial Park — into a worldwide company that now is one of the largest suppliers of awards in the country. “[Jim] would do anything to make a successful outcome for his customer,” Judy Hasty said. “If he didn’t make any money, that was too bad. He’d make it next time because he wanted to make sure everything was just perfect.”

Jim Hasty died in August 2012. His son, Steve Hasty, now runs the family business.

Lifetime achievement

Working hard, then smart While Hasty Awards’ current facility was built in 2009, the original business began with one man’s idea to make swimming awards out of walnut.

“In 1978, we moved to Kansas,” Judy Hasty said.

“Jim was a teacher and a coach. We picked Ottawa because Jim’s parents had been born and raised in this area, so we brought our boys and moved here.

He took care of his dad for the first few years and did some substitute teaching and coached the Ottawa Swim Club for several years.”

After Jim Hasty retired from teaching and coaching, he decided to start a business, his wife said.

Thanks to his industrial arts background in woodworking, making walnut awards came naturally.

“One day he just said, ‘You know, I think I am going to make some swimming awards,’” Judy Hasty said. “We made some little plaques and things and we looked at the schedule to see who was going to be having the first meet of the season, and they saw it and bought it. Then we went home and figured out how we were going to do this.

“One by one, everybody ordered from us because it was different. Nobody had anything like that, and Jim made it affordable.

Why they trusted us, I’m still not sure to this day because if I were responsible for some big athletic event, I don’t think I’d trust a company that had just been in business a month, but they did and it worked.”

The first buyer of the awards was a YMCA in Raytown, Mo., Judy Hasty said. Soon after, things took off for Hasty Awards.

“After that, we just kept contacting different [buyers] and, by then, word was getting around in the Missouri Valley area because kids had gone to meets and gotten some of our things, so they thought, ‘Yeah, something different. This is great,’” she said. “At that time, the awards industry had just been stagnant for a long time ... not so now.”

What originally was a business Jim and Judy Hasty could work on during their retirement turned into something more. When Steve Hasty graduated from the University of Kansas, the company continued picking up steam, Judy Hasty said.

“We just kept growing and growing and growing, and it was just about too much for us,” she said.

“We’d hired a couple of employees to help, and then Steve got out of KU and he was kind of interested. He said, ‘You know, I think I could be happy doing this.’ I said, ‘Ok, great. Come on.’ The rest is history. “[Jim and I] were still in the dark ages. We knew nothing about computers or any of that stuff. When

Photos by Clinton Dick/ The Ottawa Herald

ABOVE: Rosemary Patton, layout and engraving specialist at Hasty Awards, 1015 Enterprise St., Ottawa, talks with Steve Hasty, Hasty Awards president and owner, Feb. 13 at the company’s headquarters. Hasty said his company has a great staff and very good tenure.

LEFT: A machine etches a club name onto a medal at Hasty Awards, 1015 Enterprise St., Ottawa. Hasty Awards works on about 150 orders a day, Steve Hasty said.

Kansas City ones, we have a minimum of 12 people there.”

Both Steve and Judy Hasty praised the Hasty Awards staff. Because about 80 percent of everything the business sells is custom-designed and made as exclusive products, Hasty Awards’ workers have to be creative.

“He has a staff of people that are just phenomenal, and our artists are wonderful and they are able to put into reality what a customer has in a thought in the back of their mind,” Judy Hasty said. “It must be exciting to them to see that develop.”

Her son agreed.

“We have more tenure, I bet, than any company [in the community],” he said.

“We have so many people who have been with us 10 years or more. I think it is about 40 percent right now. We have at least eight to 10 that have been

here 15 years. That really makes it a much easier company to manage and to own. With longevity comes pay increases, which we’ve had to grow in that area as well, which we’ve been fortunate to be able to do.

It is fun. We are a family, not just a place to work.”

Just because the company does business across the country and world doesn’t mean Hasty Awards doesn’t have local fans.

“We donate to the ORC,” Steve Hasty said. “We don’t charge them for anything. We do some awards for Ottawa High School athletics. We do a lot of business in Ottawa, but we also donate about as much to Ottawa people as we do anything.”

In a typical day, Hasty Awards works on 150 orders, he said. All those orders go through various stages, often from idea to design then fabrication and finally into the hands of customers.

“I have a dream job,” Steve Hasty said. “It is

Jim Hasty’s legacy isn’t just as the founder of a successful awards business. He also was an influential swimming coach in Colorado before he moved to Ottawa. Hasty, as well as the company, received lifetime achievement awards earlier this year from the Colorado Swimming Hall of Fame. During his time in Eaton, Colo., Jim Hasty became a widely known and respected swimming coach in northern Colorado, his wife said.

“Years ago, when he was coaching at a small high school [in Eaton], all the big schools in Denver had twice as many students in the schools as we had in the town,” she said. “They had one state meet with all the schools put together.

Jim was never quite satisfied with that, even after he left Eaton. He helped to form what is called the Double-A State, so from then on the Double-A kids went to their own state meet so it was more fair.

But this team did beat all the big boys in the state meet. That was the only time we had that happen.”

Jim Hasty coached at Eaton High School from 1963 to 1970. He left after the 1970 season, after being asked to cut down the size of his team, Judy Hasty said.

“He thought that was fundamentally wrong,” she said. “He had been running a double team.

He had lots of kids out and they were all doing well and succeeding, but he was going to have to kick some of the kids off the team. He couldn’t do it, so he left and took a job in Denver.”

Judy Hasty accepted her husband’s lifetime achievement award on his behalf. Stan Benson, Colorado Swimming Hall of Fame president, was one of Jim Hasty’s former swimmers, she said.

“Many on that team became All-American [swimmers] in college,” she said.

“There were two doctors and many professionals.

He had several good kids who came up through that.”

ABOVE: A set of 2012 United States Olympic Team Trials medals made by Hasty Award hangs in the company’s facility at the Ottawa Industrial Park.

Steve came in, of course, he knew how to do all of this stuff. We knew how to work hard, he knew how to work smart.”

Spreading Ottawa’s name With Hasty Awards’s new influx of business from across the country, Ottawa’s name spread, Steve Hasty said.

“A little more than 10 million items have ‘Ot-

tawa, Kansas’ on the backs or bottoms of them,” he said. “That is part of what we do. We have amazing people that work here.

“At the [Prairie Fire Marathon] in Wichita [in October], there were seven people here that went down and volunteered.

They drove all the way down there, got up way early in the morning and volunteered to hand out the [Hasty Awards] medals at the finish line. That is our big thing. I bet we do a dozen races ... In the

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Progress

Page S4

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

Plaza theater claiming its place in ‘cinemagic’ history of the world

By DOUG CARDER

Photo courtesy of the Franklin County Historical Society

Herald Senior Writer

LEFT: A crowd gathers around a Kinedrome tent where “The Great Train Robbery” was being shown during a carnival on Main Street. The 12-minute film was said to be the first movie shown in Ottawa, in 1905.

Later that year, the community’s first movie theater, The Bijou, opened in the Pickrell Building, 209 S. Main St. The building still houses a theater today — The Plaza Cinema.

Peach Madl, the theater’s owner, said photographic evidence and other documentation indicates the theater is the “oldest operating cinema in America.”

Its entertainment value goes beyond bringing firstrun movies to Ottawa.

The Plaza Cinema theater, 209 S. Main St., also could become a marquee tourist attraction in the near future that would benefit the entire community, Kristi Lee, Franklin County Tourism and Visitors Bureau executive director, said.

Plaza owner Peach Madl and her project team have set about converting the theater — purported to be the oldest operating cinema in America and posMadl sibly the world — into a living tribute to the history of the motion picture industry. The plan incorporates interactive exhibits, historical photographs, Hollywood memorabilia, a short documentary and an IMAX 4D experience designed to entertain and educate people, Madl said in a recent interview.

“We want to make it a destination place for people to enjoy the history of movie making in the oldest cinema in America and possibly the world,” Madl, who has owned the theater for about seven years, said.

Historical photographs and newspaper archives trace the Ottawa theater’s origin to 1905, which would predate by two years other claims in France and Denmark to the title of oldest operating bijou, Madl said.

File photo/The Ottawa Herald

LEFT: The modern-day Plaza Cinema, 209 S. Main St., stands during summer 2013, shortly after community members discovered the theater’s status as what they think is the world’s oldest.

Tourist destination Establishing a tourist destination is one of the ways the Plaza theater is contributing to the overall health of the community, Lee said.

Lee — who Madl credits as the first person who suggested the Plaza theater’s age preceded that of a theater listed in the Guinness Book of World Records — said she thinks the Plaza “cinemagic” project will eventually be a tourism boon for the community and county.

“There are so many ramifications as far as this project benefitting the community,” Lee said. It improves our downtown [tourism] product. Along with the Old Depot Museum [135 W. Tecumseh St., Ottawa] and our historic downtown, the theater provides another selling point for visitors to come to Ottawa and the area.”

The effort to convert the historic theater into a tribute to the movie industry continues, but Madl’s group was unable to secure two grants that would have helped fund some of the work, Lee said Wednesday.

The group had applied last fall for a heritage grant through the Kansas State Historical Society and an attraction

Photo courtesy of the Franklin County Historical Society

ABOVE: The Crystal Theatre, 209 S. Main St., is seen in early 1900s with horse-drawn carriages in front of the Pickrell Building. The longtime structure sits amid Ottawa’s historic district, which became part of the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Though the theater went through a succession of owners and names, it now is thought to be the oldestoperating movie theater in America. It traces its roots back to the Bijou Theatre in 1905, later becoming the Crystal Theatre, The Plaza and later The Crystal Plaza theater. Today the twin theater, which now is known as Plaza Cinema, shows first-run movies daily. grant through the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, but recently learned both applications had been turned down. “[The grant] process is very competitive, and I was told even the theater in Hutchinson had to

apply five times [before it received a restoration grant],” Lee said.

“I hope it doesn’t take us five years,” Lee said.

“We’re definitely going to keep working at it and applying for the grants.”

Lee is eager to see the critiques issued by the two state agencies on why the theater wasn’t selected for the grant, she said.

“We’ll see what didn’t meet the criteria, and we’ll tweak the applications a bit and hope for the best again,” she said.

In the meantime, Madl also is working with a group of investors to renovate the old post office building at Hickory and Second Streets into an Ottawa event space.

“The old post office is just going to be a wonderful project for this area and will help the community,” Lee said.

While the post office

was built about 1915, a trove of 6,000 negatives in the historic J.B. Muecke photograph collection — on loan to the Franklin County Historical Society — indicates the theater has been around about a decade longer.

Historic beginnings The photographs show The Bijou — the forerunner to the current Plaza theater — began showing movies in 1905 in the upstairs floor of the 129-yearold, two-story Pickrell Building, where the two-

screen Plaza continues to operate today in the heart of downtown Ottawa.

Meanwhile, the Plaza theater has strived to keep pace with the latest technology and deliver first-run movies to the community.

The two-screen theater installed a new digital projector and screen Oct. 17-18, 2012, and added a 3-D lens a week later for the first showing of “Hotel Transylvania” on the same night the theater played host to its annual “Rocky Horror Picture Show” party on its other screen.

“Our digital conversion was prompted by the lack of 35-millimeter film,” Madl said in 2012. “Studios are no longer making the [35-mm] film. Just this past year, we were not able to switch films because there

was none available.”

The Plaza’s new digital screen has met with favorable reviews from moviegoers.

“It’s really nice,” Kari Rohr, Ottawa, said while attending one of the first showings on the new digital screen with her family in late October 2012. “It’s a big difference from what we had before — the way the screen looks.”

Rohr, who had watched 3-D movies at other theaters, said she was glad now to have that movie-going experience in Ottawa.

“To me, it’s a lot better, maybe just because it’s here locally and we don’t have to drive to do it,” she said.

County tourism official Lee said she thought the theater served a vital role in the community.

“I love the movies, and I’m glad that type of entertainment is easily accessible here,” Lee said, which isn’t the case in many communities of Ottawa’s size. “[Madl] does a great job of getting first-run movies fast.”

The longevity of the Plaza theater speaks volumes about how the community has supported the theater through the decades, Lee said. She is hopeful turning the theater into a tourism destination also will draw the attention of local residents who haven’t experienced what the Plaza has to offer.

“I may be a little biased to the community, but I think the theater we have is great,” Lee said.

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Progress

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

Page S5

Edward Jones advisors tackle financial goals

By CLINTON DICK

tournaments, Henningsen said, he is glad to be a part of a business that has been in the community for so many years.

“We’ve been kind of a

Herald Staff Writer

Financial advisors not only provide a service that benefits community members’ pocketbooks, Jason Berve said. They also aid their customers’ mental health.

“I think that we kind of help relieve a little bit of stress,” Berve, a financial advisor at Edward Jones, 101 N. Main St., Ottawa, said. “We kind of answer some questions that people have that they can’t necessarily answer on their own. It is very rewarding for me. I love my job. I love being able to help people get through those things, and I really believe that Edward Jones really does serve the community for the better.”

Berve relocated to Ottawa three years ago from his original Edward Jones office in Overland Park, he said. He joins Ryan Henningsen, an advisor at a separate Edward Jones location at 502 S. Cedar St., in serving community members’ financial needs.

The two said they don’t see each other as competitors, giving their separate clients the benefits of individual expertise.

“We try to maintain the same brand and the same identity,” Henningsen said. “The nice thing about Edward Jones is that it is kind of like a franchise, so it is your own business.

We don’t share any other branch information. He has his clients and I have my clients. We aren’t really competitors either. We are operating under the idea that we want to provide and promote financial services to the Franklin County community for Edward Jones, but there is enough business out there to where we don’t have to fight over the same client.”

Relationships for life Ryan Henningsen has financial advising in his blood.

His late father, Bill Henningsen, was an Edward Jones financial advisor in Ottawa since 1991, he said.

“I’ve grown up around it all through school,” Ryan Henningsen said. “I’d go in and work in his office at the old annex building in high school, so all through college I had an idea I was going to go this way.”

He got his start with Edward Jones in 2001, working there until 2006 when he moved to Tampa Bay, Fla., to work for a different money management firm, he said. He returned to Ottawa in March 2011 after his father became ill. When Bill Henningsen died a few months later, Ryan Henningsen took over his post at Edward Jones. Because of the strong bond built between an advisor and his clients, it wasn’t easy for his father to say goodbye to those community members with whom he had worked, Henningsen said.

“When Dad was sick, we were kind of transitioning him out of business that summer. We had a couple big meetings where we invited all of our clients so we could do kind of like a farewell, if you will, but also so we could do an introduction about me coming in to help them out,” he said. “It was the hardest thing in the world for him to say bye to his clients. He saw them as friends and companions too. Over the years, seeing that relationship build is very rewarding and it is what keeps us coming to work every day.”

Berve agreed that a strong client-advisor relationship is important. His favorite part of the job is helping a client reach his or her financial goals, he said.

“The people that I see regularly, I feel like we have a pretty good relationship,” Berve said. “I think it helps with the

lasting institution here in the community, so I think there is some comfort in that knowing that you are dealing with a recognized brand,” he said.

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ABOVE: Ryan Henningsen, a financial advisor at Edward Jones, sits in his office at 502 S. Cedar St., Ottawa. Henningsen returned to Ottawa and took over the firm after his father, Bill Henningsen, died in 2011.

LEFT: Jason Berve, a financial advisor at Edward Jones, 101 N. Main St., Ottawa, is pictured in his office. Berve relocated to Ottawa three years ago from his original Edward Jones office in Overland Park, he said. overall strategy for portfolios when you really know a lot more about people.

You can help them see things that they don’t necessarily think about when you are talking about the portfolios. College savings is a big one. A lot of people don’t really think about it until it gets closer, but in reality, you can get a lot further on that goal the earlier you start.”

Berve and Henningsen manage about 1,400 households between the two of them; Berve with 600, Henningsen with 800, they said.

“The main thing I like to focus on with my clients is just aiding people,” Berve said. “We don’t like to set goals for people, but we like to aid people and help people set their own goals.

Our main thing is getting those objectives, helping our clients along with that and most importantly helping them develop a long-term strategy to stick to those goals and objectives they have for their own life, mainly concerning anything from life insurance, protecting their family, getting them to and through retirement and then everything else that they could possibly have.”

Local connections Henningsen enjoys the local impact his work has every day, he said.

“Our No. 1 focus is to serve a local client,” he said. “Now I have clients in probably 30 different states, but a majority of our business is the local, Franklin County client, and that is our business model. We want to be a door you can walk in, a desk you can sit at and have face-to-face communication to solve your financial problems, or goals. That is one immediate impact we have is helping people meet their retirement goals, or send their grandkids to college, buy a house or whatever that may be.

“A lot of people say they become doctors to help people and I feel the same way about that except I’m helping as sort of a financial doctor instead of a health doctor. I couldn’t do this if it was a phone relationship, you know, if I was a broker in New York calling people in Kansas, I wouldn’t enjoy this job as much as I do meeting and getting to know my clients on a personal level and getting to a point where

they are friends and not just clients. It means a lot.”

Edward Jones expects to mark 40 years in Ottawa next year. The firm’s original financial advisor, Mike Esser, began his work in 1975, serving as a general partner. He retired in 2013, Berve said.

Aside from Edward Jones’ community involvement through such activities as the Ottawa High School after-prom party and sponsoring local golf

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Progress

Page S6

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

Zarco aims for healthy environment, customers

By MEAGAN PATTON-PAULSON Herald Connections Editor

With its renewable energy breakthroughs, fresh, healthful foods and relaxed, oasis-like environment, it might be safe to say health is at the center of Zarco’s mission.

“In a community when we are all trying to get healthy, convenient choices is what our goals are,” Scott Zaremba, Zarco owner, said.

And with an average of 1,000 people stopping in each day, those health benefits are rippling throughout the country, he said.

“With our fuels, when you use them, you know that money is staying inside your community,” he said. “That’s what we look for and try to do and educate the consumer on.”

Zaremba, owner of Zarco USA Inc. and American Fuels, first bought the land and building at 2518 E. Logan St. about five years ago, and transformed it into the convenience center it is now.

The station includes a liquor store and a Sandbar Sub sandwich shop, as well as a car wash and Doggie Rest Area outside.

It employs 18 to 20 people, Zaremba said, a number that has more than doubled since Zaremba remodeled the station.

Renewable energy Zaremba’s company previously was known as Zarco 66, but was shortened to Zarco USA after it broke away from being a Phillips 66 fuel retailer because of restrictions on ethanol-gasoline blends called E15 and E85.

In July 2012, Zaremba became the first petroleum marketer in the United States to offer E15, an ethanol-gasoline blend that contains 15 percent ethanol and is more earth-friendly than regular gasoline. It’s also cheaper than regular gasoline, Zaremba said.

“I was a Phillips 66 marketer for 28 years, but I couldn’t market some things that we wanted to that were from our local community. Under contract, I couldn’t do that, and I thought it was more important to keep our jobs and dollars in our local community than be branded Phillips 66.”

In 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency determined that all light-duty cars, trucks and SUVs made in 2001 or later should safely be able run on E15 gasoline, according to the EPA’s website. Those model year

Photo by Meagan Patton-Paulson/The Ottawa Herald

The interior of the Zarco USA convenience store, 2518 E. Logan St., features bright colors and tropical music, Scott Zaremba, Zarco owner, said, as well as healthful food options. “In a community when we are all trying to get healthy, convenient choices is what our goals are,” Zaremba said. vehicles represent about twothirds of all vehicles on the road and nearly three-fourths of all miles driven, the EPA states.

Last year, Zaremba received national recognition for his clean energy efforts.

He was awarded the Renewable Fuels Association’s Ethanol Industry Award in February 2013 for his commitment to expanding fuel choices for Kansans.

As one of the leaders in renewable energy, Zarco USA also is focused on keeping dollars spent in the community, Zaremba said.

“We sell fuels that, a portion of them are manufactured right here in our regional community. Some are manufactured in Garnett,” he said. “The products we sell are cleaner and burn cleaner, and it’s better for our financial economy and better for our health.”

Zaremba said his company is

shifting focus to more consumer education and awareness, to educate residents about the benefits of E15 and E85.

“Most people don’t even know what they are, so [education] is now our No. 1 goal,” he said.

An oasis Peach Madl owns the Sandbar Sub shop at the Logan Street Zarco location, which offers made-fresh sandwiches, salads and other edibles.

“We’re all trying to lose some weight, so we decided it had to be something we could eat at work,” Madl told The Herald shortly after the shop opened.

“We use fresh products, and everything is produced there locally,” Zaremba said of the sub shop. “It takes more people and keeps more money in our economy to provide fresh, made-to-order products in our community.”

Kristi Lee, Franklin County Tourism and Visitors Bureau executive director, said she definitely appreciates the more healthful menu, as well as the welcoming appeal for visitors on Ottawa’s doorstep.

“I would like to think that those are our front-line people,” Lee said. “If somebody’s coming through, hopefully [staff members] are referring them downtown to keep them a little longer and hopefully draw people in to staying here in the community an extra one or two hours or even a few hours.”

Zarco also is a big contributor to the local tax base, Lee said, which helps the overall economic vitality of the community.

“It’s just fun and inviting, and [people] feel good about stopping there,” Lee said. “And I think that’s what they are trying to convey, and I think they’ve done a good job at that.”

That aura definitely was developed with a purpose in mind, Zaremba said, as he hopes the station can be more for customers than just another trip to the gas station.

“You walk in, you hear tropical music, and sometimes that’s a fun environment to be in,” he said. “You see them dancing at the pumps and hope you make it a better experience for them.”

Jeff Seymour, Franklin County Development Council director, called Zarco the “gateway into the community,” and commended its management’s constant willingness to try something new.

“They are known for their marketing and branding, and it pulls people in off the interstate and gets them to spend money here, and those are tax dollars that directly go back to the greater Franklin County community,” Seymour said.

Poncho’s owner vows to keep restaurant local

By DYLAN LYSEN

in any way it can, he said.

“We do a lot with organizations throughout the city, throughout the county,” Redeker said. “We’re always willing to help out,

Herald Staff Writer

Poncho’s is unique to Ottawa, Bob Redeker said.

And he plans to keep it that way.

Redeker has been asked to open additional locations for the downtown Mexican restaurant in other cities outside Kansas, he said, but he never plans to expand Poncho’s of Ottawa beyond its current home at 429 S. Main St. “We have lots of people who moved away and come back and tell me we need to move one to Chicago, or Florida, or Osage City, or Topeka, or here or there,” Redeker said. “A lot of people, whenever they come back, we’re one of the places they want to go.”

When Redeker bought the restaurant about three years ago, it already was an established business in town, but his purchase made the business more local, he said, because the previous owners were operating out of Paola. After taking over, Redeker said, he began transforming Poncho’s, adding items to the menu, remodeling the restaurant and becoming active with local organizations to help out the community of Ottawa whenever possible.

“I’m just really proud of us being locally owned,” Redeker said.

Redeker said hiring and retaining employees who were from the local community helped the restaurant expand its local roots deeper into the public conscience. He said people feel more comfortable about a local restaurant when they come in and see the same people who

whether it’s a fundraiser for a baseball team or a child or a relative, because there are a lot of people out there who need a lot of different things.”

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Classic cars line the street in front of Poncho’s of Ottawa, 429 S. Main St. Owner Bob Redeker said one of the draws of the downtown Mexican restaurant is the familiar faces of his staff.

“When people come in, they recognize a lot of faces from year after year they’re there,” he said. “I think that’s comforting to a lot of people and they like to see that.” served them previously.

“Something I think we’ve done really well is hiring and retaining a core group of people,” Redeker said.

“When people come in, they recognize a lot of faces from year after year they’re there. I think that’s comforting to a lot of people and they like to see that.”

Corporate restaurants are not a threat to Poncho’s, Redeker said, because he doesn’t have time to get concerned about what the big chains are doing. Diners really like the idea of local restaurants in communities like Ottawa, he said, and that helps both the restaurant and the city.

“I don’t really worry about them too much,” Redeker said. “In the restaurant business, there are so many different things going on you really have to worry about taking

care of yourself. Because what other restaurants are doing you can’t control, and you just need to worry about yourself.”

Poncho’s recently was recognized for its local services with the Quarterly Image Award given to restaurant employee Charlene Martin. The award, given by the Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce, recognizes community members who go the extra mile for customer service.

Redeker said only one of his employees lives outside of Franklin County.

“Almost all of my workforce lives in Franklin County,” Redeker said.

“That’s really important because the dollars you spend here are actually staying here.”

The restaurant tries to help with organizations throughout the community

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Weekender, February 22-23, 2014 Page S7

Progress 2014

Walmart delivers community connections

By ABBY ECKEL Herald Staff Writer

The Walmart Logistics family is unlike any other.

Walmart employs more than a million people company-wide, but each location has a way of making employees feel less like a number, and more like family, Tina Albers, general manager at Walmart Logistics, 3300 K-68, Ottawa, said.

“We really try to get to know our associates as people and not just a name on the roster,” Albers said.

“It’s a little different for me as the general manager with managing over 800 people, but I try to get to know them as well as I can.”

Taking care of one another in the work place goes further than just working together, Albers said, as associates go the extra step to care for one another.

“We do have associates in critical need and the ‘critical need trust fund’ came out of associates that said ‘We want to give back and help each other in major life crises,’” Albers said. “That program started out as managers [putting money into the program], and when the associates found out they said, ‘Hey we want to give too,’ and that shows the heart and dedication they have for each other.”

The critical need trust allows for associates to have money taken out of each paycheck to go toward the fund to help fellow associates, Dianna Gee, Walmart spokesperson, said.

‘That’s not how we view ourselves’ Community plays a large role in the Walmart family and the corporation organizes many events to give back to the communi-

“We live here and work here and we want to be involved and have been blessed with our resources.”

— Tina Albers, general manager, Walmart Logistics

Courtesy photo

Philip Null, Walmart private fleet truck driver, stands in front of a truck in a Walmart warehouse.

Walmart truck drivers have a special volunteer program called Walmart Heart that allows the truck drivers, along with Walmart management, to choose a child within the Walmart family suffering from health issues, to make them an honorary Walmart driver for the day, Martin Walker, general transportation manager at Walmart Logistics, 3300 K-68, Ottawa, said. ties it serves, Albers said.

“We have a program called Volunteerism Always Pays (VAP),” Albers said. “We did five events which equals $25,000 local dollars that went to Central Heights, Osawatomie Public Library, ECKAN, Harvesters, Anderson County Junior Senior High School, West Franklin Middle School and we accumulated 1,423 volunteer hours out of that VAP.” Each associate can participate in four VAP programs a year, Albers said, which has led to big donations for local organizations and a lot of volunteer hours.

“We had 97 [individual VAPs] turned in this year which then gave back $24,250 to the community and accumulated 4,575 hours of service,” Albers said. “We also do local

community contributions with 14 different organizations like the children’s literature festival for the schools, D.A.R.E camp and 14 of those equals $40,000 for total between events, VAPs, individual VAPs and we locally gave $89,250 back to our local communities.”

Walmart is a large corporation, but even with locations across the globe, Albers said the corporation doesn’t feel like the giant everyone thinks it is.

“I think when people think of Walmart, they think of us as this huge corporation, which we are, but at the local level that’s not how we view ourselves,” she said. “We view ourselves as members of the community and we want to get involved in the community. We don’t want to be the great big person

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on the outskirts of town — we live here and work here and we want to be involved and have been blessed with our resources. We feel it vital we give back some of that to our communities.”

Walmart has heart Special Olympics Kansas Healthy Communities Program was a recent recipient of a $25,000 grant from Walmart, according to a press release. The Walmart Kansas State Giving Program awarded nearly $610,000 to Kansas nonprofits at a presentation in Topeka, the release said.

The grant is expected to help individuals with intellectual disabilities by providing health screenings, exercise programs and referrals for advanced medical treatment, Corazon Ochanda, director of the program, said.

U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., attended the presentation, as did Walmart executives, associates and 13 non-profits, according to the release.

“Walmart’s investing in our non-profits’ future endeavors showcases Walmart’s devotion to the well-being of our state,” Roberts said. “These nonprofits are a lifeline for those in need across Kansas and we are grateful for their unwavering service and dedication to helping others.”

Another program Walmart offers for children is the Walmart Heart Program — a program close to the Walmart truck drivers’ hearts.

Along with the management team, Walmart drivers look within the Walmart family to find someone having health issues that could use some help, Martin Walker, gen-

eral transportation manager at Walmart Logistics in Ottawa, said.

“It’s dealing with teens or children who have critical health issues to brighten their day,” Walker said. “We sponsor these children and make them a Walmart honorary driver for a day that consists of the uniform, fully dressed — shirt, slacks, hats — we’ll go to a function or community center and normally come with cakes, cupcakes or donuts.”

Oftentimes, the event honoring the child is organized at his or her school, Martin said, where school supplies like paper, crayons, art supplies and even tablets are donated.

“Then there’s a ceremony that is set up around a general assembly that lasts maybe 30 to 45 minutes,” Walker said. “The drivers would come and managers show up and we talk about the recipient, not from the illness aspect, but why they were selected to be an honorary driver for the day. Families are there to support them and that kid — you can see them glowing during the whole event.

Then there’s a last minute truck ride where we take them on about a 20 minute truck ride.”

The Walmart Heart Program is just one way the corporation gives back to not only communities, but the families within Walmart, Dianna Gee, said.

“The Walmart Heart Program is helping not just from a financial perspective, but by taking care of families because we couldn’t do what we do without our families,” Gee said.

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Progress

Page S8

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

CARSTAR owners: It isn’t all about business

By MEAGAN PATTON-PAULSON Herald Connections Editor

“We have no community to serve if we don’t support them,” Lou Baker said.

And that support, Baker and her husband, Jeff Baker, co-owners of CARSTAR, said, includes encouraging healthful behavior of their business’ employees and customers.

“CARSTAR itself actually promotes safe driving because — sure if you need somebody to fix your car, we want to be the one — but we’d really rather have you not have an accident to begin with,” Lou Baker said.

The Bakers have owned the CARSTAR auto body shop, 107 N. Main St., exactly one year this month, they said. Including themselves, the business supports five other full-time employees.

CARSTAR purchased the former Burnett Automotive business at that location in 2001, and later was sold as a franchise to one owner before the Bakers purchased it.

Jeff Baker worked as a longtime manager of the shop before making the decision to become an owner.

“Automotive is all he’s ever done,” Lou Baker said. “He started out dusting parts bins in Garnett when he was 14. He always knew he wanted to do it, and when the opportunity became available, we talked about it and saved our money and decided to do it.”

The shop also houses Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which rents space from the Bakers.

“It makes it convenient for the customers if they need a rental car. They don’t need to go anywhere,” Lou Baker said.

“It’s right here.”

Safe driving Baker said part of her business’ aim at focusing on health is the emphasis it puts on safe driving. By updating the business’ Facebook page with the latest weather warnings, roadway conditions and driving tips, she hopes people can avoid a trip downtown for body work.

“We really don’t want anybody hurt,” she said.

But in the case of an accident or emergency, Baker urges people to use CARSTAR’s national number, 1-800-CARSTAR. “This summer we had a guy who was on his way up to Wichita from Wellsville and hit a deer, and his car was not drivable,” Baker said, of the man who eventually called the toll-free number. “The tow truck got him and brought him here. And by the time he got here, we had already talked to his insurance

Photo by Meagan Patton-Paulson/The Ottawa Herald

Lou and Jeff Baker, co-owners of CARSTAR, stand together at the auto body shop, 107 N. Main St., Ottawa. The two purchased the business a year ago. company, we had a rental car waiting for him, he signed a little bit of paperwork and was back on the road in less than an hour.

The whole idea is to make it painless when it does happen.”

Part of being a body shop, Baker said, is respecting the trust that customers put in the business to keep them safe on the road.

“Their car is returned to them in as good or better condition than it was five minutes before the accident, because you don’t want anybody unsafe,” Baker said. “If somebody comes by for an estimate, and their headlight is busted out, for example, they’re not road safe. So even if we can’t fix their car right away, we will fix your headlight so you can drive your car home. We don’t want anybody out there unsafe. That just creates more problems.”

Giving back Keeping money in the community and buying local is important to Jeff Baker, he said.

“All of our building

insurance, everything like that, we buy locally,” he said. “As far as putting money back into the community, we do that too.

Everything we can possibly buy in town, we buy in town.”

Along those lines, the Bakers are further invested in the community by helping others in such programs as Valentines for Veterans — delivering valentines to shut-in veterans — and donating a CARSTAR clock to the Ottawa Community Recreation Center/Goppert Building, 705 W. 15th St. Lou Baker also has multiple events she’s in the process of planning, she said, including a bicycle rodeo to promote youth bicycle safety on the road, senior citizen workshops that include seat adjustment and fluid level checks, and a recycled rides program, where the business will donate a car to someone in the community.

“We haven’t hammered it all out yet, but we want to involve several different businesses and have a lot of people be a part of it,” she said.

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Employees’ health Another part of being a successful business, Baker said, is taking care of employees’ health.

“You’re going to get treated as well as you treat them,” she said.

At least once a month, the company plays host to a free lunch for its employees, she said, and just this month, she paid for a meal for her employees who volunteered to donate blood at Ransom Memorial Hospital, 1301 S. Main St., Ottawa,

during a recent shortage.

“We need the blood,” she said of the reason she supported her employees’

donation. “God forbid, somebody I knew and was in an accident, and we’ve seen some terrible cars.

We know. ... Anytime you take out of a community, you have to put back in the community. I’ve always felt that way.”

The employees also are required to wear the proper safety equipment while working, adhering to guidelines set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We really want to take care of them,” Jeff Baker said. “We have an awesome crew. They’re dependable. Every one of them has an awesome attitude every day.”

The Bakers have two children — one of whom will graduate from Ottawa High School this year — and one grandchild.

In their spare time, they plan to focus on growing CARSTAR’s employment and customer base right up until the day they retire.

“Now we’ve got a lot more time, we can really make this place grow,” Jeff Baker said.

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Progress

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

Page S9

Dealers building better buys, selections and connections

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Keeping it local Buying locally from the dealership doesn’t just help Ottawa Chrysler Dodge Ram Jeep, Dalton said, it helps other businesses in the community as well.

“We made a commitment when we took over that we were going to give the City of Ottawa as much of our business as we can and we’ve provided that,” he said. “We have local printers doing our printing work which is substantial.

The construction work going to be done on the exterior is a local builder.

We’re trying to take advantage of local businesses and pass it around.”

Building up Small Town, USA, is important to any small community with businesses trying to compete with the big guys in the city, he said.

“We need to take care of one another,” Dalton said. “Up in the bigger metropolitan area, that loyalty’s not there. If we’re all gonna survive in the community, we need to take care of one another.

It has to happen.”

Purchasing a vehicle locally keeps the money in the community, Dalton said, which is just a small piece of the bigger pie.

“The taxes we’re collecting here goes back to the community both in the sales and service side,” he said. “The amount of people buying cars here and paying sales tax — that money gets put back into the community. The sales tax — you’re keeping those dollars here and anybody who is a business owner here or works for the city or county or a job that comes from city or county taxes, I would truly expect them to shop [in town] first because we’re helping to pay their income.”

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Troy Dalton, general manager at Ottawa Chrysler Dodge Ram Jeep, leans against a 2014 Dodge Durango inside the dealership, 327 W. 23rd St., Ottawa. After coming under new ownership in early October, Dalton said, the business has seen numerous changes. The dealership tries to use as many local businesses as possible for its needs, Dalton said, such as hiring a local contractor for work on the building exterior and hiring local print suppliers.

Keeping business local is what contributes to the overall health and betterment of the community, Dalton said.

“We need to take care of one another.”

— Troy Dalton, general manager, Ottawa Chrysler Dodge Ram Jeep

A personal experience Having a personal buying experience is something that can’t be found in the big city, Dalton said, and is the kind of attitude he tries to foster for any car buyer’s experience.

“I love Ramsey Printing and Didde’s for having that personalized service,” he said. “I can call them up and tell Kent [Ramsey], ‘Hey, I need 250 buyers orders or logos,’ and he knows what I want now.

Same way with Didde’s.”

Larry Kaub agrees that a special encounter when purchasing something is a rare gem in small towns, he said.

“Say you go to a big RV dealer in the city, you’re gonna deal with several different people,” Kaub, owner of Midwest RV, 313 W. Wilson St., Ottawa, said.

“The owner of the business isn’t going to shake your hand — he’s probably in Hawaii. I’m there every day, 12 hours a day. It’s a hands-on deal and it’s more of a personal relationship than a business one.”

Central RV is expected to move to the former Crist Auto building at K-68 and I-35 by mid-March, he said, which should add to the customer experience. Making customers feel comfortable and at home when making a purchase should be part of the business, Kaub said, it’s not just

about seeing dollar signs.

“When they come in, we treat them like people and not just a customer,” Kaub said. “We try to treat everybody equally and we’re not just out to get their money. We help them out and do everything we can to make everything good for everybody.”

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Formerly South Star Chrysler, Ottawa Chrysler Dodge Ram Jeep came under new ownership in early October 2013, and along with new ownership came a few changes.

“To me, the big part about it is, you go to the stores that have a big, elaborate, beautiful facility and all it is is just a front,” he said. “Most people don’t realize somebody has to pay for that and usually the people who do is the consumer.

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Progress

Page S10

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

145-year-old news provider takes civic role seriously, adapts to changing times for media

By DOUG CARDER Herald Senior Writer

Newspapers have been recognized for generations as cornerstones of their communities — big and small — by their supporters and detractors.

The press, sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate, can trace this distinction to the late 1700s in Great Britain when statesman Edmund Burke said during a Parliamentary debate there were “Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the reporters’ gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all,” Thomas Carlyle wrote in his book “On Heroes and Hero Worship.”

Though it cannot date its roots to the 1700s, The Ottawa Herald has served as a stakeholder in the community for 145 years.

“A vibrant newspaper is a cornerstone of a flourishing community,” Jeanny Sharp, Herald editor and publisher, said. “The Herald serves as a key stakeholder in helping the community flourish and grow by communicating in a timely, relevant and understandable manner about the important and not-soimportant people, organizations and other aspects of their community and its surrounding areas via news, photos and even advertising messages. This provides a common language and level of understanding about a community.”

Advocacy and leadership on the editorial page can foster needed action on issues of concern to a community too, Sharp said.

“Communities without a strong editorial voice often are rudderless,” she said.

“You don’t want to have to rely on the grapevine [for news].”

— John Coen, president and chief executive officer, Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce

File photo/The Ottawa Herald

The Herald’s former downtown building at 106-108 S. Main Street, Ottawa, is shown in a historic photo depicting the Victorian-era structure. The news provider’s roots in Ottawa date back to 1869, when the paper first began to take shape amid a crowded market of daily and weekly publications. Nearly 150 years later, The Herald remains the dominant source of news information in Ottawa and Franklin County. The newspaper is known as one of the best in state, having won the Kansas Press Association’s prestigious Sweepstakes award in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

“We’ve been rewarded with our highest readership numbers ever across all the various platforms we utilize to deliver content to our readers 24/7,” Sharp said. “Our innovation and intentional steps forward helps propel the community forward too, plus it makes it unnecessary for government and public entities to duplicate those services.”

The Herald also strives to be a good corporate citizen, Sharp said, through its commitment to the truth and its mission to help the community.

“The Herald provided more than $50,000 in goods and services to the community during the past year,” Sharp said. “Those services aided the community’s growth and well-being. Our

company’s Ottawa origins ensure we provide better publications than what the community supports financially.”

The Herald facilitates commerce, which is incredibly important, though often taken for granted, Sharp said.

“Whether we are supporting an after-prom event, Habitat for Humanity’s Brush with Kindness, the Franklin County Reading Council’s Literacy Festival or even the coming Swan Arts Festival we want to give a hand up rather than a handout to organizations and their constituents,” she said.

“We believe that a rising tide helps all ships and that’s how we operate every day.”

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Community role The Herald takes its civic role of promoting the general welfare of the community seriously, though it isn’t easy to accomplish, Sharp said.

“We are part of a capitalistic society and we have to be fiscally responsible in order to provide the goods and services that the community wants and needs, plus we have to do it equitably,” Sharp said. “It requires great equanimity to maintain the balance, particularly between organizations providing similar services without one getting upset about what the other one gets.”

The Herald contributes to the health of the community by showing leadership, Sharp said.

“Recently when no one organization stepped forward to lead efforts for the city of Ottawa’s sesquicentennial [150th birthday] recognition and celebration, The Herald decided to do so,” Sharp said. “We don’t have any more time and resources than others, but knew we couldn’t let this significant milestone occur without paying homage to it. We now, with the aid of the Franklin County Historical Society and many other organizations, will ensure something happens to record and celebrate this achievement.”

The Herald, established in 1869, connects people and affirms a sense of community through its coverage of local events, Sharp said.

“It is hard to put on a party of any kind if no one shows up,” Sharp said.

“The Herald’s news and advertising coverage of local events spreads the word faster and better to a large, diverse audience more effectively than any singular website, social media post or even other medium can do locally because we touch the varied groups that live here.

“This area’s high number of commuters means we have a lot of residents who sleep here, but are unable to participate in other daily activities so they depend on The Herald to be the conduit to keep them

220 S. Main St, Ottawa, KS 66067 File photo/The Ottawa Herald

Tommy Felts, Herald managing editor, Doug Carder, Herald senior writer, Bobby Burch, former Herald multimedia manager, and Jeanny Sharp, Herald editor and publisher, accept the 2014 Burton W. Marvin Kansas News Enterprise Award presented to the newspaper Feb. 7 by the William Allen White Foundation at the University of Kansas. The Herald was honored for its coverage of the 2013 arrest and subsequent courtroom drama of the then-Franklin County sheriff, as well as the newspaper’s fight to unseal court records related to the case. “We could ignore politically sensitive issues, but we boldly investigate issues where some people would just as soon have us mind our own business,” Sharp said. engaged with their community,” she said. “That connectedness is cemented by keeping stakeholders focused on the bigger picture with a horizontal mind set rather than simply a vertical approach.”

John Coen recognized the importance of The Herald serving as a conduit of information, he said.

It is important for Ottawa to have a news organization like the newspaper to gather and disseminate information in a reliable and credible fashion, Coen, Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce president and chief executive officer, said.

Through the years, Coen said, The Herald has served as a credible source of news, with trained professionals covering and reporting on community events and other news of importance to the community.

Communities that have lost their newspapers often have to rely on social media and coffee groups to get their information — rather than from trained professionals, Coen said.

“You don’t want to have to rely on the grapevine [for news],” Coen said.

Covering the news Providing coverage of local events creates a strong sense of community pride, Sharp said.

“We can spread the word to a large audience via our print, digital, mobile, social media and other methods that often become part of an even larger footprint via other media,”

Sharp said. “For example, The Herald’s original story about Plaza [theater] being the oldest operating cinema in America eventually spread to Lawrence, Topeka, Kansas City and well beyond regional boundaries. Similarly, The Herald’s virtual outreach is significant, often reaching more than 30,000 unique visitors each month. That’s a powerful outreach for both news and advertising messages.”

The Herald’s reporting efforts, particularly those of an enterprise and investigative nature, keep people’s finger on the pulse of local government as well as the local impact of state and national affairs, Sharp said.

“We could ignore politically sensitive issues, but we boldly investigate issues where some people would just as soon have us mind our own business,” Sharp said. “On the editorial page, we may get a little provocative trying to engage the public in an issue they need to know about. Our integrated strategic marketing specialization through our Studio 104 advertising agency aids local businesses and organizations to promote themselves subsequently helping the community flourish and grow.”

Forward thinking Social media has forced newspapers across the United States to reinvent themselves. The Herald is no different, Sharp said.

“We help the community flourish by never standing still,” she said. “We rarely

are satisfied with status quo and continue to ask for more from other key stakeholders on behalf of the community. We also help by innovating. We easily could stay in the background and just have a print publication — the newspaper — but we are a media company with a heart that keeps pushing forward. We added website capability, then digital, social media, e-newsletters and video proficiency, followed by mobile adeptness and soon we’ll have another online channel for more community video outreach.

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Progress

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

Page S11

Housing market reflects health

By CLINTON DICK Herald Staff Writer

If a community isn’t growing, it’s dying, Cal Lantis said.

With 24 years of experience in the real estate business, Lantis, the broker/owner of Century 21, 2141 S. Princeton St., Ottawa, said there’s a clear connection between overall community health and the local housing market.

“If you aren’t growing, if you are not putting up new houses, new rooftops, then the community just stagnates, retail doesn’t grow,” he said. “If you don’t have a vibrant housing market, it is really hard to have a vibrant community.”

Local diagnosis The Ottawa real estate market has changed since Lantis’ early days in the business, he said.

The area saw a phenomenal housing boom in the early 2000s, he said, but Lantis didn’t suffer as bad as other markets across the country when the nationwide recession hit in 2008, and the bottom fell out of real estate for many investors, homeowners and Realtors.

“The national housing market is recovering,” Lantis said. “Ottawa didn’t have a really bad slump because we hadn’t grown at the rate some of the areas you read about in the paper had grown. So, while we had a slump, it wasn’t as bad as some of the slumps in other parts of the country. We did have a lot of foreclosures, but they were mostly foreclosures in not the most expensive housing in the community. That seems to have stabilized. In fact we probably have less foreclosures than we’ve had in the past.

“As far as our market now, our market is going up. Our biggest problem now, what is driving our prices now is a lack of inventory. The city will say they’ve had a few building permits, but not over one or two a year. We haven’t seen a project where someone has come in and opened up lots and built five or six new houses a year to stimulate the economy, so our increases here I think are artificial and somewhat due to lack of inventory.”

Don Burroughs, managing broker at Crown Realty, 336 S. Main St., Ottawa, said, while housing isn’t flourishing in Ottawa, the market is on the rise.

“It appears to be coming back and there is more activity,” Burroughs said.

“It has been slow. ... [The market] is usually pretty even. There are times where there is more activity than others. The thing that is not going on in Ottawa is there is not any

“If you don’t have a vibrant housing market, it is really hard to have a vibrant community.”

— Cal Lantis, broker owner, Century 21 construction going on. The builders have just kind of backed off.”

In 2013, Burroughs 316 homes were sold in Franklin County, 224 of which were in Ottawa. That’s up from 242 sold in the county in 2012, according to a 2013 year in review Ottawa real estate report by Tammy Ellis, associate broker at Century 21. As of Jan. 2, 2014, Ottawa has 11 active listings with an average listing price of $120,000 and 13 pending sales, the report said.

Community tie-in One of the most important aspects of a thriving housing market is that it brings in new people to a community, Lantis said.

New residents don’t just add fresh faces to the community, but also bring in a better economic outlook for the area.

“First of all, if the market is improving, it improves the assessed valuation of the community,” Lantis said. “All local budgets are based on the assessed valuation, so their revenues go up. That is how it benefits the government in the county. My opinion on how it benefits the community, it brings new people, it brings new mix into the community.

The more new ideas you get in a community, again, the more vibrant the community is.

“I think we’ve seen a large turnover. Kids don’t want to live where their parents live, so they move on. To keep the population steady or growing, you’ve got to have new people come into the community, and we’ve been pretty lucky because when you look at some of the employers in the area and some of the things that have happened in the area, we’ve really had a diverse influx of people in the community in the last few years.

So, I think it has been very good for the community.”

In contrast, Lantis noted that a struggling housing market easily can hurt a community, as well as have negative impacts on local government.

“In a declining market, as appraisals go down, as there is no expansion of the tax base, then of course there are less tax dollars coming in and local governments have had to do that the last few years,” he said. “They’ve had to really watch their spending. One of the issues really a lot of

people don’t take into account is sales tax. I mean, if there aren’t people buying lots of lumber or doing lots of things, if the economy is struggling because of the housing market people won’t spend as much. If people don’t spend as much, they don’t pay as much sales tax. If they don’t pay as much sales tax, that in turn hurts governments that are dependent, in our case that would be city, county and state, that hurts them in sales tax revenue.”

Challenging forecast Looking ahead, Lantis said, he’s skeptical Ottawa’s housing market will return to the great days remembered fondly from the turn of the century, but market factors still make him optimistic, he said. “[In the near future], the outlook is probably not too good,” Lantis said.

“Again, it is good if you are the seller of a house on resale, but if you are coming into town to look at building houses, our cost per square foot of sold houses, houses that you would be

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So, a builder is not going to build here.

“You can’t expand your workforce if you don’t have places for them to live. One of the things that industries look for is where their employees are going to live if they decide to come to a community.

So, that could negatively impact [the community].

You get amenities and you get retail growth based on rooftops and if you are not producing more rooftops, retailers will choose to go places where the communities are growing.”

Still, everything about the market could change at a moment’s notice, Lantis said.

“This could all turn around tomorrow,” he said. “A major manufacturer could decide to expand either here or close to here. That could benefit us. ... I mean there are lots of ways to stimulate housing. Lots of ways.”

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Progress

Page S12

Weekender, February 22-23, 2014

QSI builds on community-based approach

By ABBY ECKEL Herald Staff Writer

RICHMOND — It’s about taking care of the people who take care of you, Rob Pearce said.

Pearce, owner of Quality Structures, Inc., 167 U.S. 59, Richmond, said giving back to the communities that support his QSI is an important part of any good business model.

“I think that’s part of being a good corporate citizen — you give back to the community that gives to you,” Pearce said. “It’s just a business principle whoever’s running the business needs to adhere to.”

He bought the business back in 2010 from Reuben Esh, Pearce said, and has maintained the same staff and values as Esh. “[Esh] wanted to sell the company, and at the time I was the general manager, so he approached me and asked if I had an interest in buying the company,” he said. “I think his primary thought was if someone internally bought it, it would perpetuate and maintain the same strategies and principles and ensure all the people working here at that time would continue to have a job versus someone coming in from the outside and maybe doing something different with it.”

QSI now serves Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa, Pearce said, specializing in post-frame buildings. He plans to open two new branch offices this year.

The main office and central hub is in Richmond, Pearce said, but the business also has offices in Haven, Kan., Glenwood, Iowa, Columbia, Mo., and plans to open an office in Garden City, Kan., and Grand Island, Neb., later this year.

“Currently we employ right at 80 individuals full time, and at the end of the year we’ll have close to 100,” he said. “Here in Richmond, I think we’ve got about 40 full-time employees at the main plant because all buildings are assembled here and shipped out of this location, so it’s kind of our central hub. Every building we sell originates from here.”

Tight-knit family With employees at three locations and soon to be five, Pearce said, he strives to hire locally wherever the location might be.

“We always hire local,” he said. “We look for those people who are the right person for the right job and we have been fortunate that we’ve found a lot of good, qualified people here in the Franklin County and Anderson County areas. Most employees live within 15 to 20 minutes of us.”

Giving back not only applies to the communities the business serves, Pearce said, but also to the people it employs.

“We’re still a familyrun business,” he said.

“We’ve got a culture that’s family-oriented. We do a lot of things together and try and foster that whole attitude of once you join us, we’re going to help you whatever way we can and we like to maintain that small-town atmosphere within our culture. About any branch you go to, the individuals that work there will be local people that have been hired out of the local basis.”

The tight-knit relationships and family culture is part of what drew Kelley Hennessey to QSI five years ago, she said. “[Esh and Pearce’s] high ethical standards was one of the most important things that attracted me to QSI in that I can work for this company and feel good about it,” Hennessey, office manager, said. “And the people I work with — there isn’t anyone here that isn’t fun and good to work with. We try to hire

Photos by Abby Eckel/The Ottawa Herald

ABOVE: A QSI employee works to load up supplies on a truck to be sent out for a job. QSI currently is working to provide materials to the Colony Diner, Colony, Rob Pearce, owner said. The diner burned down in November and QSI has the diner’s materials on a faster time frame than most other business’s to get the materials to the diner as quickly as possible, Pearce said.

LEFT: QSI employees battle frigid wind temperatures and snow on the ground while loading windows onto a truck.

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It’s really a family-oriented environment. We care about each other and it’s not just a job we go to. No matter your position here, we’re trying to promote this business and make it be the best it can be.”

Community action Giving back isn’t just about hiring employees locally, but about being active in the community and helping others, Pearce said.

“We’re extremely involved in the community,” Pearce said. “We stress taking care of our customers and they’ll take care of you. We do a lot of things both from a volunteer stand point and from the donation of materials, labor, donations of financial resources to a number of local organizations.”

Providing materials to get to the Colony Diner in Anderson County quickly after it caught fire a few months ago is just one example of how QSI helps its customers, Pearce said.

“The things that’s unique about that job,” Pearce said, “is that when we see somebody who has an emergency need, we typically try to respond to those emergency requests and maybe put them ahead of somebody who doesn’t have the need of the individual who might have a home that burnt down or a diner that’s burnt down.

It’s peoples’ livelihood and until they get their restaurant going again, they’re not taking in any money.”

The business also has worked on projects with the Professionals Helping Children organization, building a structure for Prairie Paws Animal Shelter, 3173 K-68, as well as donating material to build a shed to store sports equipment at Orlis Cox Sports Complex, Beech

Street and West K-68, Pearce said.

Hennessey said the company always adopts a family or child during Christmastime as well — something that has become sort of a tradition.

“In December, around Christmas, we always adopt a family and have done that three years in a row now that we adopted a family from Anderson County and everyone brings gifts,” she said. “A lot of times in Franklin County we’ve had people come and need assistance and we’ve had employees go and give their skills and go help put up a small shed in a local area.”

The idea of taking care of his employees and the communities his business serves goes back to his own personal development, Pearce said.

“I guess a lot of that comes from my roots and the way I was raised,” he said. “Having had the benefit of working in several companies over the years, it seemed to me that those companies that take care of their employees and

take time to get to know their employees and help their employees through whatever needs they have, just have a better, stable, more productive work force and I think that’s a benefit to having that type of culture — it’s investment on my part and the company’s part, but I think the dividends are always repaid.”

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