When asked how business has changed over the years, Pike County Co-op manager Tom Tolar summed it up pretty succinctly.
For one thing, he said, just take a look at the sparkly women’s shoes on display in front of the Christmas tree, next to the toys and hunting gear.
“This place was started in 1943, and can you imagine one of the founding members walking in this building now and seeing what we sell compared to what they were doing?” he said.
Tolar, who’s been in the co-op business for the past four decades, has witnessed a lot of the changes in which the co-op has gone from being just a feed store to that and a whole lot more.
The co-op is owned by about 500 member-farmers who hail from Pike County and the surrounding area, but its customer base is a lot bigger than that.
“Our main mission and goal is to supply our farmer-owners with feed, chemicals and other supplies,” Tolar said.
Other items on sale — clothing, hunting gear, boots, horse tack, pet supplies, Bayou Classic cookers, Yeti coolers, Stihl power tools, Circle E candles — help make up for the lull in sales that’s bound to happen when the planting season is done.
“Used to, after Thanksgiving and until spring the co-op business used to be fairly dead except for feed sales,” Tolar said. “We did things like build stores like this, put apparel in them, put home decor in them, put hunting supplies and clothing and that type of thing to help us be more profitable during the slow months.”
Destine Shaw, who’s responsible for most of the apparel and other retail items in the store, outlined one of her retail tactics: “My goal was to have things for the women who were married to the farmers who were coming in.”
Some of that includes a wide selection of rugged clothing from Carhartt and local company Freak Outdoors; jeans by Wrangler, Cinch, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Cowgirl Tuff and Cool Girl; and boots by Lariat, Twisted X, Muck, LaCrosse, Corral and Smoky Mountain Boots.
“We’ve been doing really well here the past couple of weeks, people getting ready for Christmas and (buying) stocking stuffers,” Shaw said.
The co-op also has some “big toys,” as Tolar described his selection of Hustler, Gravely and Ferris zero-turn lawnmowers.
The store has plenty of gear for hunters, including tree stands, feeders, cameras, ammunition and clothing.
“And, of course, being in the feed business, the corn and the stuff to go in the feeders, we’ve got that,” Tolar said.
After all, while planting and harvesting of crops may be done with for now, the harvesting of deer is in full swing during the off season.
Tolar is grateful deer — whether they be attached to Santa’s sleigh delivering Christmas goodies, or to the bed of a pickup truck — will keep customers coming in the door.
“Thank God for the white-tailed deer,” he said.
