The year 1979 was pressure-packed. Iranian militants overran the U.S. Embassy and held Americans hostage in Tehran. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. At Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, a coolant accident caused a partial meltdown. The U.S. annual inflation rate was at 11 percent and rising. That summer, fears of an energy shortage caused lines to form at gas stations around the country.
We might call it the beginning of a construction empire, we could say the growth of a new generation of business owners, and there’s certainly no doubt it’s an example of the Midwestern work ethic paying off.
Business owners aren’t exempted from personal pain. They also can face death and dying, physical and emotional traumas, financial challenges, divorces, swirling relational vortexes, and unfairly get their chains yanked.
For Jay McAninch, it’s not about bows and arrows. It’s family and teamwork. McAninch (pronounced MAC-an-inch), president/CEO of the Archery Trade Association for the last 12 years, manages an organization of about 600 manufacturer members, a few thousand retail members, an annual budget of more than $4 million, and an international headquarters in New Ulm.
The year 1994 was the worst and best of times in the life of Jeff Flood, owner of Calendar Specialists of Minnesota and Sportsman’s Specialties, both operating from his rural North Mankato home.
As for farm size, Singlestad Farms isn’t the region’s biggest. Scott Singlestad farms 700 acres of corn and soybeans, a spread that won’t get many people excited in terms of size. However, the 54-year-old Wasecan does have a great deal of influence in our region and beyond.
Elmer Rolloff wended his way between tables and shelves of boxes containing electrical items most of us have never heard of. He perched on a stool. Toothpick in mouth, he began to tell how the electrical business used to be back when he began seven decades ago.
Driving two-lane Highway 14 over slippery Sleepy Eye snow, across gravelly prairie hinterlands, and just a frozen spit or two north of eye-blink Cobden (pop. 36)—to the edges of the Earth—the wayward traveler spies an army of 6,000 evergreens surrounding the North Pole at the corner of Christmas Tree Lane and Evergreen Boulevard.
As you step through Schmidt’s Meat Market’s doorway under the “Willkommen” sign, the old-time smokehouse aroma quickens your taste buds. You walk past a wall displaying numerous awards, and your eyes feast upon the beef jerky, specialty sausages, fresh meat cuts, and other mouth-watering morsels.
