Times have changed, but Fred’s still here

Fred McKinney delights in stories of the past as he stands among the feed sold at Webb’s Feed and Seed, where he’s been working for the past seven decades. McKinney will be honored with a reception from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday, May 7, at the store. See the story on page 8A of today’s TIMES.
Fred McKinney at work for 70 years

Fred McKinney delights in stories of the past as he stands among the feed sold at Webb’s Feed and Seed, where he’s been working for the past seven decades. McKinney will be honored with a reception from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday, May 7, at the store. See the story on page 8A of today’s TIMES. Fred McKinney at work for 70 years

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

— Fred McKinney says he is “strictly a Pea Ridge native,” born just two miles out of town.

“I turn 89 the 8th of June, so I’m still 88,” he said,and laughed with a wide smile.

Tuesday, April 20, marked McKinney’s 70-year anniversary of employment with Webb’s Feed and Seed in Pea Ridge, a community staple that has been around since 1936.

“I tell people I walked to work then, and I still walk to work now,” he said.

He pauses to hand write a receipt, his hands evident of age and hard work, but steady with the pen.

He speaks with customers about their bulls, his health, their new chickens they just bought from him.

He says “come back soon” from his seat at his desk.

The carbon copy of the receipt is placed on a nail, atop a pile of others that mark the sale of feed, eggs, chickens, plants or seeds.

There is no computer on McKinney’s desk.

McKinney grabs the $20 bill he was just paid, takes a deep breath and slowly gets up from his chair. His knee was replaced in 1990, but according to him, “it’s worn out.”

He walks to the cash register across the small office. He said he doesn’t know how old it is, at least 100 years, but it still works.

Since the last milestone anniversary of 60 years celebrated in 2000, McKinney said things have changed.

“We went into hard times, the economy haschanged,” he said. “The customers changed, they’re people I don’t know. There are more houses, more people,more traffic.

There’s feed stores all over Rogers and Bentonville and Garfield.”

When he first started working at Hugh Webb Sr.’s Electric Hatchery and Feed in 1940, the town of Pea Ridge was home to a mere 350 residents. The store was in the broiler business, and everything was financed, he said. The business began on one hatchery run by kerosene on what is now It’ll Do Road.

In the ’60s, they went into the turkey business, which continued until the ’90s.

“The equipment got old, I was getting tired and good help was hard to come by,” McKinney said.

Now, the store stocks feed for every animal, chickens greet the customers in the cage by the door as they lay their eggs and baby chicks grow in the corner under heat lamps.

McKinney has seen businesses come and go in his career.

“There were two or three that started up and failed. They were gonna hire someone to run it. If they’re not there everyday, they’re gonna fail,” he said.

Being there every day for 70 years is 25,550 days.

In 1950, the family left for a month’s vacation.

They went to Idaho, into California, Arizona and to see the Grand Canyon.

The only other vacation McKinney recalls was in 1970 when he and his wife, Mable, left Saturdays anddrove to Memphis, Tenn., for treatment of a benign tumor in Mabel’s brain.

They visited the doctor Monday and returned home Tuesday.

McKinney has held a number of positions and elected offices in his lifetime. He says his greatest achievement, however, is the Fire Department.

After a sweeping fire out of Bella Vista ransacked Pea Ridge country, a group got together at Blackjack Corner and decided to form a fire department. They sold memberships for $25.

“I marvel at the Fire Department today - their equipment, their trucks.

We built the very first truck,” he said.

When asked what he would do differently if he could, he said: “I don’t know of it. The thing I’ve thought about would have been do better in school,” recalling a situation when his younger self struggled to give the correct number of pounds of feed for theamount being paid.

McKinney graduated Pea Ridge High School in 1940, saying his mother pushed him hard to finish high school.

“You hear all this about kids in trouble these days.

(Back then), if you got a whippin’ at school, you got a whippin’ at home,” he said.

He laughed while recalling a little boy who would come to the store every day to see an egg being laid. McKinney told the boy the chicken wouldn’t lay with him watching, and said sure enough, when he turned around, out came an egg.

As for the next 10 years, McKinney says he plans to “just play my time. I never thought I would get this close to 90.”

McKinney is married to Mabel, Hugh Webb Sr.’s daughter. They have four children, Doug, Jane Cooley, Peggy David and Andrea Ricketts, all of Pea Ridge; 10 grandchildren; and 17 great- grandchildren.Seven decades of service◊1942 - Obtained Ralston Purina Franchise in Pea Ridge.

◊1942 - Charter member of Masonic Blue Lodge.

◊1944 - Married Hugh Webb, Sr.’s daughter, Mable Louise Webb.

◊1947 - Vital role in construction of the new Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, where he served as elder and trustee, Mabel served as treasurer and they were both charter members of Mt. Vernon’s Order of the Eastern Star.

◊1950 - Webb’s Electric Hatchery and Feed became incorporated.

◊Received Arkansas state license to test poultry for Pol lorum, a disease in poultry.

◊Attended Purina Feeding and Advisory School at the University of Arkansas.

◊1950 - Became member of the Arkansas Turkey Federation’s Board of Directors.

◊1957 - President of the Arkansas Turkey Federation’s Board of Directors.

◊1957 - Elected mayor of Pea Ridge, serving two 2-year terms.

◊1968 - Served as member of Production Credit Board of Directors for 19 years.

◊Two terms on school board, plus two five-year terms on Benton County School Board.

◊Elected recorder/treasurer of Pea Ridge, held position for 23 years.

◊Secretary of new volunteer fire department, later serv ing as fire chief.

◊1971 - Bought remaining stock of business from Hugh Webb, Sr.’s widow and the store became Webb’s Feed and Seed.

Community, Pages 8 on 05/05/2010