Twas the Sunday before Christmas and I see a fajita.
I need to have news to feed Business Cheetah.
With Christmas Day less than one week away, the focus isn’t on starting new businesses. The focus is on cooking, shopping, and spending time with family.
But don’t dismay, dear holiday reader. I’ve been able to uncover stockings full of business news this week so you can head to your holiday gathering fully briefed on all the latest happenings.
As for my Christmas list, I’ve narrowed it down to one singular item. This year for Christmas, I want a drone.
What I plan to do with this drone will be entirely top secret, and I’m not ruling out the possibility of spying on neighbors, eavesdropping on local government officials, or planning an attack on North Korea. I might even try to land my drone on the McMinnville Police Department front lawn to see if that creates a stir like the folks who land their drones on the White House lawn.
Before I bring you this week’s business news, here are two jokes.

JOKE 1
Q: What do you call an elf who sings?
A: A wrapper.

JOKE 2
Q: What do you get if Santa goes down the chimney when a fire is lit?
A: Krisp Kringle

Stewart Pharmacy rumors everywhere

Over the course of the past several weeks, I’ve had a number of people ask me about rumors that Stewart Plaza Pharmacy has been sold or is going out of business. Those rumors have really intensified the last few days with one concerned resident even making a trip to the Standard office to tell me in person a very reliable source says Stewart’s has been sold to Fred’s Pharmacy.
With so much talk, I decided the only way to get to the bottom of this was to call Stewart Pharmacy manager Donna Carr, daughter of business founders Nestor and Jo Stewart. As many of us know, Nestor passed away in June and his absence seems to have increased speculation change is in the air.
“We’ve had people over the years, even while dad was alive, who made offers to buy the pharmacy,” Donna told me Thursday. “And we’ve had some offers since dad’s death. You can never say for sure what’s going to happen. All I know is it’s my job to keep things running as smoothly as possible and that’s what I’m doing. We want to serve the public in the best way possible and keep our customers happy. Our employees hear these rumors and it’s my job to keep morale up around here and to keep them happy because they want to know what’s happening too. We’re doing the best job we can each and every day and that’s what we have always strived for.”
Stewart Pharmacy has long been a pillar in the community as the business recently celebrated its 50th year in August with a huge cash giveaway. Lucky attendee Shirley Pease left the celebration with the $1,000 grand prize.
Over the years, Stewart’s has amassed a tremendous customer base and it’s those many customers who rely on Stewart’s for their prescriptions who no doubt make the business attractive to prospective buyers. The recently announced Walgreen’s buyout of Rite-Aid shows how the big dogs run the show in the very profitable healthcare industry.
Another factor no doubt fueling the Stewart’s rumor is its ongoing 50 percent off sale on much of its store merchandise.
“We hope the sale is a way to reduce our inventory,” said Donna. “Some of this stuff has been here for quite a while.”
There’s a line of thinking that says anything is for sale for the right price. I suppose there’s some degree of truth to that statement. It appears the pharmaceutical archers have set their sights on Stewart Plaza Pharmacy. We’ll have to wait to see if one of them can hit the bull’s-eye and strike a deal.

Rubbermaid buying Jarden

One of the monumental deals coming across the business wire Tuesday was that Newell Rubbermaid is buying Jarden Corp. in a cash and stock deal valued around $13.2 billion.
This news is of local interest because we have a Jarden plant here in McMinnville, a plant many people still refer to as Oster.
According to figures provided by our Industrial Development Board, our local Jarden plant employs about 450. I wouldn’t think plant operations would be disrupted by the change in ownership. It will probably be similar to when our large plant on Red Road was Century Electric, then Magnetek, then A.O. Smith.
Rubbermaid makes products under brand names such as Paper Mate, Sharpie, Elmer’s, Lenox, Yankee Candle, Graco, and of course Rubbermaid. The deal is targeted to close in the second quarter of 2016. It still needs approval from shareholders of both companies.
Rubbermaid is headquartered in Atlanta. Jarden is based in Boca Raton, Fla.

Automotive plant picks Fayetteville

The Industrial Development Board’s efforts to land an automotive supplier that would bring an estimated 200 jobs to the community just missed. IDB director Don Alexander sadly announced at Thursday’s monthly meeting Warren County finished second to Fayetteville.
“This is a project we’ve been working on for some time,” said Don. “They started by looking at 26 sites and they eventually narrowed it down to three – one in Alabama and two in Tennessee. They eliminated the site in Alabama so it came down to a 50-50 chance of us getting a plant with about 200 jobs. I just got the phone call on Tuesday that they picked Fayetteville because it’s more along the I-65 corridor and they do a lot of business with a company outside of Birmingham.”
Don said he received an email Friday morning from a representative of that company thanking him for all the work that was involved during the negotiation process.
“He told me there was nothing else we could have done, that we did everything they had asked,” said Don. “We controlled everything we could control, but we can’t control where our county is located. We can’t pick up and move closer to I-65.”
The company specializes in plastic mold injection and was interested in a 22-acre site at Mt. View Industrial Park in Morrison. The Industrial Development Board has done much work making sites in the industrial park attractive and it’s paid off with companies like Sansin and Miniature Precision Components locating there.
“If things go wrong with their first choice, we’re still here,” said Don.
Added IDB member Jeff Golden, “That’s how we got Bridgestone. They were going to Manchester but something went wrong and they ended up here.”

Wanted: one grant writer

The Industrial Development Board may be looking to create a job of its own, or part of one. With McMinnville city officials discussing the possibility of hiring a grant writer, Don Alexander mentioned funding a portion of that person’s salary so he or she could write grants for the IDB.
“There are a whole lot of dollars out there to get, we’re talking some major dollars,” said Don. “If the city were to hire a grant writer, I was thinking we might want to pick up part of the tab, maybe 25 percent, so we could utilize that person as well.”
There are resources that can be used to help with grant writing, such as the Upper Cumberland Develop-ment District, but those organizations typically serve a multi-county area and their personnel can be stretched thin. Having a local person dedicated to grant writing would allow them to concentrate strictly on this area for all the state and federal dollars just floating around out there.
When you think about all the money just floating around, it’s really laughable. Yet the state wants to yank our Driver Testing Center away from us.
There’s no money for a Driver Testing Center, yet we can bus our kids to school Friday morning for a Christmas party, then bus them back home at 9:45 a.m. The cost of bus fuel for those two hours of "school" on Friday could probably have been used to pay three month’s rent on our Driver Testing Center.
All of this is a long way of saying every government entity could probably benefit from having a talented grant writer on staff. We all know money is out there floating around, except when you need it for a valuable service.

May the Force be with You

One business certainly happy about the release of the latest “Star Wars” installment is Three Star Cinema, where a line of people gathered Thursday night to see the first showing of “The Force Awakens.”
The first showing Thursday was a near sellout with 212 tickets being sold for the 240-seat theater. Some of those people stayed and watched the movie a second time at 9:30 p.m.
Among the people in attendance Thursday was Sparta resident Titus Crawford, a 24-year-old cancer patient. Because of his cancer treatments, Titus was worried about getting to see the movie, but theater owners Bob and Wanda Bassham took care of that.
“A woman at the oncology center where I go knows the theater owners and they arranged for me to see it upstairs in the projector room by myself,” said Titus. “Because my white blood cell count is so low, I have to wear a mask when I’m around a lot of people because I can’t get sick.”
Titus is a huge “Star Wars” fan who has seen all of the other movies in the series. He said the latest movie “is incredible.” He ended our conversation not with a traditional goodbye, but by saying, “May the force be with you.”

That’s all folks

That’s it for today’s very special Christmas installment of Business Cheetah.
Remember, it’s not how much you give this holiday season that’s important. It’s how much you receive. Wait, I may have that backward.