8A | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Family Owned Businesses
Old Mill Farm Store embraces past, looks to future
Cottage Grove
Sentinel Staff report
O
ver the Old Mill
Farm Store’s more
than 160 years of
service to the Cottage Grove
area, it has survived seven
major fires and a multitude
of different owners.
Today, Debbie Lavios
and Charles McLeod run
the store in a way they feel
retains a family-based ap-
proach, if a little more glob-
ally-minded.
“It’s the two of us and
then our grandkids and our
adult children,” Lavios said.
“We’ve been blessed over
the last few years. Our old-
est grandsons have been
involved with the local foot-
ball team. So we get to hire
a bunch of big, brawny foot-
ball players and a bunch of
family.”
For much of the store’s
history, it ground grains to
various specifications, shoed
horses and cut wood for the
local populace.
Sometime around the
middle of last century, it be-
gan serving the pet market
as well.
“Now in our ownership
we serve the pet market and
the livestock market,” said
Lavios. “And a few local hu-
man products on the side.”
Lavios and McLeod have
been running the store for
Boyce & Sons — one-stop home supply with familiar faces
‘Yeah, I’d be going down the
road having a bad day and I
just think of this store and I
start laughing because it’s fun
here.’ We make it fun so they
pull in. Whether it’s people
that are customers or people
that I buy from or whatever,”
said Rick. “It’s big enough but
small enough. When you get
too big, you lose the people.
The coming just to (talk) and
laugh and joke and have fun.”
Before the business be-
came the one-stop shop for
homeowners, Bill Boyce, fa-
ther of both Rick (who serves
as president and CEO) and
Darin (general manager of
the company) opened Boyce
& Sons in 1969 as a sawdust
and bark mulch business.
“Back then a lot of people
used it for horse bedding and
heat. Heat was a big part of
our business. You don’t see
it anymore but it was really
Cottage Grove
Sentinel Staff report
I
f you have been to Boyce
& Sons in the last 20
years, and went again to-
day, chances are, you would
see a familiar face.
“He’s been here 20 years;
my number one driver has
been with me over 30 years;
the two counter guys have
been here pushing 20 years,”
said Rick Boyce as he rattles
off list of employees at Boyce
& Sons. “We’ve got the same
crew we’ve had forever and
ever and ever.”
While a key group of
workers has served as the
backbone of the company
through its growth, the flip-
side has been the group of
loyal customers that keep
coming back for more. Or
just come to the store to chat.
“I’ve had (people) tell me,
20 years and proudly sell
products which are pro-or-
ganic and pro-local; there’s
no shyness in talking about
this with customers.
“That’s been really fun to
interact with a variety of ages
on how you might go about
making better food choices
for your body or better food
choices for our global body,”
Lavios said.
The co-owners can find
anything from hamster to
elephant food if needed. On
the shelves, the animal feed
runs the gamut of goats,
sheep, horses, cows, ducks,
chickens and a menagerie
of other animals one might
find in their home or on a
farm.
“Since 1853, this business
has truly survived just about
everything this nation has
gone through,” Lavios said.
“This store has kept going.”
Lavios chalks their success
up to the deep relationship
between human and animals
and a bit of their own quirky
quaintness.
“We’re slightly different
from others,” Lavios said.
“As far as we know, we’re
only one of two feed stores
that has their own piano.
And we encourage all our
folks to play it when they
have time.”
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good, nice for heat,” remem-
bers Rick who helped with
the business as a sophomore
in high school when it first
opened.
In the early 1980s Rick be-
came business partners with
his dad and then bought him
out so that his dad could re-
tire — in theory, at least. Rick
began to expand the business
to now where it now includes
a little of everything: lumber,
plywood, hardware, con-
crete, windows, doors and
more.
As Rick eyes an eventual
retirement, he has tried to
scale-back his weekly hours
from 60 to 40 at his business.
His plate has remained full as
in the last six years he start-
ed doing the maintenance at
Magnolia Gardens.
But regardless of how
much he works, Boyce &
Sons will continue doing
what they have been doing
for the last 50 years.
“It’s been a journey but it’s
been a lot of neat customers,
lot of loyal customers,” said
Rick.
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