Business Spotlight

Southern States Boone Service—
Helping Locals Prepare for Spring for 22 Years

Story by Sam Calhoun

Sam Lawson is the general manager of Southern States Boone Service and is eager to help farmers, gardeners and homeowners get ready for spring with farm, garden and home products galore at his store. Photo by Sam Calhoun Spring is coming. Are you ready?

If you have a farm, home or garden, Southern States Boone Service, located at 178 Water Street in Boone, should be your first stop. With an inventory that is about to double when spring finally arrives, Southern States Boone Service offers a wide variety of farm, home, garden and pet products and provides knowledgeable employees eager to help meet customers’ needs.

Whether you need feed for your livestock; lawn and garden products; food, toys, grooming tools and health products for your pet; farm equipment; fertilizers; livestock products; or outdoor clothing, Southern States is a one-stop shop for High Country residents.

Southern States Boone Service turns 22 years old this year, and is owned by the Southern States Cooperative in Richmond, Va.

In the early 1950s, a company similar to Southern States called FCX—Farmers’ Cooperative Exchange—inhabited the building on Water Street. From the 1950s to 1985, FCX prospered, but financial troubles finally sent the company into bankruptcy and Southern States stepped in to buy the business. Southern States bought all FCX locations throughout North and South Carolina. Southern States is an 80-year-old farm, home and garden supply company based in Richmond, Va.

“In North Carolina, there are around 34 retail services like this store and several cooperatives owned by farmers in various counties in North Carolina,” said Sam Lawson, general manager of Southern States Boone Service. “This store is a ‘service,’ meaning that it is company owned.”

Lawson said that Southern States owns roughly 960 outlets across the East Coast in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, North Florida, Delaware, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and New England. Southern States is a cooperative, said Lawson, just like a phone or power company, meaning that if the company makes a profit then its members get dividends. However, people do not have be members to shop at Southern States Boone Service.

Lawson is a 26-year veteran of Southern States Boone Service. He started in the warehouse in 1983, moved up to become a sales clerk and eventually became general manager in 2004. Originally from Washington County, Va., Lawson came to Boone in 1979 and learned the ropes of farm, home and garden supply at Southern States Boone Service. He is now an expert on farm supply, animal health and gardening, and often troubleshoots livestock and agricultural problems with customers.

Lawson manages six full-time employees and 10 to 15 part-time employees, most of whom are hired in the spring—the busiest time of the year for Southern States Boone Service.

Lawson will tell you that Southern States’ business secret is its product mix. The store sells everything from pet collars to organic feed to vegetable seeds to bird seeds and feeders, but if people spend any time at all inside Southern States Boone Service, they quickly see that Lawson and his staff’s attention to customers—Lawson seems to know every customer on a first-name basis—is also a driving factor behind the store’s success.

And don’t worry, Southern States Boone Service is here to stay.

“We’re home and we want to stay here,” said Lawson.

Southern States Boone Service is located at 178 Water Street in Boone and is open from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, closed Sunday. For more information, call 828-264-8883 or click to www.southernstates.com.