Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First

All-Class Reunion: Building relationships key for McBride's longterm success

Building relationships over the years has paid off for one local business with four generations of Kimball High School graduates - so much so that many of its orders come from KHS graduates who now live out of state.

Though the Flower Haven has changed hands many times in the last several decades, this local business is one that Kimballites have come to count on.

Kay McBride, the third of four generations of Kimball graduates, recalled several owners of the longtime Kimball business.

Bertha Fickes is the first owner McBride could recall. Fickes sold the flower shop to Avona Moss, who moved it from Oak Street to Chestnut Street.

Moss then sold it to an employee, LaVonne Culek, who sold it after a couple of years to Ralph and Mary Kimzey in 1974.

"She had it for 14 years and I bought it in 1988 and have had it ever since," McBride said.

She moved it to its current location in the early 1990s.

"My kids all grew up in the Flower Haven," McBride said. "It's a really good business. Every little town needs a flower shop."

That longtime relationships built in Kimball continue to bring business to McBride, who prides herself on the service that has made shopping in Kimball preferable.

"We get a ton of clientele from out of town that have always bought flowers from Flower Haven," McBride said. "I get calls from people in Arizona that are sending flowers to California."

At one time McBride carried all of the wire services, AFS, Carrick, Redbook, FTD, Teleflora. She is now solely Teleflora.

"I would say 60 to 70 percent of our business comes from out of town," she said, though the hometown partnerships are vital.

McBride has partnered with the local FFA program in the floral arrangement training and competition.

She has recently partnered also with the FFA program in Banner County as well.

"We just went over the basics things that they would need to know for competition." McBride said. "When Kimball put their own flora-culture class in through the home (economics) department, they learned everything they needed to know there."

Kimball offers so much, McBride said, as a recent addition to the citizenship pointed out to her, including safe schools and streets.

Partnerships are not made just with other local businesses, but also with other florists. McBride said she is able to split cartons of materials with those florists and that in a pinch, they are there to help one another.

"I'm good friends with other florists in other towns," McBride said.

Though she has had many great workers, both full and part time, in the last several years she has been able to do so much of it on her own.

McBride is ready to retire and sell now that her children are adults. Though she has enjoyed partnering with the local high school, hospital, nursing home and mortuary.

"I want to sell this to somebody who will not close it," McBride said.

McBride continued that Kimball in particular has always been a supportive and close knit community that she has loved being a part of.

"You couldn't live in Denver and have 4,000 people praying for you at the same time," McBride said. "If they know you they care about you. The greatest gift is love and there is just so much of that."

 
 
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