Shopko To Close All Remaining Stores

Reasons for the demise of Kimball’s Shopko Hometown store extend far beyond the local store’s business performance alone.

“It’s a company issue,” Kimball City Administrator Dan Dean told the Observer on Tuesday.

It most certainly is.

Shopko said Monday, March 18, that it was closing its remaining stores because it was unable to find a buyer. The statement followed a U.S. bankruptcy court decision to cancel an ownership auction for the retail chain in favor of a bankruptcy consultant overseeing a liquidation under which the stores will close by June 16.

In Kimball, the news is pretty much water...