Family, friends recall founder of Sunny Hill Pet Center

Business will continue at the Sunny Hill Pet Center as family and friends remember the store's founder, William H. Brinkopf, who died Aug. 6 at age 79.

In the pet center amid chirps and squawks, Bill Brinkopf attributes the long-term success of the business to his father.

"It was definitely dad," he said. "It was his way of handling people and the way people trusted him, his knowledge and his business sense."

Bill Brinkopf has run the family business since 1992.

The original store began in 1959 on the corner of Good Hope and Frederick streets. It moved to its present location on South Christine in 1969.

Fred McGowan bought the store from Louis C. and Charles F. Blattner in 1959 and then William Brinkopf purchased it in 1959.

Ramona Brinkopf, William Brinkopf's wife, said she started in 1964 when the business was mainly just farm and feed. She said they started the pet side of the business to last them through the winter months when the garden activity slowed.

Dortha Strack started working in the garden center in 1970. She said early in the spring she got a phone call from William Brinkopf asking her to come and work for them.

Over the years, she has collected many memories and vividly remembers the snow that caved in the green house she had worked so hard on. And later on there was flooding.

"There was water everywhere, in the basement," she said. "It was a big mess."

Strack said she always joked with Bill Brinkopf about having helped raise him as she started a few months after he was born.

As an only child Bill Brinkopf spent a lot of time in the store. The business has always interested him.

"It was up over my head the entire time... This is what I grew up around. This is what I was comfortable with," he said.

He spent the most time with the pet side of the business while his father spent more time with the garden side.

When Bill Brinkopf took over the business, he expanded the aquatics part of the store dramatically. He also said in the last five or six years they have expanded to do more with outdoor goldfish ponds. In the last couple of years he expanded their inventory to include tropical fish.

"Dad was the one who took care of all the figuring out where everything was going to go. He was just a master at floor planning," Brinkopf said.

Ramona Brinkopf said she really likes what her son has done with the store and hopes their success will continue and the store will have normal growth.