MAEVERS `HOMETOWN PROUD' FOR OVER 40 YEARS

Lester Maevers, left, speaks with business partner and IGA stores general manager Don Rogers at the start of a recent day of business.

Lester Maevers, seventh from left, poses with the staff of Schaper's IGA in a 1953 photograph, about three years after he started in the store's meat department. In front of Maevers and to the left is Milton Grebe, with whom he bought the store in 1976. In front of Maevers and to the right are Julius Schaper, who founded the market in 1934, and Bernard Schaper, who owned and operated the IGA before retiring in 1976.

The fact that the motto of IGA supermarkets is "Hometown Proud" is not lost on Lester Maevers.

The lifelong Jackson resident started working at Schaper's IGA as a boy. He, along with two sons, and partner Don Rogers, now own and operate the store.

Collectively, Lester and sons Tim and Jim make up Maevers Management. The company owns and operates IGAs in Chaffee and Fredericktown, in addition to the Jackson supermarket. They also operate video stores, a fitness center and three Save-A-Lot stores elsewhere in Southeast Missouri.

Beginning with today's edition, Schaper's IGA will begin publishing a four-page sales circular in each Sunday Jackson U.S.A. Signal.

Schaper's IGA was founded in March of 1934 by Julius Schaper, a Jackson area native who first opened his grocery at the corner of Main and Court Streets. It has been an Independent Grocers' Alliance (IGA) store since 1936.

Julius' son Bernard Schaper became a partner in the store in 1947 and continued to operate it until his retirement in 1976, when Maevers and a partner took over.

Schaper's IGA has a 60-year history in Jackson and Lester Maevers has been a part of that history for almost 45 of those years. Maevers' lifelong connection with the people of the city and the customers of his store are what drive him and his sons to work to ensure that their grocery stores live up to the quality of service that the "Hometown Proud" motto implies.

"A lot of times you see me down in the store meeting with customers or talking to them," said Maevers. "There's not a time that I go down there that I don't see someone I went to school with or know."

The customers who buy bread and milk or fresh meat in the Maevers' store one morning are the same people they might see at church, or uptown at lunch or at a meeting of the chamber of commerce that evening. As a result, the Maevers try to hire Jackson people to maintain the hometown emphasis of the store.

The Maevers have spread this kind of management thinking to their other stores. While the Jackson IGA retained the name Schaper's because of its history in the city, the Maevers have named their other IGA supermarkets the Chaffee and Fredericktown IGAs. In addition, Chaffee and Fredericktown residents are sought to fill positions in the two stores and are encouraged to actively represent those stores in their respective cities.

"We try to keep as many hometown people as possible in each local store and we try to keep our managers involved in the churches and schools and civic organizations and events as much as possible," he said. "We also try to make sure our managers realize that everywhere they go, they are representing IGA or Save-A-Lot."

Maevers still remembers the day he got his first taste of the grocery business -- June 24, 1950. That's the day Bernard Schaper hired the 14-year-old to clean the meat department in the absence of a butcher who was ill.

"I can't imagine that," said Maevers. "I've got a granddaughter who'll be 14 soon and I can't imagine a 14-year-old doing that job."

The job marked the start of Maevers' career in the grocery business as well as the beginning of a relationship with Bernard Schaper that continues to this day. The well-known Jackson businessman is often called upon by Maevers when Maevers Management is seeking to acquire a new supermarket or to make changes in existing ones.

Maevers continued to work in Schaper's meat department during his high school years as part of Jackson High School's Diversified Occupations program. After graduation, he became a full-time butcher at Schaper's.

In 1958, Maevers got the unique opportunity to learn how to operate a self-service meat counter at a Cape Girardeau supermarket owned by Walker Childs. Having cuts of meat awaiting the customer was a novel concept even in 1958. Prior to that, shoppers came to the store's butcher and requested a particular cut which was prepared while they waited.

After a year at the Cape Girardeau store, Maevers returned to Schaper's as meat department manager and the store started its own self-service meat counter.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Maevers continued to work in the meat department at Schaper's and in 1968, he and grocery manager Milton Grebe took advantage of the opportunity to buy stock in the company. In ensuing years, Maevers and Grebe continued to buy stock. When Schaper retired in 1976, the two bought the remaining shares and continued to operate Schaper's IGA as partners.

In 1981, the two bought the shopping center off Main Street near the uptown section of Jackson and relocated the store to this area. It had previously been housed in the building where Associated Natural Gas is now located.

Maevers bought Grebe's portion of the partnership in 1984 and brought son Tim into the business at that time. Jim Maevers, who worked previously with computers for Telex in Oklahoma, first became involved in the family business in 1985 when he computerized the Schaper's IGA video rental department. He returned to his hometown and joined Maevers Management in 1987 and continues to devote much of his time to the family's video stores, along with the operations of the supermarkets and other Maevers ventures.

Tim oversees the operation of the company's four Save-A-Lot supermarkets and since 1993 Don Rogers heads up the operation of the IGA stores.

Lester Maevers now devotes much of his time to acquisitions. He says the company is better able to compete with larger chain supermarkets when they are able to take advantage of the purchasing power that comes from owning and operating several stores.

He is also active in a number of grocers' organizations. He was named Scott City district retailer of the year by Wetterau (now Supervalue), the wholesaler which supplies groceries to his store.

In addition, he was named to six terms as a senator on Wetterau's Retail Advisory Senate and now serves as president of Supervalue's Retail Advisory Committee.

All this is not to give the impression that Maevers has forgotten his roots. A day late last month found him back in the meat department where he got his start, joking with customers and preparing for the New Year's rush on hog jowls.

"I love to tease people and I love to talk to them," he said, "and a couple of days before New Year's I was down in the meat department cutting hog jowl and I kept asking people if they wanted a big hog jowl or a little hog jowl, depending upon whether they wanted a lot of money or just a little.

"When it comes right down to it," said Maevers, "it's dealing with people that is the best part of the job."