Sav-A-Lot entrepreneur wins Jackson's Fulenwider award

As John M. Thompson was presenting the R.A. Fulenwider Meritorious Community Service Award on Thursday night in Jackson, he couldn't help but tell a story or two about this year's honoree.

Before naming the recipient, Thompson noted that when the winner was a young man working his first job at the old Schaper's Grocery, he tended to stay out late sometimes with his friends. That led occasionally to a groggy start to the day. One morning, he said, when the winner was missing from his post behind the meat counter, his bosses found him asleep between the walk-in refrigerator and a wall.

Lester A. Maevers hasn't dozed much during the day since then. Maevers became a co-owner of the business and later operated several Sav-A-Lot supermarkets. And with growing responsibility and growing prominence, his contributions to Jackson grew as well, Thompson said.

Maevers is an honorary member of the Jackson High School Future Business Leaders of America, an honorary member of the school's FFA and president of the Jackson Senior Center Board of Directors. He was instrumental in the fundraising effort to build a new senior center off East Main Street.

The Fulenwider award winner is chosen each year by the past winners. Thompson, a banker, was the 2006 recipient and presented this year's award. The choice, Thompson said after the presentation, was an obvious one.

"I kind of said, what have we been waiting for?" he said. "He certainly has been there at every opportunity."

Maevers, meanwhile, was humble in his thanks to the approximately 240 Jackson Chamber of Commerce members and guests at the annual dinner where the award was presented. "I had no inkling this would ever happen to me," he said.

Afterward, he said the award puts him in a classy group. "There are so many great people who have won the award," he said. "I just never did feel I was qualified to be here."

The chamber also recognized several businesses for their commitment to the customer service and good business practices. Those winners included:

• Atmos Energy as Business of the Year. Atmos Energy is Jackson's natural gas supplier. The largest natural gas-only utility company in the U.S., Atmos employs 11 people in Jackson and provides service to Jackson and 14 surrounding communities.
• Kasten Masonry Sales Inc. and Ceramo Co. Inc. as Industry of the Year. Kasten Masonry has been making bricks for more than 100 years; Ceramo Co. is the only U.S.-owned maker of red clay flowerpots. Both companies are owned by members of the Kasten family.
• Subway of Jackson and Roy's Tire and Auto as Small Business of the Year. The award was established in 2005 to recognize businesses with fewer than 50 employees that exemplify good business practices.

The featured speaker Thursday evening was one of Jackson's newest entrepreneurs, Dennis Vinson, the founder and owner of Signature Packaging.

Vinson, a former senior financial manager with Pratt Industries, founded his company in 2003 in Conyers, Ga., and won a contract to provide boxes and other packaging for Procter & Gamble's baby care division. The catch -- he had to move near the Procter & Gamble plant in Cape Girardeau County and had to be in production within a specified deadline.

After looking in Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri, "it became quite apparent that the right facilities were not available," Vinson said.

With the clock ticking, he said, he contacted Mitch Robinson, director of Cape Girardeau Area Magnet, who put him in touch with Jackson city officials, Gene and Philip Penzel of Penzel Construction and a site was found in the Jackson Industrial Park on Route PP.

The Penzels, owners of Penzel Construction, promised to meet the deadline. "The clock continued to tick," Vinson said. "It was crunch time."

Ground was broken Oct. 11, 2006, and by April 2007 the plant was in operation. "This was business providing another business with a solution," Vinson said.

The company is prospering, he said, and now employs 27 people. Vinson projects the company will continue hiring and employ 35 people by the end of 2008.

"The decision to locate in Jackson was one of my better ones," he said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

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