Sweat equity

Lynn Cotner started his teaching career 26 years ago. Just a year later he started his summer business painting houses.

"I knew pretty quick I was going to need another job," said Cotner, who teaches chemistry and biology at Jackson High School. "I paint so I can afford to teach."

When the classes end each year and the weather warms, Cotner puts the books and microscopes aside, grabs his brush and buckets and, along with a small crew of high school and college students, supplements his income by painting houses.

It's not a big segment of the business world, but a handful of people rely on their fair-weather businesses such as selling ice cream, mowing lawns, washing windows or repairing air conditioners.

Cotner said his and his wife's teaching jobs enable them to make their household's basic payments, but painting enables them to take trips and buy extras.

"Some of us have to have other jobs to make it work," said Cotner, 58. "Besides, I'd prefer painting. I know I'm going to get a result there. With some of the more basic kids, you don't know if you're ever going to get the result you want."

Doyle Parmer of Dutchtown has a year-round job with his business, Prestigious Lawn Care. During the summer, he and his daughter, Christna, do lawn maintenance. When ice and snow hit the ground, they do snow removal.

"Most of our commercial businesses want somebody to do both," Parmer said Tuesday afternoon from the seat of his Grasshopper lawn mower. "To be full-service, you have to do it."

After being in the satellite television business for years, Parmer decided he wanted a change of pace that would allow him to work outdoors. So for 35 weeks a year, he does lawn maintenance -- mowing lawns, cutting weeds, trimming hedges and some landscaping. During the winter, Parmer transforms his business from grass cutting to snow removal. He doesn't really have a preference.

"People think that snow is worse, but I just sit in my truck and push the snow," he said. "Snow is cold and aggravating and dangerous, but the workload is about the same."

His daughter, Christna, likes the variety the job provides.

"Each time the season changes, I get something new to do," she said. "I'm not just sitting on my butt in some office."

Jason Stephens, who teaches science at Central High School in Cape Girardeau, also runs a lawn maintenance business in the summer. He has done that for four years, starting in April and wrapping up in October.

"It's just one of those things," said Stephens, who also coaches wrestling and softball. "We need extra money."

The money's the main reason he does it, Stephens said, but he also likes the satisfaction he gets from the work.

"I enjoy the landscaping part of it, especially," he said. "The mowing is just this weekly thing. It's routine. But the landscaping, it's taking something that doesn't look so good and making it look nice."

The summer's blistering heat made selling snow cones seem like a good idea to Tyson Zahner, owner of Ty's Summer Snow in the Town Plaza Shopping Center in Cape Girardeau. Zahner teaches music in Jackson during the school months.

But there are disadvantages to having a summer-only business.

"The landlord's don't give you a break just because you're not open," Zahner said. "The rent's still due. You have to keep your water on so the pipes don't freeze. You have to keep your electricity hooked up. Those are probably the biggest disadvantages."

Zahner tried to make the business year-round a few years back, adding coffee, barbecue sandwiches, muffins and other items to the menu. He couldn't quite pull it off.

"It just didn't fly," he said. "I think once the public gets to know you as being a summer business, it's hard to get past that. We were hoping it would raise as much money as it did during the summer, but it didn't, so we closed."

But business is good selling snow cones. Zahner offers 70 flavors, including cherry, strawberry and grape. The dill-pickle snow cones have been discontinued.

Zahner said the best part of the job is that you don't do it long enough each year for it to become old.

"By the end of the school year I'm ready for snow-cone season, and by the end of snow-cone season I'm ready to teach," he said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension

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