NEW BEGINNINGS ON BURLINGTON, PART 2
The new decade brought fresh faces to Spur’s Burlington Avenue retail corridor this week as Jeromy and D’Laine Neaves Rutledge took the helm of the city’s downtown hardware store.
Assuming ownership from Trip and Susan Chastain, who retired January 1 after almost thirty years as proprietors of Chastain Hardware, the Rutledges have renamed the enterprise Spur Hardware and anticipate expanding and rebranding soon. Cade Rutledge, elder son of Jeromy and D’Laine, is expected to join the operation as store manager in April, following relocation from Guam, where he is now stationed in the U.S. Air Force.
“The decision to come back home came first” for the Rutledge family before the proposal to buy the hardware store, said Jeromy, who grew up in Childress but lived in Spur for seven years in the 1990s when their boys were young.
As D’Laine explained, the desire to remain close to her aging parents, and especially the considerations of her late mother’s debilitating illness, propelled the decision for all to eventually reconnect in her family’s hometown. The multi-generational move began to form in 2018 when her parents, Dr. William Barlow Neaves and the Rev. Priscilla Wood Neaves, decided to return to Spur in 2019—he after retirement from a distinguished career in biomedical research and she after more than three decades in Methodist ministry and hospital chaplaincy.
D’Laine and Jeromy relocated to Spur from the Dallas area soon afterward and were able to spend the last months of her mother’s life nearby, in the town where both parents held fond memories. (Longtime Texas Spur readers may recall that when Priscilla Wood met Barlow Neaves in first grade at an Easter egg hunt, she declared that she would marry him—as she did, thirteen years later. The couple had been married 54 years when Rev. Neaves passed away in Spur August 30.)
Return to roots
The Rutledges had to get to where they could make a move to Spur, said Jeromy. In his ongoing work as director of gift planning for the Southern U.S. region of Ducks Unlimited, the wildlife conservation nonprofit, he travels thirteen states by highway and air, and will continue to do so from Spur.
D’Laine, a licensed professional counselor who holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the University of St. Mary, established a private clinical practice in Lubbock, where she will see clients three days a week while also opening an office in Spur to serve local clients.
Tops on their list was renovating the Neaves family farm east of Spur, a 100-year homestead. Drivers on Highway 70 toward Jayton can’t miss the large red metal barn the Rutledges have added to the homeplace, designed by Jeromy and built by Mueller Metal Buildings. For D’Laine, the farm is a return to her earliest goals in animal husbandry, as well as Jeromy’s college goals to be an ag teacher. The couple met at Texas Tech, where both were involved in ranching and agriculture programs.
“It was my dream to come back and run cattle” in Spur, said D’Laine, before graduate school in Kansas took her in a different direction, to counseling. Jeromy, who worked in public affairs for Cap Rock Telephone during their Spur years, also took a different path from his initial expectation of teaching, but both have remained loyal to their rural roots.
Their sons’ plans also figured into the relocation, as younger son Carson is now pursuing a degree at Texas Tech himself, while Senior Airman Cade and his wife, Mariko, are stationed in Guam.
Buying a business
The family is committed to the values that make a place like Spur special, said Jeromy. “We believed then—and still do now—that healthy communities need basic components. Grocery, hardware, banking, animal feed, pharmacy, etc.—when they lose these, communities dwindle.” In his extensive travel across the state and nation, Jeromy has taken note of places of all sizes and situations, and professes “a profound interest in preserving” small-town vitality.
The Rutledges’ pledge to Spur is to take a cornerstone retail business and build on it, to make it not only a core commodity but an attraction for visitors.
They had visited with Trip and Susan Chastain last year and, after some thought, “just sat down and had a talk” with the store owners, who had also been longtime friends, said Jeromy. Though neither Jeromy nor D’Laine had experience specifically in the hardware line, they were willing to bring extended family resources to the enterprise, and have already initiated some new plans.
Something old, something new
Spur Hardware, operating under the holding company Spur Syndicate, LLC, as of January 1, 2020, will continue as a Do it Best affiliate, according to the firm’s press release. But a rebranding campaign and store restructure and expansion are in the works.
New product lines will include cutting-edge paint matching and mixing technology, for starters, said Jeromy. D’Laine added that Spur Hardware is one of the first to order a newly available digital system that will be “a game-changer” for customers and on which all staff will be trained. This technology is more advanced that what is currently available at big-box retailers.
An expanded lawn and garden section will include seasonal plants, including organic varieties, along with a wider selection of grills, accessories, and outdoor furnishings.
The Rutledges plan more emphasis on wedding and baby shower offerings. And the homewares section will feature items of interest to customers passing through Spur as well as to residents.
Perhaps most welcome to locals already are expanded hours, 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays. The store was busy as usual on Spur Hardware’s first Saturday—and had already sold out of advertised coffee pods and numerous other seasonal goods.
“If there are people like us,” said Jeromy, “by Saturday afternoons they’re just getting going” on DIY projects and weekend jobs.
And one thing loyal customers appreciate isn’t changing, said Jeromy—the knowledgeable and experienced staff. “We’re very fortunate,” he said, that four longtime employees are continuing under the new management.
The Rutledge family welcomes customers and visitors to stop by, and also to like and follow Spur Hardware on Face-book, Twitter, and Instagram. A grand reopening is in the works for later this Spring.
D’Laine Rutledge summed up the new company’s overarching goal, which reflects her family’s aims as well. “We just want Spur to thrive.”
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