Retailer helps preserve the past
“Preserving the past for the future – the old Ledgemont High School remembered.”
With that thought, this Midwest hardware store owner decided to create a memory for the ages.
Chris Hyatt, owner of Hemly Hardware, a Do it Best dealer in Thompson, Ohio, last year purchased the abandoned Ledgemont High School next to his store and got to work renovating it to house a new stand-alone rental center and other business operations.
“There was not much left in the school, everything was gone or emptied out,” said Hyatt.
But as a Ledgemont alum, he couldn’t help but get a little sentimental.
“The gym floor was almost 90 percent destroyed from water damage,” he said. “I thought it would be nice to be able to repurpose it.”
As he tore the floor out of the old basketball court, he cut the wood floor into small squares and branded them with the school logo and dates.
Then he turned to Facebook, inviting fellow alums to pick up their free, branded square at Hemly Hardware.
He thought it would be “cool to give back a little bit of something for people to remember it by.”
Former Ledgemont students drove from all over the state to get their squares — so many that this inventive owner had to make more.
Hyatt is aware that sustained growth in a small community calls for a combination of daring moves and meaningful relationships.
Started in 1980 as a mobile tool distributor, Hyatt added a trucking division, then an 18,000 square foot hardware store. In 2019, he consolidated operations into a single 25,000 square foot store.
His business move became an opportunity to forge meaningful relationships with current and prospective customers through a shared piece of history.
“All the alumni that stopped by and picked them up thought it was very thoughtful and a great idea,” said the owner.
“School leaves a long-lasting memory in people’s heads, at least they do in mine. It also worked out pretty good for marketing for our hardware store.”
Hyatt added, “the staff and graduates of Ledgemont were – and will always be – the heart of what comprised an incredible school and, equally, an incredible community.”