Celebrating 50 years: Hartung's, now LorRon, has been a downtown Kimball mainstay

Local shop keeper Lorna Evelyn of LorRon Department Store in downtown Kimball has seen her fair share of changes in the last 50 years.

Many local businesses have changed owners more than once, some have changed the business entirely and even more have closed the doors since Lorna and her late husband Ron Evelyn came to town a half century ago. Through the years, the Evelyns saw changes in their life, their home, their store and their hometown.

Ron and Lorna met at Scottsbluff Junior College.

"He was just out of the service," Lorna recalled. "We got married at Lodgepole and then lived in Gering."

Ron then taught school in Gurley before they moved to Auburn, Calif., where Ron was a business associate with his mother. He got his degree at Sacramento State.

The couple then moved back to the area and Ron taught school in Torrington before he went to work for the Hartung's corporation.

It was the Hartung's store that brought them to Kimball. Ron and Lorna Evelyn began their life in Kimball in April of 1965 at the local Hartung's store. They bought a house on Maple Street with no trees in the yard, Lorna recalled.

Throughout the years, Lorna babysat, and while she did a little childcare in Kimball, she said she really just wanted to work in the store.

"He didn't want me to come," Lorna said. "But the funny thing was, he started bringing work home to me. So pretty soon I was down here."

Lorna enjoyed that she had the freedom to be at home with their four children and work from home, work in the store or even bring their children to work.

"Our kids grew up in the store," Lorna said. "They all learned how to run the cash register and count change at a very early age."

Salesmen would bring racks to the store from which Ron and Lorna would order merchandise.

"That was a fun time," Lorna said. "A lot of these salesmen became friends. It was easy to buy, it is not as easy to buy these days."

In 1965 many of the shelves were filled with bolts of fabric and sewing notions to suit the needs of ladies who made many items for their family, and at that time the store had one clerk solely for the sewing department.

"We sold things out of the sewing department every single day. At one time we had three different brands of patterns here, Butterick, McCall and Simplicity," Lorna said. "Today, when you consider the cost of patterns and fabric is quite expensive - you have put a lot more into it and our attire today, most of it is knitwear."

The easternmost section of the store was added in the 1970s and that area became the ladies department of Hartung's.

"We purchased (that part of the building) about 1972. That was Torgeson, Hurlbut and Knapp law offices at that time," Lorna said.

Hartung's corporation closed up in 1987 and Ron and Lorna bought the store at the time the corporation was dissolved. They renamed the store LorRon Department Store.

Lorna said that after they purchased the store in 1987, they became more interested in the antiques and collectibles that they sell in The Nostalgia Nook.

"It was a new adventure," Lorna added. "It is something Ron and I really enjoyed doing. I think the interest is not as strong as it was, but of course there is still interest there."

Prior to the addition of Nostalgia Nook, in 1984, Lorna began her hat program, which she calls a true community endeavor.

Citizens of Kimball County have brought her hats for her program as well as information to include in the program – which shows how style and culture have changed throughout the decades beginning in the 1900s.

"When I decide to hang up my hat and not do anymore programs, all of these hats will be tagged with the name of the original owner and will be taken to the museum," Lorna said. "Because they came from Kimball County and they need to stay here."

Ron hoped to keep the store open through their 50th anniversary in Kimball and then sell it. However, after Ron passed away last fall, Lorna has kept the store going to the best of her ability, with help.

"For years we didn't have help, just Ron and I," Lorna said. "But now there is no way I could have it (now without help) and I didn't want just anyone off the street."

Though Lorna said many offered support, encouragement and assistance after Ron passed away, the way Terry Lukassen and Kerri Baker approached her just seemed right.

"What I have said as far as the store is there is no way I could meet the April deadline that Ron wanted to close," Lorna said.

Currently, the LorRon Department Store is the pick-up and drop-off site for any items that need to go to Ideal Linen in Scottsbluff for cleaning.

Additionally, Jim O'Brien has a corner of the store for sewing zippers and doing a few mending jobs.

"His moving in has been a wonderful asset, just to have somebody extra here and now we have added this service from Ideal," Lorna said.

Lorna doubted that the store would be able to provide prom tuxedos for many young men again this year, as they have done for years. But with just two weeks to go before the early prom in Kimball, a representative from Jim's Formal Wear trained Terry, Kerri, Jim and Tahlia Rutledge in measuring and pinning, as many shops in the area that carried the formal line of clothing have closed.

"I don't know how to measure and pin them so I'm not going to do it," Lorna said. "So we ventured into it and had a wonderful season. That was always one of Ron's very favorite things to do. Terry and Kerri found it just as rewarding."

The future for LorRon Department Store and the future for Lorna are still undecided. In the meantime, Lorna said the store will stay open as long as she can pay the bills.

"All I'm doing right now is trying to work the inventory down," Lorna said. "I put it in God's hands and we are operating on God's time."

Carharrt and Redwing lines are still available at LorRon Department Store, to accommodate the working people of the county, though Lorna is not ordering new stock.

"It will be the main thing that we will focus on," Lorna said. "It has been the main thing we have focused on."

"Shoes take a lot of time. When you get back in shoes, you are not available for anything else," she added. "One thing I can say is that I am not Ron and I cannot be the shoe clerk that Ron was. He was very good at it.

"Everything we learned and did in this store in 1965 is different than what we do today. I had to stop and think about things. They weren't little changes really."

Ordering has become harder for Lorna and less personal, with most ordering being done over the phone or online – which Lorna refuses to do. Another change the Evelyns resisted was when the big box stores began to take over many small businesses.

"Way back when they opened the Walmart store in Cheyenne a group of Kimball businessmen went up there for an open meeting and we were told any stores in a place like Kimball would be history. Walmart would take all the business," Lorna recalled. "They are trying, but you know what, that was well over 20 years ago and Larsen's Jewelry is still here and we are still here."

The Evelyns' children were once helpers at the store, and Lorna said that each of them has used the background they gained at the store in their adult careers.

As their children and grandchildren once enjoyed spending time at the store, the Evelyns' great-grandchildren now enjoy doing so as well.

Recently great-grandchildren Maddie and McKenna, from Brush, Colo., spent time in Kimball both at Lorna's home and in the store.

The young girls enjoy spending time in the Meyers' yard and Maddie played with an old pair of shoes on wheels (similar to skates) that once belonged to longtime Kimball resident Sherry Pinkerton.

"Here they are a 13-year-old and a nine-year-old, I thought what am I going to have those girls do?" Lorna said. "They love my hat collection and then they were looking at all the collections. They never lost a minute all day long."

Family, friends and neighbors often stop in to visit, and the socialization aspect is perhaps what makes Lorna the happiest of all.

"I love the amount of people that come in just to visit sometimes," Lorna said. "There have been some real rewards. Some disappointments, but the rewards outnumber them."

"I'll just keep going right along. I don't want to stay in here for forever, but I've thought about this so much. I haven't had time to make any plans or do anything. We'd love to have somebody pop out of the woodwork and say 'I want to buy the store.'" Lorna added.

In addition to running the store, Lorna has taught Sunday school and delivered Meals on Wheels for more than 30 years.

She calls Bingo at the Kimball County Manor, as she has done since about 1975, and she has decorated the display shelves at the manor for many years.

"That gives me a wonderful excuse to keep buying things. I try to find things that will be nostalgic for them," Lorna said. "I'm a little bit limited as the amount of volunteer things I can do. I will volunteer up at the manor, which I have done for years, and maybe try to get involved with the museum. Of course we are looking around the store at items that I will just donate to the museum."

"I don't have any desire to travel. It's just too difficult, besides, I bloom where I'm planted," she added.

Ron and Lorna saw many changes throughout the last 50 years, and though some changes have made things easier, Lorna is not sure all of that progress is for the best.

"Its been a short ride really, and changes in the last 50 years have come so fast we can't keep up," Lorna said. "We have known a better way of life. A more relaxed, happier way of life with harder work and better work ethics."