It was shortly after the old grocery store on Main Street — Joe’s Market — had permanently closed in 2006 that CLINT OSNER, a lifelong local in his hometown of Conway Springs, got a silly idea in his head.
He thought about it sometimes while commuting to and from his day job as a welder at Cessna in nearby Wichita, about 35 miles away.
He even mentioned it aloud to a few folks, including close family members, some of whom ran successful businesses themselves in and around the small town of about 1,200.
Well, word must have made its way around Conway Springs because one day while at the car wash, Mary Kay Hunt, a local banker’s wife and respected member of the community, approached Clint.
Hunt has since passed, but it’s an exchange that remains cemented in Osner’s memories.
“She came and she said, ‘You need to build that grocery store,’” he recalls. “I told her we were thinking about it. And then she said, ‘Well, quit thinking about it, and do it!’”
So, he did.
Celebrating Success
This summer, 15 years later, Clint and his family are celebrating a decade and half in the rural, independent grocery store business, serving as a lifeline not only for Conway Springs, but neighboring communities in and around Sumner County.
Each summer, the Osners have made it a tradition to celebrate another trip around the sun at Hired Man’s Grocery and Grill with free hot dogs for th
eir customers, grocery giveaways and other goodies.
To mark this year's milestone, the business owners have invited Bossie the Cow from Hiland Dairy and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile to town on July 22.
Shoppers and other Hired Man’s fans can tour the inside of the famed motor vehicle shaped like a hot dog on a bun while partaking in the anniversary celebration.
The Conway Springs grocery is also giving away 200 bags of free groceries to loyal shoppers and raffling off several large prizes, including a grand prize for a pair of lucky patrons: an expense-paid trip for two to Golden, Colorado, to tour the Coors Brewery at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
Taking a Gamble
Inside the mid-sized grocery store, shoppers can find everything from fresh watermelon to hand-cut steaks to a hot lunch cooked daily in the deli.
When Clint first mentioned the idea of building a grocery store to his wife, Jenny, over 15 years ago, the former classroom teacher was certain the man she married was joking.
“With three kids five and under, that was not in our 10-year plan,” Jenny said.
However, with the full support of the small, but tight-knit community and the helping hands of extended family members, the Osners dove in and took a big gamble on their financial future.
In 2007, working closely with their regional grocery distributor, the Osners were surprised to learn that Conway Springs needed a grocery store to serve the area that was much larger than the previous grocery on Main Street. While they had initially hoped to restock the shelves of the existing building, this meant finding a new location to build a brand-new store.
Later that year, extended family came together to help construct a new building on the north entrance of town, on Kansas Highway 49.
During construction, all three of the Osner kids — Karlee, 7; Colby, 6; and Haylee, 4; at the time — would put on their roller skates and enjoy the freedom of a large empty building with smooth concrete floors, according to Jenny.
“We tried to give them a family experience — that was the biggest thing,” she said.
Easier said than done. While building a new business from the ground up, both Clint and Jenny kept their day jobs, him commuting every day to and from Wichita and her teaching third graders at Kyle Trueblood Elementary School.
Thanks to family and friends, they made it work and by the time they were ready to open in the summer of 2008, Clint and Jenny had their three kids make a set of handprints outside on the concrete to mark the occasion. In those early years, seeing those newly minted impressions on the business they worked so hard to build brought them joy, but it also brought a little bit of sorrow.
The Osners, who both come from large families, had always wanted more kids, and so in the back of Jenny’s mind she sometimes worried that if they had another child, he or she might feel left out of the picture. Though God did not bless them with any more children, Jenny has no regrets about the family she’s raised or the gamble they took on their family and future.
“The store became our baby,” she said, warmheartedly.
Starting From Scratch
Hired Man’s opened on July 15, 2008, and for the first three years of operation, the Osners pulled no income from the store, relying instead on Clint’s day job and Jenny’s earnings from education to pay the family’s bills.
Bankruptcy was not an option, they said. Instead, they funneled the revenue they weren’t collecting toward working capital: money for store repairs and improvements, testing new products on the shelves, and paying down their business loan.
“We didn’t know if it was going to work or not — this was the biggest gamble of our lives,” Jenny added.
Those first few years of operation, while Clint still worked at Cessna, were tough. He would wake up at 3 a.m. every morning, arrive at work 10 minutes before 5 a.m., and cross the tracks to get home around 4 p.m. so he could work at the store until nearly midnight each night.
Jenny would also help after school and on weekends, sometimes with the kids at her side.
In those first few years, every night before bed, Jenny would ask Clint — the calm and collected one — whether it was all going to work out. He said he didn’t know, but they would continue to do everything they could to make the store
a success.
“Eventually though he said, ‘Quit asking me that!’” Jenny said and laughed.
They were able to make it all work because of family. From day one, Jenny’s mother, Nancy Koester, served as Hired Man’s daytime manager, and Clint’s parents, George and Donna Osner, were staples in the meat department, where they still help out today.
Thanks to the dedicated labor from loved ones, Clint finally quit his job in the airplane industry in summer 2011, nearly three years after the Osners opened their doors, and Jenny was also able to end her career in teaching to focus on the store full-time in 2018.
Today, Hired Man’s is bustling with business with loyal customers from Conway Springs and out-of-town shoppers who travel from Argonia, Norwich, Milton, Milan and Wellington.
There are even some from Wichita who come for Hired Man’s famous hamburger — ground on site — and other specialty items served in the meat department.
In 2017, when a Dollar General opened across the street, the Osners extended their weekend hours to compete with the national retailer. Based on community feedback, they even paved their entrance and expanded their parking lot to make shopping at Hired Man’s just a little bit better.
“We’re most fortunate that the community supported us,” Jenny said. “We don’t expect them to shop us — we want them to choose to shop us.”
Homegrown
Inside the fridges and freezers near the meat and deli departments are some of the most popular products: stuffed sausages, custom-cut steaks, specialty burgers and
homemade brats. During Clint’s childhood his father, George, worked several years as the local butcher at Joe’s Market before leaving the job to work as a mail carrier for the rest of his career. When Hired Man’s first opened, Clint knew he could rely on his father to show him the ropes inside the butcher room, at least until he got the hang of making sausages, brats and burgers.
“Give me three or four months, and I’ll have the hang of it,” Clint recalls telling George. Fifteen years later, both his mom and dad are still behind the meat counter, helping to pack George’s homemade original, garlic, Italian or jalapeno sausage, a few local favorites that fly off the shelves, fresh
or frozen.
“When we first opened, we called it Original Sausage,” Jenny said. “But everyone asked, ‘Where’s George’s Sausage?’ That’s when we realized we needed to relabel it.”
Despite not being on the payroll, George rolls up his sleeves on many days, according to the Osners, not only to stuff sausages but to catch up with chatty customers.
A few years ago, they even started sending care packages filled with goodies to military service members from the community who are stationed away from home. Included in each package of snacks and treats is a T-shirt for these hometown heroes with the word “homegrown” emblazoned under an American flag.
It’s the same picture that appears on the signs on the aisle markers above shoppers’ heads at Hired Man’s and the same T-shirts and sweatshirts the employees wear to work.
Everything about the store — including the family who runs it — is “homegrown,” according to Jenny and Clint, who were high school sweethearts.
“We really believe in this community — they’re our family, and they’re our neighbors,” Jenny said.
Thanks to the success of their store, the Osners have been able to support local school fundraisers, community events and projects, and even the food bank — Conway Springs Mission Mart, housed in the old Presbyterian church — which does not have refrigeration. Through a voucher program coordinated with the food pantry, those in need can come to Hired Man’s to pick up milk, cheese, fresh bread and other perishable items.
The store also boasts a grant-funded incentive program called Double Up Food Bucks, which allows recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), to double their purchasing power of fruits and vegetables.
After swiping their SNAP card at the register, the store generates a coupon for the same dollar amount, up to $25 a day, to spend on additional fresh produce. It’s a win-win-win for the customer, the store and for local farmers, according to Jenny.
“It’s really great in the summertime when we start to get watermelon and cantaloupe from DeVore Farms, or we have Beck Family Farms that does tomatoes. Right now, we have Kozy K (Acres) that has asparagus,” she added. “It not only helps generate funds here in the store, but it helps generate funds for local producers as well. And that money is reinvested back into our communities.”
A Family Affair
Behind the “Employees Only” double doors at the back of the store is a small whiteboard next to the employee schedule with a list of items Hired Man’s shoppers are looking for: Frost Bite Mountain Dew, Strawberry and Cream Dr. Pepper, and other special requests.
Behind the deli counter, all three of the Osner kids — now 21, 20 and 17 — help with duties over the lunch hour in the summer, making sausages, serving lunch to hungry customers, or packaging fresh-smoked ribs that customers can take home for dinner.
The kids are all grown up now with Karlee and Colby in college, and Haylee about to start her senior year of high school. Over the years, the Osners have worked alongside many other employees — 25 in all today — who keep the store running, including part-time high schoolers who Jenny remembers teaching in the third-grade classroom.
“If I hadn’t been a teacher, I don’t think I could have been as effective here,” she added. “It helps me run the schedule, manage the kids, and teach them how to do their jobs. For some kids, we’re their first job, and it’s our job not only to teach them how to work and handle customers, but also how to call in sick, and all the other expectations we have.”
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 — much like the rest of the world — the Osners lives got turned upside down. Suddenly Jenny was helping the kids stay on top of schoolwork from home and most all the kids’ school activities including tennis meets and proms were canceled.
“We were all scared when COVID hit. The kids wanted to help in the store — they didn’t want to stay home all day,” she said, adding that as the pandemic progressed her kids took on bigger roles in the store.
Her girls even helped gather and deliver fabric to community members who sewed masks at the height of the pandemic, making the store a collection point for mask making and distribution.
“Eventually we let the girls run the register, and Colby started helping in the butcher room. It really helped us have a good family connection again. Not that we didn’t already, but since we weren’t running around to all their sporting events, we got to go golfing on the course together, and we’d even go fishing in the evening when things would slow down,” Jenny added.
Labor of Love
At the height of the pandemic in late 2020, Hired Man’s secured just over $100,000 in state and federal grants to help upgrade their coolers and freezers, which allowed them to offer a greater range of fresh, frozen and dairy products.
Despite the challenges over the years, the Osners aren’t complaining. They know Hired Man’s serves as a lifeline for their local community.
“When funerals come around, we’re there. We’re there for the celebrations, and we’re there for the heartaches. People don’t just shop here for their food. They shop here
for conversation, or they’ll say you’re a lifesaver because our parents still drive, and thanks to you, they don’t have to drive out of town,” Jenny said.
As the saying goes, it takes teamwork to make the dream work, and the Osners also credit their employees — including their three own kiddos, extended family, and other helping hands from over the years — who have impacted Hired Man’s and made it into what it is today.
“We’re very thankful that the community supports us, and we could not do it without our employees,” Jenny added. “They show up, they want to serve our customers, and when we need extra help, they’re always willing. We just couldn’t run this store without them. They’re part of our heartbeat.”
