The manager of Namao's only store says he's closing his doors at the end of June. But don't worry, say the building's owners, Johnny's Store isn't shutting down anytime soon.
Keith Reed, manager of the Namao Store, announced last week that he would be closing his store as of June 30. Reed has managed the store – the only one in Namao – since about 1990.
The Namao Store is inside the ancient Johnny's Store building in the heart of Namao. That building is about 110 years old and has been featured in numerous films and TV shows.
Reed said he started thinking about moving on back in February after a particularly slow winter. There's been a sharp drop in through-traffic since the northwest Anthony Henday opened, he said, which has essentially cut his business in half.
"My attempts to have somebody take it over failed, so I just decided to shut down."
The announcement led many Namao residents, including members of the Namao Agriculture Society, to think that the town's sole store would soon be no more.
Not so, said Brenda McNeilly of the McNeilly family, which owns Johnny's Store. While Reed owns the Namao Store, he leases the building it is in (Johnny's Store) from the McNeillys.
Reed might be going, she said, but the McNeilly family itself will keep the store running as Johnny's Store, the name it has had since 1946. "The store is not closing."
Centre of community
Namao's only store was first built in 1902 by Jeremiam Frank Johnson, says Gordon Carson, a local historian researching the store's history. The store passed through a few owners and names before being bought by Johnny McNeilly in 1946, who gave it its current name.
The store is the centre of the community, says Layla Pretzlaff, spokesperson for the Namao Community Agricultural Society. "We don't have a town, we don't have a government … that store is where everybody goes to link up."
The store has been a fixture in the community "for forever," said county Coun. Tom Flynn, as has Reed himself. "If you needed to know about anything going on in the Namao area, he was the guy."
A welder by trade, Reed, 73, said he was laid up with tennis elbow in 1990 when he got a call from Ollie McNeilly, then the store's operator. She was getting on in years, and asked if he wanted to take over the store. He agreed, and ended up staying for 22 years.
"I was raised and I went to school here," he said, when asked why he had stayed on the job for so long, and he loved his community. "As I say to my staff, so long as the sheriff is not here and the banker's not at the front door, I guess we're doing okay."
The store itself has remained almost unchanged since he first visited it as a child, Reed said. He's added some new coolers, but, like previous owners, has otherwise kept the place's wavy floor, display cases and whitewashed wooden walls the same. He even sells the same five-cent candies he bought as a lad.
Only the front overhang has changed, he added — it had to be rebuilt after some youths crashed a stolen car into it in the early 1990s. "We got a tractor, lifted [the fallen overhang] out of the way and opened the store up," he said.
The store itself has since been featured in many films and television shows, Reed noted, including Bordertown Café, Fargo, and the ongoing TV show Blackstone.
Pretzlaff said she's glad to hear that Johnny's Store was staying open. "If we didn't have a store, the fabric of the community would pull apart some more."
The agricultural society is planning a farewell party for Reed this June 9 to thank him for his support of the community.
Reed said he wasn't sure what he would do after he hung up his "Closed" sign, but noted that he had five grandkids and a water-hauling business to handle. "I'm sure we'll find enough to keep us busy."
