Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 3, 1993 TAG: 9309030221
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
She was the one who got it started a little more than two months ago.
Stephens and her husband, Eddy, expanded their C&S Galleries and Custom Framing store in Dublin to include an outlet in downtown Pulaski when its Main Street program began enjoying success in attracting new businesses.
She opened Main Street Galleries four months ago in space formerly occupied by the Pulaski office of state Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, and Pulaski Main Street Inc.
Those offices moved elsewhere to make room for the new store.
But Stephens was not through causing movement in downtown Pulaski.
On June 22, she organized a meeting of downtown business people to seek ways to improve business for all of them.
"You can accomplish more if you're united and you're all striving for the same goals," Stephens said when asked why she pushed for the original meeting.
"Things are just going so great. It's just such a golden opportunity here," she said of the business growth in downtown Pulaski.
Stephens had been office manager at Pulaski Community Hospital until 1986, when she opened Leisure Crafts. When she added and picture-framing, she found it to be her most popular offering.
The Stephenses opened C&S Galleries three years ago.
They visited Pulaski after hearing of the new businesses brought in by Roscoe Cox when he was hired as part-time Pulaski Main Street director.
"We came up and talked to Roscoe, and he was just so enthusiastic and just had so many plans," she said.
"We just decided that we wanted to get in on the ground floor."
Already she is thinking ahead. They plan to buy the building that Main Street Galleries is in and, by next summer, expand to the second floor to accommodate about seven smaller shops of various kinds.
Others joined her efforts to organize a downtown promotional group, drew up bylaws for it and, at Tuesday's meeting, decided to approach Pulaski Main Street about operating as part of that program.
The Main Street board of directors will have to decide whether to approve the idea when it meets Sept. 16.
The participating merchants also elected Stephens to head the group, with Paul Etzel, owner of the Renaissance restaurant, as vice chairman, and Debbie Jonas, owner of Colony of Virginia, as secretary.
"A main goal is to eventually have as many businesses in the town of Pulaski as possible be a member and participate in promotions and advertising," Stephens said.
"We realize it'll take us a long time to get there, but that's our goal."
The first thing Stephens did after being elected to continue leading what she started was to plan a short vacation. She has not had one in three years, since launching the framing business.
"If I don't take it now, I'll never get it," she said.
But she doesn't plan to take her telephone off the hook:
"I'm scared I might miss something."
by CNB