Mark Blackwell: Owner
Blackwell, 44, grew up on his parent’s farm in Black Creek, on Lookout Mountain near Collinsville. After getting a degree in electrical technology from Gadsden State Community College, he began a career with AutoZone, a retailer of aftermarket parts and accessories for cars and trucks.
Learning retail
“I learned the retail business from my experience at AutoZone,” Blackwell said. “I started in the maintenance department and moved up the corporate ladder pretty quickly in the 12 years I worked with them, from store manager to area manager to district manager.”
Becoming a corporate executive didn’t fit Blackwell’s ideals, especially with all the travel the position required.
“Candi and I had just had our first child and all the travel made it very difficult to be a husband and a father,” Blackwell said.
“I wanted to make a career change so I did what I always do when I need to make a decision – I prayed about it.
Earnest prayer
“I said, ‘Lord, I’ve never done anything but farm and retail. If you’ll give me something in those lines that I can do, I’ll do it and serve you.’ God gave me the opportunity to buy Farmtown,” he said.
It wasn’t quite that easy and it didn’t happen overnight, but there’s more to the story, including his parent’s influence in both farming and retailing.
Father’s influence
“My dad, Johnny Blackwell, worked at the steel plant in Gadsden and farmed at the same time,” he said. “We raised watermelons and cantaloupes and we’d sell them at the Farmer’s Market and at Trade Day.
“Dad taught us about business, about buying and selling and making a profit. That was Dad’s lesson for us.
“The first summer we did that, together my brother and I cleared $500 and we learned about profit margins,” he said. “Dad had a saying back then I still like. When we were kids, people would ask him about raising watermelons and he’d say, ‘I ain’t raising melons, I’m raising boys.’ He’s 83 and retired now but he still farms beef cattle and hay with my mom, Faye Blackwell.”
In addition to Mark, Johnny and Faye Blackwell have three other children.
Craig Blackwell, 52, is a senior vice president for AutoZone and lives in Indianapolis, Ind. John Blackwell, 46, lives in Glencoe where he is a high school teacher and the girls basketball coach at Glencoe High School. The baby of the family, Pam Blackwell, is 40 and lives on the family farm in Black Creek.
The Perfect Mix
So, with his background in farming and retailing, a desire to change careers and his strong Christian faith, Blackwell was looking the perfect match for all his talents and abilities.
“Farmtown was the perfect place for me, or at least I thought so in 1999, but when I approached the former owners, there was no interest in selling it,” he said. “So I prayed again and a few months later, the owners called me about buying it. We finalized the deal in 2000 and, in my mind, there is no question this is where God wants me and my family to be.”
The Blackwell Family
Mark and Candi have three children: Serah, 12, Andrew, 10, and John-Mark, 7. The Blackwell family lives Sardis City, just a couple of miles from Farmtown, and several months ago they moved into the home they built on their own farmland.
“We all love animals,” he said, “so this is the perfect place for us. We have four American Quarter Horses, some cattle and dogs and cats. We are animal lovers all the way around.”
His Philosophy
When asked about Farmtown’s corporate philosophy, he doesn’t hesitate to share the foundation of how he operates his business.
“It’s all about us being the best we can be,” he said. “It’s all bout providing great customer service, having the right products, quality products, at the right price and we always want to make sure we provide the services our community needs.”
There’s more and, to Blackwell, it seemed to be more important.
“I want us always to be sure we give our fair share back to the community, to our church and schools, to our local kids and to our local businesses,” he said. “We are very fortunate because this community supports us very well.”
Unusual Store
Blackwell knows his store is quite unusual.
“There aren’t many old-timey hardware stores still left around, especially in a small town,” he said. “That’s why we have to be sure we do the right things and have the right products at the right price.”
He went on to say Farmtown is much more than a hardware and farm supply store.
Five Businesses
“We are really five businesses in one,” he said. “We are a hardware store and we are a lumber store and building supply store. Mike Abernathy heads up these two ‘stores’ for us. We also have a big feed and seed business, led by Kevin Holcomb. Like Mike is about his area, Kevin really knows about helping farmers.
“Joey Gibbs heads up the small-engine part of our business, and he’s really good at doing that. We do a tremendous amount of repair work on lawnmowers and farm and garden equipment. We also have the best lines of riding and push mowers, as well as string trimmers, chain saws, blowers and every accessory you’d need. Finally, we have a big nursery, greenhouse and garden store. Jamie Chandler has headed that department for five years now and she really knows he stuff there,” he said. “I am involved in all these area and in operating the entire business, as well.”
Additionally, the Farmtown store has just remodeled and reorganized to fit Blackwell’s philosophy of customer service and stocking the right products.
“First, we paid an outside company to conduct a demographic study for us,” he said, “to show us what our market could and would support. We studied other stores like ours around the South and in our area and that revealed what products we should carry and what prices we should offer.”
Changing for the Better
As a result, Farmtown has a complete new look and almost double the inventory.
“I know if a business doesn’t change for the better, it will change for the worse,” Blackwell said. “Our challenge is to keep our old focus and to look modern. Our society expects stores that are clean and neat with items that are fronted, faced and properly priced with a full line of products.”
The remodeling project resulted in a Farmtown that is brighter with better-organized product displays and aisle signage that quickly assists customers in finding the items they need quickly.
“The days of adding to your store and just throwing a lot of merchandise on the shelves are long gone,” Blackwell said.
Old-Fashioned Service
What isn’t gone is the old-fashioned customer service you expect and deserve. Every Farmtown employee is trained to help customers find the product they need and to provide answers to solve customer problems.
As much as Farmtown has grown and changed, Blackwell dreams include more.
“Certainly I want us to continue to grow, even though we have grown tremendously in the last 13 years,” he said. “I hope to add more household items, like dishwasher detergent, and include a full line of household items. We’d like to add more kitchen items, such as blenders and small microwave ovens, and a full line of toys for kids. We want our customers to think of Farmtown as their store from the time they are five years old through adulthood. We already give every child who comes in our store a free airplane.
“We have a number of specialty food items, such as butter, eggs and bacon that were raised on Sand Mountain, as well as many Amish Wedding items. I want people to begin shopping here like we are the Dollar Store of Sardis,” he said.
The Blackwell family, Candi, Mark and their three children, love the Sardis area. Candi works as a nurse anesthetist at Marshall Medical Center South and, when the children aren’t involved in church or school activities, they enjoy boating on Lake Guntersville.
Like his father before him, Blackwell is raising his children to learn and appreciate the farming and retail business also.
“We have a garden and our kids are raising and selling their own homegrown goods,” he said. “I let them come to the store and sit on the front porch and sell things they’ve raised so they can learn the same lessons Dad taught us.”
They are all involved at Sardis Baptist Church, where Mark and Candi both sing in the choir. He is on the church’s finance committee and serves as an assistant Sunday school teacher for his own age group.
“God gave me this opportunity,” Blackwell said. “I prayed for an opportunity to take advantage of my knack for retailing and my knowledge of farming and He accommodated my prayer perfectly, of course. There’s not another store with a hundred miles that fit my farming and retailing dream.
“This is God’s business, not my business,” he said. “I know everybody’s been through rough times, times when you didn’t see how you might get through it. But if you’ll tend to God’s business, he’ll tend to your business.