News and Media

Wray & Sons Roofing Receives Small Business Award

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Wray & Sons was originally established by Bernard & Lorena Wray in 1939. Their sons Greg, Cliff, and Jerry took over the business in 1994, and then five years ago Jerry retired, leaving the business to Greg and Cliff. Bernard and Lorena started the business with only a panel truck and a shed on “D” Street in South Hutchinson. In the early 1970’s, they purchased the property at 229 E. 3rd Street in Hutchinson, where their warehouse and offices are still located today. At Wray & Sons Roofing they offer all types of roofing for both residential and commercial. They als...

Security 1st Title Receives Small Business Award

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

In 1989, Charles Brown and Wayne Colburn purchased Reno County Abstract & Title from the Hartke family. Charle’s son, Todd Brown, started working the business in 1990, and grew the business until 2015 when it was purchased by Security 1st Title. Today, Todd Brown and Nikki Hutton manage the local team in Reno County and have expanded the business to what it is today. Security 1st Title offers title insurance and real estate closing services for residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural transactions, as well as purchases and refinances, new construction, relocation, foreclosure, short sales, escrow contract serving, and 1031 exchanges. Wit...

Joe McGuire Agency Receives Small Business Award

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

A family-owned Hutchinson staple since the early 1900s, Joe McGuire insurance has been around for over a century. Joe McGuire Sr. merged his agency with the Bert Berry agency in 1936. The Berry agency was first started in 1911. In 1987, Joe McGuire took over the agency for his father. Dave Inskeep went to work for the agency in 1999 and eventually purchased the business in 2012. Over the years the McGuire agency has acquired several other insurance agencies to become the successful company it is today. Joe McGuire is an independent insurance agency that represents multiple insurance carriers. Having acces...

Chamber Announces 2022 New Board Members

Thursday, January 27, 2022

The Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce is pleased to announce five newly elected board members. Their three-year term on the Board of Directors began on January 1, 2022. The new board members are Coby Cost, plant manager at Tyson Foods; Sarah Fankhauser, president & CEO at Data Center, Inc.; Brett Henry, partner at Adams Brown; Michele Pitts, coordinator at Reno County Farm Bureau Association; and Kevin Rule, owner of Sleep Shoppe and Furniture Gallery and Furniture & Mattress Clearance Center. “This knowledgeable and diverse group of community leaders will provide great representation from a variety of business perspectives as they join th...

Re-Nu Receives Small Business Award

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Steve has always had a passion for refurbishing and refinishing, starting with vehicles and motorcycles when he was a teenager and progressing into restoring furniture later in life. When it came time to close their 46-year-old family business Fiffe Liquor and figure out what to do next, Steve went back to his love for refurbishing and refinishing and RE-NU came to be. He and his wife Shirley purchased the building at 7 South Main and spent an entire year refurbishing the building – including restoring the original tin ceiling, taking the walls back to the original brick, and re-vamping th...

United Way and Schmidt Foundation announce grant program for Child Care Initiatives

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

The United Way of Reno County, Hutchinson Community Foundation, Greater Hutch and the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce are pleased to announce a $50,000 grant from the Schmidt Foundation, for the purpose of addressing childcare system improvements across Reno County. The $50,000 gift from the Schmidt Foundation to the United Way of Reno County will be leveraged with $40,000 in additional funding from Hutchinson Community Foundation’s donor advised funds, $10,000 from the Davis Foundation, and an economic development grant from Greater Hutch and the Hutch Chamber. The purpose of the funding will be to address several key childcare priorities that hav...

Pizza Ranch Receives Small Business Award

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Dick and Dianne Kovarna opened Pizza Ranch in March 2013. Dick grew up in northwest Iowa where the first Pizza Ranch was built and went there growing up every Sunday with his family after church. After moving to Hutchinson, Dick and Diane would drive by the old Red Lobster location that sat empty for five years where Dick would express his interest of wanting to open their own Pizza Ranch. They finally started the building process in 2012 and opened in March 2013, where they still hold the record for opening day sales for the franchise. While many will say it’...

Toy Depot Receives Small Business Award

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

After collecting Lionel Trains and other vintage toys for 60+ years, Mark Buckley finally fulfilled his dream of owning a vintage toy store and opened The Toy Depot on September 2, 2011. Recently the Toy Depot was presented an award by the Wichita State University, Kansas Small Business Development Center, as its Outstanding Existing Small Business. Not only is the Toy Depot one of 14 vintage toy stores in the world, it is the only vintage toy store south and west of Chicago and the only store in a town under 3,000,000. At the Toy Depot they sell a variet...

Hutch Putt Receives Small Business Award

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

After the fire at Ad Astra at 106 N Main, Cliff and Vicki Shank began researching what they might do with the long, skinny lot that remained. Cliff loves golf and thought it would be fun to have a miniature golf course in town, as there hadn’t been one for many years. After determining the lot size would not be large enough, they sold the property and bought the lot at their current location off of Lorraine. While they had hoped to be operational by March or April of 2017, they ran into construction delays and were finally able t...

BowerComm Receives Small Business Award

Tuesday, October 05, 2021

BowerComm started in 2010 when Lori returned to Kansas after seven years working in Chicago ad agencies. It started as a freelance marketing communications business, where she had long-term contracts with two Chicago agencies to work with several of their clients. The following year, BowerComm began a new partnership with Hutchinson Community Foundation. In the beginning, BowerComm worked with a designer and other freelance partners. In her first five years, her work gradually shifted to about half local clients and half Chicago-related clients. In 2016, Lori hired her first part-time contract employee, Bailey Stiggins. She needed help managing the work, especiall...

Amelia's Receives Small Business Award

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

After graduating from Kansas State University in 1995 with a degree in graphic design and illustration, she began working as the head graphic artists for Fox 6 in Topeka. Once her son was born, she decided to stay home and began doing freelance graphics, as well as designing her own jewelry, which she then started selling through home parties and art fairs. Six years later she opened her own store, Amelia BEADelia’s on South Main Street in the Antique District where she sold her custom-made jewelry. Now in business for 22 years, she recently expanded her store and moved t...

Sandhills Brewing Receives Small Business Award

Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Good morning! Today I am honored to present the July Small Business Award to Sandhills Brewing. Pippin and his identical twin Jonathan developed a love for brewing and began by making beer in their basements, kitchens, and garages where they fell in love with the blend between chemistry and spontaneity. Brewing beer allowed them to be as simple or complex as they liked. After moving back to Hutchinson in 2013, Pippin began exploring the idea of opening his own business, and on April 28, 2018 Sandhills Brewing officially opened its doors. From the beginning, this business was designed to be an exploratio...

Collins Bus and PrairieStar's new mobile medical clinic will help deliver care to rural communities

Friday, June 18, 2021

A new “mobile medical clinic,” parked Wednesday on the east side of the building, is something its developer, Collins Bus Corporation of South Hutchinson, anticipates becoming a new product line at the local manufacturing plant. PrairieStar took delivery in April of the prototype the two businesses collaborated to create but sent it off for a custom-printed vehicle wrap before its unveiling, and it just returned. The specially-equipped small RV was one of three the South Hutchinson-based small school bus maker now delivered to health care providers. The others went to the Johnson County Health Department and Guilford County, North Carolina. With the need fo...

Express Employment Professionals Receives Small Business Award

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

In 2016 when Levi Julian was still with Subway, he placed an order from the franchisee home office and included in the packaging materials was a Fortune 200 magazine. He looked through to see what franchises were ranking high and when he saw Express Employment listed, he immediately liked the concept and felt it was the type of business that would offer a “hand up” in the community. After doing his research and completing all the initial steps, he began looking for office space and after walking up and down Main Street he found the perfect space in January 2017. ...

Skaets Steak Shop Receives Small Business Award

Thursday, June 03, 2021

Skaets Steak Shop has been in business for 71 years as a small neighborhood family style restaurant now serving the 6th generation of customers. It was built in 1949 by Norman Deshene with the idea to be the first fast food restaurant in Hutchinson. After closing for a short time in 1974, Donna Bartholomew re-opened the business and in 1996 Karen LeShure purchase the land and building. Donna and Karen have been running the business together ever since. Many items on the 1950’s menu still exists today, which includes proprietary homemade garlic and blue cheese dressing, daily fresh cut French fries...

Local Businesses have Opportunity to Join Chamber Health Insurance Plan

Tuesday, April 05, 2022

Chamber Blue of Kansas helps make insurance more affordable for business owners The Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber has partnered with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas (BCBSKS) to offer businesses access to health insurance savings associated with large group medical coverage. Chamber Blue of Kansas is an association health plan (AHP) that allows for employers to join together to purchase insurance. The plan is open to employers who have two or more employees and are current, dues-paying members of the Hutch Chamber. “This plan will allow our small businesses to access the buying power of a larger group,” said Debra Teufel, Presiden...