Location: Wheaton, Mo.
Owners: Gary and Sissy Still
History: Gary Still is the first to say he started in the poultry service business almost 30 years ago but has now discontinued that, as he and his wife, Sissy pour their energy into their SOS (Still’s Ozark Supply) hardware store, Rhino bed liners and spray foam linings, which he first provided to poultry producers for their houses and has since discovered can be used for a variety of insulation purposes.
Products and Services: “In this neck of the woods, you have to be able to provide a number of different services and products to your customers to stay in business,” Gary said as he explained some of the diversity of his business interests. “First, we have the hardware store here in Wheaton. This started with the poultry service years ago, which means we still have PVC, connectors and other things our poultry producers need, and then lots more besides. We offer a full range of services, like threading pipe, custom fabricating in terms of welding and light equipment repair.
“We still do some old-fashioned things, like selling nails by the pound and keeping all sorts of plumbing parts and supplies. During the extreme cold spell we had in February, we had plumbers calling us from 30 to 40 miles away, looking for parts and we had them,” he added with a laugh. “The hardware store is what keeps the lights on here at SOS so we are glad to have it all back up and running full speed.”
Gary’s enthusiasm for the variety of services involved in his SOS business is boundless.
“We cover more kinds of things than you can probably write about in one column,” he chuckled. “We started spraying Rhino bed liners in pickup trucks and then found we could spray that on flat beds and hay trucks as well.
“The same proved to be true with the spray foam lining that we first used in poultry houses. I started demonstrating this kind of insulating foam at shows by using it in a cooler and then standing on it to show off its strength and the next thing you know, I was using it to insulate hunting blinds, live wells, all kinds of things, all over the country. And of course, for our agriculture clients, even though I no longer provide a running poultry service, with more than 25 years in that business, I can still share that knowledge with our customers.
“We are an old-time hardware store in many ways, and yet do our best to keep up with the needs of people today. And right now, after all of this COVID and super cold weather, people are ready to get out, and go hunting and fishing so we have a few things for that, too.”
