| Sources |
- [S23] Atchley Funeral Home, (http://www.atchleyfuneralhome.com/), 24 Aug 2002.
Iris Louise Marshall Newman obituary
- [S23] Atchley Funeral Home, (http://www.atchleyfuneralhome.com/), 10 Dec 2010.
Roy Kent Newman obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 28 Mar 2011.
Meet Your Neighbor: Teri Newman closing Barn Owl after a long run in Pigeon Forge
The Barn Owl owner Teri Newman, center, stands with members of her extended family whom she’s brought into the fold over more than 25 years in the store her husband’s family opened in 1978. From left are long-time friend Wayne Knight, employee Kathy Winstead Webb, Newman, and long-time customers Richard and Teri Jacobs. (Gail Crutchfield/The Mountain Press)
By GAIL CRUTCHFIELD
PIGEON FORGE — Teri Newman said recently she feels kind of like Meg Ryan’s character in the movie “You’ve Got Mail” who is being forced to sell her small bookstore because of the “big bad bookstore” that opened just around the corner.
Newman, who owns The Barn Owl with her husband Ted, whose family started the business in 1978, will be locking the doors for the final time on Thursday.
She said she saw the writing on the wall almost three years ago when sales and customers — whom she calls guests — started to decline. Fewer people were sending cards out for birthdays and holidays and collectors were not collecting as much anymore.
Her “ah ha” moment came in December of 2008 when one of her regulars guests came in to purchase a couple of Christmas cards.
“I have this guest who’s traded with us for years,” she said. “Ms. Mary Shy, a beautiful, beautiful lady. She’s an older lady, and I won’t tell you her age because she would pretty much kill me if was in print anywhere. My ah ha moment with having to really, really move forward and look at this from the perspective I knew was going to happen, is she came in and bought two cards.
“She said, ‘I’m just buying these cards. It makes me mad just to have to buy these cards. I’m just buying them though to send, just to put a check in them. I don’t send cards much anymore I just text them. They just throw the cards away.’ So when you have an 80-plus year old guest telling you that she’s texting, I mean it’s an ah ha; it’s a huge ah ha.”
Newman doesn’t blame Ms. Shy or others like her for choosing technology over tactile when it comes to sending messages, it’s just the way the world is these days.
“We live in a time that’s based on technology and it’s a drive-through world,” she said. “Honestly, I think that is what killed our business is it’s a drive-through world. When you can go to those super dealers out there and buy everything you need in one stop, it’s a convenience.
“So you’re not going to those specialty shops anymore. And that’s what we were. We were a true speciality shop. You’d buy your gift here, we’d wrap it for you. Shoot, even deliver it. That’s what we prided ourself on, extreme customer, guest relations and service. And now in an economy that’s completely different, totally different.”
That extends to the collectibles they offered as well, Newman said, citing the Beanie Baby craze as the downfall in that particular department.
“It took collectibles and gift giving to a totally different extreme,” she said. “When you’ve got something out there that can rival Hummel in retail sales and it’s a plush item, it pretty much destroyed it.”
The hardest part of closing the store, Newman said, will be not seeing all the guests who’ve become like family over the years.
“Like Debbie,” she points to a customer in the store on Saturday taking advantage of the 75 percent off sales. “She comes in from Nashville. She’s traded with me for years. She knows my kids’ names. I know all of her kids’ names. We’ve just cultivated a relationship over the years that’s so far above anything they could buy off my shelves.”
That family-like relationship extended to employees of the shop, Newman said, from former manager and “driving force” GeorgeAnn Morgan, to current employees Judy Bales and Kathy Winstead.
“Judy is an original and she has the following,” Newman said of Bales after customer Richard Jacobs walked in with his wife Teri and asked, “Where’s meanness.”
“And Kathy, it’s interesting because Kathy started out as a customer,” Newman said. She pitched in during a few special events and then began working part-time.”
The other branch of the Newman family has bought out Teri’s and Ted’s interest in the building and property where The Barn Owl was located. Though nothing’s been confirmed, Newman suspects the building may be used in an expansion of the Food City next door.
“Hopefully, eventually you’ll see Food City expand, which this community needs,” she said. On the Parkway, it’s one of the busiest Food City’s I think.”
She said it would be easier to see the grocery store utilize the space than another retailer “taking the space that we housed for 30-plus years.”
Having worked at the store for more than 25 of those years, Newman said it became her passion. It was extremely hard, she said, to make the final decision to close the store where her boys Thomas and Tucker grew up and where she’s made so many friends over the years.
“But all good things must come to an end,” she said. “It’s going to be hard to drive through Pigeon Forge and it not be there.
But I take great pride in it,” she added of the store’s legacy. “I think The Barn Owl has left a footprint and an impression our community that will be there forever.”
gcrutchfield@themountainpress.com
- [S25] Smith Mortuary Company, www.smithmortuary.com, 26 Sep 2014.
John Paul Kelley obituary
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
NEWMAN, THEODORE KENT KELLEY, TERESA KAY 1986-11-15
- [S35] The Official Marriage Records of Sevier County Tennessee 1982 - 1987, Volume V, Smoky Mountain Historical Society, (Copyright 2009), ISBN 1-890150-00-7.
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