I set up my radial arm saw, my work bench with the router for carving letters, a small table with an inverted Stanley router for rounding over the edges of our first plaques, and a workbench for sanding before the items were finished. My sugar pine lumber was purchased at E. P. Gerber’s Lumber and Hardware in the nearby town of Kidron.


I


was in business, and the adrenalin started to flow.


I still needed a place to finish the carved and sanded plaques. The best option was the basement of Milton’s house. I noticed that it had a coal chute, an opening where the coal was previously slid into the basement as fuel for the coal fired furnace. The furnace had since been converted to fuel oil. I took the liberty of taking out the window and installing a venting fan to vacuum out the fumes from the finishing operations. Finishing was a simple four step operation - stain, seal, scuff sand, and top coat. I recognized that if we were going to produce quality products we would not be able to continue to finish the wood by hand. I would need to purchase some spraying equipment. My first attempts at running a spray gun were pathetic, but in this business, as in any business, you either sink or swim on your wits. You either figure it out, or fold your tent and go home. With three mouths to feed I had few options!


P. GRAHAM DUNN’S FIRST EMPLOYEE, CAROL CURIE


It was while I was in the basement alone one day finishing a batch of plaques that a young neighbor girl, Carol Shoup Curie, came over with her mother. She came from a large family that worked the dairy operation less than half a mile away on Kurzen Road. She was a junior in high school, just seventeen years of age. Her mother Marie wondered if Carol could help me out. Carol wasn’t one to say much; she much preferred to work than to communicate. For the most part that was fine by me.


I’m rather voluble by nature. To


work with someone who would rather I kept my thoughts to myself was good for both of us - we got a lot done! Little did I know that thirty-four years later Carol would still be with us working in our shipping department. She recently celebrated her fifty first birthday. After school hours and on Saturday, her daughter Mindy, a senior in the Dalton High School, comes in to help out in the sanding department.


Getting back to our origins….


a few months later, LeAnna’s brother Joe asked if he could help out for the summer. His timing was good, as I was preparing to leave to exhibit at our first trade show in St. Louis. It was the summer of 1977. I didn’t want to leave Carol alone in the shop. Joe was as reticent as Carol. Upon my return, after having been gone for a week, I asked them how


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