The new Chief Executive Officer of Fareway Stores has fond memories of his four years in Decorah.
Reynolds Cramer is a 1991 graduate of Luther College. He has a degree in Business Management from Luther. He says Luther professor Tim Scheizer was a mentor to him. Schweizer has been a member of the Economics and Business department since 1987, teaching classes in Principles of Management, Entrepreneurship, Creativity & Innovation and Statistics.
Cramer says after he finished his freshman year, he decided he would spend summers in Decorah. He says that's when he understood that Luther College was more than just the campus, "it was the whole town, the Decorah area." He enjoyed tubing, canoeing and hiking during the summers.
He also worked at the Decorah Fareway for all four years while he was at Luther—one year in the grocery department and three years in the meat department. "I remember everything," he tells decorahnews.com. At that time, the Fareway store was located on Water Street, in the building that now houses the Oneota Food Co-op. Cramer says he and his friend, Aaron Dehning, would unload semis for the grocery store. That involved taking boxes off the semi, since there were no flats used in those days. Everything was unloaded by hand, with the boxes taken into the basement of the store and then put onto a conveyor belt to get them to the floor of the store,
He also remembers the parking lot. Occasionally when Cramer helped carry groceries to a customer's car in the parking lot, the car had rolled down the hill. Cramer says grocery carts also sometimes were a challenge to keep from rolling down the hill.
He remembers the store being "super busy" quite a bit of time. He also tells decorahnews.com that his four years at Luther College and at the Decorah Fareway store made him decide to stay in the family-run business after graduation. He worked at the Fareway store in Oelwein after graduation, then at stores in Ames, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines before going to work at the corporate offices in Boone.
Cramer tells decorahnews.com that he still thinks about Decorah occasionally, adding, "I can't wait to eat another Mabe's pizza!"