Brothers Learn Father’s Lessons
Travis and Tyler Anderson plucked night crawlers from the ground to sell and cleared rocks from the family potato patch for most of their childhood. But their bodies aren’t bent and their spirits aren’t broken.
The brothers grudgingly admit their father might have known what he was doing when he insisted his four sons learn some business sense.
“Dad always had things on the side, like a farm, so he could ruin our Saturdays,” Tyler says with a grimace.
“We’re still not old enough to appreciate it.”
But Travis and Tyler, who are in their mid-20s, know their father’s work ethic and business lessons will jump-start Bagelby’s, the bagel bakeries they plan to open in Coeur d’Alene and Hayden next month.
With their father’s guidance, the young Anderson brothers graduated from digging worms to raising calves. They had checking accounts and mock stockholder meetings before they could balance on two-wheelers.
“We each had our own stock,” Travis says. It was board-game stock, but it represented real money in the Anderson home. “He always made it kind of fun.”
After college, the Anderson brothers decided to stay in business together. Travis baked for a Bagelby’s in Pocatello, Idaho, during school and liked the business. Tyler ran a Sears franchise in Blackfoot, Idaho, for two years but was ready for a change.
They studied the market and found Coeur d’Alene hungry for kettle-boiled New York-style bagels.
“We figure we’re young enough to do it now,” Travis says.
They moved their families north last July and rented stores on Appleway’s fast-food alley and in the new Prairie Mall. They bought ovens, refrigerators, espresso machines and furniture. They hired carpenters, planned menus, projected business and prepared themselves to work long hours.
Just as their dad had taught them.
Our own Mr. Burns
Public health is no picnic. Coeur d’Alene’s Jim Burns will swear to that. While he led the Panhandle Health District Board of Health for 19 years, lead poisoning surfaced in Shoshone County and AIDS and teen pregnancy overwhelmed the public.
Somebody protested just about every policy and program the health board created - water quality, pregnancy exams for teens, lead testing and so on. Jim was sued, threatened and harassed, often by both sides. But he hung in there.
Public health takes that kind of determination, which the National Association of Local Boards of Health recognized last summer. It picked Jim for its Western Region trustee award.
He deserves it.
Back in time
Most people don’t remember their baptism as fervently as does Seattle’s Simon Seibert. But Simon’s was special. His christening was the last performed in the old Cataldo Mission before its renovation in 1926.
Simon was born in Smelterville, Idaho, where his father ran a small camp for tourists. His family left the area in 1929, but Simon returned last year and stopped at the mission.
After seeing his christening spot, he felt moved to give something to the mission. So he crafted a wooden clock in the shape of Idaho and included a plaque commemorating Father Cataldo.
He presented it on the 71st anniversary of his christening last month.
Nice way to mark the passing of time. …
Oops
Did you see the picture last week of the misspelled road warnings in Idaho Falls? What mistakes have you found in your town? Point them out to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo