C&R Market's new manager is a local fella

Jay Hickman is C&R Market's new manager. He's glad to be working in Fulton once more after years of hour-long commutes.
Jay Hickman is C&R Market's new manager. He's glad to be working in Fulton once more after years of hour-long commutes.

Jay Hickman, a Callawegian from birth, hopes to bring a fresh approach at Fulton's C&R Market as its new manager.

"I am excited - I want the store to have a hometown feel," Hickman said. "We'll be working on customer service, which isn't just things like saying hello to customers - it's keeping a clean store, stocking fresh food, keeping clean back rooms."

Hickman grew up in tiny Yucatan on a farm that's been in his family for 150 years.

"The last time Yucatan was a town was in the 1850s," Hickman said. "It was a stagecoach drop."

He attended North Callaway High School. College was out of financial reach, so he went full-time at what was then Gerbes Grocery in Fulton.

"When I started out, my job was a bagger," Hickman said. "I worked my way up from there, and I've held just about every position in the store."

He's stuck with the business since, and has been everything from a produce stocker to a liquor manager to a pharmacy tech. He's worked at stores from Jefferson City to Tipton to Kansas. Twelve years ago, he and his wife, three sons and two stepsons moved back to Fulton.

"People who were old (back before I left) are still around and look exactly the same," Hickman said with a laugh.

During his years in the grocery business, he said he's accumulated enough stories to fill a book. In fact, he plans to write one once he retires.

"I've seen life and death, happy and sad," Hickman said. "I've already got an 18-page outline."

For example, back in his Gerbes days, a woman wearing her Sunday best dress fell into the ice machine. With her legs in the air and a stream of profanity coming from her mouth, she drew a lot of attention. Hickman came to her rescue.

"She had a beehive haircut, and it was just hanging in a big old ball next to her face," he remembered.

In one movement, he said, she straightened her hair, grabbed her handbag and slapped him across the face.

"The rest of the day, I walked around with a big old hand print on the side of my face," Hickman said.

It's stories like that, and the people he meets, that make Hickman love his job.

"When people come into the store, it should feel like the living room," he said.

When not at work, Hickman spends time with his family, goes hunting and fishing and carves Native American flutes.