Associated Lumber's First Lady
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ When Janet Stephens sat down in Louise Runge's seat as bookkeeper at the Kimmel-Schwinn Lumber Co. in Du Quoin on June 1, 1959, customers still tapped turpentine and penta fence post treatment out of steel drums in the "snake shed", and coal hauler Raymond Drum's truck was parked on the scale on the northwest corner of the lumber yard to be weighed.
During those first winters an oil stove heated the offices and a coal stove heated the front. "The pipes froze every night and when you opened the door of the coal stove the ash would fly for miles," she remembers.
"I've been a woman working in a man's world for 50 years," says Janet as she celebrates this very golden anniversary on Monday, June 1st as lumber's first lady
She's thoughtful, funny and frugal--all at the same time--probably the straightest 2 x 4 in the bin.
"You never take Janet's pencil," says manager Dwight Hitt. Assistant manager Bruce Bratten nods in agreement. Janet uses a pencil down to where the point and the eraser are both under the same thumb. "She even turns the adding machine tape over and uses the other side," Hitt smiles.
Janet just shakes her head knowing that even seven men standing around the front counter are still in the minority.
"When I started we had this great big adding machine," she remembers. Today, it's electronic calculators and computers that track sales and inventory.
"She's forgotten more than we know," says Hitt. "She's the reason I took the manager's job," he says, the latest of six that Janet has worked alongside. They have included Marvin Juhl, Al Murray, Roger Foltz, Ken Cowan and Hitt. The entire staff relies on her every day.
Janet Stephens became Janet Wright with her marriage to husband Delmar in 1960. She smiles and says, "He said he'd marry me if I got a job." The job and the marriage have been there all these years. Delmar's brother, Don, was working for the Kimmel-Schwinn Lumber Co. when Janet was given the job. The couple has a son, Brett, who lives in Du Quoin with wife Luana and their two children, Joshua and Dustin.
Before taking the fulltime bookkeeping position with Kimmel-Schwinn, she worked parttime at the old F.W. Woolworth variety store on Main Street and the Teel & Taylor Machine Shop.
As a proud member of the DTHS Class of 1958 she spent the first two years of her high school career at the old Du Quoin Township High School and would be graduated from the then-new Du Quoin Township High School on East South Street.
She was one of about 80 in her class, and between 40 and 50 have regular reunions. Many of those still get together monthly. Janet presented a check for $500 to the Du Quoin Community Unit District 200 Education Foundation this year on behalf of the DTHS Class of 1958. Her card club, nights of pinochle and Las Vegas are among her joys. She once worked parttime as secretary for the Methodist Church and admits she should attend more. But, weekends are one of the few respites she has from the full week before.
"I remember when they built all these (public) housing units," she said. "I had to keep track of hundreds of doors. We had trucks of doors," she said.
Janet also served two six-year terms on the Five Star Industries board, most of that alongside long time director Tom Hamlin.
Janet values not only the working relationship with the people around her, but with the people in the same industry. She points to a great relationship with the staff of the equally historic Home Lumber Co. down the street and with the lumber yards that once flourished in Pinckneyville. In fact, Rich Bathon of Pinckneyville, works at Associated's yard in Mount Vernon. "I like my job and I like my work," she says. "Anybody can be a bookkeeper, but not everybody can KEEP books," she says. "I never adjust anything to make it balance. I just make it balance," she said.