Locals in the Limelight

Jeff and Debbie Norris showed up for our interview right on time, in new, matching blue flannel shirts and khakis. I was so impressed and asked, “Did you wear those just for the picture?” Debbie laughed and said that it was a coincidence. Jeff had showered and gotten dressed, and she had already planned to wear her shirt that day, unaware that Jeff had changed into his, too. They are organized and completely in synch with one another; they have to be in their business. As managers of Odessa Foods, they work long hours, days on end without complaint. “This is what we signed up for,” Debbie said.

Jeff was born August 9, 1960 and grew up in the small farming community of Malott outside of Omak. His two older sisters and two older brothers still reside close to home. He attended school in Okanogan and describes himself as a rebel. “Honestly, I was a long haired hippie.” Jeff said he skipped school a lot and dropped out of school his sophomore year. Admittedly becoming a problem at home, Jeff worked in the orchards full time and then enlisted in the National Guard Reserves at age 20.

His father, now deceased, was not an affectionate man. He was somewhat stern, but Jeff respected him and his strong work ethic. His father labored in the orchards, and his mother (now residing in an assisted-living facility in Tonasket) worked in the warehouse. I asked Jeff if it was true that you desire to be a different type of parent with your own children when you have grown up with a father who was not as warm. “Absolutely true,” he said. “I make a point of telling my kids I love them every single day.”

Born March 21, 1965, Debbie grew up in Illinois until age nine. Her dad worked in a dairy and he and his brothers raced stock cars. Her father passed away when she was young, and the family relocated to Omak when her mother remarried. They were traveling up the Oregon coastline, and the kids needed to start school, so they landed in Omak at the Stampede Motel where they did an extended stay. Debbie has a younger half sister and two older brothers. The owner of the motel later sold them his home and 20 acres four miles outside of Malott.

Like Jeff, she grew up on a mini-farm with different animals. Debbie was a tomboy, hung out with mostly guys, and was active in track, basketball and softball. Her stepdad was a welder and mechanic and also built stock cars. She took metal shop and woodshop in school. Jeff proudly told me what an accomplished welder she is (various types) and also an auto mechanic due to the influences of her dad and stepdad. She agreed, “Yeah, I have built a few engines.”

Due to the age difference, Jeff and Debbie’s paths would not cross at Okanogan High School. They both remember how kids killed time on the weekends. As happens in most small towns, they would cruise the main drag, both in Omak and Okanogan. They also hung out at the bowling alley and would shoot pool. “I suppose Debbie is great at that, too,” I asked. They both admitted that actually Jeff is the better pool player.

The summer following graduation, Debbie joined WCC (Washington Conservation Corp) in Loomis, Wash. for a six-month state job maintaining campgrounds, building trails, peeling logs and firefighting when backup was necessary. It was a 10-person crew (Debbie was the only girl), and Jeff happened to be the crew leader. Jeff had just gone through a bad break-up and told me he had sworn off women.

Debbie immediately noticed him, to her it was “love at first sight.” She gave Jeff a run for his money, though; he says she “played hard to get.” Apparently, one of the other crew members was chasing after her, but she was after Jeff. They had weekends off, and he would give her a ride back to Malott. They lived in the same town but had never met. They both talked about how much they loved that job. I am sure it was partly because a summer romance was blooming.

After the job ended, they both returned home and continued to date trying to keep it under wraps. “To everyone else, we were just hanging out,” Deb explained. Apparently, they both got along really well with each other’s dads. “My dad loved her!” Jeff said, and he certainly had to pass muster with her parents as well. They married a few short months later in July of 1985 in an outdoor wedding.

Jeff and Debbie began married life helping her family build and open a new restaurant “Kay’s Café” off Highway 97. It was a family business in the truest sense of the word, as Debbie waitressed, her mom and brother cooked, and Jeff and her stepdad did the dishes. Their son Josh (now 26) was born, and they decided to move to La Grande, Ore. to manage an apartment complex. It proved disastrous for them. They were HUD-subsidized apartments, and they weren’t getting their paychecks on time, or sometimes at all. They decided to leave abruptly, and Jeff’s dad and brothers drove down with pickups and cars to get them and load up their stuff. “They were all tired and wanted to leave the next morning. No way! I told them, I was not spending one more night there.” Debbie explained. Jeff smiled and said that once his wife’s mind was made up, that was it.

They returned to Malott to the familiarity and connections they had back home. For awhile, they lived with Jeff’s parents. As many newly married couples do, they worked various jobs to make ends meet. Jeff worked in the orchards again, the warehouse, a meat packing plant, the quickie-mart. Debbie worked as a waitress and then at the quickie-mart in Brewster also. They had a second son Jeremy (now 23), and for awhile while raising the boys they worked opposite shifts at the quickie-mart, each of them getting 3 to 5 hours of sleep per day.

Eventually, they both landed at the IGA in Brewster which later became the Brewster Market Place. Debbie worked there 27 years, starting out as a checker and working up to produce manager. They both agreed that is where their “careers” in the grocery business really started. Jeff worked as a receiving clerk there but eventually started his own janitorial business, cleaning carpets and floors. Many of his commercial clients were stores he had worked in.

While working at the Brewster Market Place, Debbie worked under store manager Bob Dewey for 13 of those 27 years. The two couples (Bob and wife Bonnie, and Jeff and Debbie) developed a deep mutual respect and friendship over the years. Jeff’s floor-cleaning company did the floors for his store. Bob and his wife moved and purchased their first store in Cowiche, outside of Yakima. They would occasionally prod the Norrises with an offer of purchasing another store if they would agree to manage and run it. Debbie was adamant that she needed to wait until Jeremy graduated. She told them, “After that, I will go wherever you want me to.”

Bob had been looking for business opportunities when he ran across Denny’s Thrift in Odessa. Bob’s whole career had been in the grocery field. He started out in his youth as a stock boy and was a store manager by the time he was 23. They asked the Norrises to accompany them to Odessa to check it out. Debbie admitted, “I had absolutely no idea where Odessa was. We were looking at maps, trying to find out about the town on Google.” When they first pulled into town, they realized how much they were going to miss the mountains, the woods and the rivers.

They shared the funny, surreal experience of walking through the store for the first time. “It was like a time warp,” Debbie said. She explained that if you are not continually updating technology and equipment, machinery becomes quickly outdated and obsolete. “I heard them running store reports and realized I actually recognized the sound, the type of machine that was being used. I hadn’t heard that sound in over 20 years!” she laughed. They were amazed that the prior owners still had working equipment that old. URM, the company that supplied repairmen, resorted to just sending spare parts in the mail, because most of the technicians who knew how to repair that type of equipment were retired or deceased. Jeff smiled with his optimistic attitude and said, “We knew we had nowhere to go but up!”

Their deal was a mutually exclusive arrangement. Bob wouldn’t buy the store unless they ran it, and they would not agree to manage a store unless Bob was the owner. They trained at Bob’s store for a month prior to the Odessa purchase. Debbie had to learn to be a meat cutter. Bob was willing, in fact insisted on, upgrading or repairing anything that needed to be taken care of to insure their success.

“He can dial into our computer system at any time to see how we are doing,” Jeff explained. I asked him how the owners felt about the store growth so far, and he said, “We are right on track.”

Jeff and Debbie extended the store hours, and their first year they each worked 14.5 hours a day, seven days a week. In keeping with Norris tradition, it is a family-run business. Both their sons work there, and Josh is the assistant manager. They are committed to extended hours and being open every day of the year with the exception of Christmas Day. Are they going to purchase it someday? “Absolutely,” Jeff said. “That is the plan, we have a small percentage ownership now.”

With the store becoming more efficiently run, they have been able to scale back somewhat. They still average 96 hours every two weeks, but they are able to take off half a day Saturdays and all day Sundays. I asked them if they “talk shop” a lot at home, and they both laughed and said pretty much all the time.

They shared a story about their 25th anniversary getaway in Seattle with Bob and his wife Bonnie. Bonnie and Jeff insisted that Bob and Debbie could not talk about work for those 3 or 4 days so they could enjoy their vacation. “Did they make it?” I asked. “Not even a day!” Jeff stated.

They have managed to do what a lot of married couples could not – work all day together and live together day in and day out. In a smaller store, they do not have the luxury of doing one job. They, along with the other employees, must wear many hats. They are a well-oiled machine, a great management team with a mutual respect for one another’s opinions. “We discuss things as a family, but one of the things that makes this work well is the chain of command,” Jeff said. “I always say, she makes the rules, I enforce them.”

He explained that his wife is the manager, his son the assistant manager and he is in a supportive role. Jeff admires Debbie’s management style. He is more blunt, a no-nonsense kind of guy. He describes her as more tactful and compassionate. People trust her and come to her for advice. He explained that even when she was produce manager at her prior job, people were coming to her, after Bob left the store, for advice and support.

Even when they get much needed time off, Debbie explained, “I am still at work,” as she pulled out the phone in her pocket. “We are always on call.” One night after they had gone to sleep, they received a call from the security company that the motion sensor silent alarm had gone off down at the store. They got dressed and immediately headed down. After checking the entire premises, they returned home and went back to bed. Shortly after, they got another call. Once again, they went down to the store and couldn’t find anything wrong. Jeff laughed as he told me they finally figured out that a batch of helium balloons were blowing and activating the alarm every time the heat kicked on. Never a dull moment, the store keeps them busy and many times entertained. There is a local shopper who always comes in about 10 minutes before closing every night. Always happy to see her, it has become their cue that it is time to go home. One night, she came in between 5 and 6 instead of 7:50. “We told her she couldn’t do that anymore because it really threw us off,” Jeff said.

With the logistics of a family run business, the Norrises can’t go on a family vacation because one of them has to be there at all times. I admire the sacrifices they make and how much they genuinely care about this community. We are lucky they landed here, and I know it must be all-consuming for them. When asked if they could shut down mentally at night, they both started laughing. Debbie said one too many times the last thought she has after getting in bed is, “Did we pull the doughnuts?”