Married in 1948 and widowed 12 years ago,
Lorretta Walker, 84, runs the the Col.Walker Flag
Co. in her Iroquois neighborhood home. The
business was started nearly 50 years ago by her
husband, R.K.Walker, commissioned a Kentucky
Colonel by several governors. Information: (502)
366-6516 or walkerflags.com.
“He
needed me
to help him” with his earlier insurance business.
“I had three little girls and I said I would help him
if he would bring the work home. So he did. He
built me an office. … I would work at night, then
—I had my kids here. I never did go off and leave
’em. In those times it never was the thing to do. …
He dabbled in all kinds of things and he got into
selling flags and he kinda liked that and so he developed
a flag business. … He was always very
outgoing and, well, you might call him an outlandish
person. We always said that he was the front
room and I was the back room.”
No sale:
When
her husband died in 1997, “everybody
thought I would sell the business, but,
actually, I didn’t. … I’ve been going ever since. …
I’m semi-retired now, but I like this. … I’m sort of
the boss. I open up and I’m here all the time, except
when I go to the women’s club or go to play
bridge. … I also like to be here. It gives me something
to do. When you take a person who’s been
busy all their life—and I have been, and I read a
lot, but I don’t have anything to
do
— you can’t
just sit and twiddle your thumbs.”
Not a factory:
“We
sell; we don’t manufacture.
We have companies that we’ve represented
since the ’60s. We sell flag poles. We sell everything.
… We sell U of L flags and U of K flags,”
though those are now limited by copyrights. “We
sell EKU flags like they’re going out of style. We
sell all state flags and then we make custom flags.
… We’ve made all of Fort Knox’s embroidered
flags that they have in their offices out there.
We’re only one of two companies in the country
that even make them.” The company also sells
POW, religious, corporate, boat and other flags.
You name it:
“We
sell all foreign flags. We
ship to the Army. We ship to Iraq. Japan, England,
Sweden, Germany—any country.…If somebody
calls up and said they want a Philippine flag, we’d
have that. Or a flag from the Confederate war,
we’d have it. … We keep all the popular ones in
stock. Some of the Third World countries and
countries in Africa that change their names all
the time, we just can’t stock them. But we can get
them on a moment’s notice.”
Built on service:
“We
ship out the same day
we get an order. That’s how we built our business
—by service.…We have a warehouse in the back;
it’s like 30 by 30 foot.…We bought this house and
it had a two-car garage that was like falling off its
hinges. … So we built onto this. We actually have,
like, a six-room addition back here in the back,
which is our office.”
No stopping her:
“I
don’t have any plan to
quit ’til I drop dead, to tell you the truth. Because I
feel good and there’s nothing wrong with me.
And it is a good business. … The kind of people
who come in here, they’re all fine people. Most
people who come in here, they’re patriotic.”
—Paula Burba
