THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2009
NEWS
7
LAWRENCE
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Ray and Paige Buckingham work at their family's kettle corn stand. The family business started when Ray had a dream. Now the kettle corn brings their family closer and makes some money, too.
Local family's kettle corn dream pops up real business
BY STEPH SCHNEIDER
sschneider@kansan.com
People often forget their dreams right when they wake up, but for Ray Buckingham, he made his dream a reality in October 2007.
Buckingham saw his family popping kettle corn at a carnival in his dream, and now he is popping kettle corn for the Lawrence and KU community.
The goal of creating a family-owned kettle corn business would be to work as a family, put away some money in college funds for their kids, Reid, 13, and Heather, 9, and support Christian ministries, Buckingham said.
"I thought it would be a realistic and fun thing to do with the family," his wife, Paige, said.
The idea to start Buck's kettle corn business was because of a dream, but the money to start it all had to
be real.
"We had to sell a good portion of our land in Lecompton to save on supplies, and we get everything at Sam's Club," Buckingham said.
Buck's Kettle Corn was born in the Buckingham's kitchen and has been sold in the Massachusetts Street Christian bookstore, Signs of Life, since January.
"We had a lot of test batches and neighbors as guinea pigs," Buckingham said. "And then we decided to talk to a business for small distribution."
Buckingham said the owner of Signs of Life, Clay Belcher, attended their church, Grace Evangelical Presbyterian, and was more than willing to share space.
"A lot of people come and eat it in Signs of Life during a Bible study," Paige said. "Business has been progressing every 24 hours with this."
Signs of Life employee and daughter of Belcher, Anna, 22 of Lawrence, said that after the recent Sidewalk Sale, people started to ask about Buck's.
This was Buck's first year in the Sidewalk Sale and the Buckingham's business caught the nose of many patrons walking by.
"We would start a new batch and you could just see people coming towards the stand," Buckingham said. "It was by far our most successful day."
Behind this sweet and salty goodness are the working hands of the Buckingham's children, Reid and Heather.
"I love seeing the popcorn fall from the kettle," Heather said, "but I don't like waking up too early to cook it all."
Heather's duty is selling and
SEE POPCORN ON PAGE 8
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