For Sayres, winning this award means “knowing that a lot of the things you try to do throughout the years finally worked, and they’re able to make a difference not only seen by our employees but our customers and the community,” he said. “It’s a great honor to have that.

Deal and his wife, Louisa Marie (1866-1949), lived upstairs over their grocery store, and there they raised their family. The Deal Grocery Company also had one of the city’s earliest telephones (phone number: 8).