Man offers customer service to hungry neighbors
Published 12:00 am Friday, July 14, 2006
ROME TOWNSHIP — Danny Dunfee, of Scottown, was looking for corn Saturday morning. As he browsed the pile of long green ears in the back of a pickup truck, Shirley Smith of Chesapeake, had a peek at the green bean and tomatoes waiting in tables under a large tent.
“I’ve been here two times this week,” Smith said.
Be it corn or tomatoes, cucumbers or cantaloupe, Buzzy’s Produce on Irene Road aims to please. And he’s been pleasing customers for more than 20 years at one location or another.
“This is my first time at this space,” he said. “I used to be by the Buggy Bath and when they started the third lane of the bypass I went to Huntington (W.Va.) a couple of years while they got this place filled in,” Buzzy Shepherd explained. “Then I came here.”
Much of what Shepherd sells is fresh, homegrown Lawrence County veggies, from one neighbor’s field to another’s dinner plate.
“The biggest sellers right now are watermelon, half-runner beans, cantaloupe and peaches,” he said. “I bring in peaches and watermelon from South Carolina until they come on here and then I get it from the local farmers,” he said. “This is the first day I’ve had homegrown corn.”
Once the corn-beans-and tomatoes season is over, the produce stand will offer pumpkins, just in time for fall baking and decorating. Not just veggies await you at Buzzy’s. He also sells locally produced honey.
And he is proud of his customer service. Some customers who can’t easily get out of their cars often pull up and he delivers their order right in their car window.
Buzzy said he likes what he does and enjoys having neighbors stop in and see him
“I like the people I meet. I’ve just been in it all my life,” he explained. “Some people like fishing as a hobby, I like this.”