Alva Review-Courier -

Estimates vary, but the value of the 30 pieces of silver that Jesus's friend accepted to betray him is thought to be about $250. What's your price to betray a local friend?

I walked into an Alva downtown business a few days ago and the longtime friend/boss was in a sad mood.

He/she said, “Every day people from the schools, the college and various clubs come in asking for money donations/advertising for some project. I am a generous and kind person and I like helping others out, but it needs to be a two-way street. I'm pretty sure those visiting vendors aren't contributing donations to our kids and students and perhaps not even contributing to Alva's sales tax collections.

“I see delivery trucks delivering Amazon packages or delivery store trucks dropping off products purchased from out-of-town vendors to the very people who come and ask me for donations. It breaks my heart because we have those very products in stock within our store, or if it is not our type of product, the neighboring store next door has it.

“What happened to town loyalty? What happened to good friend loyalty?” my friend asked.

I was visiting about this lack of community loyalty with my sister who lives in Norman. I said something like, “I presume Norman residents go everywhere but Norman to get 'the best deals.'”

She sharply disagreed with my statement. She said, “Long-standing residents are extremely careful to support the town and have a fierce loyalty about buying in Norman whenever possible.”

I was surprised at how she would know this, and when I expressed skepticism at her strong statement of community loyalty, she said, “It's something that just happens. I frequently hear statements of pride about it in the various circles I attend.”

Whether or not this anecdotal statement about Norman is true, it should be; and it should be true in Alva. I personally buy anything I can in Alva from my friends and those who do business with me. I'm not trying to brag, but we all can lean over backward to support our Alva business friends.

In the last year, my sister needed to remodel a home she was placing up for sale in Lawrence, Kansas. It had deteriorated terribly in the 20 years since she lived there. A rent management firm that was handling the property did a terrible job. Her health has been poor and she was unable to even travel to see the property. So I agreed to help oversee and temporarily finance reconstruction.

One of the problems with the house was many rotten wood window frames in this two story house, along with a few broken windows. I made numerous trips to the site and received measurements to replace 26 windows. I knew that Starr Lumber Company was a dealer for Quaker Windows (manufactured near my hometown of Rolla, Missouri). They gave me an attractive deal and agreed to have them drop-shipped to Lawrence, Kansas.

So even though the project was about 230 miles from Alva, and even though there were typical big box building supply retailers like Home Depot, Lowes and Menards in Lawrence, I chose to help out my Ryerson friends in Alva at Starr Lumber Company.

Here's another example of how you can help Alva stores stay in business even though Amazon is a great temptation. We may need a new phone system at the newspaper. I read a lot of Amazon reviews and found a system I really liked. Last week, I printed off the phone literature and took it to my friends, Gary and Terry Brown at Radio Shack, and asked two questions: could they get it, of if they couldn't, could I hire them to install it and service it with whatever mark-up they would get from one of their suppliers. Gary is checking it out, but also said he had a source for rebuilt units of the no-longer manufactured system we have in place and that might be a cheaper way to go.

That's awesome. We purchased our current system from Radio Shack and usually get same- or next-day service on whatever we need. Have you ever tried to get through the automated telephone maze at ATT, Suddenlink or Dish Network? That's the suffering you get to endure when local businesses can no longer stay in business.