Save the fanfare. No, no, no, wrestled Darrell Derstler upon high school graduation: The last thing on God’s green earth he had in mind was working in the family lumberyard. He’d try anything instead—like, say, farming.
But farming, as was quickly brought to his attention, required colossal outlays of cold, hard cash for everything in the John Deere catalog. So instead, Darrell labored laying floors in nearby Kansas City for three years, “until I blew out my back.” So, what next?
You guessed it—back to Richmond, Mo., 30 miles from the bright lights of the big city, and the yard his granddad, dad, and uncle had bought from the Long Bell chain in 1960. They’d been farmers, too. “They had no idea how to run a lumberyard, but they put in a bid and got it,” as Darrell (too young to remember) spools their story.
