-By Jackie Sager

Conversation hearts and mammoth-sized chocolate boxes have been transforming every store’s candy aisle into a pinkish-red frenzy as Valentines Day’s approaches. TrueValue Hardware Store-- putting aside the fact that it sells bolts instead of valentines-- is the odd store out. Where paper hearts should be reigning, stockings, presents, toys, and wreaths take prominence.. They still have their Christmas window display up. Is this tacky laziness? Hardly. In fact, people in the community have been asking TrueValue to put-off rearranging the window display so they can admire it a little while longer. This quaint decorative feature gives a personable edge to a quality hardware store.

The ten foot long window is stocked with Christmas paraphernalia that catches and then keeps people’s attention. The end of a curling list of children’s names falls over a coffee table supporting cookies and milk that show evidence of Santa’s visit. Decorations create a festive holiday image. Some people have brought their families to admire the window and to take pictures. "People come in all the time saying they like the window," said Pamela Zeigler, store designer for TrueValue. Zeigler’s displays have won first and second place in the last two decorating contests conducted during Wilmore’s Old Fashioned Christmas. The extensive displays appear to have taken days to arrange, but Zeigler said that they only take three hours to complete. Every two months she designs a new theme for the window, using whatever she can find in the store, in her children’s rooms, or even on the street. "I’m always stealing my children’s toys to put in here," she says.

When Zeigler first began filling the window with decorations, she did not expect an overwhelming reaction from the community. Her motivation was to perk customers’ curiosity into walking through TrueValue’s door. Once inside, the sent of the wood stove heating the store and the stock of quality merchandise speak for themselves. Gary Bailey, owner of TrueValue, is proud of his stock of bolts that is the most complete line in central Kentucky. One can tell, though, that he’s also proud of his employee that has turned TrueValue into the coziest hardware store in Kentucky.