Olorenshaw Farm Services celebrates 50 years in business
BY JOAN JANZEN
Olorenshaw Farm Services Ltd., located at 200 - 3rd Street NW, has been serving customers in Eston and the surrounding area since 1972. Owners, Cliff and Margaret Olorenshaw, have been faithfully serving their customers for the past 50 years. Their business serves not only Eston, but a much larger area, including Brock, Glidden, Kindersley, Kyle, Lacadena, Madison, Netherhill, Plato, Richlea, and Tyner!
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On August 28, 1972, the Olorenshaw family - Cliff, Margaret, Lea and Andrea, moved to Eston to start the Texaco Fuel business. “We were in Saskatoon and wanted to have a change,” Margaret explained. “We had an opportunity to start a Texaco business, and that’s how it started.”
Since then, there have been a few changes to their business. Don Brown began working for them in 2006 and has been a part of their team ever since. “We started out with Texaco, and that was sold to Esso,” Margaret said. “We don’t deliver fuel anymore. We supply batteries, filters, oil, and truck loads of fertilizer.”
Margaret and Cliff have fond memories of the past five decades. “The Texaco bonspiel was held for about 14 years,” Cliff recalls. “We started a friendly competition between Kindersley and Eston. Then Texaco held separate provincial spiels in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We went to a lot of different places. People always had a good time; that was the main idea of it.”
Both Cliff and Margaret enjoy serving their customers. “We enjoy our customers and consider them our friends. That’s a big part of who we are,” Margaret explained. She said their business has been successfully running for 50 years because they enjoy what they do.
Cliff agreed. “If we didn’t enjoy dealing with the public, we wouldn’t still be in business. You have to have a sense of pride in what you do and appreciate that people trust you.”
He then continued to explain, saying, “When we were with the fuel delivery business for about 20 years, we got to visit with our customers a lot more because we were in their yard. They trusted that we would drop off fuel when they weren’t home and then sent them a bill.”
When one of Cliff’s first customers became a senior living in the Eston lodge, Cliff would occasionally pick him up and take him for a ride in the fuel truck. “He would tell the history of people who had lived on properties we drove by,” Cliff recalls. He asked Cliff if he realized how lucky he was to be trusted to drive into a customer’s yard and deliver fuel. “That really rang home with me that we’re privileged to do that. We never had anyone question whether we left fuel or enough fuel.”
Olorenshaw Farm Services isn’t the only place where Margaret and Cliff have served their community. “Over the years, we’ve been very involved in the community,” Margaret said. “It’s a great community, and we like to support it and help any way we can.”
And this couple has offered support in any and every way they could. Over the years, they’ve been part of The Board of Trade, the School Board, Library Board, Rec Board, Curling Club, church board, and Project for Disabled Persons. People in the community describe them as “kind, loyal, dedicated and hard-working”.
In celebration of their 50th anniversary, the Olorenshaws have been doing monthly draws starting in April, and the final draw will be in September. Draw winners so far have been: Estonia Farming Co., PBR Farms, G.E. Morrice Investments, D&T Morrice Farms, McLean Farming Co., RM of Snipe Lake, Qube Oil Field, Oliphant Farms, and Triple M Farms. Prizes have included folding chairs, golf balls, cooler bags and specialty flashlights, all of which include their business logo.
Congratulations on fifty years of business! According to Cliff Olorenshaw, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”