A new generation of women taking charge in Water Valley
Annette Trefzer is one of the Valley Girls — a growing number of women business owners in the small town of Water Valley just outside of Oxford. She owns and manages Bozarts Gallery at 403 Main St., a historic structure built circa 1880 that was purchased in the summer of 2005, two weeks before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.
Annette, who also works as an English professor at Ole Miss, said she’s noticed a lot of enterprising young women in Water Valley who have sought and found opportunity.
“There are women in their mid-30s who really have made a great leap of faith,” she said. “There are lots of women with a vision.”
Business ownership is becoming more inclusive in Mississippi, according to the Small Business Administration. The number of women and minority business owners has grown. In particular, minority-owned businesses numbered 46,823 in 2007, a 57.3 percent increase over 2002.
Census Bureau statistics show 122,561 male-owned businesses in the state and 60,849 owned by women, but the number of women-owned businesses in Mississippi has grown since 1997.
According to American Express Open’s recently released State of the Women-Owned Business Report, the U.S. has 8 million women-owned businesses, a figure that has doubled since 1997. And Mississippi is one of three states with the fastest growing number of women-owned businesses since 1997. The other two are Georgia and Nevada.
The report said Mississippi ranks sixth in the nation and had 77 percent growth in the number of women-owned firms between 1997 and 2013.
Women should be encouraged to start their own businesses, but they should know what they bring to the table, Annette said.
“You can’t open a tea shop if you don’t like the tea. I would encourage them to draw on their strengths. Follow your dreams, and build on what you’re good at.”
Annette said life has changed in the past 40 years for women.
“I have noticed in my profession, when I first was a graduate student in Tulane University in the 1980s, there were only two women professors,” she said. “Only one of them was a real professor, and the rest were male colleagues. Today, we have about an equal amount of female and male professors in our department.
“I think there are a lot of wonderful, creative female leaders in business and politics. I have definitely seen that change. I think in the 80s when it was such a struggle in coming up and grabbing a place, women have really come into their own. They have figured out a way to do this with kids and a business, and it’s more accepted today for a woman to be a business woman, and to have a family, or maybe even not have a family.”
Annette said she’s noticed that many Water Valley Main Street business owners are very young women who have opened grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries, etc.
“I think women have definitely come up in higher education, in businesses, in leadership positions, politics, economics, and I think it’s just more accepted today for women to run a business, be the head of a company or be a CEO. I think expectations for women’s success has changed in the last 40 years. Society is just embracing us more than it used to.”
Karen Hancock, who owns The Velvet Glove gift shop at 307 Main St., in Water Valley, estimates that 85 percent of the town is run by women.
“Several years ago, there was an article written about some of the women in business in the town, and I thought it was sad that they didn’t go from one end of the town to another to see how many women actually play a part in a town this size,” she said. “If you just have a walk-a-thon from one end of the town to the other, that’s what you’ll find — women who are running successful businesses, even to the extent that there is a farm supply store that is run by a woman north of town.
“I doubt you could go into one business in this town and not find a woman who is either running it, owning it or being a partner in it. That may be unusual. I don’t know. But for a town this size, I would think that it probably would be.”
Debbie Fly, who manages O’Tuck Farm Supply, at 831 Wise St., in Water Valley, said the town has changed since she’s been managing it.
“There’s more stores, and the downtown is more diversified than it used to be,” she said. “I’ve had to be more diversified here to support what people want in this area.”
In addition to selling feed, seed, camouflage clothing and hunting supplies, Fly has added jewelry, wallets, stationary and women’s clothing to the inventory in an effort to appeal to male and female customers. “I’m quite proud of the fact that there’s a lot of women business owners here,” she said.
Liz Reynolds owns Seven Oaks Funeral Home in Water Valley.
“When I think of women in business in Water Valley, I really think of the younger crowd,” she said. “I’m older than most of the women in business here. I think of the younger people who step out, take a wild idea and turn it into something beautiful.”
Jeannie Waller Zieren, district director of community relations for the Mississippi Main Street Association, said “from conversations with (Main Street) managers, it seems that more businesses than ever in Mississippi’s downtown districts are owned and run by women,” she said. “We actually had a ‘Girl Power’ session at our last conference with a panel of women who run their own businesses on Main Street. They talked about successes and challenges as female business owners and entrepreneurs.”
The association’s recent session, called “Girl Power: The Rising Trend of Female Developers, Entrepreneurs and Business Owners,” was a panel discussion that focused on the rising trend of female entrepreneurs and business owners on Main Street and their perspectives on the benefits and challenges of what they do.
Coulter Fussell was one of the panelists. Born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, she moved to North Mississippi in 1997 to attend the University of Mississippi, where she met her husband. They bought a historic home in Water Valley in 2004, and in 2010, Coulter, who had been a career waitress until that point, rented an old barbershop on Main Street and opened Yalo Studio and Gallery.
Coulter told the panel that small towns offer freedom and opportunities for experimentation. And, if you’re willing to sweat, think for yourself and have the patience of Job, the forgotten, small rural town can be the new frontier.
“We’re doing it,” Fussell said, while standing inside a new building that she is single-handedly renovating. “That’s happening here, and it’s no concerted group effort on anybody’s part. No city planning, no board has decided to push that agenda. It’s just the right people at the right time all in the same place who are sort of self-motivated in that way. And there are a good number of women here that are doing that.
“We have women in a variety of businesses. It’s not just women owning a certain type of store. We have women owning art galleries and the grits thing and grocery stores, dress shops, the coffee shops and all sorts of stuff. I like the spectrum, and that’s something that can’t be planned as well.”
Coulter owns a studio and gallery on Main Street, and she is renovating a second building that will house a textile shop. She plans to partner with New York fashion designer Susan Cianciolo, who will come down several times a year and conduct workshops. In the meantime, Coulter will curate quilting, crochet, knit and embroidery workshops. The new store will be called Yalo-Run, the combined name of both of their businesses.
Coulter is hands-on with art and construction. She recently ripped three layers of paneling off the walls of the new building and pulled up layers of carpet and rotten corkboard from the floor and front stage areas.
“It’s all me,” Coulter said. “I’m the only one. One reason it’s like that is I can’t pay anybody. I’m free labor. Another reason is I like doing it myself. I like to be in total control of what I’m doing.”
It’s a common characteristic of the other Valley Girls she knows.
“Women in Water Valley are doing these things, and they’re doing it themselves,” she said. “They aren’t calling anyone to do it for them.
“It wasn’t planned. It’s not really even something that any of us talk about too much or recognize, but it does happen to be sort of a perfect storm of women who have all decided to do this, and we all did it at the same time.”
