Jolly Time Pop Corn marked 90 years of business in 2004. While the Smith family owners over four generations have a lot to do with the success of the business, current leaders Garrett Smith and Carlton Smith contend the company's well-regarded international status wouldn't be what it is without so many good employees.
And it's not just the great work they do at the plant or corporate offices located at One Fun Place at the north edge of Sioux City.
The Smiths are proud of well-rounded employees who are involved in so many community-related projects outside work. From serving on a local day care board to participating on a state board, from parenting to foster children to making kids happy as members of the multifaceted Abu Bekr Shrine, the Jolly Time employees are a very busy crew away from work.
Lisa McGaffey, Brett Hegarty, James Jepsen, Christopher Twiford, Rosa Bailey and Jamie Johnson are but the tip of the iceberg of Jolly Time employees who give back to the community.
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Garrett Smith said, "We've been a part of Sioux City for 90 years. I am a firm believer you leave this earth a better place than when you arrived, and you have to do something to help your community. To be well rounded, you have to have outside interests, and we just think that is important."
McGaffey confined her volunteerism to her church for some time, but recently became a board member of the Mary Elizabeth Day Care Center. McGaffey said she's "a multi-tasker" who feeds off the energy of one undertaking and carries it over to another. She described the buzz of ideas about the day care board bouncing over to and improving her work. "It energizes you for work. They feed each other," McGaffey said.
Bailey serves on the local Unidad Latina Board of Directors and statewide on the Iowa Workforce Development Board. She joins Hegarty and McGaffey as graduates of the Leadership Siouxland organization, which seeks to instill skills to the next generation of city leaders. Bailey said "giving back to the community is a great motivator" and "goes hand in hand" with working at her Jolly Time job.
Hegarty also is a chief petty officer in the Naval Reserve and Garrett Smith said, "I'm sure what Brett does on weekends (in reserve drills) he's applied to work many times. There are some organizational skills that have been enhanced, that he has brought to us." Hegarty said being a chief in the reserves has helped him by learning how to lead people.
Johnson and his wife have been the parents to 17 foster children over the last five years. Garrett Smith said that was as admirable a task as any for society.
Jepsen, a former state patrolman, said since he's worked for Jolly Time, it's far from puffery - there is a definitive, enjoyable family feel in the workplace. He joins Twiford in the Shrine Clown Unit, and both displayed a penchant for humor as they spoke about the mingling of community and work activities. Injecting levity with an old George Gobel joke, Twiford said, "you'll find all my lines are stolen. I can't afford writers, so I just steal them." More seriously, he said that the supportive family environment at Jolly Time is "the same, whether you are a guy who punches the clock every day or are a person on salary or own the place."
Twiford recalled a friend telling him he had the perfect mingling of vocation and avocation. "He said, 'Isn't this a coincidence - a clown working for a popcorn factory. You couldn't fit two things better together,'" Twiford recounted.
Interjected Jepsen, "My clown name is Pops."
Bret Hayworth may be reached at (712) 293-4203 or brethayworth@siouxcityjournal.com
