Sprint Mart Celebrates Renovation With Grand Reopening
Dutch Oil Company founder Joe Gillis (center) cut the ribbon for Sprint Mart’s grand reopening Thursday afternoon. Gillis was joined by Sprint Mart employees, Mayor Donald Gray and Water Valley Area Chamber of Commerce ambassadors. The grand re-opening follows extensive renovations at the Main Street business.
WATER VALLEY – Sprint Mart celebrated the completion of extensive renovations at the local store with a four-day grand reopening last week. The celebration started Thursday as Mayor Donald Gray and the chamber ambassadors hosted a ribbon-cutting.
Company founder Joe Gillis cut the ribbon. Gillis launched Dutch Oil in 1972 in Columbus and credits the company’s 50-plus year success to strong employees.
“The number one thing we do is try to have a family atmosphere, the people in this company are family,” Gillis reported. “We try to run a Christian company with Christian values.”
The store remained open during the entire renovation.
“That was tough, it is tough to rebuild a store and leave it open. We have to use a lot of our internal people to control and handle things,” Gillis said Thursday. “We have an internal construction company, in a sense, but we have external too. We do all of our CAD and drawings.”
Gillis said the company operates 35 transport trucks.
“We handle things from the time they come off the pipeline until the consumer gets the product,” he added.
Gillis started Dutch Oil Company with the support of his faithful wife and four children. As an entrepreneur, he was responsible for many “firsts” in the local market. He was the first to offer a free car wash with a fuel fill-up; first to operate 24 hours per day; and the first to offer same day dry cleaners in a convenience store. Joe also pioneered many other new marketing concepts, such as starting a pharmacy business within a traditional convenience store in 1990.
Since its birth in 1972, Dutch Oil Company has expanded into a number of other business entities, forming “The Dutch Group” of companies, serving many customers in Mississippi,
Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana. The various companies of The Dutch Group are still privately held, and mostly family owned, with 40 consecutive years
The Water Valley store was purchased from Junior Food Mart in 2005.
“They hired me on my birthday in October, 2005,” the Water Valley store’s first manager, Don Simoneaux, recalled. Simoneaux continues to work in the corporate office in Columbus and assisted with the grand reopening in Water Valley.
