mankato

Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Also able to cut to the chase faster than a diamond through frosted glass.

No she isn’t Superman, or even Superwoman, but Sarah Person (say Peer-son) does have a superabundance of supernatural energy. Owner of 13-employee Exclusively Diamonds, 45-year-old Person has methodically transformed her swank retail business—founded by her mother in 1979—from Mankato’s best-kept secret into a roaring retail machine.

One day, Minnesota author Garrison Keillor might write St. Clair native Mike Drummer into one of his folksy, best-selling novels. Baseball cap covering his head, summer open-toe sandals and winter flannel, a love affair with growling earth-moving equipment, one of ten children, his dad serenading the milk cows with polka music – 45-year-old Drummer at times seems more from Lake Wobegon than a Greater Mankato land developer and small business owner.

It took him every bit of six years to finish a teaching degree because he had to pay his own bill. By his own admission, he grew up “damn poor.” While attending Minnesota State University, he milked the family cows, cared for the neighbors’ hogs, coached high school basketball, and in the spring worked for landscaping and garden center businesses. After beginning a small business with wife Julie in 1991, Drummer earned extra money as a substitute teacher, basketball coach, and Tires Plus employee.

Jerry wore a happy face. But inside he was crying.

Through his company BAMCO, Inc., he owned and operated McDonald’s franchises in Northfield, Faribault, and three in Mankato. He had every reason to be hilariously happy, including his selling of Happy Meals, and having been with McDonald’s since 1958—billions and billions of sandwiches before Ray Kroc dreamed up two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. Having been in on the ground floor of the greatest restaurant success story of all time, Jerry was so steeped in the happy ways of McDonald’s that he and it were as one.