United States Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) visited Columbia today to honor long-time community fixture Day & Day Feed Mill, located on Campbellsville Road. The local business was honored for being recognized by Paul as the Senate Small Business of the Week, which has been entered into the Congressional Record.
“We’re here to honor small business, and Day & Day Feed Mill has been here for almost 70 years now,” Rand told the crowd of about 25 people. “Often people don’t appreciate that, they think you open your doors, and you sell stuff, what more is there, right? There is a lot more to it.
“Over half of small businesses in our country don’t make it. I know a little bit about it because my family came to this country, they immigrated in the 1880s and they had nothing. They sold vegetables on the corner.”
“It is a neat honor,” said co-owner Anthony Day. “This kind of came out of the blue, I didn’t really see this coming. We just try hard to do our job, and we put in the hours, put in the time.”
In 1954, Garland Day established Day and Day Feed Mill in Columbia when he decided to meet the need for a local feed mill. Garland’s sons – Allen and Bobby – took over in the 1960s, and Garland’s grandsons, Anthony and Gary Day, and friend Ray Brock, stepped up to lead the business in the 1990s.
“The Day family sounds like they work hard, we had to bring them in from the fields to even get them here for their own celebration,” Paul laughed. “You don’t get anywhere in life without hard work. They are an example of good honest people, doing good hard work, and this is what we should be celebrating.
“Often, I tell people I want everybody to work, not as punishment but as a reward. Work is how you gain your self-esteem. Life rewards those that work hard, but the Day family is not successful because they offer something you don’t want. The way they succeed is they offer something of quality that you want, and people come here to buy it.”
Day & Day was recognized as Business of the Year by the Adair County Cattlemen’s Association in 2012, and Outstanding Agriculturist of the Year in 2018 by the Columbia-Adair County Chamber of Commerce.
“I think a lot of people that are in business, know how hard it is, how hard the last year has been,” Paul said. “When you see a businesses like Day & Day Feed Mill, it is like for 70 years they’ve been able to make a living, pay the people that work here, and that takes good hard work. We ought to be proud of that.”
For more information, see the Nov. 18 issue of the Community Voice.
