Wagner says ‘I’m staying here’ after retirement from 46 years with Fareway

GREENFIELD — With the amount of experiences he’s had and the people he’s met along the last 46 years, you could maybe liken Kirk Wagner’s career to a cut of meat that is thick with lasting flavor in every bite.

Wagner was celebrated and appreciated Friday, June 25 at a reception celebrating his more than four and a half decades with Fareway. He retired the next day having served as market manager since the store opened here in 1994.

“I started in 1976 with Fareway. I feel that if you can stay with a company for that long they’re treating you good, are taking care of you, and I can’t complain one bit,” Wagner said.

Coming to Fareway

Wagner and his wife, Suzanne, who is on the Greenfield City Council and owns and operates Country Consignments in Greenfield, are both Winterset natives. While Wagner was working at another grocery store, he received a call from Fareway, where his brother worked, asking if he wanted to come work there in the meat department.

From Winterset, Wagner transitioned to Eagle Grove, then Tama/Toledo and Fort Dodge, before being reassigned to the Fareway in Creston, where he became assistant meat manager.

“When I was working down there, they called me and asked if I’d like to become the manager at the Greenfield Fareway store,” Wagner said, adding that his wife starting her business, their proximity to extended family and a good community here were all factors to them laying down roots here.

“We wanted to stay close to family, so we decided we wanted to stay in the area. We had the opportunity to move to other stores but I chose to stay here,” Wagner said. “It felt great because you could actually buy a home. Before, you had to rent and couldn’t do what you wanted to with your home.”

Brand new

Not only were the Wagners back in familiar territory moving to Greenfield, Kirk was involved in starting a brand new store, as Fareway was brand new to the community.

Throughout its 27-year history here, the Greenfield Fareway store has had one of the smallest footprints of any stores in the company, however updates over time have helped the store maximize its square footage.

“It’s a big challenge to stay focused and learn all the new stuff. It was a great opportunity but I’d only want to do it once,” Wagner said. “We were one of the smaller Fareway stores, so it was a challenge because you had a certain amount of space you had to work with and you had to juggle things when you needed more room here or there.”

More than a manager

For a long time, Wagner has arrived to work three days a week by 4:30 a.m. to help unload a refrigeration truck that carries all of the meat department’s products. On the other days of the week, Wagner still arrives to work only an hour later than that in order to ready everything for a full day of customers.

At full strength, the meat counter employs about eight to 10 store associates Wagner oversees. Heath Smith, the new meat department manager who started Monday, June 21, comes to the Greenfield store from Fareway’s Clive location.

Wagner said that throughout his career, there has been more and more recording of data that is required. That has especially picked up in the last few years, he said. Items documented include sanitation measures, what goes into the ground meats the store sells, and temperatures of coolers and freezers.

“We might not be waiting on customers, but you might be doing all of your logs to get caught up. There’s a lot of documentation anymore,” Wagner said.

‘I’m staying here’

While he said he’ll miss the people and daily work at the store the most, Wagner said he won’t miss getting up in the morning.

In retirement, Wagner looks forward to spending more time with grandchildren, taking a more active role in fixing and refurbishing furniture for Suzanne’s store, fixing kids’ bicycles and traveling.

“This is a very nice, small community. I’ve been very happy,” Wagner said. “I like the little town and I’m staying here.”

Greenfield Fareway Store Manager Nathan Hoover said, “We want to wish Kirk the best of luck and wish him the best in retirement.”