By MINDY KEPFIELD

Staff writer

After 20 years helping her customers find their perfect fit Johsie Reid has found one of her own.

Luckily it’s a shop where her heart is doing a job that she loves — and now after years of struggle she has the courage take it on full time.

“It is time to branch out and grow into what we want to be,” she said, shaping a hat in her Main St. Marion shop. “We’re going to continue to build our foundation and our walls — and then all the rest of it will come.”

Reid is laying that firm foundation by signing deals that will allow her to carry Ariat, Stetson, Resistol, Charlie One Horse, American Hat Company, and Bailey Hat Company among others.

The hard won opportunity will allow her to provide her customers with a dazzling variety of western wear.

“Within the next few weeks everything will start rolling in the door,” she said. “We will have a nice wide variety of just about everything anybody’s looking for.”

The hattery has stayed “very, very, busy” despite a year of shutdowns that have killed many small retail operations like hers.

A shutdown in travel has brought her customers who have relished the opportunity to watch something special being made just for them.

“It’s not every day that you get to see a custom shape being done on a hat,” she said.

Trade shows are gradually opening back up again, and she already is booking a full slate of events.

A look at her filling calendar gave Reid the extra push she needed to leave a job at Western Associates and hit the road to build her dream.

“If it looks like we’re closed down for a weekend we have not,” she said. “We have packed up and left for a show.”