Back-to-school business gets passing grade

The school bells have started ringing again on the University of Idaho and Washington State University campuses — and so have the cash registers at Moscow and Pullman businesses.

In the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley, local clothing retailers also are experiencing the annual rise in sales from the back-to-school shoppers.

While business appears to be slightly ahead for this time of year in the Quad Cities for some stores, others report the 1989 fall season as average.

However, retail managers and owners are not ready for predictions to be engraved in stone because classes have only been in session a week at WSU and three days at the UI.

But nearly all storekeepers say they are not experiencing any decrease in business compared with last year.

“We had people shop really early or right before school started,” said Lewiston Lamonts store manager Wayne Miller. “We’re real even with last year.”

“We were really busy before school started,” said Brenda Marcell, a department manager at The Bon. “Last weekend it was just crazy.”

“Traffic has been exceptionally heavy the past couple of weeks,” said Robert Zacha, Palouse Empire Mall manager. “Almost all the store managers are smiling.”

Peter Ford, manager of Lamonts Family Clothing Store at the Palouse Empire Mall, said that although sales haven’t made a great leap from last year at this time, Lamonts has hired sales people in conjunction with the autumn increase in shoppers, Ford said.

Also making significant increases to their staffs are the pizza-delivery operations, which supply the staple food of college students directly to their doorstep.

The Pullman Domino’s is looking to hire 24 part-time drivers to keep up with demand. And as of last week, Domino’s at Moscow had hired eight new drivers with pizza orders up by about one-third, said lunch manager Eric Bashaw.

Palouse pubs also are doing a booming business.

“It about triples from summer to fall,” said Gary Nordgaarden, referring to the number of people in his bar, the Cavern, near WSU.

Depending on the day, the Cougar Cottage at Pullman sees a 100 to 200 percent increase over summer business. “When school (first) starts they’re not into full study mode yet,” said manager John Quist.

“We expect it to be a good year (for business) with the increase in students,” said Moscow Chamber of Commerce president John Young.

Enrollments at both WSU and UI are higher than in the past few years for the 1989-90 school year. At the Pullman campus the additional enrollment caused the administration to house students in a dormitory that had been closed.

“(Business) gets a little better every year with the percentage of students living off campus increasing,” said Michael DeVon, assistant store manager of Dissmore’s Family Center grocery at Pullman.

Tri-State Distributors, with stores on the Palouse and in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley, reports one of its best Augusts ever.

“At our store in Lewiston we’re going to have the biggest sales month since we opened our store in 1987,” said the stores’ president and general manager, Gerard Connelly. He said sales in the shoe department are up by 65 percent because of the big-leather, high-top sneaker craze in the nigh schools.

Until a week ago, Connelly, like other department store managers, was worried August was going to a disastrous month, with registration at both UI and WSU delayed a week. But now his business has picked up and surpassed usual levels.

“It’s the best since last Christmas, Connelly said, adding that clothing sales at Moscow are up 14 percent over last August.

This story was published in the Sept. 3, 1989, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.