Orvill Koehn weighs hamburger patties Thursday at the Circle S IGA grocery store in Canton, as he chats with customer Leo Vogts, right. Storeowner John Shearer, frustrated by the lack of support from local residents, is closing the store.

Clinton ? The sign in the window of Circle S IGA simply states “Going out of business sale.”

No date for the store closing has been set. But some of the 803 residents of this town are bracing for the worst, while hoping that someone will step up and purchase the town’s only store.

“It’s about waking up people in the local community to do business at home,” storeowner John Shearer said.

After two years in the grocery business, he has grown frustrated by the lack of support from local residents.

Now he wants out.

He’s tired of watching city employees, business owners and others bypass the local store to shop at larger chain stores where they think the prices are cheaper.

Sure a person might save $20 on a shopping trip to Wal-Mart, but how much is spent on gas, Shearer wonders.

Plus, if the store closes, how cheap will it be to have to run 20 miles round trip every time someone needs a package of M&Ms or a box of cereal? He asked: How valuable is one’s property in a town with no grocery store?

“I’m not the problem,” said Cheryl Everhart, a partner in Three Sisters Victorian Tea & Treasures, on Canton’s Main Street. She finds herself in the local grocery store at least twice a day.

“It’s the people who only buy the necessities here and shop out of town for the majority of their groceries. That’s what’s killing it.”

The future of grocery stores in small towns across the state, not just in Canton, is unstable.

“We’re losing grocery stores in small towns right and left, and I don’t think locals know how much they’ll miss it until it’s gone,” said Marci Penner, co-chair of the state’s Rural Life Task Force and executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation.

The solution is not as simple as saying locals need to support the store, she said. A lot of people work out of town, where there are larger stores and easier access for shopping.

“We need to step back and look at the larger picture,” Penner said. “A closed grocery store is really a signal of what is happening in a small town.”

While she doesn’t want to blame the community, Penner believes it should become a community goal to keep small town grocery stores open.

It’s difficult for the owners because independent grocers are members of affiliates that operate like a cooperative. They pay a membership fee, and if they don’t buy a certain amount of groceries each week, they pay a penalty, Penner said.

The 50-year-old Everhart can remember when Canton had two grocery stores, in the 1960s.

“At that time, there was no such thing as Wal-Mart,” Everhart said. “You did all your shopping for every little thing in town.”

It was a big trip to travel 10 miles west to McPherson. But, there was no reason to make the trip. Now the local businesswoman, who counts on Circle S IGA for 100 percent of her groceries, is worried about the future.

“It’s going to be hard not having the store,” she said.

Everhart said Canton’s grocery store may have slightly higher prices, but it’s worth it for the convenience.

Shearer said it isn’t the young shopper, but retirees on a fixed income looking for the cheapest prices that have caused him to struggle.

Shearer and his wife, Carla, took over the store when the previous owner grew frustrated and sold it. The Shearers remodeled and cleaned up the store.

“It only took me two years to get frustrated.”