Kirk Sours, a cattleman from Tonganoxie and regular at the Midland Farm Store, leaves the business after dropping in on Wednesday morning, April 15, 2015. Owner Jill Tregemba says that what often fascinates her new customers is that the store has a feel that throws them back in time.

It is another day in the life of a big retail executive.

Jill Tregemba is co-owner of the Midland Farm Store, which of course is big retail. It is the largest farm store at Midland Junction, although to be clear, we’re not talking about height here. The grain elevator next door is clearly taller.

Regardless, retail bigwigs spend a lot of time worrying about credit card security issues these days, especially after high-profile breaches at places like Target and others. Sometimes it is overseas hackers who cause the problems. Sometimes it is a nasty computer virus. Sometimes it is John.

John has run off and left his credit card on the counter of the Midland Junction farm store, clerk Mindy Rousselo yells across the room to Jill.

Oh boy. Dig out the credit card security policy. Alert the PR folks. We’ve got ourselves a full blown . . . hold on.

“I think I have his cell number,” Jill says.

Sure enough.

“Yeah, we’ll hang onto it until you come back by,” she says just before hanging up the phone.

I guess big retail works a little different here at Midland Junction, which of course is the name all the locals have given the spot where Wellman Road and U.S. Highway 24/59 intersect. Sure, you’ve been through it. Try getting to the landfill without going through Midland Junction.

So maybe credit card security issues are a little different here than at other big retailers. But the issue of inventory management is still every bit the headache. You’ve got to carry the right items on the shelves if you want to be successful. In these parts — where expanses of fertile Kaw Valley bottom ground are still free of large housing developments — you had better have parts and pieces that farmers need.

“We will stock certain parts for a certain tractor because we know one of our customers owns that certain tractor,” Jill says. “Then, sometimes, he’ll go off and trade his tractor in.”

I bet Target has a whole department that deals with that sort of issue.

Here at the Midland Farm Store, Jill and Adam Tregemba deal with those issues. The husband and wife duo bought the farm store about five years ago after they were looking for a new opportunity and wanted to reconnect with their agricultural backgrounds. They’re just the latest pair to have a plan for the store. By most accounts, the store has been in operation since before 1900.

Back then, there was a small community called Midland. There were — according to a 1990s history paper written by Yolanda Burnett — a couple of blacksmith shops, a grain elevator, a restaurant, a stockyard, the store and a train depot where the small passenger train called “The Old Plug” would come through each day. There also was a school in the community. That building still remains. It is across the street from the farm store, on a piece of ground tucked between the highway and the railroad tracks. It hasn’t been used as a school, though, since the early 1960s.

The farm store building is original to those olden days as well. The top floor of the two-story building still has the original wood floors that used to host community dances, when the space was used as a Grange Hall. There’s still plenty of life left in the floor. The dances didn’t last long because the owners of the building — a group called the Central Protective Association, which was a volunteer organization devoted to catching livestock thieves — shut the dances down “since once a few people got drunk,” according to the written history.

These days, the ground floor is where most of the action is. In one corner of the approximately 800 square-foot store, you can find candy bars and chips and energy drinks. In another, jugs of hydraulic fluid, fencing supplies and “just enough nuts and bolts to get by in a pinch.” Outside, gates, pens and other pieces of livestock equipment are sold. Diesel fuel and kerosene also are available. A tire shop behind the store is a big part of the business too.

Pet and livestock feed, though, is one of the larger segments of the store. Jill points out one of the newest products: feed for mini-pigs.

“They’re different than pot-bellied pigs,” she said. “Less pudgy, I think.”

Sounds right to me. That’s the thing about a trip to the Midland Farm Store: You never know what you will learn. Jill says most of the store’s customers are farmers or homeowners in the area, or truck drivers on the way to the landfill or the nearby Hamm’s Quarry. But she says the store does attract customers “from town,” and she says many of them get a kick out of what they find.

“Someone from town could come in here and see a real-life farmer,” she says. “Someone who grows actual food.”

Not that it is a zoo for farmers or anything like that. There’s no tour guide pointing out the distinctive plier holders hooked to the belt of some species. (Fencer Fixerupitus, I believe, is the scientific name.) But Jill is pleased that the store does provide a peek at an industry that sometimes is too easily overlooked in Douglas County.

“It used to be that everybody’s grandma or grandpa grew up on a farm,” Jill says. “But that isn’t the case anymore. It is important for people to understand the importance of agriculture.”

This place, though, shines a light on a bit more than that. It also is a good reminder about the importance of contact. Drive around out here, and you’ll quickly notice there are a whole lot more plants than people in these parts. For many, the store serves as a good place for a bit of human contact to break up the day.

One man comes in the store to shoot the bull about . . . a bull. He wants to know if anyone knew of one that was in service, so to speak. Another fellow spends some time talking about mushroom hunting and the lilacs that are coming on. Another asks about the rain that still didn’t come.

“A lot of people come by and buy a can of Coke and drink it all before they ever leave,” Jill says. “We don’t ever try to rush people out.”

It is no exaggeration to say that Jill and Mindy knew the names of far more customers than they didn’t. At her post at the counter, Mindy becomes a bit like the ace reporter for the community of Midland. She hears it all. Not gossip, really, but more like if someone is moving, or if someone has gone into the hospital or other such news of the day. At this checkout counter, people can catch up on all sorts of things that go beyond the debate between paper or plastic.

“The people here are special,” Jill says. “They genuinely care about you, and that makes you want to care about them.”

Maybe this isn’t big retail after all. But at a corner still called Midland, make no mistake, it’s big.

— Each Sunday, Lawhorn’s Lawrence focuses on the people, places or past of Lawrence and the surrounding area. If you have a story idea, send it to Chad at clawhorn@ljworld.com.