Rudy Buchheit, Biehle, MO. 1934
On Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 1934, the groundhog did not see his shadow…so, Rudy Buchheit decided that day would be a great day to start a business and the rest is history! The Buchheit Family of Businesses grew out of a small business that hauled rural merchandise from St. Louis during the Great Depression. In 1934, Rudy Buchheit started by hauling livestock hay, and corn to residents of Perry County while also running a general store located in Biehle, Missouri. When it was opened, the store was stocked with $250 worth of groceries, 50 gallons of salted herring, 50 pounds of flour, 100 pounds of white beans, 280 pounds of salt, and hand ground coffee beans. The original store went on to add hardware items and livestock feed. Rudy Buchheit poured everything he had back into the business and could not afford to take a salary until the late 1950’s. The store continued to grow 
as customers often traveled great distances to shop at this unique country store. The Buchheit name has grown steadily since the early 1930’s with eight retail stores, agricultural division, and trucking company but still recognizes its humble beginnings as a small rural business.
Here is some information about Groundhog Day. The first Groundhog Day was celebrated in 1887, 47 years before Buchheit was founded. At Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania residents gathered around to see if a groundhog would see it’s shadow. If a groundhog sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather and if it does not see its shadow, there will be an early spring. The first groundhog, Phil was declared America’s first and only true weather-forecasting groundhog. On February 2nd, thousands of people travel to Gobbler’s to witness Phil’s winter prediction.
Stop by your local Buchheit store to join us in our Groundhog Day festivities. Each of our 8 retail locations has a resident groundhog, Digger. This Groundhog Day, be sure and stop by the store and take a picture with him and upload it to social media with #buchheitdigger. You can also sign up for our Groundhog Day Giveaway on the Buchheit website from February 1-20. Buchheit gift cards will be given in the amounts of $500, $250, and $100 to first, second, and third place winners. However you celebrate, have a Happy Groundhog Day!
I used to love your ads and read them completely. I wanted to see whose family members were modeling, where they were from, how they were related, excetera, excetera. They’re just plain old adds now with models. I glance at the things that interest me only where as before I read everything, because it was truly human interest. Do you ever think about going back to personalized Buchheit family members as models like you did before… they were so cute and unique and made me look at every single item. Just my thoughts!
Thank you. We agree that “real” people are preferred over models and try to use their photos along side our original blog content as often as possible. Any time you see the little red barn image by a photo that signifies one of our “Real People Real Possibilities” photos that was sent in from one of our customers. We encourage everyone to upload their photos to our website in the Photo Barn. We’ll keep doing our best to feature our own! Follow this link to upload a photo of your own: http://www.buchheitonline.com/Photo%20Barn.aspx