the answer, but she felt she could start her own restaurant, loving people as
much as she could feed them.
An opportunity arose in Vidalia working with PYA Monarch, a “mom
and pop” grocery distributor, later to be bought out by US Foods, a national
service. Trish began selling foods directly to restaurants and distributors
around Vidalia. She had a talent for it. For the next 18 years of her life, she
invested her heart in meeting new people and getting them the products they
needed, which led her to meet her soon-to-be best friend and business partner,
Shirley McCord.
Born and “reared” on a farm in Tift County, Shirley remembers her
parents, Mildred and Dorsey Goodman, spending their Saturdays cooking for
the crowd that was sure to come the next day to eat an after-church meal and
then riding kids up and down the dirt roads on horse-drawn buggies. Shirley
said, “Sundays, we never knew if there was going to be 15 or 20 people eating
at our table. Everybody loved coming to our house.” Shirley’s mother Mildred,
who was called the “Little Granny Goodman” of Tifton, never let anyone leave
the house without eating, even if they weren’t hungry—a quality Shirley also
possesses.
Later in her adult life, Shirley moved to Vidalia and worked at Piggly
Wiggly Southern for a man named Hugh McCord, and they became good
friends. Shirley joked, “I used to tell Hugh, ‘You’re the most arrogant man I’ve
ever met,’ and he would say, ‘Well, you still gotta call me Mr. McCord.’” Little
did they know, years later, they’d be married raising three children–Loretta,
Lisa, and Mark–and be opening up a family business together, McCord’s Gun
and Bow.
In 1990, even though Shirley was fighting breast cancer, she took a job
as marketing sales director for Shoney’s. The Cancer Society Ball was her
first organized event, where she dazzled guests with ice sculptures and fruit
displays. Her talent gained her quick recognition and success at Shoney’s.
Working at Shoney’s, Shirley began getting calls from a food distributor
from US Foods named Tricia Conner, who was now married to her husband
Johnny Mac and was pregnant with her second child Emily. Trish and Shirley
became fast friends. “I think we got along so well because we were both crazy,”
Shirley joked. Trish said, “At some point along the way, people started calling
us Flo and Ethel, but we don’t know why.” Even mundane work conversations,
instead, were filled with laughter between Trish and Shirley, which is a
signature of their friendship. They found joy in each other’s company.
When Only the
Best Will Do
Brown’s Since 1923
jewelry
115 Meadows Street, Vidalia
537-4616
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112 South Oxley Drive, Lyons, GA
82 Toombs County Magazine