![]() Jack worked various jobs for a year or so then they decided to move to Park City near Mammoth Cave. When our daughter Jeanie was born we decided that Chicago was no place to raise a family.”Īfter two years they had saved some money and moved back to Seco to build a new home. We moved to Chicago where I continued working and both of us went to night school and got our high school diplomas. She dropped out of school too and we went to Clintwood, Va., and got married. After a month I had enough money saved to come home and get Sandy. I got a job at a meat packing plant and worked another job at night. “I quit high school when I was a junior and hitchhiked to Chicago, Ill. Sandy spent her time in the classroom she was an honor student. In high school I played every sport and spent every afternoon in the gymnasium or on the ball field. We began dating right away and we have been together ever since. ![]() I didn’t see her again for two years when we both were enrolled at Fleming- Neon High School. I told her then that I was going to marry her someday and she thought I was crazy. We went on a field trip to the Colson School and met there. I lived in Seco and she lived at Democrat, near Deane. “We met when we were in the seventh grade. Jack recalled the series of events which evolved into a successful marriage and business partnership with his wife Sandy. Jack plans to plant a vineyard of seedless table grapes soon to sell to food stores. Their wines sell well all year around but sales are especially robust when they are sold in gift packages around Christmas time. One of their most popular wines is Miner’s Blood, Sweat and Tears, which is labeled to commemorate the lives of the coal miners. We had over 5,000 gallons of wine on hand before we were allowed to begin marketing it.” Letcher County had been dry since 1948. Meanwhile we got a wet-dry vote in the Seco precinct in 2001 and to the amazement of many people the initiative passed and we were allowed to begin selling our wine at the former Seco Company Store which we acquired and turned into a winery/ bed and breakfast. She yearned to continue the winemaking trade so they began growing their own grapes and making their own wine which is marketed under the Jean Farris Winery label. She was later transferred to Lexington where she and her husband bought a 30-acre farm in Fayette County. My daughter got aggravated and moved to Nashville, Tenn., where she became an investment broker for the ING Company. We got a federal license to make wine in 1998 but we could not sell it in a ‘dry’ county. “She has a college degree in food chemistry and science and she directed us in the winemaking process. “The winery was my daughter Jeanie’s idea,” said Jack. The basement of the building stays at approximately 55 degrees which is ideal for the fermenting process. In a typical year they sell approximately 20,000 bottles of wine from their Highland Winery located in the old Seco Company Store built by South East Coal Company. At harvest time in September and October the vineyards yield about 4,000 gallons of juice. This small plot is just a fraction of the 13 acres total where he grows nine varieties of grapes which are used to make about 20 different wines. The plants originated in France and are grafted to a native possum grape root to adapt it to the mountain soil and climate. This small vineyard consists of 100 merlot plants that grow a red grape used to make a dry wine. VINEYARD - Jack Looney cultivates one of his vineyards, planted on previously surface mined land. In the springtime the dirt will be raked away and the plant fertilized again with typical 10-10-10 fertilizer (nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous) to grow healthy vines and a bountiful crop of grapes. A fertilizer stick was stuck in each mound of dirt to help build strong roots through the winter. Jack was there running his tractor with an attached cultivator through one of his vineyards while three of his workers heaped piles of dirt around the base of each grapevine to protect it through the winter. The area had been surface mined prior to 1986. I caught up with Jack on an unseasonably warm (70 degrees) November afternoon on top of a mountain between Barlow Branch in Neon and the head of No. “I’m the doer everything we have accomplished is the result of their ingenuity. “My wife and kids have all of the good ideas,” said Jack. Jack Looney and his wife Sandra of Seco are the epitome of this formula. Alone, they may accomplish little but in concert they are the ‘stuff’ that makes up the American entrepreneurial spirit. In this world there are dreamers and there are doers. The ideal height for a Christmas tree is eight feet. He has approximately onehalf million trees planted on an area that was previously surface mined. CHRISTMAS TREES - Jack Looney stands beside one of the Christmas trees that is ready to send to market.
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