“I'm of the belief that it's all for one and one for all.

“I'm of the belief that it's all for one and one for all. Lapeer’s success really comes down to synergy, how well we all work together. Obviously I want to see Lapeer be successful because I want my business to be successful. But I also want to see everybody up and down Nepessing Street be successful because what’s best for them is best for the community. I love being downtown where the people are. It's cool to get to walk across the street and have coffee with Jim, or run into somebody you know walking down the street. You chat with Don and Ulyana, or go into Sam’s, or Scott’s, or Pat’s—you know these people and feel connected. It lowers my blood pressure. It's a mood-altering ‘drug’. Those opportunities to have relationships with people is what makes downtown special. That’s part of what makes the DDA important—we need to keep creating more of those opportunities. The individuals on the DDA board are a solid, intelligent group of people that genuinely care about the success of the DDA district, Nepessing Street, and everyone who’s invested here. Every time I go into a meeting, I walk out of there with a new idea or something to consider, and that's just a function of a board of people with different perspectives. I'm proud to have our business down here. I'm proud to be on the DDA. To be honest with you, at one time I was probably the guy kibitzing and criticizing while not being involved. Something flipped, I got involved, and I'm kind of mad at myself for being on the wrong side of the fence for way too many years. I'm very optimistic about the future of Lapeer, and I’ll give you one of the reasons why. My son is the fourth-generation of our family working in the store. He’s young, aggressive, went out into the outside world to get a finance degree, and came back. He came back because he sees a future for this business and for Lapeer. We need young people to believe in this town, and we do. And we need more. The key to it is to keep the momentum going in the right direction. We have a responsibility to pass the community onto the next generation better than we found it." —Buddy Beyer, Beyer's Furniture Of Lapeer #HistoricLapeer #remarkablyclose #CityOfLapeer #LapeerCounty #MiMainStreet