Kidd-Robbins Funeral Directors was named the 2008 Business of the Year at the Demopolis Area Chamber of Commerce annual banquet on Monday.

Carl Wright, the vice president and general manager of RockTenn, stated that Kidd-Robbins was the first sole-proprietor business to earn the award since the Chamber began issuing Business of the Year awards in 1990, when Cormier Equipment Company earned the first such honor.

“It’s really a good feeling to work this many years in this business and finally come to be recognized,” said Bobby Kidd, owner and general manager of Kidd-Robbins Funeral Directors. “It makes you think you’ve done a halfway-good job for the people when they believe in you and give you an award like this.

“It means a lot to me. Most of the time, it’s the big manufacturing companies and bigger businesses than mine.”

Kidd said that he thinks his longstanding customer service helped Kidd-Robbins earned this year’s honor.

“My theory has always been to treat everybody like you want to be treated,” he said.

Kidd began work in Demopolis in 1963 with Cook-Speigner Funeral Home, which was located where Kidd-Robbins is located now on U.S. Highway 80.

“I worked 12 years and got out of it,” he said. “I went to work for a grocery company in Montgomery and stayed over there seven or eight years. The whole time I was over there, I wanted to get back into this business.

“I came back in 1978, and worked part-time for Cook-Speigner and worked out at Windham Motors. In 1995, Mr. Cook sold the business to Bumpers in Butler. Bumpers found out that I was going to build a funeral home, and he talked with me, and I bought his that year and been here ever since.”

It is quite an honor to earn a business award in a field generally dominated by corporate operations and franchises, but his loyalty and customer service helped him earn the 2008 Business of the Year Award.