Jack and Deb Loebs -- Falling into love … and business

Alexis Barker
NLJ Reporter
 
Jack and Deb Loebs are coming up on their 42nd wedding anniversary in March. The couple will also be celebrating 22 years as business owners in June. 
“It is kind of a fairy godmother story really,” Deb said. 
She laughed as she recalled that she had always told Howell Hudson that he was her dapper fairy godfather. 
Howell and Francis Hudson owned the 4-Way, the first convenience store in Newcastle, with Selma Colvard before selling the business to Deb Loebs in 1997. 
But this isn’t where the couple’s love story begins. Their story together started at a close friend’s wedding. 
“I had a close girlfriend who was getting married, and I was a bridesmaid in the wedding,” Deb recalled. “Jack’s brother was a groomsman.” 
Thus began the adventures of the soon-to-be couple. Deb remembers that they started dating shortly after the wedding, and they were married two years later. 
“We were married by the justice of the peace on May 28, 1977, and we started our family right away,” Deb said. “Bart was born on the last day of 1977.” 
Five years after that, the couple welcomed their second son, Beau, on Aug. 25, 1982. Their third son, Blaze, joined the family on Sept. 3, 1990. 
By the time Blaze was born, Deb was managing
the 4-Way for the original owners and Jack was working construction. 
“Jack was hurt in 1994,” Deb said, recalling that her husband was run over by a Semitractor-trailer and unable to work for several years. 
By this time, Deb was managing the gas station and she continued to work through Jack’s time away from work. In April of 1997, Howard Hudson asked Deb whether she would consider purchasing the store. 
“I told him we didn’t have the money for a down payment and that we couldn’t get financed without a down payment,” Deb said. 
And this is where the fairy godparent part comes in.
“Hudson called me not long after that and told me he had found a buyer and that the buyer had cash,” Deb recalled. “I told him I was excited for him.” 
Not too long after that, Deb remembers a call that changed her family’s life forever. 
“I got another call from Hudson. He told me that he had withdrew his offer to sell,” Deb said. “I was in shock. I told him that he was crazy.” 
And that is when Hudson revealed that the potential buyer, who had cash, was not a good fit for the business, that he would run the gas station into the ground and that there would be another empty building in Newcastle. 
He once again asked Deb if she was interested in owning the store. She told him again that she was but that she and Jack could not get the financing. 
“He came to Newcastle not long after that and asked me if I would still want the store if he could figure out a way to get me the financing,” Deb said. 
Deb remembered the day like it was yesterday. The couple met Hudson and a lawyer at the Fountain Inn to eat and discuss the potential business deal. 
“He had said he would finance us without a down payment and then he looked at his lawyer and said that he wanted the first year to be interest free,” Deb said. 
She smiled.
“We have owned the business ever since,.” she said.
So how does the couple do it? How do they run a business, working all day together, and still come home to a house together?
“Jack jokes that the reason we are still married is because we take separate vehicles to work,” Deb said. “That is the secret. That way if we get frustrated with each other, one of us can leave.”
All jokes aside, Deb reasoned that the couple has been able to find love through it all –the kids, the accident, starting a business together and continuing to be happy for grandkids and even great-grandkids — because they communicate. 
“You have to talk to each other, about everything, and if you disagree you have to work it out,” Deb said. 
Jack said that the reason he believes the couple works so well together is the division of jobs, that they both have different projects and tasks to complete every day. 
“It just meshes together. Jack does the things I hate to do, and I do the things he hates to do,” Deb said. 
She admitted that Jack is the caregiver in the relationship and that he takes care of her and the entire family and any issue that might arise at the business. 
“He takes care of all of us; he seriously does. He does the cooking, the cleaning — and makes sure everyone has what they need,” Deb said. “I am very lucky, he takes great care of me. I just deal with the finances and that sort of stuff.” 
The couple also makes spending quality time together, away from the business, a priority. 
“Because we work together, we are together a lot. We try not to take work with us, but the only time we really get away from it is when we leave town and we make that time for each other,” Deb said. 
“It started with the trade shows,” Jack said. “That was a way for us to write it off and make it part of the business.” 
But after the couple stopped attending the trade shows, they still made sure to get away from town together and do things they enjoy. 
“We found things we love to do together. We like to go to shows and we really like the bull riding at the PBR (Professional Bull Riders),” Deb said. “We gamble a little and travel to visit family. Family is a big thing to us.” 
The couple credits their quality time together as they key to staying married, although Deb joked that it doesn’t hurt that Jack goes to bed earlier than she does — and wakes up earlier.