(Hannah Gunnell/South Indy Connect photo) Father-son duo Ron and Mitchell Condra own Hoosier Jewelry in Whiteland. Ron is passing the torch to Mitchell so he can retire. The store will celebrate 25 years in business next year.
By HANNAH GUNNELL
It’s been almost 25 years since Ron Condra opened a Hoosier Jewelry in the middle of a Whiteland cornfield.
“When we put this in, everybody thought we were nuts,” he said.
And it’s been even longer since he entered the jewelry business. Condra started at the original Shane Company in Indianapolis 34 years ago, before its naming rights were sold.
“I was actually waiting tables and waited on a [jewelry] buyer and his wife a few times, and the second time I waited on them they liked I’d remembered what they drank before — I impressed them I guess, so they asked me ‘How’d you like to be in the diamond business?’” he said. “That was when the old Shane Company was going to begin to expand around Indianapolis.”
While Condra is the first of his family to work with jewelry, he’s not the first of his family to work in this industry. His father worked with clocks, and both his grandfathers worked with coins and watches.
“If [Glenn Condra] couldn’t find a part for a watch, he’d make it, and we have a lot of his tools,” Condra’s son, Mitchell said. “We have cool prints and dimensional layouts of how he’d make the tools, so he would make the tool to make that part so he could make his own parts.”
Those tools are in shadow boxes on display at the store.
The only time Ron worked outside the jewelry industry was a brief period between his work at the Shane Company and opening his own business. He worked in lawn care, which provided the funding for him to open Hoosier Jewelry at 1745 E. 500 N.
“I used to tell people, anything to do with rocks we do,” Ron said. “I was able to start a lawn mowing business while I worked for the Shane Company, then did that enough that I could leave there.”
The lawn care business was located at the same property behind the store. Ron expanded it from just mowing to lawn care, and eventually made enough money to open Hoosier Jewelry in 2000. He has since sold the lawn care business.
Ron attributes the store’s success to its country feeling.
“I come from a country heritage, both of my grandparents were from Kentucky,” he said. “The main thing is, I liked the business, but I didn’t like wearing a suit and tie. I thought, ‘Man, so many kids would come in a store and they’d be intimidated.’ Everybody was 60 years or older and they looked 60 years or older back then. They’d be so intimidated by the suits and ties, so I thought, ‘You ought to be able to do this in a nice, casual, country atmosphere.’”
He is passing the torch to Mitchell.
“I came back three years ago to try to work out a succession plan for my parents to retire,” Mitchell said. “My wife and I will take this on and move it to the next phase of business. Businesses are morphing and changing because of technology.”
Technology upgrades Mitchell recently completed include implementing a new point of sale system and launching a new website, https://www.hoosierjewelry.com/.
Though some aspects of the store are upgrading, its services remain the same: custom designs, repairs, and watch service, among others. More information about the business and the jewelry and services it offers is available on that website.