by Rachel Petty
Much of the information in this article about Mrs. Mary Ann Catron comes from a piece titled “Fast Learner: Starting out on a shoestring, Mary Ann Catron has achieved her lifetime goal,” which originally appeared in the October 1996 edition of LP Gas Magazine. To read the original article, click here.
Spar-Gas, Inc. has been serving communities throughout Central Tennessee for half a century. The company was founded in 1968, and it remains a family owned and operated business to this day.
One way to celebrate Spar-Gas’s 50-year business milestone is to look back on when and how the company began.
The story of the founding of Spar-Gas starts with a dedicated, hardworking woman who was ahead of her time: Mrs. Mary Ann Catron.
Mrs. Catron was born in Van Buren County, Tennessee in 1942. After graduating high school in 1959, Mrs. Catron took a job at Southern Propane of McMinnville, where she had the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the propane industry.
During the seven years that she worked at Southern Propane, Mrs. Catron constantly searched for ways to increase her knowledge.
She made it a point to speak with sales representatives that visited the office, and she would frequently engage them in discussion about the technical side of the industry. Similarly, when Southern Propane employees came back from LPG training programs, Mrs. Catron would question them about their experiences and thoroughly study any training brochures, manuals, or spec sheets the employees had to spare.
It did not take long for Joe Crawford, the owner of Southern Propane, to see the spark in Mrs. Catron’s eyes. He began to delegate more and more responsibilities to his new employee.
Soon enough, Mrs. Catron was keeping the books for the company, as well as overseeing much of the service work and day-to-day buying and selling operations. Eventually, she rose through the ranks to the position of general manager.
“Fortunately, I was a fast learner, eager to succeed, and it really paid off,” Mrs. Catron told a writer from LP Gas Magazine.
Mrs. Catron’s sharp mind and willingness to work allowed her to become the first woman in Tennessee to pass the state LP-gas licensing exam in 1964.
This woman’s success story could have been over just two years later when Joe Crawford announced his intentions to sell Southern Propane in 1966, but Mrs. Catron took what could have been a setback and turned it into the dream of beginning her own propane retail operation.
With the encouragement of her husband, Lyle Catron, and her father, William Austin, Mrs. Catron opened the first Spar-Gas location in Sparta, Tennessee, just 25 miles north of her birthplace of Cummingsville, in 1968.
Mrs. Catron and her husband Lyle, along with Mr. Oval Hitckcock, quickly set to work building their new business. Mrs. Catron and Oval handled the service work, Lyle hauled the gas, and the three slowly but surely gained loyal clients.
Mrs. Catron relied on the connections she had made with many propane suppliers during her time at Southern Propane, and once the Spar-Gas operation began to gain momentum, Mrs. Catron hired three of her former Southern Propane co-workers to help her business grow even more.
“The hard work paid off,” Mrs. Catron said. “A business either grows or it dies. I don’t believe in it dying.”
In 1996, LP Gas Magazine described Spar-Gas as “one of the state’s most successful retail propane entities.” The company was 28 years old at the time. As Spar-Gas now approaches 50 years of being in business, that statement still rings just as true today.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Mary Catron passed away in 2015, but her legacy lives on through the Spar-Gas corporation, her loving family, and her daughter Sabrina Catron, who is one of the present owners of the company.
With locations in Carthage, Crossville, Livingston, McMinnville, Shelbyville, and Sparta, Spar-Gas is committed to providing local, friendly service to the members of these communities and the surrounding areas. Their main goal is to keep their clients warm and comfortable.
Spar-Gas plans to celebrate its 50 years of hometown service from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on June 29, 2018, with a free hamburger and hotdog luncheon. At the celebration, attendees can register to win a Broilmaster Grill, and ball caps and t-shirts will be given away while supplies last.
The Carthage branch of Spar-Gas is located at 71 Cookeville Highway in Carthage, Tennessee. The company can be reached by phone at (615) 735-9444. To learn more about Spar-Gas and its various services, please visit http://www.spargas.net.
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