In 1955 Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, IL--he was a salesman who invested his entire life savings to become the exclusive distributor of a five-spindled milk shake maker called the Multimixer. Hearing abou the McDonald's hamburger stand in California running eight Multimixers at a time, he packed up and headed West. He was 52 years old.

.Did and Mac McDonald were brothers who had the hamburger stand that Ray went to see. He pitched the idea of opening several restaurants to them, convinced that he could sell eight of his multimixers to each of the new restaurants. "Who could we get to open them for us?" Dick McDonald asked. "Well," Krock answered, "What do about me?" And that is how McDonald's began.

McDonald's of Collumbia opened July 16, 1992, 16 years ago, tomorrow. My Father owns five McDonald's restaurants--Russell Springs, Monticello, Edmonton, Albany, and Columbia. My sister and her husband have five restaurants, three in the Corbin area, and one in Williamsburg and another in Barbourville.

I began my career as Store Manager here in Columbia eight years ago. I then supervised Columbia and Edmonton for three years and for the last five years have been the Business/Deployment Manager for all 10 stores as well as teaching ServSafe for our organization.

I am currently overseeing my Father's five stores as Director of Operations. I am also serviing as the People Team Chairperson for the Lexington Co-op, which consists of rewards and recognition of Managers in 64 restaurants in Central and Southeastern Kentucky. In July of 2007, I became an approved percentage owner, with a partial ownership of the Columbia store.

Sarah has worked as a non-profit administrator for over 15 years and was previously the Director of an inner-city public school and daycare center in downtown Cincinnati. Prior to working in education, she spent 10 years raising funds for arts organizations such as the Cincinnati Opera, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, WCET-TV (Cincinnati's public television station) and National Public Radio's "A Prairie Home Companion" in St. Paul, MN.

Sarah grew up in Richmond, KY, and graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a degree in Public Relations and Theatre. She moved back to the region in June of 2005 and is thrilled to "back home." She is married to Charles Lister, who works at KET and they have a beautiful one-year-old son named Thomas Wyatt.