Hi, I’m Kathleen Parrick, the owner of Yard deSIGNS in Manhattan Kansas! I recently retired from 33 years of Federal service working in the Human Resources industry within the Civilian side of the US Army. While I loved helping managers find just the right employee for their vacancies and bringing new employees on board for them, I also love working in my garden and greenhouse, camping at the lake, and making unique and tasty jams and jellies. Finding time to do all of those things was getting more and more challenging, so I decided it was time to let go of my HR job. It has been a great decision!

As an Air Force brat, my father moved us all over the globe, and I’ve always been very loyal to the military and all they do for us. This year, I had the honor and privilege of setting up a Yard deSIGN for a local elementary school as they celebrated with their veteran friends and family members. It was so much fun designing and setting up my signs in and around the hundreds of flags the kids had set out earlier that day. And the response for the sign from the teachers and parents was so heart-warming.

“The sign looked amazing this morning! We had SO MANY compliments! Thank you so much! Our principal plans to give you a shoutout in her post about it today!” And she did; in her school page talking about the event, she said,”…Additionally, we thank Yard DeSIGNS of Manhattan for creating a stunning sign to honor all branches of the military”.

Since coming on with Yard DeSIGNS in late summer, I have had many birthday signs ordered for a large range of ages, including a 90-year-old, a 25th wedding anniversary, several sorority party signs, several Halloween BOO signs, school events, and even managed to get a partnership with a local liquor store to put up signs for our KState home football games! It’s been very challenging to get out and sell this idea since I don’t have a sales or marketing background, but I feel like I’m doing pretty good so far, and honestly, the signs sell themselves! Since our kids are grown up and moved out, we have plenty of room inside for the inventory, but I like to be a bit organized, so we even remodeled, repainted, and are setting up a basement room so I can hang the signs on the walls and have room to lay them out on design days! I can’t wait for even more growth and possibly expanding my area in Manhattan Kansas!