THIBODAUX, LA (AP) — At the end of April, Lela "Lee" Wesche will turn off the lights for the final time at Lee's Education Center in Thibodaux.
For more than 38 years, Wesche has been supplying students across the region with glue, paper, pencils and other items needed for school.
She never planned to open the business.
"It got started as a joke; it really did," she said.
While waiting for her daughter at a beauty shop, Wesche started chatting with a friend who was cutting letters out of construction paper for her classroom.
Wesche asked why she didn't buy the letters at a school supply store in Houma. Her friend complained about the store's hours.
"She said, 'I wish someone would come in and open a store in Thibodaux,'" Wesche said.
The woman joked that Wesche should start her own store and offered her the shed behind her husband's business.
"I got to thinking after that. I was looking for a job so I said, 'Maybe I ought to do this,'" Wesche said.
After asking family, friends and local teachers about the idea, Wesche decided there was enough demand to open a store.
"So I said, 'OK, let's go.'"
She rented a three-room building on St. Louis Street in downtown Thibodaux for $150 a month.
Posters, pencils and construction paper were standard fare, but Wesche and her staff made their name with personal attention.
Special-ordering items for teachers, boxing school supplies for busy parents and helping students decide which colors would look best on their science project presentation were routine.
Wesche also carried the highest-quality products, said Jane Rodrigue, a longtime employee.
"She had no qualms about sending stuff back. If it came in and she looked at it and she felt like it was inferior, she said, 'No I don't want this because my people deserve better.'"
Not long after opening, Wesche was looking to grow. She bought a school supply store in Houma in 1978, opened a store in Morgan City and was looking for a larger location in Thibodaux to hold all of her supplies.
"It got so that we had so much in the store that we didn't have room for the bulletin boards," Wesche said. They put a line across a closet and hung the boards on coat hangers.
While delivering an order for Thibodaux Elementary, she spotted a 'For Sale' sign on a former grocery built in 1921.
She bought the building on the spot and has been at 300 East 7th St. in Thibodaux since 1982.
But business has slowed with the rise of the Internet and big box chains. The use of tablets at schools has reduced demand for physical supplies.
The Morgan City store lasted a decade, and Wesche closed the Houma location in late 2013.
"People don't need all of it. They don't need this," Wesche said. "When the cars came out, there was no more horse and buggy, no more horseshoe makers. It's the same thing."
Wesche, who will be 82 in June, said she will miss the people the most. From faculty at local schools and customers who would stop by for coffee, to her own staff, who describe themselves as a family, Wesche said she has enjoyed working with the people she met through her business.
"I have had a wonderful time in this store and then it just dwindled. And I'm tired — that's mainly it," said Wesche.
– by AP/ Reporter Meredith Burns with The Daily Comet
