Page 7 - Mid Valley Times 7-25-19 E-edition

Life of stately oak still follows that of Cedric Riano
By Rick Curiel
Mid Valley Times
When a large oak limb crashed into the pool of the Riona family's home on Avenue 404 in Dinuba, Cedric Riano thought maybe the time had come to remove the old oak tree.
“He was so worried they’d have to cut it down,” said Riano’s wife Violet, who goes by Vi.
The oak tree dominates the landscape of that area of rural east Dinuba. Cedric was born on the very property he now lives on. In fact, his family has owned the property since 1886, when they first settled in Dinuba.
He was born in 1926 in his family’s two-story house. It stood on the property until the 1960s, when it was torn down and replaced with the family’s new home. The original house was built in 1902.
The tree, however, remained over the years and has provided plenty of shade for many family gatherings.
Cedric Riano has been there all along, as well. Aside from a few years he
Rick Curiel / Mid Valley Times
Aside from a stint in the U.S. Navy, Cedric Riano has spent his entire life on his family’s property in Dinuba. He holds a picture of his old house. Tree trimmers, right, fish the limb from the pool.
spent in the Navy, Riano has lived there his entire life. And he’s seen the old oak tree grow from its earliest stage.
That’s because Riano planted the tree from an acorn when he was in the second grade.
Riano was visiting with a friend who lived just east of the original hospital on
the northeast corner of Alta Avenue and El Monte Way. The house, he said, belonged to the Clippinger family, who many years ago ran the Chrysler-Plymouth dealership in town.
“I picked up a handful of acorns from a tree that was in their yard,” Riano recalled.
“Russell (Clippinger) was
my age and we went to school together. We would ride our bicycles to school. There were no buses back then.”
When Riano made it home that day, a distance of about nine miles and a daily routine for him, he said he threw the acorns into the corner of his back yard. The tree has been growing
sometime
Monday morning, Riano couldn’t help but feel the
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Padilla finds the right mix for success
By Mike Nemeth
Mid Valley Times
Rosa Padilla answered the phone in her store, Baby Town. It’s on Sanger’s Seventh Street, right next door to Gomez Barber Shop.
Gonzalo Zarate called. They talked a bit. Customers came in as she spoke, and she answered their questions. Zarate understood. She had him on speaker. She said he lives in Kerman.
“He makes rosaries,” she said, pointing out the custom prayer necklaces, some with the image of the Virgin Mary. “I’ve worked with him for 10 years.”
It was a regular day for Padilla. She keeps the store open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. most days. And it’s a routine she’s quite familiar with, having purchased the business 27 years ago. She said she paid $7,000 for the inventory and the location. She never changed the name.
She said the former owner had operated it about a year.
Padilla made the business work. She had once worked in packing houses but began selling clothes from her van at swap meets around the central San Joaquin Valley, getting to some as early as 4 a.m. to arrange her wares and get ready for customers.
“When I worked the swap meets, I had a lot of merchandise,” Padilla said. “I had a big van, and I had about $4,000 worth of inventory.”
She combined it to start her rendition of Baby Town. The business evolved over the years. Padilla specializes in weddings and quinceaneras, doing everything from making custom decorations and favors to providing the food. She does it all, she
Mike Nemeth / Mid Valley Times
Rosa Padilla works with a customer looking for the right gift for a boy's baptism. Padilla has operated her store on Seventh about three decades. Below right, Padilla applies polish to Demmi's fingernails.
there,” he said.
And Tony talked about all
the good she does for her family and her customers. Like the Gomez tradition, clients eventually become family. “She never says no,” he said.
Gloria Mendez said she’s known Rosa Padilla about 18 years. “It’s a long time,” she said.
With Mendez was Brenda Izaguirre. She called Padilla a best friend.
“She likes to stay with me,” Padilla said. “She doesn’t want to go home.”
The comment drew a laugh from all three. Closing time on this particular day wasn’t far away, and the trio talked in Spanish like they had done this gathering many times before.
Around them in carefully arranged displays and racks were quinceanera dresses. A lot of them. And dresses for the those in the quinceanera party, boys and girls. Padilla had arranged multiple gifts, all looking relatively high end for any formal event.
In a display case, she had a selection of Mary Kay products. The walls were filled with clothing, some of it pretty high end. Padilla said she has been working with a Los Angeles clothing manufacturer, Lito Children’s Wear, for about as long as she’s been in business. And it’s all made in the USA, she said.
In April, Padilla catered two events and provided her trademark decoration and attendee gifts. Each time she served about 400 people.
“I go to fix (up) the weddings and quinceaneras,” she said. And she said she alters her approach depending on venue. “The house, the ranch, the community
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said. She offers a selection of gifts for baptism. And, in fact, a couple customers, two young women, one with a baby on her hip, came in for a boxed baptism gift.
The clients knew exactly what they wanted, and the transaction was completed quickly.
People know Padilla. They trust her. She’s made a business work in an environment that’s notoriously tough on the retail trade. Sanger’s downtown no longer thrives as it did decades earlier. The automobile dealerships left. So did the major retailers.
But the Gomez Barber Shop, which celebrated its 70th year in business, and Baby Town have remained fixtures.
The U.S. Small Business
Administration says that according to its historic data just one in 10 businesses survives the first year. Padilla figured out a retail mix and customer service ethos that’s enabled her to go 26 more.
“She should be greatly congratulated,” said William Rice, a Fresno State professor of marketing, in an email. “Not only is it difficult as a general rule in America. But Sanger is a more than difficult environment to survive the economic numbers of per capita and expenditure patterns of spending.
“Well done.”
Her son, Tony Padilla, cuts hair in the Gomez Barber Shop. He said she’s an institution in Sanger. “She will never move from
for 86 years.
So when the old tree lost
its limb, something the Rianos suspect happened
early
on a