Steve Mathews
places signs in front of the giant yellow rocking chair Dec. 7. Mathews and Jared Goltz purchased the chair during We Care Telethon. The chair now sits in front of Mathews Buildings on Indiana 29, just north of Indiana 26. Tim Bath | Kokomo Tribune
For two local businesses, the We Care Telethon is an opportunity to get together, bid on a few items and support the community.
That’s what those at Frankfort-based Mathews Buildings and Triple G Lawncare and Landscaping, just a few miles up the road in Carroll County, have done for years.
“We’re helping out the community,” said Summers Mathews, office manager and wife of Steve Mathews, owner of Mathews Buildings. “We’re like family.”
Jared Goltz, owner of Triple G, worked for Mathews when he was a kid.
When they saw the iconic big yellow rocking chair found along U.S. 31 go up for auction, the group put a bid on it.
“We know it goes to a good cause,” Summer Mathews said. “We wanted to have fun with it.”
They bid $5,000. Someone else bid $5,001.
A bidding war ensued. Goltz, the group’s bidder, bid $7,650.
Sold, to the folks right across the county line.
You can now find the chair along Indiana 29, just north of the intersection with Indiana 26.
However, if it will stay yellow remains to be seen. Mathews said they might paint it red.
As she recounted the story to the Tribune over the phone last week, Mathews asked her husband, “Why did we want the yellow chair?”
“Because I wanted it,” he said. A wreath was placed on top of the chair last week.
“We thought it would be really cool to have,” Summer Mathews said. “We knew we had a place for it.”
The yellow chair auctioned off at We Care is the third iteration of the landmark that greets people as they travel through Miami County.
The fourth installment has already taken its place at the intersection of U.S. 31 and West 500 South. It is taller, about 15 feet tall, has its own stairs and a hidden door entrance. The chair is made of cedar — built to last — and is proportionately correct.
The origin story of the chair dates back to 1980. Linda McCoy said the idea was conceived while sitting around a table, thinking of ways to advertise the family business, McCoy’s Furniture Stripping.
“We were trying to figure out something that would draw people’s attention,” she said.
They landed on a big yellow — McCoy’s favorite color — rocking chair.
“I knew yellow was an eye catcher,” she said.
The first chair lasted only a year.
McCoy said a contractor from Kokomo offered to build them a better one. That one lasted until 1991.
The third chair, the one sold at We Care, was built then. It lasted 32 years.
The decision to donate it happened on a whim.
A man drove by one day and told McCoy she should donate it to We Care. She had never met him and didn’t catch his name.
“I’d love to tell him thank you,” McCoy said.
Michael Shephard, of Walton, built the fourth chair and fixed up the third chair prior to it going to We Care. It was repainted and many of the boards were replaced.
The chair and its predecessors have become a destination, drawing people far and wide. It’s custom to get one’s picture while sitting on top of it.
“There’s someone here almost every day,” McCoy said. “We never had any idea it would do that.”
If she’s home, McCoy will happily take your picture. Like she did for the three 90 year olds, or the car loads of high school kids from Frankfort or the man who drove all the way from Minnesota by himself.
The chair is also a virtual geocache.
The chairs haven’t always been yellow. One of the chairs was blue for a brief time, prior to 1991. It flopped.
“It did not work,” McCoy said. “People called.”
The chairs have remained yellow ever since.
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