When disaster struck her area, Donna Butler and her Kentucky jewelry store swung into action befitting a longstanding commitment – both to the community and to a beloved cause.
The crisis at hand was a spate of fierce tornadoes tearing through the Midwest, mid-Atlantic, and Southeast on May 16. One of those storms was a deadly EF-4 twister that devastated three counties in its path of havoc through the Daniel Boone National Forest.
“The tornado hit Russell, Pulaski, and Laurel counties,” Butler says of the area just north-northeast of Clinton County, where her Albany home and store – Clinton Jewelers – escaped harm.
“Our family donates to Samaritan’s Purse,” Butler says, so responding through that disaster-relief organization came naturally – as did a tried-and-true method of spurring public generosity: offering a small piece of jewelry whose purchase price would go to charity.
Based on a past successful fundraiser that was so popular she had to “keep ordering the earrings,” Butler decided to go that route again – this time offering simple silver-tone wrap bracelets with freshwater pearls from Janes Pearl World.
After buying a supply of bracelets for $500, Butler says she sold them for $15 each and turned over the entire purchase price to Samaritan’s Purse.
“We made story cards for each bracelet with the slogan ‘Wear Hope. Give Help.’ And we put them in little organza pouches. Then we posted a picture of the card and bracelet on Facebook, and we raised $3,000 in a few days,” she recalls.
The post went up on May 26, and by May 30 all the bracelets were sold out. As of late July, donations continued to roll in. Butler visited London, Ky., in Laurel County to deliver that first $3,000 check to Samaritan’s Purse on May 30 and mailed subsequent checks as more donations accumulated.
Butler says that in addition to Samaritan’s Purse, her family pursues other ways to support the community and neighboring communities. As a retired educator, having taught for 29 years and served as a guidance counselor for 17 years in the Clinton County School District, she was long familiar with the district’s Backpack program, which provides food for children to take home. Now she donates annually to Backpack, her latest benefit in December 2024 being a sterling silver pearl drop sale that netted $1,200 for the cause.
The only independent jewelry store in the area, Clinton Jewelers has been at the same location on the square in downtown Albany since 1950, when Butler’s father, Bill Shearer, opened it.
“He grew up in Wayne County and moved here to start the business,” Butler says. Shearer had served in World War II and went to jewelry school on the G.I. Bill. He became a master watchmaker and jeweler. The watchmaking and watch repair operation was a dominant part of the business while Shearer was alive (he died in 2019), but Butler says the store now focuses on retail, jewelry repair, and creating custom jewelry.
Butler retired from teaching in 2013 and began to work full-time in the store, where her husband David has been a bench jeweler since 1986. He handles repair, custom design, and stone-setting. The couple’s son Logan attended the New Approach School for Jewelers in Arrington, Tennessee, received watch-tech training, and began working at the store in 2021. Logan’s wife Jessica works part-time at the store and manages online sales events. The store remains in its original location, with an office and storage space in a separate building the family bought across the street.
Customer tastes have changed dramatically over the years, Butler says. For instance, she has observed a shift in the popularity of yellow versus white gold.
“They used to be about equal, and now, I think about 80 to 90 percent of our sales are yellow gold,” she says.
Another major development is the rise of permanent jewelry – in which a bracelet or anklet is fitted to the wearer and then welded together instead of clasped.
“David and Logan attended a Stuller workshop on permanent jewelry and came home saying it’s going to be the next big thing. And it has been!”
Now Logan and Jessica regularly handle permanent jewelry at events such as festivals. Butler says that both in-store and off-site, their permanent-jewelry sales have created many new, wonderful customers of all ages.
Marketing techniques have also changed, as when the Covid shutdown in 2020 forced Clinton Jewelers to expand its Facebook presence with Facebook Live Sales events. Now the store does four such events a year, shipping orders all over the United States.
“My dad would be amazed at what we’ve done,” Butler says. “He used to like looking at Facebook, and he’d say, put that ring on Facebook, we need to sell that!”
Every year the family attends the Atlanta Jewelry Show and an RJO show, where the roundtables prove to be invaluable resources for keeping up with trends.
Between the educational and informative shows, Butler says the store’s secret to success is listening to customers.
“We try our best to give them what they want. And we want to be good stewards in the community.”
She hopes that her acts of community support such as the fundraiser for tornado relief will catch on with others.
“I hope other small stores will be inspired to do something like this,” she says. “If everybody gives a little, it can make a difference.”
