“Minn. woman goes to auto repair shop with goat painted in Minnesota ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune” plus 4 more

Minn. woman goes to auto repair shop with goat painted in Minnesota ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Sheriff's Office Pays Auto Shop $1 Million For Service - WLTX.com
S.C. Sheriff's Office pays auto shop $1 million for service - The Sun News
Partner Tire is at your service - Burlington Free Press
Didn't take long for Favre to become a goat - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Minn. woman goes to auto repair shop with goat painted in Minnesota ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 02:29 PM PDT

WINONA, Minn. - A woman on her way to St. Paul really got the goat of auto repairman James Prusci. She went to Tires Plus in Winona Friday, wanting a belt replaced on her Chevy Malibu. While he was doing paperwork, she said she had a goat in her trunk. "A what?" he asked. She told him she planned to butcher it.

It was painted Minnesota Viking colors — purple and gold — with Brett Favre's No. 4 shaved on its side. Favre made his Vikings debut Friday in a preseason game.

Prusci called animal control, which took the goat to a local vet. He was renamed Brett and placed in foster care.

Animal control officer Wendy Peterson said Monday the city attorney was reviewing the case for possible citations.

___

Information from: Winona Daily News, http://www.winonadailynews.com

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Sheriff's Office Pays Auto Shop $1 Million For Service - WLTX.com

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 11:02 AM PDT

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) -- A South Carolina sheriff's office has paid more than $1 million to a local auto repair shop for service and maintenance despite the fact that the county has its own fleet service department.

The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg reported Sunday that the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office does not have a contract with the shop, and Sheriff Chuck Wright did not seek bids for the work as required by the county's procurement code.

Wright said he sent the department's vehicles to an outside vendor because the county maintenance shop isn't equipped to handle the high volume.

Wright said he follows the county's procurement policy, but said he thought it was just a suggestion. Later, Wright consulted the S.C. Sheriff's Association and determined that he should comply with the policy.

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S.C. Sheriff's Office pays auto shop $1 million for service - The Sun News

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 07:27 AM PDT

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Partner Tire is at your service - Burlington Free Press

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 01:32 PM PDT

COLCHESTER Auto repair. Its like the dentist. You go when you must, or, if youre smart, for preventive maintenance, but even at its best, its not fun.

Dale Franklin, 54, the owner of Partner Tire and Service at Creek Farm Plaza in Colchester, has no illusions that his customers eagerly count off the days until their suspension-system replacement. Thats why he has his front-counter men, Tom Eustace and Jim Durett, the companys public face, give a follow-up call to customers asking whether the brake work was satisfactory, or whether that odd shimmy has been fully exorcised.

Many customers wont call up to complain if theyre not satisfied, Franklin said. They just walk away.

Partner Tire and Service has been at the plaza since Franklin left Bobs Sunoco in Montpelier in 1984 and, with a partner, started his new business (he and the partner split after a few years).

The business longevity, Franklin believes, rests on attention to detail. The mechanical work has to be competent fix the problem theyve come in with and fairly priced, he said, but thats not enough.

Fifty-two percent of his customers are women, he said, and they will not put up with a dirty showroom or bathroom. You have to sweat the little details. Treat everybody good. Lifes too short.

Sloppy surroundings suggest to customers sloppiness in the work theyre having done, he said, and thats bad for business. The showroom and bathroom at Partner Tire arent plush, but they are clean. Two sofas, a coffee table, a good supply of magazines, a TV (usually turned off), a coffee machine, and, not unimportant, doughnuts jelly doughnuts, glazed doughnuts, chocolate, powdered every day. Customers hand over their keys and grab a doughnut. One longtime customer especially favors the chocolate ones.

We put one aside for him if we know hes coming in, Franklin said.

He glanced at a doughnut invoice in his top drawer and clicked the number into his desk calculator. Two thousand dollars a year for doughnuts, he said.

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Didn't take long for Favre to become a goat - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 10:04 AM PDT

Less than a week, and already Brett Favre is a goat in Minnesota.

Yes, a goat. A real goat.

A male goat -- painted purple and gold and with a numeral 4 shaved on each side of its torso -- was discovered Friday inside a car trunk in Winona, Minn., after the driver pulled in for service at an auto repair shop, according to the city's Animal Control office.

"They [a man, a woman and a child] were on their way to the Twin Cities," Animal Control officer Wendy Peterson said this morning, noting that it was the night of the real Brett Favre's debut as quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings.

Peterson said that the auto repair employees were told that the goat was on its way to being slaughtered.

The full-grown goat was found bound at the feet and "just laying there in the trunk, kind of lifeless," she said.

Now, "Brett" is hanging out at a foster home and "doing good, scaling 4-foot fences," Peterson said.

The city attorney's office is now considering whether to charge anyone in the case. The car's occupants were from nearby in Wisconsin, Peterson said.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

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