BROOKINGS – Jerry Miller, owner of Wink’s Fine Jewelry in downtown Brookings for the past 35-plus years, has no retirement plans for any time soon.
But when he does, his granddaughter Samantha Tupper will be there to ensure customers continue to “Take a Wink’s Home Tonight.”
In fact, she’s already onboard and, via on-the-job-training with her grandfather, learning all the facets of the diamond business.
Miller has three children; however, none were interested in some day taking over their father’s business. Enter granddaughter Samantha.
“And this one was,” Miller said. “From the time she was barely able to look in the cases, she’d get around behind the counters and open the cases and was looking at jewelry, at 5 or 6 years old.”
“This just kind of fell together with her interest in it for all these years,” he added. “At eighth-grade graduation she announced she wanted to be a jeweler and work for her grandpa. At high school graduation (in Miller), she announced the same thing. So she went up and got her marketing degree and worked at a jewelry store up there (in Watertown) and then we got together and made this work. She’s always known that this is what she wanted to do.”
A niche in diamonds
Miller can relate to his granddaughter’s love for the jewelry business – especially when it comes to diamonds. He started working in a jewelry store in his hometown of Sturgis when he was 14 and worked there all through high school. In 1969 he came to South Dakota State University. He was soon on his way to what would be his lifetime vocation.
“I needed a job and came to Wink’s Jewelry and got a job working in the back,” Miller explained. He stayed and worked for 4 1/2 years while he earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. He then returned to Sturgis, where he continued working in the jewelry industry full-time for the next five years.
In 1978 he came back to Brookings with his family and “bought part of Wink’s Jewelry and the balance in 1981.”
He’s been happy in Brookings. “It’s a great community, a great place to raise kids.”
He’s the sole owner of Wink’s and has had as many as seven employees, with some staying between 15 and 20-plus years.
Miller has carved out a high-level niche for which he is best known well beyond the bounds of Brookings: “Diamonds and quality. I have built the store on having high quality. We have higher quality and over the years have built up a large inventory of good, high-quality merchandise. We service, take care of what we sell.”
Smiling and laughing a bit, he sums all that up in a one-liner: “We sell the best and service all the rest.”
Making the grade in diamonds
Tupper was born in Brookings, but her family moved when she was a year old. She grew up in Miller and her parents, Kurt Joy and Tiffiany Moser, still live there.
She attended Lake Area Technical Institute in Watertown and earned an associate’s degree in fashion and retail merchandising. Following graduation 2 1/2 years ago, she moved back to Brookings and went to work at Wink’s.
Now she’s working on her “graduate diamond degree.” It involves a three-part course. She’s on the longest section, “the book portion of it,” which is online. In the next couple weeks, she will complete that and move on to a week of “grading diamonds with a professional for five days.”
Tupper will do the final part of the course at one of three sites: Las Vegas, New York City or Carlsbad, Calif. She’ll do that in October or March, depending on which city she selects.
Miller called it “a whole week of just nothing but diamond grading.” She’ll go to it with the experience gained from a lot of on-the-job training with her grandfather.
“She’s good,” Miller said, with a hint of grandfatherly pride.
Following the grading, his granddaughter has one more online class to complete, after which she will be certified a “registered jeweler” – aka RJ – in the American Gem Society.
The society says the RJ title and designation “lets you know that the jeweler you are working with truly understands jewelry, diamonds and gemstones. To earn this title, the associate has completed required coursework and classroom study, along with written and practical exams in diamond grading.”
Miller said he thinks there are only three registered jewelers in South Dakota: himself; Mary Harvey, who works at Wink’s; and one in Sioux Falls. His granddaughter would become the fourth. And she’ll stay at Wink’s.
Not quite retirement time
The long-range plan as Miller sees it is for his granddaughter to eventually buy the business. But he admits he’s in no hurry to retire.
“We’ve got time,” Miller explained. “I’d like to take a little more time off, here and there. But the store is me. I’m not going to walk away. I’m going to be here for a long time yet.”
Tupper is Miller’s first grandchild. “His first and favorite,” she added, smiling. Miller’s not quite sure how many grandchildren he has. He thinks about 35.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Something like that. I never counted them.”
Miller’s first wife died about a year before Samantha was born. About six years, later he married his current wife, Judy. He had three children; she had five. Of the many grandchildren the couple share, 13 are on Miller’s side of the family.
Samantha and her husband Derek Tupper live in Aurora. They are well settled in and look ahead to many years working and living in the Brookings area.
Summing up in a few words her future at Wink’s, she said, “I just love it. We make happy times happen.”
Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.
