CHECKING OUT. Rodney Fagan, owner of Miner’s Village C-Stop in Murfreesboro, checks out a customer Monday morning. Fagan has sold the business to Blackmon Oil, Inc. of Glenwood, which operates eight other Exxon stores in Arkansas.

By John Balch

Leader staff

A mainstay business in Murfreesboro is scheduled to change hands at the end of 2012.

Rodney Fagan, owner of Miner’s Village C-Stop, has announced he has sold out to Blackmon Oil, Inc. of Glenwood.

The acquisition will include the adjoining laundromat, but not the laundry equipment. Fagan said he plans to construct a building and re-open the laundromat in a lot by the car wash, which he will also continue to operate.

Fagan and business partner Sam Johnson of Murfreesboro purchased the store from Louis Smith of Nashville in 1991. Smith had built the business new in 1982 and it operated under the name Smoothie’s C-Stop. (“Smoothie” is Smith’s nickname.) Fagan bought out Johnson in 2004.

David Blackmon, president of Blackmon Oil, said his plan are to enlarge the store and add larger restrooms. Blackmon operates eight other Exxon stores in Arkadelphia, Danville, De Queen, Glenwood, Hope and Mount Ida.

Fagan, who has opened the store bright and early, six days a week for virtually the last 21 years, said it will be hard to break the habit of getting up at the crack of dawn.

“But not that hard,” he said with a laugh Monday morning.

Fagan, who is about to turn 58, said he hopes the town’s menfolk will continue to gather in the mornings at the store to solve the world’s problems once the business is sold.