By: Ashley ShahAhmadi

Betty and Lester Beauchamp have been married for fifty-seven years and Nicholson has been their home all those fifty-seven years.

“I was raised, grew up in this little cabin you’re looking at,” says Lester.

Their family business 2 Cuzin’s Cafe, sits right off Mulberry Street- right next to Dan’s Food Mart. Business owner, Dan Shah, wants to see change happen in the town he’s worked in for eighteen years.

“Jackson county’s a dry county, everywhere in other places the beer and wine is allowed, why not in Nicholson?,” says Shah.  And the Beauchamp’s have that answer.

“I don’t think the revenue that you would accumulate would be no ways to outweigh the harm that it does,” says Lester.

But Shah sees alcohol sales as a profit, for everyone, especially after his plan to build a strip mall right next to his store.

“If I sell beer and wine in the Nicholson, I can generate more revenue, I can generate more employment, people become active and stuff,” says Shah.
But for Betty and Lester, rocking on this porch is all the activity they could want and all the activity they think Nicholson needs, but if anyone needs more than that, Lester has some advice.
“If you want to drink, that’s fine..go to another town, it’s just 8 miles up the road.”