Valentine, LeBlanc retiring from Coborn's in 2025 after 47 years

For 47 years, Jerome Valentine and Kim LeBlanc have called a local grocery store their second home.

There are a lot of historic milestones that happened in 1978.

Grease, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Animal House were the top movies on the big screen. The Bee Gees were feeding the disco craze with Staying Alive and Night Fever on the radio. The Eagles’ Hotel California was album of the year.

In the news, Pope Paul VI died, followed by Pope John I dying just 34 days after being selected as Paul VI’s successor. President Jimmy Carter brokered a peace accord with Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin. Sony introduced the first portable stereo—the Walkman.

Little Falls had its own epic milestone in 1978: Jerome Valentine and Kimberly LeBlanc started working at the Little Falls Coborn’s grocery store, which was just a year old at the time and the company’s sixth store. Today, Coborn’s operates a total of over 135 retail locations in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois.

Read the full article from the Morrison County Record here.