[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 14, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              RECOGNIZING K-I LUMBER & BUILDING MATERIALS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a 
thriving and successful business in Kentucky, the K-I Lumber & Building 
Materials company, headquartered in Louisville. K-I Lumber was founded 
in Louisville in 1932 by Mr. Walter M. Freeman, Sr., who was working as 
a lumber salesman for another company in the 1920s. As the Great 
Depression hit, the company he worked for began to decline, and this 
enterprising American decided that was the time to strike out on his 
own.
  Mr. Freeman opened K-I Lumber's first headquarters in the Starks 
Building in downtown Louisville, and began selling carloads and 
truckloads of lumber to customers in Kentucky, Indiana, and surrounding 
States. By the early 1950s, he had purchased property for a 
distribution center and lumberyard. Walt's son, Walt Freeman, Jr., 
joined the business and began to expand it into Kentucky and Indiana's 
largest lumber company.
  Walt, Jr. grew K-I Lumber until it had nine locations in three States 
and employed approximately 500 people, turning it into one of the 
largest independent lumber and building materials companies in the 
industry and earning it the Home Builders Association of Louisville 
Associate of the Year award until his passing in 2011.
  Now led by the company's chairman, Sharon Freeman, and its president, 
Bob DeFarraro, K-I Lumber continues to serve as an example of the 
success Kentucky businesses can achieve with hard work, good 
leadership, and a passionate spirit. K-I Lumber recently celebrated its 
current employees for their combined total of 2,074 years of service to 
the company and to its customers in Kentucky and the region.
  Speaking of the company's custom millwork division, Walt Freeman, Jr. 
was fond of saying ``If you can dream it, we can craft it.'' Whether it 
is custom millwork for one very special customer, or lumber needs for 
the largest distributors, K-I Lumber & Building Materials has survived 
and thrived over the past 80 years by crafting the desires of its 
customers, employees, and managers into reality. I know my colleagues 
join me in wishing many more years of success to this proud and locally 
owned Kentucky business.

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