Acme Gas – Runs in the family

In Highland Home, a utility provider and service operation remains family owned and operated for over 50 years, providing the local community and surrounding counties with the same home-town quality services for which it was founded.

Acme Propane Gas is a propane provider, selling and delivering propane to Crenshaw and surrounding counties: Bullock, Butler, Montgomery, Pike, Lowndes and Macon counties. Additionally, Acme sells and services appliances such as water and room heaters, gas logs, fireplaces and more.

“We are one of the few independent [propane providers] left in the state,” said Keenar Kelley, president and co-owner. “We’re still proud to be family-owned and we still work around the customers’ needs instead of what day we’re coming.”
Acme Propane had its start in 1971, when Billy and Elizabeth Sexton founded Highland Home Propane. Each of their three children, Kim Sexton, Ken Sexton and Keenar Kelley, worked alongside them in the family business as they graduated high school at Highland Home School.

In 1999, the family bought out three offices of Acme Propane and still own the Montgomery office at 4285 Norman Bridge Road and the Highland Home operation to this day.
“We’ve been here a little while, but I was able to work with my father the last couple of years [he ran the business],” Kelley said. “I just watched him and listened to him. I was very fortunate just to be able to listen and watch and learn.”

Now, the Sexton’s three children co-own the business and run it using the knowledge they have learned from their parents.

Keenar Kelley works within the office, taking care of payroll and accounts, while Kim Sexton oversees worker safety and Ken Sexton handles trucking and serves on the Alabama Liquefied Gas Board. Ken’s daughter, Brittany Odom, is a customer service representative (CSR) at the Montgomery office and, as of July 27, she will have worked with the company for 15 years.

“With the propane industry, they say once it gets in your blood, you don’t change.” Kelley said. “It’s one thing just to stay in the community and to be able to work with your local people, but also to see [our children] grow and be able to take over what their granddad and grandma have done.”

Acme Propane is now a third-generation business, as the children of the current owners work various jobs around the office.

For example, Keenar Kelley’s son, Kase Kelley, joined the business seven years ago, working part-time during college and now full-time after graduation.

“I feel a lot of pride in it, for our business league going on that long,” Kase Kelley said. “To be a part of it that keeps it going, I feel prideful.”

To learn more, visit www.acmegas.com or call (334) 537-4361.

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