Longtime Bucyrus business is giving back to the community

BUCYRUS – A longtime Bucyrus business is giving back to the community in a big way to celebrate their 30^th anniversary.

Ohio Specialty Services and The Motor Ranch, 1825 E. Mansfield St., is donating more than $5,000 to all of Crawford County’s schools with the money to be used as each school district sees fit, according to President J.R. Jenney.

The idea, he said, started as a promotion for The Motor Ranch, a used car dealership, to boost sales in the first quarter of the year.  For each vehicle sold, $50 was put aside to be given to six school districts as well as Fairway-Waycraft, he said.

“At first I thought it would be fun to just have a contest to get the sales guys pumped up and then the customers thought it was really cool to do something like that too,” Jenney said.  “We just put the money aside over the last few months.”

The Motor Ranch, based at Ohio Specialty Services, is housed in a 30,000-square-foot facility that has undergone major upgrades in the last few years.  The sprawling dealership and body shop has also expanded into Galion, Chatfield, and Marion.

Ohio Specialty Services – a Crawford County staple – has been serving the busing needs for the handicapped since it was founded by Jenney’s father, Don Jenney, in 1991.  Known as ONDEGO, the company started with only six employees and a handful of buses.

J.R. Jenney has been with the business since the beginning but returned to run it full-time in 2005 when his father died.  ONDEGO eventually became Ohio Specialty Services, now the transportation provider for Boards of Developmental Disabilities in Crawford and three other counties.

Although the company has financially supported the community in the past, Jenney said, this donation to ultimately benefit students seemed to be a fitting way to commemorate the anniversary – and get the public involved at the same time.

“Now the schools can decide what they want to use the money for – for the Booster Club, the band, sports, or maybe just something they need that’s not covered in the general fund,” Jenney said.