The crisp morning air is heavenly with the smell of fresh donuts as whir of activity can be seen inside the only illuminated building on the west end of Clay Street shortly after 4 a.m. Inside a bright-eyed woman and her husband are rolling out the morning’s offering.   ///   For most of her life Becky Yelverton has been in the donut business and always a Shipley’s Donuts.

“My father bought a Shipley’s when I was 5-years-old,” Yelverton said. “We had to work 40 hours a week while we were in high school.”
Yelverton is referring to her six siblings, all but one who are in the donut business.
She grew up behind the counter in the Shipley’s in Greenville and raised her children since 1979 in the store on Clay Street. “I used to bring my kids up here and let them sleep under the counter,” Yelverton said.
After graduating from high school Yelverton soon married an ironworker. “I thought I’d escaped this business,” she said.

Life on the road, away from the kids and home was tough and soon her life would turn back to its roots. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I think I want to go into the donut business,” her husband said.
Her father had branched out from Greenville and had someone running the Clay Street store but it wasn’t working out. So, her father trained her husband and she already knew the business. Soon her business would blossom and they would open two more locations, the first on Halls Ferry Road and then on U.S. 61 N.
In most cities donut making is a 7-day a week proposition, but in the 1990s Yelverton felt the Lord dealing with her. She felt like she needed to be closed Sundays and talked to her husband about it. Then she mailed all the local churches a letter asking for prayer. The response was overwhelming.
She opened her doors on Sunday the last time in 1995 and hasn’t looked back. “It wasn’t easy, because Sundays were my second busiest day of the week,” she said. “Who closes the doors on a day like that.”

Since that time she hasn’t lost a penny. “The Lords been good to me and blessed me tremendously,” Yelverton said.
Her children are grown and have children of their own. Life has come full circle for Yelverton. “When I’m done they can have the business if they want it.”
Her son-in-law runs the store on U.S. 61 N. and her daughter works in the office. Yelverton remarried a few years after her first husband died. She met him, in all places, at her donut shop. He was the handyman who fixed everything, even filled the hole left in her heart. “I used to get paid cash to fix everything,” Mark Yelverton said. “Now I get paid in all I can eat.”