Connie Thurmond, co-owner of Connie & V. Cross Jewelers in Bossier City, grew up with a love of jewelry. “As a little girl, I loved jewelry, and I still do. I love to wear it, I love to own it, and I love to see it”. “The jewelry business is truly a passion of mine,” she said. She taught for Bossier Parish Schools at Kerr Elementary for 25 years – but moonlighted with her jewelry business for a good bit of that time. “I started 13 years before I had a store – I started in my house. I have all my teacher friends to thank, as they put me into business, “she said. “I would bring things to school and sell them, and I built up my inventory. I did craft shows for 13 years. When I retired, I opened my business at our current location,” she explained. Her partnership with Verlon Cross began in 2000. “There was a store down the street called V. Cross Jewelers. He was my jeweler and did my repair work, and in 2000 we decided to put our two stores together. We are not married, we are business partners – but we work great together. When we put the two stores together it just went to another level.” Thurmond explains.

Connie and V. Cross Jewelers is a full service jewelry store. “We design, manufacture, deal with wholesalers, and every year we travel all around the world,” she says. They travel the globe to find the best and most unique stones and pieces of jewelry for their clientele. “We have been to Hong Kong, Bangkok and Israel to buy stones and diamonds. We also go every year to Antwerp, Belgium to buy diamonds because that’s where all the diamonds are cut. We do an extensive amount of traveling so that we can better serve our customers, and nobody in this area does that. We want to give our customers something different and unique. We can do what no one else can do, if we can’t physically do it in our store, we will find someone to do it for us,” she said.

Thurmond has a very straightforward way of doing business. “I treat everybody like I want to be treated. I really care about my customers and I want them happy. I’m going to bend over backwards to do anything that I can do to make them happy! Our store is a complete customer service store,” she said. “Starting any business today, the most important thing you can have is people skills and customer service. The customers come first. Everything else takes a back seat.is at the top of Bates’ priority list – she says “We want to continue to aggressively pursue the latest trends in the promotional products industry that best serves our client’s needs.”