Duckwall-ALCO shareholders confirm board  

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 6/5/2008 2:18:00 PM

Abilene, Kan. – Rural general merchandiser Duckwall-ALCO Stores said shareholders approved the re-election of all five directors at the company’s annual meeting.

The board now includes three new directors who were part of the recent activist investor insurgency: Raymond French, chairman of Strongbow Capital; James Hyde, a private investor; and Royce Winsten, the managing director of Shore Capital Management, who was named to the retailer’s board last fall and whom the Strongbow group impelled to his current role as chairman of the board of Duckwall-ALCO in March.

The other two re-elected directors are Dennis Logue, who has served since 2005, and Lolan Mackey, who joined the board in 1998.

Shareholders voted to amend the Duckwall-ALCO Non-qualified Stock Option Plan for Non-management Directors to, “among other things, (i) increase the number of shares for issuance under the plan from 120,000 to 200,000 and (ii) eliminate the limit on the number of shares that my[sic] be awarded under the plan to a director,” the company said.

Of recent turnaround efforts at the $499 million chain, interim president and ceo Donny Johnson said, “We have dramatically cut expenses, streamlined our workforce, and identified numerous opportunities for improving operations.”