By BOB SHRALUKA
WZBD.com
It’s a remarkable irony, one that has linked a television show with a neighborhood bar in Berne.
“Happy’s Place” on NBC follows the efforts of a woman (Reba McEntire) who carries on after inheriting a bar following the death of her father.
Meanwhile, in Berne, Kelsie Low has inherited Happy’s Place, a bar, after her father passed away.
While the irony is startling, there is one major difference in the stories: Reba McEntire is playing a part on TV while Kelsie Low is a nurse with a newborn who is trying to get the Berne establishment back in business.
Last August, Troy McMillion, passed away at the age of 73, leaving what he considered his happy place for some 25 years to his daughter, Kelsie.
“It’s very mind-boggling,” she told WPTA-TV, Fort Wayne. “It’s crazy, you know, I’m a nurse. I’m not a bar manager, so it’s going to be a learning process, but I’m looking forward to it.” While the bar in Berne remains closed, Low is putting together a management team to handle the operation and, hopefully, to soon reopen the doors to the longtime business.
Kelsie, who lives in the New Haven area, is a nurse who works for Parkview Hospice. She told WZBD.com that she has been in health care for 20 years, the last 10 as an RN, and doesn’t plan to abandon that part of her life.
And there has been a new complication – a very good complication! – a baby girl born in October
“And I have been focusing on family until I am ready to dive in getting the bar back up and running. I am looking for a bar manager and team to help collaborate a reopening,” she said.
TO POST POSTER: When the Berne bar does reopen, it will will be proudly displaying a new addition to all the things Troy had collected: a poster from the TV show which has been signed by cast members, including Reba McEntire!
Last Oct. 18, when “Happy’s Place” premiered, McMillion held a special party at his Berne bar in celebration
A connection was made between the two Happy’s and it led to the poster eventually gaining a happy place at the bar in downtown Berne.
“I learned about the poster about a week before Meg with 21alive presented it to me,” Low said. “She called me on the phone one day and told me that the cast viewed my segment and wanted to gift the poster to my dad’s bar.”
Troy had mentioned a few times about how cool it would be to have something from the show to post in the bar, Kelsie said.
“He was a collector of anything and had other pictures of celebrities and historical pictures on the walls of the bar already,” she explained. “He thought it was so neat that there was a show based on a bar that shared the same name as his bar and that it would fit the eclectic atmosphere of the bar.”
In an expression of gratitude to 21Alive, Kelsie noted: “Troy would have talked about this and showed all his customers for years to come!
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