The Gift Shop Has a Heart: Her Name Is Sue

Sue Phelps has been the keeper of the Lake Lawn Resort gift shop for thirty years, and she will tell you, without hesitation, that she never saw it coming.

She moved to Wisconsin from Cincinnati in the mid-nineties, spotted a help-wanted ad in the paper, and walked into an interview knowing essentially nothing about Lake Lawn’s history. She was hired on the spot. “I always thought I’d be a bartender the rest of my life,” she says. She was wrong, in the best possible way; on June 3rd, Sue marks three decades as the resort’s Retail Manager, and the gift shop she runs has become one of the most quietly beloved corners of the property.

The Store as a Second Home

Ask Sue what’s kept her here for thirty years and she doesn’t pause. “This is my second family,” she says. “I love everybody who works here.” That’s not the kind of thing people say after one year or even five; it’s the thing you say after you’ve watched babies graduate college, after you’ve learned your regulars by name, after you’ve figured out exactly which table near which window feels most like yours. Sue has done all of that, and then some.

The gift shop is Sue’s domain in the fullest sense of the word. She selects every item on the shelves herself, traveling annually to buying shows in Tennessee to find the pieces that locals keep coming back for. Her previous manager used to handle all the purchasing; Sue inherited the responsibility and made it entirely her own. “They trust me,” she says, “and for me, that’s a big thing.”

The Regulars, the Travelers, and the Wizard of Oz

Every good gift shop has regulars, and Sue’s is no exception. Families from Illinois who have been stopping in for years; locals from Delavan and Lake Geneva who treat the store as their go-to Christmas shopping destination (six to eight decorated trees go up each holiday season, and people plan around them). There’s a woman named Marie who used to make her purchases and then sit on the hallway bench and watch people walk by, telling Sue she wished she were thirty years younger. Sue still lights up telling that story.

Then there are the stories that belong to this place specifically. For several years, Lake Lawn hosted a Wizard of Oz collectors’ convention; fans descended on the resort to trade and purchase memorabilia, and Sue would set up the gift shop with a yellow brick road, cardboard cutouts of Glinda and the Wicked Witch, and a full Oz tableau to greet them. “I’m a big Wizard of Oz fan,” she adds, with the casual tone of someone for whom this was obviously the ideal assignment.

What Thirty Years Looks Like

Sue was first named Employee of the Month in 1996; she became Leader of the Quarter in 2017 (her team had to tell her her name was being called; she wasn’t paying attention). She started at five dollars an hour. She has watched ownership change, managers come and go, and the resort itself transform, including the sweeping interior renovations completed in 2024 that refreshed guest rooms, common spaces, and the overall feel of the property. Through all of it, she has stayed, and the store has stayed hers.

The local ownership that guides Lake Lawn today is something Sue brings up more than once. The hands-on presence of owners who actually know the property, know the staff, and show up matters to her in a way that feels personal. She’s never been told she can’t do something; she’s been trusted to stop people in the hallway before lunch when she has a question, and they stop.

A Birthday Worth Noting

Sue Phelps turns 72 on July 4th; the fireworks, she has always maintained, are for her. If you ask her what she wants, she’ll tell you: peace on Earth, for people to love each other, for the prices to come down. She’ll say it plainly and mean every word of it. That’s Sue.

We are celebrating her on June 3rd, and we hope you’ll join us in saying thank you. Thirty years of showing up, of knowing the regulars by name, of picking the right gift for the right guest. She once decorated the hallway with a yellow brick road just because it would make people smile. That’s the whole story, right there.

Stop in and tell her so.