Fishy fire cannot keep Sunburst from shining.

• Author: Richter, Chris
• Position: PEOPLE - Sunburst Trout Co.

Last August, fire destroyed Sunburst Trout Co.'s fish-processing plant. When the smoke cleared, owner Sally Eason found about 75% of the Canton company's trout caviar, nearly 700 pounds, had been stolen. The business would have to be rebuilt, but it wouldn't be the first time.

Sunburst lost all its trout in 1986 when severe drought and heat pushed water temperature at the farm above 73 degrees, too hot for the fish to survive. In 2004, heavy rains caused by the remnants of Hurricanes Frances and Ivan nearly destroyed the operation.

Eason's father, Dick Jennings, started the company in 1948 in Cashiers. A Pittsburgh native, he had grown up visiting North Carolina's mountains, where his grandfather owned land. Jennings raised mink and trout until 1973. Twelve years later, he moved the company to Canton, near Lake Logan.

Eason, 54, didn't start out in the family business. She studied nursing at Western Carolina University but left when she got pregnant with her second child. She was a stay-at-home mom when she began doing Sunburst's payroll part time in 1985. "That morphed into invoicing," she says. "That morphed into receivables. Before I knew it, I was running all the financials of the company." She joined full time in 1990 and became president in 1996. Her father remains active with the company and is developing a machine that can remove...