National Jeweler honors family-run jewelers in 2026 Hall of Fame

A robbery nearly wiped out J.R. Dunn Jewelers in its first year, but Jim and Ann Marie Dunn replaced the stolen inventory out of pocket, the kind of hard choice that explains why family jewelers still command trust long after the store lights go out. That instinct for survival, and for protecting a name that can be handed from one generation to the next, was the thread running through National Jeweler’s 2026 Retailer Hall of Fame.

The class honored Sean Dunn of J.R. Dunn Jewelers, Amy Greenberg and Elise Greenberg of Greenberg’s Jewelers, and Coleman Clark and Mitchell Clark of BC Clark Jewelers. National Jeweler first introduced the Retailer Hall of Fame in 1989, and this year’s inductees represent second-, third- and fourth-generation ownership, a reminder that in independent jewelry retail, continuity is not sentimental decoration. It is a business model built on client trust, local recognition and the discipline to keep a family name worth preserving.

J.R. Dunn Jewelers began in 1969 as The House of Gems in Hanover, Massachusetts, before Jim and Ann Marie Dunn relaunched the business as J.R. Dunn Jewelers and eventually moved it to South Florida. Jim Dunn died in 2021, leaving Sean Dunn as the visible steward of a company shaped as much by that early loss as by later growth. The story is less about scale than about credibility: the Dunns kept customers whole after disaster, and that choice became part of the brand.

Greenberg’s Jewelers reaches even further back, to 1900, when Jacob Greenberg opened the business in Sioux City, Iowa. The company calls itself a three-generation family-owned business, and its history shows how that claim became operational reality. Ray Greenberg took over in 1942, Ann Greenberg joined in 1953, and in 1985 Amy Greenberg and Elise Greenberg entered the business with their husbands. A 2024 profile said the company now operates seven locations across Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, evidence that careful expansion can preserve a family identity rather than dilute it.

BC Clark Jewelers, founded in 1892 by Benton Clyde Clark in Purcell, Indian Territory, may be the clearest example of regional staying power. The company says it is Oklahoma’s oldest jeweler and now operates three Oklahoma City locations. Its Anniversary Sale jingle, created in 1956, is more than a marketing flourish. It is a piece of local memory that has helped keep the Clark name audible across generations, just as the Hall of Fame itself continues to reward jewelers who have made longevity look like a practiced art.