WICHITA — A mother and daughter with MBAs and a love of sweets are the new owners of Cero's Candies.

Pam Bishop and her daughter, Darcy Bishop, purchased the 125-year-old business for an undisclosed price.

"I'm a longtime customer of Cero's," Pam Bishop says. "It was important to me to keep Cero's alive and healthy."

In September, the Mental Health Association of South Central Kansas, which bought the business from the Cero family in 2000, announced it was looking for a buyer.

The nonprofit association has used the business to train and employ those with severe and persistent mental illnesses.

Other area employers are more willing to hire those with mental illnesses now, former Cero's general manager Marni Eickelman said when announcing the business would be for sale.

Pam Bishop is an accountant who spent the last 22 years at Cessna Aircraft, where she retired in September.

Darcy Bishop has managed food service industries in Florida and now works at Cessna, though she's been laid off and her last day is Dec. 10.

The layoff isn't the reason for the business purchase, though.

"We actually started going down this path before," Pam Bishop says. "I've always wanted to do something like this."

So has her daughter.

"One of my hobbies is candy making and cookies, sweet breads — things along those lines," Darcy Bishop says. "I saw it as an opportunity to combine my background in manufacturing and restaurant management and my hobby."

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