Kelly Baugh, CEO
For Bare Feet
Growing Up in the Sock Business courtesy photos
~by Paige Langenderfer elly Baugh grew up stocking her closet with socks from her family’s business. She didn’t have much time for play because there was always work to be done. Kelly’s mom, Sharon Rivenbark, started For Bare Feet in 1984. Sharon was a single mother of five children and a schoolteacher. She started the business as a project for her son, Tim, who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The shop would help Tim use his motor skills and give him an occupation. The business started humbly, making socks with a 19th-century sock-knitting machine and selling them in a rented space in Nashville’s Antique Alley. Today, For Bare Feet (now known as FBF Originals, LLC) is a
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“I personally worked after school and on weekends to stock merchandise and help customers. We worked many weekends until 1 or 2 a.m., and then we were back in the store by 7 the next morning. It wasn’t something you thought about, you just did it.”
16 Our Brown County • Sept./Oct. 2019
leading manufacturer, distributor and retailer of licensed and novelty socks and similar products, selling globally in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. FBF Originals sells millions of socks every year and is the longest-tenured sock licensee of the National Football League, is licensed by hundreds of colleges, the National Hockey League, NASCAR, and Fortune 500 companies like Hershey, Wrangler, and Mossy Oak. From 1997 to 2016, FBF Originals produced the official on-court sock of the National Basketball Association. Kelly has advanced from stocking socks in her closet to being named FBF Originals president and CEO in 2018. She is proud of her family’s hard work, and credits those years as a young laborer as steppingstones to where she is today.
