MOUNT VERNON — When Joan Clipse was awarded a gold key by the Knox County Board of Realtors earlier this month, it took her by surprise.

“You all make me want to cry,” Clipse said as she received the award. “I don’t even know what to say.”

But it is no surprise that success follows in Clipse’s busy wake. In fact, her real estate career isn’t her first. For years, she and her husband ran Clippy’s, a restaurant on Harcourt Road in Mount Vernon. After the establishment was sold in the mid-1970s, Clipse wasn’t ready to take it easy.

“I decided I didn’t want to sit at home,” Clipse said.

She entered the real estate field in the office Don Tufto Realty of Gahanna had in Mount Vernon at that time. Now, with 35 years and millions of dollars in real estate sales under her belt, Clipse works at ReMax in support of her grandson, Sam Miller, who has become a successful real estate agent in his own right.

“The thing that keeps me going the most is seeing Sam excel at the business,” Clipse said.

Clipse helps Miller maintain his thriving pace by handling some of the information processing and reporting aspects of his work.

Although she has seen a number of ups and downs in her years in the business, Clipse said the current market is the toughest she’s seen, even worse than the 1970s.

“Then, people had jobs,” Clipse said, “and we didn’t have the credit card situation like now.”

Just as she made the most of the situation in the 1970s by developing the use among sellers of owner financing, thus sidestepping the then-troublesome high interest rates, Clipse said motivated agents can find ways to make sales.

“As we always say, there’s a buyer for every property,” Clipse said. “The hard part is finding them and getting them through the process.”

She said it is worth the extra effort, though, because it is very rewarding to see the excitement and happiness of first-time buyers who have successfully completed the deal for their first home.

Clipse said she has talked off and on about retiring for the last five years, but she keeps finding herself rolling along. At this point, she said, as long as things keep going smoothly, she’ll keep at it.

“As long as Sam wants my help, I’ll keep doing it,” Clipse said.