FAYETTEVILLE -- Heston Kjerstad couldn't reach the cash register at his parents' store when he was a 5-year-old in Amarillo, Texas.
But he wanted to help out so badly at Dave and Jody Kjerstad's homegrown establishment called Water Still that he improvised.
"Even when I was 5 years old, I thought it was a blast to hop on a bucket because I couldn't see the cash register and ring up customers and everything," Kjerstad told MLB Network last week. "It was just a young age, and it really taught me how to work for something because my parents came from nothing. They didn't have any help from anyone or anything. They came to Amarillo, Texas, and started a business. They're the American dream, for sure."
Kjerstad is writing his own version of the American dream.
The 21-year-old All-American baseball player at the University of Arkansas was taken with the No. 2 pick in the Major League Baseball Draft on Wednesday by the Baltimore Orioles.
He is certain to ink a deal with the Orioles that will be accompanied by a huge signing bonus that could set him up for life. The slot value of Kjerstad's No. 2 spot is $7.79 million, according to MLB.com.
There was widespread speculation among analysts during the draft that Kjerstad would sign for under slot value to allow the Orioles to spend over slot value in signing other draftees. Even so, Kjerstad stands to begin his professional career with a mega bonus.
"It's definitely a life-changing amount," Kjerstad said on a Zoom conference call Thursday. "But luckily, I grew up in my parents' family business and I worked in it all the time. They taught me the value of a dollar, and I understand that."
The Kjerstads' Water Still store was a prime idea in 1989. Dave and Jody sold water, ice and tea at their first store on Bell Street in Amarillo. In 2016, their bustling business changed locations on Bell Street to accommodate a freer-flowing parking lot and congestion in the store.
The next year, the Kjerstads opened a second store on Georgia Street.
That shop "was probably 27 years in the making," Dave Kjerstad told the Amarillo Globe for a story on Nov. 1, 2017.
The Kjerstad children -- sons Lyle, Dex, Reid and Heston, and daughter McCall -- all pitched in even while most of them began excelling in athletics.
"I was doing stuff just to try to help them out," Heston Kjerstad said. "I always say my parents worked seven days a week, which is what they had to do with a small business. They got up every day and went to work, came home. That's what I grew up around.
"When I was a little kid, I didn't think of anything else other than every day you got up, you went to work and then you just lived it on repeat for a while. My dad always worked hard. Luckily, as I got older and their business got older and they were growing their business, they were improving it and everything got better.
"They started from nothing, and they were able to work so hard for 30-plus years and now they've earned something that's super amazing. They worked for it. So that taught me as a kid that if I want to do something great, I've got to start from the bottom and work as hard as I can. If I do that, maybe I'll be able to claw my way to the top."
The story in the Globe recounted how Water Still went from just Dave and Jody and help from the kids to 55 employees on the payroll. The store went from selling regular and decaffeinated tea to brewing 24 varieties.
The Kjerstads opened a third store in Amarillo this year, Heston Kjerstad said.
Dave and Jody worked a half day last Wednesday, coming home in the early afternoon to start preparing for a big gathering to celebrate their son's big draft night. And while Kjerstad was on his Zoom conference with reporters the next morning, they were back at the stores.
"They'll be back maybe later, maybe knock off after half a day so we can hang out a little more," Kjerstad said.
Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said he thinks Kjerstad is a great fit for Baltimore and that there had been word in his circles that the Orioles were very interested in his right fielder.
"I think that's a great fit," Van Horn said. "We'd gotten wind of it, that he may go to Baltimore with the second pick and that they were working a deal, and they had a lot of picks early and were trying to get a few guys. It ended up playing out."
The Baltimore Sun ran a behind-the-scenes type of story on Kjerstad in Saturday's editions that showed the Orioles had been on Kjerstad for more than two years.
Baltimore General Manager Mike Elias referred to Kjerstad as a "dark horse" selection -- as he was widely projected to be taken between picks No. 7-12 -- but one that was no surprise inside the Orioles' organization.
"A combination of institutional scouting knowledge and analytics created reams of background and information ... and made Kjerstad 'an extremely attractive fit in our eyes,' domestic scouting operations supervisor Brad Ciolek said," the Sun wrote.
Texas-based Orioles scout Ken Guthrie had coached Dex Kjerstad on a Dallas-area travel team and knew the family, including young Heston. Guthrie saw Heston Kjerstad play in the Connie Mack World Series in 2016, and "That's when I first fell in love with the bat," he told the Sun.
Guthrie also told the newspaper an anecdote about noting that Dave and Dex Kjerstad and an uncle were all "big strong men," but Heston in 2016 was around 5-11 and not filled out yet.
In the fall of 2017, with Kjerstad already enrolled at Arkansas preparing for his freshman season, Guthrie made a visit to Arkansas and walked into the Razorbacks' clubhouse.
"I can't say what I really said at that moment, but it was like, 'Oh my word,' " Guthrie told the Sun. "In three months that dude got big and strong. The numbers say what happened from there as far as how it translated."
Kjerstad hit .332 with 14 home runs as the starting left fielder for the Razorbacks' run to the College World Series finals in 2018.
He turned around in 2019 and hit .327 with 17 home runs and a mammoth .975 on-base plus slugging percentage in helping lead Arkansas back to the CWS for the first back-to-back appearances in Omaha, Neb., in school history.
Kjerstad wanted to show even more plate discipline in 2020, and his numbers back that up in a season that was shortened to 16 games due to the coronavirus pandemic.
He hit .448 with 6 home runs, 20 RBI and a .513 on-base percentage while striking out 9 times in 67 at-bats. That 13.4% strikeout rate was a large drop from his 24.4% strikeout rate as a sophomore (65 Ks in 266 at-bats).
The Orioles had a dizzying amount of analytics on Kjerstad.
"That's one thing that was intriguing us about Heston this year more so than in years past, that we looked at his swings in the strike zone, and with pitches in the zone, there wasn't a whole lot of swing-and-miss," Ciolek told the Sun.
Kjerstad's exit velocity and percentage of "barrel of the bat" connections were also very encouraging.
Vanderbilt Coach Tim Corbin, speaking on the MLB Network, talked up Kjerstad's approach off the field and at the plate.
"This kid is gifted," Corbin said. "We talked in the pre-draft show about his mind. There's a lot of emotional stability with this kid, and it allows him to make adjustments.
"I do not think he has a complicated swing. There's a little bit of waggle to his hands in the preparation to hit. But if you look at him he stays centered, there's some bat lay back, and there's a lot of strength in his hands, and he has some bat speed as well.
"I think this kid is going to play left field, right field, play in the big leagues for a long time, hit for some average, and he's certainly going to hit some home runs."
Van Horn noted how Camden Yards, Baltimore's home park, fits Kjerstad's game.
"Once he gets to the big leagues -- and I've said all along I think he's a big-leaguer -- it's a great park to hit in," Van Horn said. "Heston uses the whole field. He's not just a pull guy. The ball jumps all over that park, and it's not a real big park. I just feel like that's a really good fit for him."
Still, Kjerstad is aiming for improvements as he is set to begin his professional career.
"I want to try to get better at all parts of my game, for sure," he said. "The main thing I want to work on is my plate discipline and swinging at good pitches consistently. That'll help me out the most."
And the lessons he learned from the Kjerstad family business, that grew from a trickle into a flood as he grew from a bucket-standing 5-year-old into a strapping 6-3, 205-pound slugger -- like the sweat equity it takes to earn a dollar -- will never leave his thoughts.
"You've got to be smart," Kjerstad said about handling high finances as a pro. "Also, I'm probably going to save most of it for a rainy day because I don't need too much in life to be happy, honestly."