Closing of Waynesville Pharmacy marks the end of an era

Apr. 3—Waynesville Pharmacy, an institution since 1890, closed its doors last week. Long-time customers are mourning not only the closure of the family-run business but the end of an era, as another piece of Waynesville's small-town identity and soul are lost to the changing times.

"They knowed everybody by name," said long-time customer Shelby Moore. "Now, we'll just be a number. We lost a piece of our history."

For 30 years, Kim Bowen and Kristy Thompson worked as pharmacists alongside their dad, Perry Buchanan, who recently passed away. Many stopping by on the pharmacy's final day fought back tears as they hugged the sisters tight one last time, especially older customers who'd seen the girls grow up behind the counter.

"We have a relationship with 99% of the people who come in here. We know their families and what's going on with them. We help them not only with their medications — we help them with life," Bowen said.

The pharmacy always had a pot of coffee on the burner, where customers helped themselves while waiting for their prescriptions to be filled. Some, like Aurett Bumgarner, stopped in every day just for the coffee — though on the pharmacy's last day he came bearing a bag of potatoes from his garden as a parting gift.

While the sisters love Waynesville Pharmacy and their customers with all their hearts, the workload of running a small family-owned pharmacy had become increasingly burdensome. Insurance companies were the biggest headache, heaping on rules and layers of corporate bureaucracy.

"It is difficult to manage the insurance companies and paperwork while still being the pharmacy you want to be. You don't have time for people anymore," Bowen said. "It has taken the fun out of it. When you take the people and caring aspect out of it and make it a business, it's not what I wanted to do."

Long-time customer Vickey Stiles recalled how the girls' father would drop off her prescriptions in the mailbox sometimes, so she didn't have to go out.

"It shocked me," Stiles said of the closure. "It's just always been here. We are losing family. When they see you in here, they see you."

Family legacy

Bowen began working at Waynesville Pharmacy when she was 11, walking to Main Street in downtown Waynesville after school to sell candy at the counter. That was 40 years ago.

"And I've been here ever since. I loved it," she said.

Meanwhile, her father had been at Waynesville Pharmacy since he was just 17, though only as a pharmacy techician. Bowen set her sights on pharmacy school from an early age so she could support the family legacy her father was building.

"It was all about my dad. He knew everyone in the community and wanted to take care of everybody in the community," she said.

"He instilled that in us," Thompson added. "We tried to do things like he taught us, take care of the patient no matter what and treat them like family — whether it is filling prescriptions or reading their mail for them. This pharmacy was his life."

It became their life, as well. Though the pharmacy was closed Sundays, rarely a weekend went by that the sisters wouldn't pop in to fill a script anyway — they gave their cell numbers to close patients and ones with severe health issues.

That was the part they loved, helping their customers. What they didn't love was the insurance companies.

"The insurance companies run everything. They tell the doctor what they can write for, how much we can charge, when patients can get it filled. And it ties your hands," Bowen said.

Insurance companies would nickel and dime the pharmacy on already-low reimbursement rates for meds.

"We would watch every prescription we filled to see if we would get paid 10 cents a prescription," Thompson said. "Sometimes it would be in the negatives."

"The big insurance companies are taking out any small pharmacies," Bowen added.

Waynesville Pharmacy was a staple of downtown Waynesville since the late 1800s. But in need of better parking and a drive through, they moved to downtown Hazelwood in 2001, where it has become part of the community fabric. The storefront is now vacant.

Bowen and Buchanan sold the business side of the pharmacy to Walgreen's, which absorbed all the customer accounts. Customers can choose to remain with Walgreen's or have their prescriptions transferred to another pharmacy of their choice.

The sisters began the process of selling the pharmacy last year after their dad became sick.

"We were determined to sell the pharmacy and spend every second with him that we had left," Bowen said.

He passed away a few months ago, but they proceeded with the plans anyway.

"At that point, we realized how short life was. We wanted to be able to travel together and spend time together outside work," Bowen said.

"We do everything together," Thompson added.

"We are basically the same person," Bowen quipped.

A true family business

The sisters employed 15 people at Waynesville Pharmacy.

"We didn't want patients to have to wait so we kept everything staffed heavy," Bowen said.

Telling someone their script wouldn't be ready until the next day was unthinkable. And if someone couldn't afford their medicine?

"Many times I've seen Kim say, 'Just give it to me when you can," said long-time employee Terry Burnette. "If you needed it and you didn't have the money, don't worry about it, and when you get money bring it back to me. Their dad was like that, too."

After Bowen graduated from pharmacy school, she and her father bought Waynesville Pharmacy in 1994 from Ben Eidam, who had owned it for three decades. Thompson followed shortly behind. Next came their mom, Peggy Buchanan, after she retired from Haywood Community College.

For a few years, before Peggy passed away, the family of four ran the pharmacy together. Apparently, family feuds were rare to nonexistent. For a spell, Perry Buchanan was the only man in the business.

"He never won a fight. We all just teamed up on him. And he'd just say, 'whatever you say, girls,'" recalled Terry Burnette.

Burnette was the in-house cook — she worked at the Family Diner across the street before it burned down — and was famous for her ramp burgers.

"We had a customer who always brought them in and he'd wait around and help me cook them," Burnette said, gesturing to the kitchen in back.

During the hubbub of the last day, as a steady stream of customers came through to bid their farewells, Thompson was on her hands and knees, scraping a line of crud from the tile floor where the shelving once stood.

"They told us years ago, 'We won't ask you do anything we wouldn't do ourself.' They cleaned bathrooms like the rest of us did," Burnette said.

The camaraderie among the staff ran deep. Burnette recalled how Bowen loved to hide behind the counter and jump out and scare her as she walked by.

"She'd also come up behind me and drop a box real loud. You'd think I'd learn, but I'd scream every time," Burnette laughed.

Before the sisters' mom passed away, Burnette promised to take care of the girls when she was gone. They often reminded her of that.

"Anytime she talked about leaving, we'd say, 'But you promised momma,'" Bowen said. "This whole group is family. Our theme is, 'You fight about it, and you forget about it.' Nobody's the boss. You say whatever you got to say to whoever you got to say it to, and move it on. And you don't bring it up again."

Many of the customers were like family, too.

"Don't you cry, or we'll all start crying," Bowen scolded one customer as they hugged.

Tears were plentiful nonetheless, but so were the well wishes.

"They are allowed to retire," said longtime customer Janice Turpin. "But I'll sure miss seeing them."