[JULY 22, 2005] It was not anywhere close to a usual day, nor
one that was anticipated when pharmacists and employees of two local
businesses, Graue Pharmacy and the Family Medical Center Pharmacy,
went to work on Thursday. At 6 p.m. the day before, (Wednesday, July
20) the business managers learned that the stores had been sold to
Kroger. They were no longer in business.
When the pharmacists returned to work on Thursday morning they
urgently set out to fill critical medication prescriptions that
their former customers would need before Saturday and then proceeded
to deliver the medications. This needed to get done before their
logs were transferred in the afternoon on Thursday.
The Kroger
Company expects to be ready to start filling customer prescriptions
on Saturday morning.
Former owners Dennis Graue and
Mike Rohrer operated the Graue store. The two men still own stores with Brad Aussieker
in Mount Pulaski and Mason City. Cindy Marcotte managed the Family
Medical Center business. Both stores were under contract with H.D.
Smith, Acquisitions, a division of
H.D. Smith Wholesale Drug Co., Springfield.
Graue opened their store on May 1, 1974. On July 17, 2000, they
sold both their Family Medical Center Pharmacy and the Graue
Pharmacy to H.D. Smith, Acquisitions. The three pharmacists were
kept under a five-year contract to continue the management and
operation of the businesses.
According to Graue, they began contract renegotiation discussions
last week and thought they were still on until people arrived at 6
p.m. on Wednesday to tell them that their doors were officially
closed, and their files, customer logs and stock would be
transferred to Kroger the next day.
The Springfield and Chatham stores remain open. The corporate
representative for H.D. Smith, Bob Pemberton, was unavailable to
speak with to see how long those contracts are for and whether those
stores might be sold when their contracts are up.
Leading business experts like Ernst Young have identified H.D. Smith's chief executive officer, Henry Dale Smith Jr., for his
entrepreneurial skills. The company is a global business with
holdings under several different names specializing in areas of
health care. Their primary business is as a wholesale drug company.
They have expanded rapidly by buying companies like Barnes Wholesale
Drug, the West Coast's largest independent regional drug wholesaler,
in 1998.
As Independence Holding Co. they bought four pharmacies in the
region, Complete Care located in Chatham and Springfield and the two
Lincoln stores, for the purpose of doing a study of how to make
independent pharmacies more profitable.
The closing of the stores makes Medicap Pharmacy the only
remaining independent pharmacy in Lincoln. Owner Bruce Stacy said
that the Graue and Family Medical Center customers do not have to go
to Kroger to get their prescriptions filled. Medicap has already had
a number of customers transfer in yesterday. You can reach Medicap
at (217) 735-1972. The store is located at 709 Woodlawn Road.
Dennis Graue said he feels bad for their work force, employees
and customers. "We took deliveries out this morning," he said. He
and Rohrer and Marcotte were trying to take care of customers'
pending needs that extend through today (Friday).
"We want to apologize to anyone who receives hardship from this,"
Graue said. "We'd like to thank everyone for being good to us over
the years. And to our employees over the years, a special thanks for
being so good and taking care of business the way we enjoy doing it
and being the people that they are.
"I'm sure we'll appear somewhere in the future. I think we have
something to offer. We like our jobs and coming in to work every
day," he added.
He wished to emphasize, "We didn't close it. They [H.D. Smith]
did."
